Bird

I stuck another spoonful of rocky road in my mouth, aware of the fact that the majority was dribbling down my chin and onto my shirt. I could feel the cold seeping through to my skin. From the corner of my eye, I could see dad trying his best to stifle a laugh. He licked his ice cream cone and averted his eyes away from me.

“What’s so funny?” I asked rhetorically. I wasn’t sure he would be able to hear me, from the numbness of my mouth to the extra large spoonful I had just shoved in my cheek, but he immediately started laughing.

He held his cone with two fingers, his palm resting against the steering wheel. With his other hand, he reached across the center console and wiped the ice cream from my chin. “You’re a mess, kid,” he chuckled. He shook his head with a smile, turning his attention back to the road ahead.

We were about a half mile outside of Greenburg, flying down the lone highway that connected our small town to the city, the location of my dreaded orthodontist. To outsiders, the fact that we had to drive an hour just to get to the nearest Walmart or dentist seemed insane, but to us, it was normal. We were accustomed to small town life, just as those who lived in the city were accustomed to having everything within arms reach. It wasn’t as easy for us, but I liked it that way. Like many of the residents in Greenburg, I dreamt of bigger and better things, but ultimately, I knew this was where I belonged.

As we approached the town, my father slowing the truck to the posted speed limit, I took in the familiarity of the place that lay before me. The water towers--both new and old--that stood a mere 100 feet from one another in the center of town were the tallest points, the identifying beacons of small town life from several miles in every direction. They were the first thing you saw when cresting the hills on the highway leading to town, a pair of static symbols marking the place I called home.
The truck rolled into city limits, the rumble of the engine lowering to a soft groan. I glanced to my left as we slowly passed the school, the singular ancient building that housed students from Kindergarten to their senior year, the school I had been attending my entire life, and would continue to attend until I finally reached graduation. I took another lick of my ice cream, my eyes wandering across the playgrounds and sports fields that surrounded the school building, the tiny blurs of elementary children running through the grass. It was almost two, which meant I would still be able to make it to my last hour English class on time.

I reached into the backseat for my backpack, prepared to tuck and roll out of the truck and back to school, until I looked out the window and realized my father drove right past his turn. “You missed--” I began, using my ice cream cone to point. A slimy trail of old-fashioned vanilla dripped into my lap.
“You’ve already missed most of the day,” my dad said, continuing to drive in the direction of our house, “I thought we could put that new chain on your bike instead.” He rested his elbow on the window and looked at me with an encouraging grin.

My dad worked almost seventy hours a week. He left for work long before the sun came up and usually didn’t make it home until my mother was putting dinner on the table. While dinnertime was something that our family cherished, since it was one of the few hours of the day that we could all spend together, it saddened me that this was pretty much the only time I had to spend with my father. I understood that his job was important; he had to work to feed the wife and four (soon-to-be five) children he had at home. But I was my father’s first-born, a boy who just wanted to be with his dad. It was fortunate enough that he was able to take me to my orthodontist appointment on his day off, but knowing that we were going to be able to spend even more quality time together before his work week continued made my heart swell.

“Sounds good,” I said, trying to hide my excitement as we made our way home. I was in the seventh grade, it wasn’t cool to be too excited about anything.

We simultaneously shoved the crunchy tips of our ice cream cones into our mouths just as the truck pulled into the driveway and my dad cut the engine. I climbed out of the truck and turned to see my mother stepping out of the house with her purse slung on her shoulder. Her right hand rested against the swollen mound of her pregnant belly.

“Hello, boys,” my mother chimed, already out of breath by the time she made it down the front porch stairs. She passed my father, allowing him to give both her cheek and the crest of her belly a kiss. Her dark hair was pulled into a messy ponytail, and she was clad in one of her signature maternity dresses that I saw her wear through all her pregnancies, when she was busy growing my younger siblings. She was currently cooking up my first baby brother, and she claimed the pregnancy was even worse than mine. He just wouldn’t stop kicking her in the ribs.

Right on cue, my mom stopped just short of her car door and bent at the waist, her hand clamped to her side. She moaned in agony as my father turned to comfort her. “Oh, Benjamin,” she muttered my brother’s name, regaining her composure.

“Bye, mom,” I said, giving her a quick side hug. Though she was seven months pregnant, she still insisted on working at the bank downtown for at least a few hours each day. She usually worked the morning shift, but since my father had a random day off, she decided to sleep in and work during the afternoon.

My mother kissed me on the forehead, tousled my hair, and plopped into the car. She gave us one last departing wave and a forced smile before pulling away and heading down the street.

“Guess what,” my father said, leaning against the hood of the truck.

I looked up at him to see that he was smirking. “What?”

He reached into the bed and retrieved my new bike chain, still in the cardboard box we bought it in. He shook it toward me, the metal inside rattling. “She didn’t even question why you weren’t back at school,” he snickered, and I my mouth began to hurt from laughing so hard.

It was one thing to get to spend time with my dad, but it was a whole other story to get to spend time with him alone. Nellie and Vivian were at school, Caroline was at daycare, and Benjamin was currently still in the womb. To top it off, mom had just left for work, which left my father and I to bond all on our own. We wouldn’t have my mother--though I truly loved her--nagging at us to help her around the house. We wouldn’t have my sisters--though I loved them as well--begging for my father’s attention. It was just us, a father and a son, spending precious quality time together.
We spent the next hour and a half huddled on the ground over the midsection of my bicycle. My dad walked me through each step, and then watched closely as I demonstrated them on my own. After replacing the chain, I gave my bike a short ride down the sidewalk to make sure it was stable, where I noticed the handbrake wasn’t catching quickly enough.

“It’s all right,” I told him, “it works most of the time.”

My dad looked up at me from his spot on the ground, raising his eyebrows. “Until you actually need it to work, then we’ll be taking a trip to the hospital.”

Knowing that he was right, I ran to the garage to retrieve more tools. We were back in our huddled positions, fidgeting with the wires that connected my handbrake to the tires, trying to figure out how to tighten the connection, when the rain began to fall.

“Shit,” my dad muttered, quickly covering the exposed wires of the handbrake so they wouldn’t rust.
I looked up at the sky, to the dark mass of clouds that had moved right above us without my knowledge. The storm surely had to have been brewing for awhile, but I was having far too much fun with my dad to even notice. What started as a sprinkle soon turned into a monsoon, and dad and I scrambled around the driveway, laughing as we gathered his tools and my bike and sprinted to the garage.

I wiped the hair out of my eyes once we made it to a dry spot. Dad closed the garage door behind us, leaving us in the sudden silence and warmth just beyond the storm. I stood, watching the rain splatter the small windows of the garage door, listening to the rhythmic pitter-patter of the drops as they fell. My dad stood beside me, the two of us silently watching the rain. He coughed, preparing to turn and put the tools away, when I grabbed the sleeve of his t-shirt and stopped him.

I looked up, meeting my father’s eyes. While the doctor still said I had a few more inches to grow, the height difference between us was already so small. But I knew that no matter how tall I grew, I would always be looking up at him somehow. “Thank you for today, Dad,” I said matter-of-factly.
He looked at me, his dark green eyes so similar to my own. For the first time, I noticed a small patch of grey hair sprouting by his ear. “You’re welcome, bud,” he replied. He gave my dark hair a tousle, and then the mood shifted. We were laughing again as we put the tools away and went into the house.

It was just a few minutes past 3:30. Since our house was on the far edge of town, it was one of the last stops on the bus route, which left at least another ten minutes of alone time with my dad before two of my sisters would be home.

“Glad I’m not walking home today,” I said, sitting on the couch and leaning against the back cushion to watch the rain.

Dad washed his hands at the sink and pulled a package of ground beef from the freezer to thaw. “Do you think we should give Lexi a ride?” he asked.

I thought for a moment. “No, she has cheerleading practice,” I said finally, remembering that she had told me about the last-minute practice just yesterday. “Her mom will be off work by the time she’s done.” I glanced back outside, hoping this was true. Even though it would be pretty funny, I would feel bad if Lexie had to walk home in the pouring rain.

Dad nodded before heading to the bathroom to shower.

A few minutes later, right on cue, the bright yellow school bus idled in front of the house. Being the nice older brother that I was, I met my sisters at the front door with a towel.

“It’s so cold!” Vivien cried, stomping her feet on the welcome mat. The water from her boots splattered a foot in every direction. I wrapped the towel around her shoulders while Nelle shivered beside her.

They were two years apart, and if it weren’t for the few inches separating them in height, they would look nearly identical. I watched as they laughed and wrung the water out of their dark hair, using the towel to slap each other rather than dry off. It was one of the many moments that made me wish I had a sibling closer to in age. Nelle, being the second oldest in the family, wasn’t born until six years after me. She was now eight, Vivien was six, and they were inseparable. While I, the only son and the oldest by several years, was ultimately alone. If it weren’t for Lexi, I really would be.

I sighed, sinking into the couch and turning on the TV. In a blur, Nelle and Vivien ran past me to their shared bedroom. The news reporter huddled under an umbrella on the television screen, talking about the obvious fact that it was storming. I rolled my eyes, flipping through the channels until I landed on some sort of action movie.

The rest of the night went rather smoothly. When dad got out of the shower, he began preparing dinner; something he almost never did. My mother was super excited when she came home from her three hour shift and smelled food on the stove that she hadn’t had to make herself. She came inside with my youngest sister, Caroline, in tow. My sisters ran around the house and tried to get me to play dress up with them, in which I declined the offer. I watched from the couch as my mother stirred the marinara sauce on the stove, refusing to sit down and allow my dad to cook on his own, even though she did most of the housework and parental duties by herself when he was working. They laughed and kissed one another on the cheek, their hands passing across each other with a gentle touch, reminding me how lucky I was that my parents loved each other so much.

We sat at the dinner table and ate as a family, just as we always did. The conversation wandered from school, to my orthodontist appointment, to the storm, to Nelle and Vivien’s attempt to convince my parents we needed a puppy. I was mostly quiet, eating three platefuls of spaghetti as I listened to my family’s amusing discussion. A little over an hour later, after Nelle finally stopped talking long enough to finish her meal, I helped my mother take the dishes to the sink and clean off the table. Promising I would help load the dishwasher later, my mother agreed it was time to relax.

At approximately 7:30 P.M., as my entire family crammed onto the couch to watch the Game Show Network, the phone rang.

“I’ll get it!” Vivien chimed. She bounded toward the phone. “Hello? Oh, hi! Okay. Yeah, okay.” She walked toward me. “It’s for you, Mattie.”

I jumped off the couch, grabbing the phone on my way toward my bedroom. Since I had to leave school just before lunch to get to my orthodontist appointment on time, Lexie assured me that she would call if anything gossip-worthy happened while I was gone. Once I reached the safety of my bedroom to ensure my family didn’t overhear the juicy gossip, I held the phone to my ear. “Hey, Lex, what’s going on?”

“Mattie?” Instead of Lexie on the other end of the line, it was her mother. I heard a rustle of noise in the background. “Matthew, can you hear me?” she repeated my name, a sudden sternness in her voice.

I glanced into the living room at my own mother, still laying on the couch with her feet propped on the ottoman. “Did you want to talk to my mom?” I asked, stepping into the hallway.

“No- no, Mattie.” I stopped walking, my parents watching me from across the room. “I need you to tell me if you saw Lexie today, after school.”

“I left early, I didn’t--”

“Is she there, Mattie? Please tell me, is Lexie at your house?”

My mother had caught my gaze, and she clearly saw the fear flash in my eyes. She stood up, walking toward me.

“She isn’t here,” I stammered, just as my mother pulled the phone from my hand.

“Laura, honey, what’s wrong?” she said immediately, pacing across the floor. My father, who was only seeing one side of the conversation, slowly got to his feet. Even he could tell that something was wrong.

My mother held her hand to her mouth, glancing at me with an unrecognizable emotion. She nodded, and over the deafening silence, I could hear the muffled, frantic voice of Laura Collins.

I watched, waiting for an answer. For anything.

A moment later, my mother hung up the phone and walked to the front door, sliding on her coat and shoes in one motion. My father followed suit, repeatedly asking her what Laura had said, what she wanted. He had his jacket zipped and was following her out the door before my mother finally turned to me, her eyes wide with dismay.

“Stay here and watch your sisters, Mattie,” she said stiffly. “Lexie didn’t make it come from school today.”