Chapter 9
Nora spun around and found herself face-to-face with a petite woman in her early fifties, with short salt-and-pepper hair, her delicate frame draped in peach pajamas.
“Can we help—” the woman began, but then she looked at Nora, really looked at her, and her face split into a warm smile.
“I don’t believe it.” She turned her attention to Charlie and nodded, a surprised laugh escaping her lips.
Then she pivoted to face the growing crowd in the street.
“It’s all right, everyone. Martin’s kids have come home. ”
* * *
Nora braved her second cup of coffee that morning with growing resignation.
She and Charlie sat at a tall kitchen island in the house of the woman from the road, who had introduced herself as Patricia.
Patty if you’re a friend. Ricki if you wanted to be cute about it.
Patsy if you absolutely never wanted her to speak to you again.
Patricia/Patty/Ricki/Definitely-Not-Patsy had insisted the twins come to her home, and after she mentioned something about having a first aid kit with which to properly attend to them, Nora had agreed.
The house was compact and leaned heavily on its relative proximity to the beach when it came to decor.
Crisp white walls and tasteful smatterings of driftwood and seashells with the odd pop of something blue.
It was neither newly appointed nor obviously dated, and the muted, elegant, yet slightly rugged interior seemed to match the woman who resided there.
Nora was the first to speak, as much out of genuine interest as an excuse to procrastinate a second sip of coffee. “You knew our dad?”
Patty—because Nora decided she didn’t want to be cute about it—gave a grin. “Of course I knew Marty.”
Nora dug the photo Charlie had given her from the pocket of her coat and placed it on the island. She pointed to the small-statured young woman under her father’s arm. “That’s you, isn’t it?”
Patty nodded. “Gosh, where’d you find that? I haven’t seen that photo in years.”
“Our bubbie held on to it for us.”
“Your bub—oh, your mom’s mom, I suppose. You wouldn’t have met your other grandmother, would you?”
“No, Bubbie was our only family after…”
“We heard what happened, sweetie. I’m so sorry.”
Nora’s eyes turned back to the photo, and she forced herself to focus.
“But you knew him.”
Another smile. “He really never mentioned us, eh?”
Charlie gulped down the remainder of the coffee in his cup and chimed in. “Did you date him or something?”
Another light laugh. “Well now, that’s the first time I’ve been accused of that. No, dear, Marty was my brother.”
This immediately sobered Charlie up and forced Nora’s attention away from the photo. “What?” they spat in unison.
“Yup. The baby by five years. That’s me there, and that”—she prodded a finger at the young man on the other side of their father—“is Charles. The monkey in the middle. You’ll meet him at some point, I’m sure.”
“That…” Nora stopped and tried again. “That doesn’t make sense. Dad said he was an only child. Sorry,” she added at the flash of hurt in Patty’s eyes.
“Your father did what he felt was right, I’m sure,” said Patty. “Families are complicated. Ours is certainly no different.”
Something new flared up in Nora then. Something she hadn’t felt about the injustices of life in a long while: anger.
“He should have told us,” she said. “We should have known.” All those years when it was just Bubbie and the twins against the world.
And then after Bubbie died and Charlie was even more Charlie than before, and Nora was alone…
she could have had people. She could have had family.
“Well, I’m right glad you’re here now. You have so many folks to meet. What brought you all the way out here, anyway?”
The twins exchanged a glance. Nora shook her head and gave her brother a look that said, “Bite your tongue.” They had only just met this woman, they couldn’t trust her with the truth, and more than that, there was no reason for her to believe them about something so outlandish.
“Charlie gave me that photo for my birthday,” Nora said.
“Our birthday,” Charlie interjected.
“Our birthday. We saw the location on the back and thought maybe we could see where Dad grew up. He always told us he was from small-town Nova Scotia, but we couldn’t remember exactly where, so when we found that information, it seemed like the right time to trace our roots.
” It wasn’t a complete lie, Nora decided.
“Goodness, well, I’m glad you made the trek.
But you must be exhausted. Unfortunately I don’t have any extra rooms, it’s just little old me here, but why don’t you two shower and rest on the couches for a bit.
When you’re back up and running, we can make some introductions and find you somewhere to stay. Any idea how long you’ll be with us?”
Nora looked out the window to the serene breeze playing with the branches of an evergreen.
It was unimaginable that the quaintness surrounding them could ever be interrupted by the harsh practicality of S.C.Y.T.H.E.
with its corporate gray and emotionless methods.
It jarred her to find that the thing that once brought her comfort was now something to fear.
Her reality had changed as rapidly as it had after her parents died.
“I think we might be here awhile.”
* * *
The steam from the shower filled the bathroom, the air wet and heavy as it enveloped Nora in its warmth.
She let the previous night’s chill slough off her, the perpetual goose bumps flattening across her body.
She wanted to get into the shower, to scrub the past twenty-four hours off until they swirled down the drain, but there was something she had to do first. Charlie’s case file sat on the counter beside the sink, the folder taunting her with its blandness.
She hadn’t looked at it since they’d left the car in a ruined heap on the roadside; there hadn’t been a need.
No car meant no car accident. But that could have changed, and the thought paralyzed Nora.
All she had to do was flip open the cover and skim the page.
That was it. She’d done the same thing a million times at work.
She’d done it several times with this very file.
And yet, she couldn’t convince herself to budge.
She stared at the file. The file stared back at her. They were at a stalemate.
A knock thundered at the door. Nora jumped.
“Can you hurry it up in there? I’ve got dried blood in weird places and I’d like to wash it off. It’s freaking me out a bit. That shit’s not supposed to be on my outsides, you know?”
Nora glared at the door, then back at the file. Her face softened. Fucking Charlie. Can’t be patient, can’t stop almost dying. And Patty thought her family was complicated.
“Five minutes,” Nora called back. She braced herself, set her shoulders back and her spine straight, and flipped the file open. Surely he was safe now. Really safe.
She ran a finger down the page until it landed on “cause of death.” She leapt back.
This was much worse than a new cause of death. And much more confusing.
Nora threw her clothes back on and fled the bathroom, the shower still spurting hot water, steam escaping with her.
“Finally! Jessica wants a bath too. Her little feathers got all ruffled in my bag, poor princess.”
The bird seemed to be shrinking back into herself from her perch on his shoulder, her face somehow conveying utter embarrassment at her current bedraggled state.
“Charlie, look.” Nora shoved the file into his face, indicating exactly what was causing her current brand of panic. Charlie looked down, then back up, his face scrunched in confusion.
“I don’t get it.”
Beside “cause of death,” everything was a blurry smudge of ink, only an occasional clear letter sneaking through before being swallowed back into the undulating black cloud.
“It’s like….” Nora bit her lip but forced herself through the rest of the thought. “It’s like we have bad reception out here. Like we can’t get a clear signal.”
“Nor. You realize this is paper, right?”
“Yes. No. I mean it’s paper, but it’s special paper.
It’s S.C.Y.T.H.E. paper. Or maybe it’s special ink or something, I don’t know, I never asked questions.
I have no idea how we find out when and where people die, or who that information comes from.
It was never for me to know. But somehow this file, your file, keeps updating, and now it looks like it’s trying to but can’t. ”
“Huh.” Charlie cocked his head, his position a perfect replica of the parrot on his shoulder. “So does this mean I’m safe, then? Like, if we can’t read the cause of death, then I can’t die?”
“I don’t think so,” said Nora, who had already run through that and every other possibility. “I think it means you’re still supposed to die, but now we have no way of knowing how, or stopping it.”
“That sucks,” said Charlie.
“It really sucks.”
* * *
Charlie lay wrapped around one of the pale blue pillows on the living room sofa, Jessica curled into the crook of his neck, both sound asleep as Nora watched from the armchair across from them.
She had allowed her brother a sponge bath in place of a shower—too many deaths happened in showers—and when he and Jessica had emerged, clean of dried blood and feathers unruffled, she had vowed not to let Charlie out of her sight.
The file lay open on her lap, the glitching ink still struggling against the page, the odd letter still sneaking through.
Nora clicked the pen in her hand, sending the nib up and down, jotting each letter onto the file folder as they appeared.
So far she’d managed an S and what was almost definitely a T.
Patty sat down on the love seat beside her, a steaming cup of tea in hand, and Nora promptly shut the file.
“What’re you working on?” Patty asked, taking a sip.
“Just something for work,” said Nora, forcing a smile.
“Work. God. My big brother has a baby old enough to work. What do you do?”
“Oh.” Nora shrugged. “I’m an administrative coordinator. It’s a lot of paperwork, mostly. Pretty routine. Usually.”
“Sounds very grown-up. And what about him?” She bobbed her head at Charlie.
“Charlie? He…he floats around. Last I heard he was delivering for Domino’s. Or working for the pot dispensary by his place, maybe. I can’t remember which came first.”
“You two aren’t close then, I take it?”
Nora shook her head.
“Brothers are hard.” Patty gave a smile, half lost in the past. “I get it. But they can be pretty special, too. I wish I’d realized that when I still had both of mine, you know. But then, it’s always easier to appreciate someone when it’s too late to let them know.”
Nora looked over at her brother, snoring lightly on the couch. “Yeah, well, I hope I’ve still got a long time before I have to start appreciating him.” She shifted in her seat, then asked the question she’d wanted answered since she was a kid. “What was he like?”
“Marty?”
Nora nodded.
“He was different. Sweet to his bones. Water could’ve melted him for all the sugar he was made of. But god, he was stubborn. I think all us Birds are, in our way. And brave. He was the bravest of the lot of us, I’ll tell you that much. I’ve always said it.”
Nora picked at the file. She had only known her parents for such a short time, and Bubbie had only known her father for a little longer.
She’d always wanted to believe she was like them, but given what Bubbie told her about her mother, vivacious and outgoing and carefree, Nora had hung all her hopes on her dad.
But her dad had been brave. The bravest, even.
And Nora, well, Nora would jump at her own shadow if she thought it could cause her harm.
“What made him brave?”
Patty leaned back into the love seat, drawing a long breath, eyes boring into Nora’s.
“Well, he left. He’s the only one of us to ever move away from Virgo Bay.
That’s not easy, leaving your home, your family.
And this town, well, it’s a hard town to leave.
But your father believed there was more to life than what this place has to offer.
That there’s a better way to live. And you know what?
Maybe he was right. I hope he found what he was looking for in the end. ”
Nora tried for a smile. She hoped so too, but she doubted it.
That end had come far too soon. Sure, he’d had Mom, who he’d loved in the way Nora always thought you were supposed to love someone: fully and vulnerably and even when it would have been easier not to.
And he’d had Nora and Charlie, who, aside from the sort of bickering you’d expect from young kids who shared a birthday and little else, were pretty passable children if Nora was honest. And he’d had a job he seemed happy enough to leave for in the morning, and even happier to come home from each night.
But it was all cut so short that Nora couldn’t help but wonder if he’d even had time to look back on life and be happy with it.
It had always made the pursuit of anything grander than adequate feel somewhat pointless to her.
A life that was just fine seemed easier to sustain. Just fine didn’t require risks.
“Sweet to see such a strapping young man all curled up with a little animal like that,” Patty said, cutting through Nora’s thoughts. “Has he had that bird for long?”
“Oh, no,” said Nora, returning fully to the sunlit living room. “She just showed up a few days ago, apparently, and now they’re best friends. It’s all very Charlie.”
“Funny how life works out. Well, why don’t you try to get some rest? I’m sure your work can wait until you’ve napped a bit. I’ll call round and see who’s coming to lunch at Mom and Dad’s. There’s so many people who’ll want to meet you.”
“ ‘Mom and Dad’? You mean your parents are still around?”
“Sure, and fit as fiddles. They’ll be over the moon you’ve come.”
Another pang. Nora’s paternal grandparents were alive, despite her father’s insistence they’d died years ago. She could understand wanting a fresh start, but he’d deprived her and Charlie of so many people who could have loved them when the world only gave them pain.
The thought weighed heavy against her, coupled with the mounting weight of an exhaustion she’d been staving off since the previous night. She looked over at Charlie, still sleeping soundly on the couch.
“Okay,” Nora said. She tucked Charlie’s file behind her back for safekeeping and curled deeper into the chair. “I’ll nap for a bit. But please…” Her eyes lingered on her brother. “Look after him.”
Patty stood and walked over to her niece, giving her knee a quick squeeze. If she said anything after that, Nora had no idea, because within seconds she was lost in sleep.