The Girl Who Fell from the Sky Read online

  Acquire the habit of comparing a new bird with some familiar “yardstick” — a House Sparrow, a Robin, a Pigeon, etc., so that you can say to yourself, “smaller than a Robin; a little larger than a House Sparrow.”

  What is its shape?

  THE NEXT DAY the shrine was still there. The cameras were gone.

  The coffee can that said COLLECTIONS remained — no thief brave enough to steal money meant for a grave.

  The yellow police tape that cordoned off the spot where the bird-boy and his family had lain was torn. Part of it had blown away, and the rest flapped in the wind.

  Jamie had emptied his mother’s pocketbook. He had run his hand beneath the couch cushions. He walked along the sidewalk looking for loose coins. Including the six beer bottles he turned in for change, he collected $5.83. He put the money, two fistfuls of coins, in the collection can.

  Jamie who was really James stood before the shrine thinking of his life list. It was still a list of ordinary birds: robins, sparrows, pigeons, gulls. The great egret, snowy white, airborne. If only that was what he had seen that day. He would have become someone worth knowing. He would have been in the newspapers, maybe even on TV. How could he have been so wrong? How could he have made the shadow of a boy into a bird? There were questions he had to learn to ask, to train his eyes to see.

  What shape are its wings?

  He stood before the shrine for hours that day. When he finally went home for dinner, he was surprised to see his mother seated on the couch. She called him to her and hugged him close. She cooed: “You okay, baby?” She rocked him back and forth. She was yeasty and pale. No new friends in the last three days and his mother needed touching.

  Her arm dangled limply across his shoulder. “Your mama’s not so bad, is she?”

  He took the love she gave, the broken pieces of affection. Maybe the bird-boy had changed things after all. “Mom,” he said, “I saw — ”

  Just then the bedroom door opened. A new friend stood in the doorframe. “What you waitin on, girl?”

  Only then did Jamie see the familiar marks on his mother’s arm and the haze that she seemed to be seeing him through, the glassy look in her eyes. The feeling that rose between them became a chasm, an opening wound. How could he ever be certain of what he saw?

  There were questions he had to learn to ask, to train his heart not to feel.

  His mother retreated to the bedroom. “Mama’s gonna go rest. Tell me if you go outside.” The sound that kept out the sound played.

  “Going outside,” Jamie said a few moments later. He grabbed his book and walked down to the second-floor landing where he sat and read.

  Learn bird songs. They can identify a species even when the bird may secrete itself in thick cover.

  Jamie thought: He could have known the new new friend was there. He thought: Had he listened for the sounds, he would have heard thick shoes on the bare parquet floor, the belt clasp undone, and its click on the opening zipper. He would have heard the folding down of sheets. He would have known his mother’s limp hug was pure apology.

  AFTER TWENTY MINUTES in the stale stairway — minutes that felt like hours as he waited for the new new friend to leave — Jamie walked downstairs, then slid down the banister to the landing. A man with woolly-looking orange hair sat rocking back and forth, blocking the path to the door.

  “Excuse me.” Jamie’s voice was so small the man batted it away as if it were a fly. “Excuse me,” he said, a little louder.

  “What?” The orange-haired man looked up. His eyes didn’t focus right.

  “I just need to …” Jamie’s voice trailed off as the man scooted to the side.

  Jamie ran to the shrine where half a dozen people were gathered.

  A reporter — pretty and young like his first schoolteacher — wanted to make the bird-boy’s story one that made sense. The reporter tried to coax out their stories the way Mrs. Gordon had when she wanted the kids to say their ABCs. Still no one would talk to her. Then she approached Jamie.

  “Hey,” she said. “Did you guys play together? You and the boy?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. He hugged the Peterson Field Guide tightly against his chest as his armor.

  “Go to school together?”

  “Huh-uh.”

  The reporter wrote “no.”

  There were questions she should ask, Jamie thought. These were not the ones.

  “What did you see?”

  I saw a bird, he wanted to say. A great egret in the sky. I saw it swoop down below my window. I wanted to see it land.

  Jamie who was really James didn’t give that answer. What did he see? It didn’t matter. His eyes saw everything wrong. Shadows, mothers, birds.

  Instead he said, “I saw a man. At the top of that building. He pushed them off and ran.”

  The reporter asked him more questions and he answered. Jamie who was really James was shaking inside with delight. The reporter wrote down every word he said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “That’s exactly what I saw — the way it happened.”

  “Great.” She continued scribbling. “Did you tell the police?”

  “Ma’am?”

  But the reporter had forgotten the question as soon as she’d asked. She turned and said to the photographer, “I want a picture of him.”

  “Could you hold this up?” the photographer asked Jamie and handed him the framed family photograph from the shrine. Jamie’s hands were trembling with excitement.

  “What’s your name, sweetie? And tell me how to spell it,” the reporter asked.

  Jamie thought of the great egret, of his life list, of his father James. He thought of how much he wanted a new history to his name, and he said, “My name’s Brick. I’m eleven. B-r-i-c-k.”

  THE NIGHT JAMIE who was really James became Brick he could hear the rain on the courtyard window. He heard the wind and the clank of metal garbage cans that had lost their lids. Learn bird songs. The call note, the song. Jamie hummed himself to sleep, a tune buzzing into his dreams.

  In the morning he left without eating the cereal his mother had left for him. The milk was warm and the bowl was half full of cornflakes that were mostly crumbles. He ran to the newsstand by the bus stop to see the morning’s paper. Page B3. His was the hand that held the photo of the bird-boy’s family. When the newsstand man turned, Jamie ran off with just the B-section in his hand.

  “Hey!”

  Brick ran faster. Finally, two blocks away, he stopped and read the story. He sounded out the big words. He read his new name.

  THAT AFTERNOON JAMIE saw that the shrine had not survived the night’s storm. The rain had soaked what was left: the teddy bear, the candles, the family portrait in the frame. The coffee can was gone. Jamie who was really James picked up the board and perched it on the cement blocks again. The soggy teddy bear squished like a sponge. He poured the water from the candles’ burning wells and wiped the water from the family portrait, now wet beneath the frame’s glass.

  Jamie who was really James but who was now Brick placed the Peterson Field Guide on the shrine next to the bird-boy’s family photograph. He didn’t want the field guide any longer. From now on he would simply listen. He would know things even when his eyes were closed. He would know them by sound.

  Laronne

  After work the next day Laronne visited the courtyard.

  Without the flash of the police car lights, or the television crews, the crowd had thinned. An elderly black man set a bouquet of carnations on the shrine and stuffed a bill in the collection can Laronne had made. He paused, also, to pick up the framed photograph Laronne had taken from Nella’s desk at the library and placed in the shrine’s center.

  Laronne recognized the man from one of the television reports. He was a neighbor of Nella’s who had helped bring up the groceries one afternoon. “Her place was spic-and-span clean,” he had said.

  All day Laronne had heard the same kind of whispers at the library where she worked.

/>   She was real helpful.

  I thought she was really smart.

  Sometimes I couldn’t understand her accent.

  She always seemed so nice.

  The collection of whispered comments and impressions didn’t add up to a story that made sense of what happened; they could hardly be considered clues. What people wanted to know was why Nella had turned so dangerous. Why hadn’t the danger been seen?

  Laronne saw a light-skinned, curly-haired boy as he approached the shrine. He lifted the collection can gingerly and into it dumped two handfuls of coins. Had he lost his best friend?

  Laronne watched as the elderly black man spoke to the newspaper reporter. No doubt he was telling the same story he told the television cameras — now it was well rehearsed. Spic-and-span wasn’t a way to remember a woman, a mother. And why was the man making himself part of a story he knew nothing about?

  “Did you know her?” the reporter asked Laronne next. “How did you know her? Was she a good employee?”

  “Yes,” Laronne said. “She worked for me at the library. She was the hardest working. Always on time until this week.”

  “How did she seem to you when you saw her last?” the reporter finally asked.

  Laronne thought of what she’d heard on the television reports the night before. Quiet. Shy. Kept to herself. Spic-and-span.

  How did she seem? Nella seemed proud and hungry and young.

  “What else can you tell us about her?” the reporter asked.

  LARONNE THOUGHT OF the day she showed Nella a picture of her own son, Greg.

  “Robbie’s gonna be a big boy like this,” Nella had said.

  “It happens before you know it,” Laronne had replied.

  “Now, they’re still my little sunshines.” Nella smiled. “Robbie especially is a little brown kiss.”

  Laronne knew the kids only from the framed photograph on Nella’s desk, but she remembered that Nella always spoke about the boy special. She said he didn’t talk much because he stuttered. He pointed. He nodded. Or he had his big sister say for him what he wanted to say. The girl certainly had enough words in her for all of them. Who knew what she’d grow up to be, but it would certainly be whatever she wanted; it would be written as large as the sky.

  Nella rubbed the front of Laronne’s picture as she handed it back. “I’m sorry. Did I get it dirty?” she asked.

  “No, that’s a scrape above his eye,” Laronne said. “It’s just a scar now, but Lord when he first came home. I think it hurt me more than him.”

  “That’s how it is. You want to protect them.”

  “Funny how that happens,” Laronne said. “You realize you’d do anything for them. Anything for them to be okay.”

  “Yes,” Nella said. “I will.”

  LARONNE HAD ONLY one thing to say to the reporter. “That woman loved her babies, and they loved her.”

  The reporter wrote down what Laronne said. But Laronne could tell the reporter didn’t think it made for a good story.

  Laronne wanted to say something that mattered. “You have to ask the right questions,” she said. “What no one’s asking is: Where is the man? The boyfriend?” The reporter made a sound to encourage Laronne to keep talking. “What we need to ask is,” Laronne said, “where was he that day?”

  A black woman who had taken up on Laronne’s left said, “That’s right,” and Laronne was in church again — testifying as she thought of Nella’s boyfriend, the man with the orange hair slicked back who was nowhere to be found.

  “What we need to be asking …” Laronne was all emotion. “Was that man up on that roof that day?”

  “Amen.” The black woman who had suddenly taken up on her left was her chorus.

  Doug — that was his name. Funny how Laronne made him a black man in her mind when Nella first mentioned him. She wasn’t sure if it was out of her own bias or a certain wish. From what Nella said, the man — Doug—didn’t seem to have a real job. That could have been the reason she thought the man was black — her bias.

  “A woman — no woman — would do that to her own children,” Laronne said.

  “Amen.”

  The reporter scribbled furiously on her pad. “You go on, ask people what they saw. A woman doesn’t sacrifice her babies that way. No matter what’s gone wrong. She’s not gonna hurt no kids. But maybe that man did.”

  And with that Laronne saw the reporter write a giant asterisk and exclamation point.

  “Would you spell your name for me again?”

  THAT NIGHT LARONNE couldn’t sleep as it stormed outside. Her thoughts of Nella and of the boy and baby, now dead, and the girl, these things had made a bookmark inside of her.

  “David,” she said to her husband as she turned toward him in bed. “The sadness is coming over me again.”

  “I know. Come here.”

  Laronne moved closer and let herself feel the warmth of his arms around her shoulders and on her back, and the heat of his chest on her face.

  “I can’t get rid of the sadness,” Laronne said.

  “Well,” David said, “then we’ll just keep it company.”

  IN THE MORNING Laronne found the story on page B3. The reporter had described the courtyard, the shrine, the collection of people who prayed and whispered. There were more words to describe the after-scene than there were to describe any of the lives that were lost. The reporter used the words pity, tragedy, shame. No mention of bravery, courage, love.

  But then there in black and white she read: “Police say they are continuing their investigation to rule out foul play. Witnesses indicate possible suspects …” Her eyes fixed on the word “Witnesses.” Someone had seen what happened? What could they tell?

  Rachel

  It’s the sound I remember. “Ma-ko-me-none,” I say when the counselor at science camp asks what kind of plant that is. “That’s a bearberry plant in Ojibway,” I say. I read it in a book about a Native American princess who had long hair down to the ground. She saved her family by making her hair a rope and pulling them from the water.

  “That’s my mom’s tribe,” Anthony Miller says. “For real.”

  Then all the kids laugh, including Antoine who is supposed to be Anthony Miller’s best friend. I look at Anthony Miller real hard and try to see history.

  “Ooo-wah-oo-wah.” Antoine is the one who does it first. He claps his hand to his mouth the way Indians on TV do. Then he sticks out his lip and makes Ojibway a word for the kid on Fat Albert. The other kids laugh harder. I don’t know if it’s better to have people laugh at what you are or just not understand.

  Anthony Miller is handsome and has a broad nose and thick lips, and those are the black things in a person. His nose is Pop’s nose. And his brownness is Aunt Loretta’s. He doesn’t have to have an Ojibway part that people can see for me to believe him.

  Anthony Miller doesn’t look sad that the other kids are laughing, because he is laughing too. He laughs along with them. And he starts to dance around. Anthony Miller always laughs.

  I like Anthony Miller even though he’s the one that bumps my chair. He knows I like him because Tracy told him. I don’t know if that makes her my best friend ever or my enemy. I think he likes me too. He told Tracy that I should meet him before dinner at the big tree that has more than 150 rings.

  We are standing under the big tree that has more than 150 rings when Anthony Miller says, “Let me tell you a secret.” He pulls me closer to him than I have ever been to a boy. Then Anthony Miller kisses me on the lips. The kiss runs all the way to my middle. He kisses my hurt ear next, not knowing that it is hurt, and strokes my hair along my back. Anthony Miller makes me a princess. “All of this is a secret,” he says, and I listen. “Because I really have another girl.”

  “LOLO,” THE WOMAN says and hugs Aunt Loretta real tight while they’re standing at the door.

  I thought it was Grandma’s friend Miss Verle coming for a visit to discuss the scripture, like she does just about every other day. Really
Grandma and Miss Verle are just talking about what happened on their stories and the good things they found at the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store in the part of town where Grandma works. You can buy a whole bag of clothes for five dollars there. “White people throw some valuable stuff away,” Miss Verle always says. “Throws it out like it don’t even matter.”

  I always know when they start talking about me or white folks because they start to talk real low. Sometimes I think that I can hear better because I have one good ear. No matter how softly they whisper I can hear them. And when Miss Verle says “them titties” make me look “too growed up.” I can hear her and hear Grandma agree. She means grown up, I say inside, but there are special rules for how she says things since she’s from down South. I want to correct her but don’t.

  “Helen! It’s so good to see you. Come in. What are you doing here?” Aunt Loretta says and hugs the woman again.

  Helen is a tall, light-skinned-ed woman with short but straight hair. She’s wearing a red silk shirt, black pants, and heels. She’s almost as pretty as Aunt Loretta and has the same wide smile.

  “In town visiting my family, and I saw Pam downtown yesterday. She mentioned you were back in town so I thought I’d see if your mom could help me find you.”

  “Well, I’m here. Living here now.”

  Something about the way Aunt Loretta talks sounds different to me. Maybe Aunt Loretta doesn’t feel so sure.

  Helen looks at me then and says: “Oh my, you and Nathan did something good here!”

  “This is my niece, Rachel. Roger’s daughter. She’s living here with mama and me.”

  “Hi, Miss Helen,” I say and shake her hand.

  “Hi, Rachel. Aren’t you a sweetie. Firm handshake. That’s good home training. But call me Helen. You make me sound like some old woman with that Miss. And we aren’t that old!” she says looking at Aunt Loretta.

  They both laugh.

  “Come in. Sit down,” Aunt Loretta says. “And Rachel, go put on some water for tea.”

  Everything about Aunt Loretta seems real formal like Helen isn’t her high school friend, but something like a queen.