We Were Birds

Two days after Quinn's funeral, Fern stood at the door of another place she never thought she'd be.

7 years earlier, when she was still with her father, before she'd left home, before she'd even met Quinn (Good Lord, that seemed like forever ago), she'd receieved a letter. A letter from her mother, telling Fern that, if she ever wished to, she could come and stay her for as long as she liked. Her mother included the adress of the new house she was living in. Fern had memorized that one letter, memorized the adress, repeating it to herself when things got too lonely with her father. The letter seemed like a long-lost friend just waiting to be hugged. Father, though, when he realized how obsessed with the letter Fern had become, took it from her. Burned it, threw it out...she didn't know what. She only knew that she never saw it again.

Fern never forgot the adress, though.

Two days after Quinn's funeral, Fern stood at the door of her mother's house, holding Quinn's ashes under her arm. When Mother opened the door, she didn't recognize Fern at first. Or was it that Fern didn't recognize her mother? And then her eyes filled with joy, and then she looked at the urn and her face went blank. She turned back to her daughter. "So he's dead then?" she asked.

Shaking her head, Fern held out the copper urn. "Just sick. No, no...Mother, please meet my husband. Quinn."

The two woman stared at each other for the longest time. Fern was starting to realize how different she really was than her mother, different when those similiarities were what she had clung to those many years. Fern just realizing that while her mother was weak, while her mother had run out on her daughter, claiming that she could not be caged...Fern had left to explore a new life. She'd come back though, she'd come back when her father had needed her. Would her mother have come back if Fern had asked her to? She didn't know.

Still, when Mother took Fern into her arms, she let her hug her even as the urn kept distance between them. When Mother pulled her into the house, Fern didn't pull away, she followed her. Mother wanted to know all about Quinn, all about Fern, all about what had been going on in her life. She wanted to everything about Fern's life - except about her father. She was skirting the issue, Fern knew, and Fern didn't feel comfortable pressing it. After all, this woman, this woman who Fern had so adamantly identified with when she was younger, this woman was almost a stranger to her.

Fern did not stay there long. Just one night.

In the morning, in the breakfast room, while they both held their cups of coffee - Mother took five spoonfuls of sugar and a dollop of cream, Fern drank hers black, the way Remy had forced her and Quinn to - Fern studied her mother. She was beautiful in the sort of way faded elegance always is. Her face sagged and wrinkled but still glowed the way actresses in all those old films always did. The only way to describe her was that she was like a dusty sunset - she had once been brilliant but now was melting into cool, dark dusk.

"I'm going all around to the places we were together," Fern explained quite suddenly, looking at the urn on the table. She carried it around everywhere, as if by it being there, somehow Quinn was still there too, and it sat looking almost forlorn on the marble. "I'm going to put some of his ashes at those places, so then he'll always be where he loved the most. And I think I'll put some at my favorites, too, so he'll always be there to give me strength if I go back..."

Mother nodded. "So you're taking a trip then?" she inquired. Fern nodded. "Are you prepared for it?" And Fern almost wanted to answer that No, of course she wasn't prepared for it. How could she ever be? Quinn was dead, and she was forcing herself to relieve all those memories when she really just wanted to bury them and lay down on the dirt above them. When she looked at her mother's face, though, she realized something. Her mother didn't mean it like that. Fern sighed, but her mother didn't take the hint. "I can give you some of my old clothes and some money, if you'd like."

"Yes, thank you," Fern said, feeling quite hollow. "That would be most kind."

The next hour was forced and awkward. Where was the vibrant and brilliant woman Fern had adored as a child? Where was that unwavering loyalty Fern had held towards her all those years? She'd always thought she was like her mother. Now she knew she didn't want to be that.

As Fern left, the car packed up and ready to go, she took one last look at Mother. "He's dying, you know. Father. You don't have to go see him, but you were always his biggest regret, I think. Maybe not letting you go...but never giving you the room to be free. He kept me protected, tried to condition me so I was obedient. It never worked, though. I'd always fancied myself like you - couldn't be caged, not like the birds. But I'm starting to wonder...what if being caged wasn't so bad? For a year I lived with knowing my husband was going to die soon. That fear, that knowing...it caged me. I didn't run from it, though. I could have, but I didn't. I could have left him, I could have left that life, but I didn't. I didn't even really leave Father. I came back when he needed me. And he let me go on his own. Because he wanted to." Mother didn't say anything, not really, just stood there and stared. "I don't know why I'm telling you this," Fern finished with an intake of shaky breath. "But Father's dying. For the sake of the love you once felt for him...go to him."

Fern left then, without one more word. As she walked to the car, she undid the top of the urn, stuck her hand inside and grabbed a small fistful of ashes. Maybe this was Quinn's hair, or maybe it was his toenails. She didn't know. It was some part of him - some essence of his soul was there somewhere and he'd given her the strength to realize that she was not like Mother. That she'd never be like her. And that she was happy that way. Letting the ashes fall from her hand, some landed on the ground, where they mingled with the dirt.

But mostly they were caught by the wind, picked up and carried wherever they may.

From then on, it was simply a matter of trying to remember where everything was. Oddly enough, she found the motel they'd stayed in that first night easy. Standing in the parking lot, she looked at the place. It looked the same as ever, but it wasn't. Smiling, Fern scattered some ashes in the dirt in front of the motel - where two dying bushes sat. "Remember when you said we'd probably never be here again? And even if we did come back, it wouldn't be the same?" she asked to the air, to the urn, to Quin.

Taking a deep, ragged breath, Fern allowed one tear to fall from her face down onto the ground, where it wet the ashes. "You were right. It's not the same."

She took the same route - as much of it as she could remember - that Quinn had taken them down back when they'd first escaped. She tossed some ashes in the parking lot of that gas station where they'd first told each other 'I love you', she found the quaint, old town with the motel that she and Quinn had sex in for the very first time - so awkward, so painful, but yet so right, she looked for the tree that Quinn had made them climb one afternoon...that one took longer than the others because she couldn't remember the town that it was in and had to comb state maps for two hours straight to remember and then she traveled to the beach in South Carolina where they'd decided they were going to live one day. Fern scattered ashes up and down that beach, for the past, for the present and for the future. Most of Quinn could rest here forever. He'd like that, she knew.

Fern scattered some at their favorite haunts of the city - the place where she'd met him after that treasure hunt, the coffeestore with the mediocre coffee but the most interesting customers, the bookstore far on the outskirts where they'd sat for hours just reading in easy chairs, sometimes forgetting that the other even existed and she even scattered some at the building where they'd lived and the hospital that he'd died. They were a part of him.

She threw some into the Atlantic, hoping that they would reach France, closing her eyes and willing them there.

Everywhere that had meant something to Quinn, Fern put some ashes there, marking their journey together, marking their lives together. And finally, when she only had a few handfuls left, she started back home.

The town was quiet when she arrived. Her house was empty. Her father was dead. Fern didn't feel much pain, though. She looked at the big house on the cliffs and only found distant interest in her heart. She put her things back in her room, peaked into her father's room - everything was neat for her arrival, and ventured out to the back. It could have been as if he were gone for the day, but Fern knew that he was not coming back. And she wanted to feel sad...or maybe she didn't. Because sadness was not an emotion she felt most of the time, but she did feel it.

When Fern woke up at night, she would lay awake, trying to breathe. Life would seem to smother her and tears would take her body into a vicegrip. She would cry and cry and cry and cry...and then fall into a restless sleep. And when she woke up, it would be morning. And the day would be dawing bright and so beautiful and Fern found herself not wanting to ever forget how she felt at those times.

That day, that day when she came back, Fern went to the aviary. She'd expected it to be empty, but there was movement in it. Life.

At the bottom of the cage, there sat one tiny little bird, pecking at the soft, abused ground. When Fern stepped up to the cage, it stopped, lifted its head and contemplated her with its small, dark eyes. It watched her, tilting its head as if to say, "Hmm..." and then hopped towards her. Fern bent down and they regarded each other. "Have you ever felt caged? Have you ever felt so much pain that you didn't know where to put it all? Because surely feelings like it can't all just fit in your body. They have to go somewhere, right?" The bird just watched. "And then, though, when you look at the sky it's like you've never seen anything so beautiful, and you're so happy you don't know how it could all fit in your body, either."

The bird chirped.

"No. You don't understand. Emotion...you don't feel it. You're free from all that. And I think I want to be free from it too. Because there is so much inside me, I'm going to burst soon, I know." With that, Fern stood up and opened the cage door. The bird stood at the edge, looking. It hopped forward a few times. When it realized it could now take off and fly away, it did with a flap of its wings, and a few notes of its song. "I think I know now," Fern said after it. "I think I get it."

One morning someone told her that they'd seen a beautiful woman who looked like her come downtown. She'd disappeared up the house on the cliffs. The person who told her wanted to know if it was her mother. Fern smiled, didn't open her eyes, and said yes. She scattered the rest of Quinn's ashes at the door of his old house, at the beach, on top of his grave. Every morning after that she went down to the marina and watched the sea, carefully erasing herself so that she, the sky, the ocean, the people didn't exist. And in those calm moments when she was almost gone, she'd hear the laugh of a gull or the flutter of wings of some unknown bird. She was folding in on herself to become nothing.

Nights were filled with less tears from then on. Days were filled with less happiness. Fern had felt everything, she'd seen everything, she'd done everything that she wanted to do. She didn't want to do anymore. Life was beautiful, but it was meant by other people to be lived now. Now she wanted to just be.

And one night, Fern turned over and looked out the window and up to the stars. She felt herself get lost in them. She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly, softly and let sleep carry her off into those stars.

She woke up on a train.