No longer able to bear her closeness, Sean went to the window and pulled hard on the cord to the blinds, flooding the room with brilliance. “There is no easy way to miss it,” he said. “Six more weeks of winter.”
THE BIRDS SANG in their cage all morning long. An even dozen in a three-by-four case complete with artificial branches and covering leaves, the house finches were Simonetta Delarosa's babies. She came to the flower shop every day to coddle them with gourmet seed and bread moistened with milk, and had given each pair linked names from her favorite operas: the zebras were Romeo and Juliet; the Gouldians, Otello and Desdemona; the owl finches, Figaro and Susanna; the society, Vio-letta and Alfredo; the spice, Ferrando and Dorabella; and the star, Guglielmo and Fiordiligi. Enraptured by the dazzling sunshine, the mates behaved as if a new spring had begun, flying and singing and preening for one another so much that Simonetta, long inured to their habits, took notice and sat by the cage and watched them carry on right up to the point when the visitor arrived.
As soon as he stepped through the doorway, the birds hushed and hid beneath the greenery. The man removed his hat and gloves, brushed his silver hair back with the flat of his palm. From behind the wire cage, Simonetta smiled at him, and Pat nodded through the glass of the walk-in cooler, where they kept the cut flowers cool and moist. The stranger circled the room, stopping to sniff at a bunch of tiger lilies, to finger a single violet face of a blooming dendrobium. He crouched next to the birdcage to peer inside. Simonetta tried to show him her treasures, but the birds cowered in the shadows no matter how she coaxed.
“They act like they're afraid of you.”
“A stranger can sometimes have that effect on little creatures,” he said. “Portents of uncertainty in their ordered world.”
Pat wiped his hands on the front of his apron and advanced from the back of the shop. “Is there anything you're looking for?”
“No, no. Just coming in from the cold. Though those are beautiful orchids.”
“My favorites. They come and go like magic, but while they last, they're like miracles.” With a gaze approaching love, Pat considered the potted plants. “You from around here?”
The hint of a smile curled at the corners of his lips. “No. I'm with the State. I'm looking for someone. A runaway.”
Rising to stand by her husband, Simonetta twisted her fingers together. “From the State? Who are you looking for?”
“A little girl,” he said. “A runaway from an institution up north. I've come to find her and take her home.”
The Delarosas drew closer, pressed shoulder to shoulder, and he stared at them, watching for their faces to betray their emotions, and then he laid his hat atop the cage to work his hands into his gloves. “A clever child, she might latch on to anyone. She might appear like an answer to a prayer, but every answer brings new questions, and every wish the hope for one more wish.”
“We don't know any little girl,” said Pat.
As the stranger placed his hat back on his head, he said, “You keep an eye out for her.” And bringing two fingers to the brim, he bowed slightly and departed. The finches roared and sang in panic and threw themselves against the iron bars, and not until late afternoon could Simonetta manage to soothe the last of them, a star finch cowering in a high corner, and return the poor creature, thimble heart racing in her hand, to a safer perch.
21