Chapter 43 Bird
BIRD
We’re just looking at each other. In a small room filled with shelves of books and records and an old-timey record player—older than the one he left behind with me.
We sit opposite each other on a worn old chesterfield sofa.
And every time his eyes fill up with tears, he laughs, sighs, shakes his head.
As I look back at him, it’s such a strange sense of familiar—like I’ve seen his face a million times but never once, either.
“I really wondered if this day would ever come,” he tells me.
“Me too. I wish it didn’t take so long, though.”
He nods, and looks down at his hands in his lap. I notice a silver wedding band on his finger. “Listen, I’m not sure how much your mother has told you, but I—”
“Nothing. All our lives, growing up, she told us nothing. Until tonight, anyway.”
He squints like his eyes hurt, like there’s something so bright and harsh he can barely stand it. “And she told you…?” he starts but trails off, studying my face more intently. And I know what he’s searching for—I nod, wanting him to finish. “That I’m gay?”
“Yes.”
He waits a moment, like he was bracing for something, before he speaks again. “You have to understand—”
“No, I do. I’m—I’m with Jessa. I mean, she’s my girlfriend, so I do understand. I’m bi, so… um… I…”
I watch as at least ten different emotions project from his face, ranging from concern and fear to maybe understanding me right back.
“Sorry, I’m still getting used to saying that,” I tell him.
“No, I’m sorry. I was taken aback a bit. I wasn’t expecting you to say that. I’m proud of you—I’m not sure I have right to say that, it’s not as if I did anything. But I’m proud of you. Knowing who you are, and being brave enough to… to love.”
“Well, you did teach me about love, Dad,” I add, finding his name still easy to say, somehow.
“I tried reaching out for years. I always worried you and your brother would think I just left you. I didn’t. I swear, I didn’t. I fought so hard to try to stay in your lives. It was the times, though. Twelve years ago, gay father? There was no way I was getting visitation.”
I shake my head. “I’m so angry at Mom for this. I don’t think I can ever forgive her.”
“I have a lot of empathy for your mom, Bird. I put her in a hard position.”
“What really happened? She said you left for someone else—a man. Was it Seth?” I dare to ask.
“No. No, that’s not it. Seth—he’s my partner, yes, but we were business partners first—friends first, only friends for a long time,” he explains.
“I didn’t leave for someone else. Or if I did, it was for myself.
I tried, though. I loved our family. I loved your mother in my way. I really did. I still do.”
I shake my head. I don’t understand how he can say he still loves her in any way, not after what she’s done. I want him to be outraged along with me. So I reach into my bag and show him the cream-colored envelope.
“I didn’t know these existed before today,” I tell him, pulling the card out and opening it up, rereading those words. “She never gave us any of them.”
“May I?” he asks, extending his hand.
I nod and pass him the card.
He looks at the picture on the front and… smiles as he opens it. “I remember this card.”
“How are you not angry?” I ask him.
“How can I be angry when you’re sitting here across from me?” he answers. “Besides, I wasted more years than I care to admit on being angry.”
“At Mom?”
“At life.”
I look down at my hands in my lap for a moment before I can meet his eyes again. “You called me your Birdie. In the card. Is that how you think of me?” I pause, trying to summon enough bravery to add, “Still?”
“Always,” he says immediately.
“Why ‘Birdie’?” I ask. “I mean, I know it’s an old English nickname for Elizabeth, but did you come up with it or…?”
“No.” He almost laughs or gasps, half confused, half amused. “No, you did.”
“Wh-what?”
“When you were little, you couldn’t say ‘Elizabeth,’ so we tried to teach you ‘Beth.’ You—you don’t know this?
” He pauses and I shake my head. “Well, this one day we were all at the park together—you, Charlie, your mom—and you pointed at this little finch and said, ‘Bird,’ and then you pointed to yourself.” He laughs, and adds, “ ‘Beth, Bird.’ You were so proud and so sure that Bird was your name. There was no arguing. It fit,” he explains, staring off like he’s seeing the scene playing out in his mind right now.
“And we all just started calling you that. It stuck. So yes, you will always be Bird, my Birdie.”
“I’ve never heard that story before in my life.”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I’m not sure what he’s apologizing for, but I can feel the tears rising through my chest and throat.
I try to hold them back. “Mom said you’re sick.
With… with AIDS. But she was lying, right?
She just wanted to scare me; she didn’t want me to come.
Because you look fine. You don’t look sick at all. Right?”
“She told you that?”
I nod.
“I am fine. I’m healthy. It’s not a death sentence like it used to be, Birdie. I don’t want you to worry or be scared. You can’t catch it from being here with me.”
“No, I—I’m not worried about that. But… it’s true?”
“It is, but it’s okay. Really.”
“I hate her,” I say out loud. “I hate her for taking this time from us.”
“I don’t want you to hate her,” he says, so calmly. “We have time. I promise.”
I try to believe him. That there’s time, that we won’t be kept apart anymore, that this love I’ve always held safe for him in a quiet corner of my heart was there inside him, too, all this time.
“Me and Charlie, we’ve been looking for you.”
He smiles at the sound of Charlie’s name. “You have? Both of you?”
I nod, and I can’t hold the tears back any longer. “We really needed you. We still need you.”
He nods and his chin trembles, in that same way Charlie’s does when he cries—though I haven’t seen him cry in a long time. “I need you, too,” he whispers.