2. Hunter
Chapter two
Hunter
I’m a Marine. I’ve crawled through mud, scaled walls with eighty pounds of gear, and made decisions with lives hanging in the balance.
For the last three years, I’ve been stationed in Syria, where I worked in military intelligence, tracking ISIS targets.
And yet, this bird is going to be my downfall.
I square my shoulders, pulling down my old catcher’s mask and grabbing the broom.
The target is nesting in Grandma DeeDee’s chimney, although now I guess it’s my chimney. Grandma DeeDee said she was tired of taking care of this big house and wanted to move to The Falls—the premier senior living center, where she holds court like she’s the queen of Starlight Valley.
Good for her and all that.
But now I’m stuck dealing with this bird in a big house, and I have nothing, and no one, to fill it.
I get down on the floor and push my weapon—ahem, broom—up into the chimney. This is where the catcher’s mask comes into play—the first time I tried this, the combatant smacked me right in the face.
I circle the broom around the chimney. A startled caw comes from within, and I back away to give the bird room to fly out—and hopefully, straight through the open sliding glass doors.
She—yes, it’s a she; only a woman could be this strategic about chaos—swoops down and flutters frantically through the living room, smacking into a lamp and then one of the windows.
I wave the broom, trying to direct her toward the doors.
But instead, she settles in the rafters of my grandparents’ vaulted ceilings.
“Come on, tweety,” I call to the target. “We both want the same thing here.”
Great, now I’m talking to the bird. I’m really losing it.
I get up onto the couch, balancing on the back, but even from this height I can’t quite reach the bird with the broom. I need to jump. It’s basic parkour. Couch to ceiling. Simple geometry. I’ve jumped out of helicopters, for crying out loud.
I squat, getting my balance, before leaping into the air like a ninja, flailing the broom at the bird. I land on a rug, but there’s no traction between the rug and the slick hardwood floors. It slips beneath my feet, and I fall backward into a vase on a side table—breaking it into pieces.
It’s a commemorative vase from my grandparents’ fortieth anniversary. Grandma DeeDee’s now-cracked face wobbles back and forth on the floor.
I groan, rolling away from the ceramic shards. I quickly assess the situation. I’ve got a nasty scratch on my forearm from the vase, but thankfully, the catcher’s mask protected my head from the worst of it.
As I lie there, staring up at the bird in the rafters, I wonder what my life has come to.
My time in the Marines has come to a close.
I’m on terminal leave, finally using all the leave I’d banked over the years because it was easier to stay busy than to deal with the feelings I’d left behind in Starlight Valley.
And even though I knew that was the right thing for me, I can’t imagine what I’m going to do with all this time on my hands. For the past eight years, my life has been one mission after another. I’ve had purpose and community. Meaning.
But now?
How many bird enemies can I possibly find on this side of my completion of service?
The bird in question shifts around on the rafters. She coos, looking down on me as if she’s laughing.
Then, she poops. It drips through the slots of the face mask, coating my cheek in slippery goo.
I groan again.
The battle is over, for now, but I’ll win this war.
Once I’ve scrubbed the bird poop off my face, I text my siblings’ thread.
Hunter
Bird: 2. Marine: 0.
I send them a photo of the enemy combatant, plus the gash from the vase.
I decide the injury looks worse than I realized, so I go in search of something to fix it up.
My grandma doesn’t seem to have a first aid kit, or she took it with her to the retirement community, but I find some electrical tape in the garage.
Naturally. I clean it and then press a paper towel against the wound, wrapping it with the tape.
A text comes through from my brother, Wyatt.
Wyatt
Did you skip pigeon-warfare day in your combat training, oh brother dearest?
Rosie
He’s so cute!
Hunter
It’s a she. I’m sure of it.
Asher
Bro. Sick injury. You’ll need a better story for it than, “I was fighting a bird at my grandma’s house.”
Wyatt
Say it was a rogue hawk. Or a midair drone collision. Anything but “grandma’s bird.”
Rosie
You should name her! She’s a queen. So maybe Cleopatra? Esther? Elizabeth? Ohh yes!! Elizabeth!! So regal.
Hunter
Yes, she pooped very regally on me. What a gal.
Wyatt
You coming to dinner tonight? I can help you vanquish your foe afterward if you want.
I glance up at Queen Elizabeth, who coos at me. I sigh and type out “sure.” Because every trained Marine knows when to call for backup.
Now I’m back in my childhood home for dinner, and it feels like a part of my soul can finally settle. Like a lock clicking into place or a puzzle piece finding its match. It’s chaotic and full—in the best kind of way.
My mom is cooking up a storm. Having three sons, and a daughter, she’s incapable of cooking small meals.
Every dinner could feed an army—and somehow, there are never leftovers.
It smells good as I walk in, savory and pungent.
My stomach growls in response and I’m just glad I’m not having to eat another military-issued MRE.
I kiss Mom on the cheek and she squeezes me extra tight. I know I spent too long away—two tours back-to-back on the opposite side of the world. She acted tough when I left, like she was okay, but I know how much it affected her. And I know how relieved she is to have me home.
Rosie, the baby of the family, is perched on a stool at the kitchen island, icing one of her latest baking concoctions. She likes to test out unusual flavor combinations on us—they’re usually good, though sometimes very bizarre.
“Is this mission classified, or can I get a name and ingredients?” I ask as I ruffle her hair.
She playfully smacks me away but says, “Dark chocolate chili cupcakes with chocolate buttercream and a mango glaze.” My face must reflect my feelings about the flavors, because she says, “It’s spicy, sweet, and slightly confusing, just like me.
” She declares it with all the sass in the world.
I laugh, but part of me wonders if I should be worried she’s baking psychological metaphors now.
Wyatt comes in from the garage, where he and our cousin Beckett have been setting up a pickleball machine for our dad.
He’s still in his scrubs, and I can’t help but wonder what kind of bodily fluids he’s collected on them from the kids he treats all day.
He fist-bumps me and I immediately wash my hands.
Beckett and my dad follow after him and then not long after, Wyatt’s best friend Georgia shows up too.
Asher, my youngest brother—a professional rock climber who spends most of his time traveling—currently has his camper parked in my parents’ driveway.
But he’s always sure to be there for dinner.
That’s the thing about family dinner at my parents’ house—it’s crowded and chaotic, but the door’s always open and everyone is welcome.
My Grandma DeeDee fusses over me before we all sit down.
She can see through me more than anyone else.
I think it’s part of the reason she gave me her house to fix up, like she knew I needed to do something.
No one asks what my plans are after the Marines, but it’s a question hanging silently in the room.
I just don’t know the answer.
Wyatt, of course, brings up the failed bird mission, but everyone laughs so hard about it, I think it’s worth the price of my humbling.
I’ve missed seeing my mom laughing so hard that there are tears in the corners of her eyes.
And the way my dad always looks at my mom, almost as if he’s laughing more because she’s laughing than anything else.
At the end of dinner, we all try Rosie’s cupcakes.
She’s in culinary school now, so the frosting looks all fancy.
She’s always been into cooking and baking, but she’s obviously leveled up since I went away.
The flavor is … interesting. I’m not sure whether I like it or not.
I’ll give her points for creativity and bravery, though.
We’re all sitting around the dining table with decaf coffee and the remnants of Rosie’s treats. Warmth has settled into my bones. My guard’s down. That’s when DeeDee drops a bombshell—“Oh, Ellie was supposed to be here.”
I feel, rather than see, everyone’s eyes dart to me. Ellie. I wish her name didn’t stir up half a lifetime of feelings, but there it goes. Apparently, no amount of international deployments and fighting terrorists can erase her from my heart.
“Have you seen her since you’ve been back?” my mom asks in a faux-casual way. Everyone’s trying to act natural … and they’re failing. Hard.
Including me. I’m failing too. “Nope, can’t say that I have,” I say with an admittedly weird pitch to my voice.
Ever since I left for the Marines, I’ve avoided mentions of Ellie with my family.
It took them a while—far too long in Grandma DeeDee’s case—but they eventually got the hint.
I don’t get updates on Ellie James anymore. Or whatever her married name is now.
Ellie grew up on the property neighboring ours. Because Starlight Valley sits on the Tennessee/North Carolina state line, it just so happens that Ellie lived in Tennessee and we lived in North Carolina—a fact we liked to tease her about mercilessly back when we were friends.
“I’ll send you with the dinner I saved for her,” DeeDee says, standing up with a speed that defies her age—almost as if she doesn’t want me to argue with her about it. “You need to see her and she needs to eat!” she calls from the kitchen.
So that’s how I find myself driving to Ellie’s parents’ house with a Tupperware full of food, a small plate of weird cupcakes, and an unsettled feeling lodged in my throat.