Shell Fragments
I expressed interest in purchasing the one-legged bald eagle. Gill’s friend asked why I thought the birds were for sale? I told him that I had heard about his financial troubles. He puffed his chest out like one of his birds, all red-faced and prideful, shook his head, and told me that I was mistaken. He said that I should probably leave. Because he was holding a coiled water hose and was on the edge, I did.
Gill’s friend—who I was starting to believe was not Gill’s friend at all—was thorough in his bird care. I watched through the rearview mirror as he replaced feed and scrubbed the streaks of chalky white mute on wooden habitat walls. I watched as he started construction on a perch in the bald eagle’s cage. He placed one end of the branch in a deep hole and secured the exposed section with cable-ties, pausing only to wipe sweat from his forehead. Midday, he retrieved lunch from the storage shed and took it to a picnic table on the far side of the property. Out of sight, I left the bird sanctuary.
*
About this time, Lacie messaged to let me know that I wouldn’t be seeing her for the next few weeks. She was having personal time with her parents. She was taking notes on their shining, long-lasting marriage and considering how to build a relationship on longing reflection as well as enthusiastic forward-gazing.
*
A few hours after Lacie’s message, I reported to work. Near the end of my shift, Gill came in with a step ladder. He requested that I hold the ladder while he placed a portrait of his smiling son right next to the sign that advertised prices for mini golf. It was a full-torso shot of the kid in front of a stock background—something like a babbling creek in an old growth forest. Once the picture was hung, and all the while staring at it, Gill affirmed that the eagle-seizing operation was scheduled for that night. I nodded, and he told me that if I were his son, he would be proud. He told me, still gazing at the portrait, that I was a fine and reliable worker, which translated into being an honorable man. Someone he could trust. He caught his breath—inhaling deep and holding it—grabbed the step ladder, and left the ticket hut.
*
Before I moved to Florida, before I started messaging Lacie, I was dating a woman who had a child from a previous marriage. Her daughter was just starting to form full sentences when she told me that she couldn’t be with someone who refused to make the best of things, someone who couldn’t see all the wonders in life. Things like when you’re just sitting there in the park with your daughter, and a butterfly lands on her nose, and she goes cross-eyed, and you both laugh because what are the odds of that? Or when you go on a weekend trip, and there at the rest stop on the interstate is your high school friend whom you just had a dream about two nights ago? Or when she thought she was pregnant again but then she wasn’t—although wasn’t it so exciting when we thought she was? How could you not appreciate that?