BY CARLA CASEWIT
Copyright is held by the author.
MY GARDEN was kind of pathetic, really.
I went outside to snatch up the package right after I got notification that it had been delivered. The parcel, containing a new stylus for my old tablet, wasn’t on my porch. The light breeze had sent it off into my front flower garden, where a few hardy tulips were starting their spring run. The green spears poked out from beneath a mass of old tree leaves and dry iris blades.
I used to clean up that area every fall, gathering up dead vegetation. And I planted more tulips, too, since they weren’t true perennials. Every spring, I’d look forward to the surprise of colour. Which tulips would bloom first? The poppy red? The pristine white? The striped Rembrandts?
No point in wondering anymore. Because of the drought, flowers rarely bloomed. Even the bare leaves would end up being scalded by the relentless sun. My forsythia and lilac bushes didn’t bloom anymore, either.
I missed the feeling of anticipating the flowers even more than the actual flowers. Now when I imagined the time horizon, I saw an infinite wall of grey ice. I couldn’t see through it, above it, or around it. My future was blocked.
Enough musing; it was time to get back to work. With a small sigh, I hopped into my neglected flower garden and grabbed the package. When I stepped back onto the porch, a robin burst out of the lilac bush — and barked at me. A robin in a bad mood? What a thing. The bird swooped close to my face, trying to bully me off my own porch.
I hadn’t seen a bird in years. Any kind of bird. Even those loud, obnoxious grackles, which used to colonize the giant blue spruce every spring, had abandoned my yard.
So when I finally see a bird — it attacks me?
“What’s your problem?” I grumbled, hurrying back into my house.
I was head of marketing at a high-end materials modelling company. Though originally based in Boulder, the software company employees were now spread out around the U.S., working remotely. I’d stayed behind in Boulder.
A few minutes before our weekly Zoom meeting, I finger-combed my hair, realizing too late that some sort of dreadlock was forming on the back of my head. I couldn’t recall if I’d even brushed my teeth that morning. Time had just gotten away from me. And to think I once regularly wore mascara and a bra to work. I shrugged on a large sweatshirt with a CU Buffalo on it. Nearly the same as wearing a bra.
One by one, we got online to discuss our ongoing projects. An hour later everyone signed off. Everyone except for Joe and me. Joe was my best work friend. We used to have lunch together back when we were all in Boulder. He’d moved to New Jersey a few years ago, so now our interaction was strictly virtual.
His round, friendly face alight with amusement, he told me about his DIY remodelling venture installing ceiling fans in his bedrooms.
“So, anyway,” he said, “I end up spending more time wandering the aisles at Home Depot trying to find the right parts, the right tools, the right screws, then bringing them all home, then discovering I got the wrong stuff, and going back to Home Depot to get the really, really right parts or tools, or screws, than actually doing the project. And I swear, I’m losing green points with all that driving back and forth to the store.”
“Been there,” I said, recalling the difficulties with connecting up my drip system. Of course, that was before strict water rationing and the system of green points, back when I thought I could save my garden.
“Hey Liz, you like my new background image?” he asked me.
Joe’s background was usually a view from a fancy high rise corner office. He wanted to hide the jumble of kid’s toys and piles of unfolded laundry behind him. He had three young kids, making neatness and privacy difficult.
I studied his new background. It was an outdoor scene of a dramatic waterfall, partly hidden by a rainbow mist. I recognized those cascading falls. “That’s in Iceland.”
I’d planned to see the Seljalandsfoss for myself; I was going to walk behind the waterfall on a path running along those steep cliffs. I had intended to feel the spray on my face.
“Yup. I thought that maybe this background might cheer you up.”
It didn’t.
I was surprised by the intensity of my grief. My emotions were normally so dulled: I didn’t feel either joy or sadness much anymore. I blinked away the unexpected sorrow. I was hardly the only person who’d had to cancel international travel once the green point system was established.
“That background is very pretty,” I said. “I was going to go see that exact waterfall.”
“It’ll happen someday. I know it.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Someday.”
I doubted I’d ever go to Iceland, because I had to believe there was a future beyond that personal wall of grey ice. Even if I suddenly got optimistic, I had to make sure I had enough green points to pull it off. Now any kind of travel, especially international travel, cost a lot, in both green points and money. Sure, I could always apply for an advance bond if I didn’t have enough points, but that required a lot of paperwork and even more money. I didn’t have the hope, or strength, or even imagination, to do any of that.
“So what’s new in the wilds of Colorado, Liz?” he asked.
“Wilds is right. Something odd happened to me this morning. I saw a bird, for the first time in years, and it attacked me! I was standing on my front porch minding my own business, and this robin flew out of a bush and barked at me.”
“Huh. No kidding? The bird was probably protecting its nest.”
It would take a father like Joe to conclude that the robin was a parent, rather than a jerk.
“I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll have to go look for a nest.”
Later on that afternoon, I went in search of one. The lilac bush was in front of my living room window, so I could investigate from inside my house. Like a ninja, I cautiously crept over to the window. No bird parent. But I did see a nest in the lilac bush, maybe four feet off the ground. Dried iris blades, the kind I used to remove in the fall, were woven into the nest. I spotted three blue eggs, too. Joe was right: the hostile bird was protecting a nest. I lingered at the window until Momma bird returned, at which point I backed away slowly, giving her space.
But I couldn’t stay away. About every hour, I’d sneak off to take a quick look to see if the eggs had hatched.
Soon the first egg hatched, yielding a tiny flamingo-pink creature, randomly tufted with white and grey. And then within a few days, there were three baby birds. They roused whenever Momma approached, necks craning, opening their yellow-orange mouths, looking like a bouquet of calla lilies.
I’d never describe myself as maternal, but I came to view the baby birdies as my baby birdies. I sent Joe a picture of my calla lily babies. He loved it.
I moved a chair to face the front window so I could watch the little family in comfort. As long as I didn’t move, Momma never noticed me. She was too busy, perched on the edge of the nest, feeding her babies, and then flying off to find more food. I eventually figured out that there were two robins, a mother and a father. They tag teamed the feeding, which meant they were rarely together. Still, based on subtle colour differences, I could tell them apart. Momma usually brought her offspring berries, whereas Dad fed them worms or other bugs. I thought it was funny.
The little birds grew bigger. Their white and grey fluff evolved into discrete brown feathers, their once slitted eyes became more round. Calla lily mouths looked more like actual beaks.
On the afternoon of the seventh day of my bird watch, the sky turned bruise dark. The promise of moisture was just a tease, though, as it rarely rained. The old folks would reminisce, talking about Boulder’s soft spring rains, how they were these long, wet caresses. Those memories were lovely, and utter nonsense. Every Colorado rain since the beginning of time was a short, violent smackdown.
And that’s what happened again.
Lightning lashed the now coal grey sky, followed by thunder. A hard rain and wind assailed my garden. I assumed my little robins were protected by the canopy of lilac branches, and returned to my work.
By six, the abusive storm still hadn’t ended. I got up from my computer to check on my babies. I was dismayed. The wind was pushing the lilac bush nearly sideways. It was too dark to see the robin parents. Or the nest. Had it been dislodged? Were the birds cowering at the bottom, holding on for dear life? Or had the parents taken cover somewhere else, believing that fighting the weather was futile?
Fighting the weather was not futile. The baby birds could be protected. I just needed a windbreak of some sort.
I scoured the garage for something I could use as a windbreak. Found it. Wincing with the effort, I battled the wind and pelting rain, dragging out my step ladder. I placed the ladder close to the lilac bush, opposite the wind direction. Sturdy enough. But the wind went straight through the rungs. A lot of good that would do. I ran back into the garage to collect a heavy canvas drop cloth. I draped it over the ladder, tucking the ends of the fabric through the rungs. The windbreak was crude and ugly, but it was the best I could do.
Worried and wet, I returned to sit in the chair by the front window to monitor the storm. It was now too dark to see anything.
I eventually fell asleep.
When I woke up the next morning, Mom was back at the nest, tending to her three babies. They were safe. I was relieved.
The baby robins continued to grow. Their feathers differentiated into splotches of grey and white and pale orange, giving them a camo look. The nest seemed too crowded, especially when the biggest and oldest would preen its feathers, and spread its tiny wings.
A few hours later, I saw the biggest baby bird outside the nest, perched next to it on a lilac branch. Its siblings finally had room. The next morning, I was lucky enough to see the birdie fly. The fledgling flew right into my forsythia bushes, tumbling onto the brown grass.
The next day it was gone.
The remaining two babies left the nest, too. I got to see the last one fly off, landing delicately on the lawn. Dad arrived soon thereafter. Using a wandering, irregular hopping path, the fledgling followed Dad across the parched grass, across the street, and into my neighbour’s garden. I lost sight of them.
All of my baby birdies had left the nest. I was alone. And I was content.
Joe got himself a new background for our next Zoom meeting. It was still Iceland, but rather than a waterfall, it was an ocean cliff scene — the rock faces teaming with puffins.
He had combined Iceland with Icelandic birds. Seeing Iceland didn’t hurt this time. In fact, the background made me laugh.
“I adore your new background,” I said.
He beamed. “I’m glad. How are your baby birds doing?”
“They’re all gone. I got to see them fly off into the greater world. It was a lot of fun watching them.”
“Maybe they’ll come back year after year.”
A sweet sense of anticipation glided through me. “I hope so.”
***
Carla Casewit was born in Frankfurt, Germany, and grew up in Denver, Colorado, U.S. After obtaining her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Caltech, she settled in Fort Collins, Colorado, with her husband. Carla is the mother of three children, and has managed to nerdify only one of them. She’s worked as a researcher, teacher and software developer. Her romance stories have been published under a pen name by Samhain, Carina Press and others.
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