We Were Birds

Jane, Henry and Fern sit at the train platform together, early the next morning.

They are waiting to see if Henry's mother will deboard the train. And secretley, Fern is looking for Quinn. She hasn't told Jane or Henry about Quinn...she doesn't really know why she has said nothing, but her mouth has been closed this entire time. She does not mind sitting at the station. It is warm out, the breeze from the sea is blowing her light hair around her shoulders. She folds her hands across her lap and for a very long time, they sit like that. They sit on the wall behind the platform and watch for people to get off. Sometimes Henry will get up and go to someone but they just shake their head no. He'll come back, looking defeated.

And so it goes like this. Fern's mind wanders back. It's hard to think that only yesterday she died. Yesterday morning she was still in another place, another time, another body. Now she is here and everything has changed. In a way, though, nothing has. She still feels a little lost. She still feels sad. But now there is hope. She still doesn't know but now she has a way to find the answers.

Death feels like a second chance. And it is.

"I didn't know you were married," Jane suddenly says. Henry has hopped down from the wall and is standing near the edge of the platform. If he gets too close, Jane calls for him to move back, the way a mother would. Fern looks down at her hand. The ring sparkles there. A reminder.

Fern smiles a little bit. "Yeah. Only for a few weeks, though."

Jane blushes. "Oh, sorry." Quiet again. "What happened?" she asks. Fern grins. "I know, I'm so nosy. Everybody says that. Or, well, used to say that."

"It's all right, I'd be curious too," Fern says and doesn't say anything for another moment. She looks at Jane whose face is lit up by the mid-morning sun. She looks bright and beautiful and perfect. Fern feels a little envious of her, but pushes the envy away. For all Jane's beauty, Fern has something she does not. Quinn. And that makes a world of difference. "He died," Fern finally says simply.

Nodding, Jane smiles. "So, you're looking for him?" she asks. Fern nods and looks back at Henry. He is wandering back to them. Fern watches Jane hop down from the wall and pick Henry up with a graceful strength. She holds him the way a mother would hold a child, around the side, one arm under him, the other around him. Henry buries himself into Jane's shoulder. He does not look upset, he just sits there in her arms. She walks back to the wall, and hoists him back up carefully. "He's the one that you said you'd leave with, right?"

"Yes." Another train pulls into the station. Henry doesn't even pull his head up. Nobody gets off and Fern feels the same ripple of disappointment she's felt everytime she doesn't see Quinn get off. She doesn't even know how much time she has. Maybe Quinn's left already and she'll be alone here, forever. "I think moving on would be really frightening..." Fern says and then turns her head to Jane and Henry, "if I didn't have someone with me, you know?" Jane looks down at Henry and is quiet. Fern laughs. "It's really ironic, because when I died, I didn't care about living. I wanted to be done with that part of my life, because I had finished everything I had set out to do. I had finished my own life story. But now I'm here and I won't go on without Quinn. I've already died. I wasn't afraid then. Why am I afraid now?"

"Maybe because nobody actually expects there to be anything on the other side. Or if they do, they don't expect it to be a waiting room. You didn't anticipate having to make another decision. And this time, you decide when you go on. That's scary, I think."

"How did you die?" asks Fern. Jane looks surprised at the question. "I know, I'm nosy." She's echoing Jane's previous statement and Jane catches the hint.

She shrugs. "I'd tell you...if I could remember." Jane pauses to hoist Henry back up against her. He does not look light. Jane has an obvious hidden strength. Henry's face rolls forward and he takes a deep breath. He has fallen asleep quickly against her. "You were right, when you said it was okay to be afraid of death. I think I'm afraid for the exact same reason that you're afraid."

"But you have Henry," answers Fern quickly.

Jane smiles sadly. "He is waiting for his mother. I'm not her. I'm taking care of him until he finds her and then when he does, she'll take him away and I'll be left alone."

"I think we both know that Henry isn't going to find his mother." Silence. Jane puts her hand against Henry's head and hugs him close to her. She rocks a bit. Overhead, seagulls fly and caw noisily. Fern stands up from the wall and the breeze blows her dress around her legs. The dress her mother gave her from a box of all the other dresses she wore just before her death. "I think Henry's just waiting for you to ask him to go on with you. I don't think he thinks he'll find his mother. I think he's just waiting for you."

Jane looks down as best she can to Henry. A surprised emotion goes through her eyes. This is something she's never thought about before. She looks back up at Fern, who says nothing just smiles. Fern turns to the wall and leans against it. From there, she looks out to the blue green sea. This place is perfect, this place is beautiful. But there is no way she would stay here, not ever. As soon as she finds Quinn, they will go on, together.

"Tell me about your husband. Just something. I'd like to know." Jane's words are warm. She leans against the wall and holds the sleeping Henry in her arms still. She will not wake him up because her arms her tired. That is the mark of motherhood, Fern knows it. Jane couldn't be Henry's mother if she had him herself.

Fern takes in a deep breath. "He smoked two packs of cigarettes a day since he was eleven. When we met each other, there weren't many things I was opposed to, but smoking was one of them. First I made him smoke outside of his house when I was over and eventually I got him down to one pack, then a half a pack. Of course, the day I told him that I was making him quit, we got into an enormous fight. He wouldn't talk to me for an entire hour. He just sat outside and chain smoked moodily. I went outside and told him that it was either me or the cigarettes. I wasn't going to be kissing an ashtray. Well he looked at me straight in the eye and I thought he would tell me right then and there to leave, that he was choosing the cigarettes over me. But he dropped it to the ground, stomped on it and said only, 'Well I'm going to need some gum. Let's go down to the gas station.' So we went. And after, he was addicted to gum. He chewed it all the time. Only peppermint. He always smelled like it, too."

Jane grins. "So he really loved you then."

"That was when I knew. Before I had been a little hesitant. We weren't exactly made for each other, you see. My dad was a professor. His father was a fisherman, and Quinn always expected he'd follow in his father's footsteps. I honestly thought I'd follow in mine, too. My father thought that because he was educated and because I was brought up educated and perfect that I was too good for him. He wouldn't let me and Quinn, that was his name, see each other."

"Forbidden love, hm?" she asks. Fern laughs. The term seems so melodramatic. The real story feels so much more mundane.

"I suppose. It never really felt like that. We just had to make sure nobody found out we were together. And then of course, one day, we escaped in Quinn's old Ford. I created this huge diversion. My father was a professor of ornithology, you see. The study of birds. he had this big aviary behind our house. I'd just graduated high school. My father expected me to go to college but I wanted to have an adventure and I wanted to do something more with my life. He was getting suspicious that Quinn and I were together, he watched me all the time. Finally, one day, I opened the door to the aviary and let a lot of the birds loose. I called to my father that it had just opened accidentally. While he was getting all the birds back...I left with Quinn."

Jane laughs at this story but the laughter eventually dies away. "Did you ever see your father again?" she finally asks.

Fern nods slowly, looking out to the sea. "But that, I believe, is a story for another day," she says quietly. Jane understands and drops the subject. "I think I'm going to go down to the beach," says Fern after awhile. "I'd like to see the Piping Plovers again."

"I think I'll take Henry back," says Jane. They look at each other and nod a conspiratorial nod. Fern leaves one way and Jane the other. The beach is quiet in the mid-morning air. It feels different than the afternoon, than the sunset. In the afternoon and sunset everything is bathed in orange light. Here everything seems brighter, bluer. There is a static energy in the air that Fern wants to reach up and grab with her hands but can't ever reach high enough.

Leaning down, she draws a heart in the sand and that is when she makes the promise to herself. If she never finds Quinn, she'll move on alone. She will have to find the strength to go on alone. Even if he is still looking for her. There's only so much time a person can wander by themselves. No matter how beautiful Death is, it is not a place to stay permanently. Fern understands this, even though she doesn't want to. She doesn't want to bother herself with excuses. She cannot stay here forever.

And so the day passes by. A sense of urgency nags at Fern, she knows she should move on, but she also finds peace in these two people - Henry and Jane. She spends her day at the beach, on the hill behind Jane and Henry's house. She is with them for a part of the day, by herself for other parts. That is the way it has always been. Except with Quinn. But with her friends, even with her father, she was always by herself for half the time when she was with them. She would wander off. She found more comfort in solitude than any of her friends could ever understand.

The evening she spends in the company of Jane and Henry, however. They drink tea around the table and Fern tells them both stories from her adventures with Quinn. All funny stories, nothing sad, only happy, but still, it hurts her a bit to think about him, she knows she should looking for him, walking this place, getting back on the train. Jane laughs and hugs Henry and he laughs back and they look perfectly content together.

Jane and Henry disappear from the table after awhile but Fern stays up to have another cup of tea and to look at the fire. She watches the orange flame dance before her, the orange flames lull her into a sort of hypnotic state. Finally after a few more hours, she shakes herself out of the trance and stands up. In the corner of the house, there are two matresses. One for Jane. One for Henry. But Henry has moved onto Jane's cot. She sleeps with her arm around him.

Fern turns away and goes to the other side of the house to her own matress. She lies down and closes her eyes.

When she wakes up, it is morning. Silently, Fern gets up. Jane and Henry have disappeared from the house. But on the table is a tiny piece of paper. On it is one word. Goodbye.

Smiling, Fern walks out of the house, through the town and up to the platform again. She sits on the wall, much like yesterday morning, but this time when the train stops, she does not wait and see who will get off. She boards the train. Who knows where she is going. She sits down at an empty seat in the mostly empty compartment, she leans her head against the glass window.

"Today is a little bit lonely," she says to nobody, which is exactly who answers her back.