The Bird House A Novel

July 8, 1967



THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO CALL with the biopsy results today, but didn’t.

In the afternoon, to pass the time more than anything else, I popped popcorn for Emma, and she seemed fascinated with the process, how I moved the pan across the stove, how the kernels sprang to life with a metallic ping. A little too fascinated, I thought. I’d have to be careful she wasn’t left alone with the stove; she was just the kind of child who would turn it on when you weren’t looking. In the afternoon, when I kissed her before her nap, her chin and cheeks were still buttery. It reminded me of that first high school baseball game with Peter, when we shared a tub of popcorn and he kissed me at the short end of the bleachers. Our lips were slick, and traces of salt lingered at the corners of his mouth. Ah, the things you remember. Little things. Sweet things.

I went into the drawer with my hose and bras and burrowed around, digging up my journal from last year, looking to see what I’d written about Peter after our high school reunion. Just wanting to remember, to savor a few details. But when I turned to May, there was no entry that day. I didn’t write every day, just on the particularly bad or particularly good days, it seemed. I thought I’d written something about the reunion, though. A discreet little something, surely. I’d come home so energized, inspired and alive, not even feeling the numbing of the glasses of punch. The next morning, however, I had that unique combination of headache and regret. Is that why I neglected to write a note about it?

When I went upstairs to put the journal back, it suddenly bothered me that my books were all in different places. The old ones in the attic, last years’ in the hose drawer, the current one in a stack on my bedside table. I took last year’s and put it in the trunk in the attic. I could imagine opening it years later, and having my secret float up to me: carrying the guilt, but also the beauty, of what can happen when two people come together at exactly the wrong time.

But no, apparently I didn’t tell anyone; not my diary, not Betsy, not Aunt Caro, not even my mother, who was the safest person of all to tell, because she, god bless her, would forget it the very next day.





March 30, 2010



I took stock of Tinsley’s gratitude warily, suspicious of it in the way another person might have suspected silence. She had always been a happy sort of person, almost twinkly when she had a glass or two of wine at Christmas. I remember one occasion, early on, surrounded by bigwigs at the opening of one of Theo’s shopping centers, when she was so ebullient over Theo having wooden benches mounted outside the stores—What a smart idea! What lovely, sturdy materials!—that Tom and I practically rolled our eyes. But now, with no holiday in sight, no celebration or cameras, and no alcohol on her breath, she was just too effusive. Every other time Ellie and I had gotten together she seemed a bit nervous and wary, worried about where I would drive her and what I would feed her. But now, taking me up on my offer to take Ellie for a walk and out to lunch so Tinsley could exercise or play squash this morning, she stood on my porch and told me how thoughtful I was, and how difficult it was to fit in her “workouts” on the weekends, and that Tom worked so much he couldn’t offer much support, but it meant a lot to her to have her mother-in-law to lean on. Blah blah blah.

Of course, it was morning, and a person had to allow for the overindulgence of coffee these days. Maybe that’s why she was running off at the mouth. Maybe that’s why her face was red. That, or she was uncomfortable for some reason—as if she were hiding something and attempting to cover it up with a pile of nouns and verbs.

Of course, I hadn’t told her the truth, either; that this was my mother’s birthday, and that I thought, to honor her, Ellie and I might talk more about her, and look at more of her things.

Ellie was wearing a sweat suit that at first glance appeared to be made of navy velvet, and which I prayed was merely velour. I am not in favor of this style of dressing, my belief being that a polo shirt, cardigan, and proper-fitting trousers were just as comfortable and eminently better suited to most nongymnastic activities.

“Are you having a ‘workout,’ too?” I kidded her, and she just looked at me, shaking her head. She was so young, she didn’t even understand that sweat suits were designed for sweating, not for riding on airplanes or having “playdates” with your grandmother.

“She likes to be comfortable when she’s not wearing her school uniform,” Tinsley said.

“Don’t we all,” I replied.

“We’ll see you around two, then?”

I nodded and Tinsley leaned over to tousle her daughter’s hair. Ellie frowned and ducked away and the movement stung with memory; I felt a pain, literally, in the rib near my heart.

“Kiss your mother good-bye, Ellie,” I said firmly.

Tinsley’s eyes met mine over Ellie’s head, and there it was, that gratitude again. We’ve all juggled children and households and traveling husbands, I wanted to say. You’re not alone, my dear. But I didn’t. She smiled at us and then she was gone, practically bouncing down my porch steps with sheer joy.

I’d taken a long bath early this morning, well before Ellie was due to come over, and had my hair blown dry at the Hair Cottage. Since Ellie had been just the slightest bit reluctant to set up our playdate, the last thing I wanted to do was embarrass her with a grandma who looked frumpy or smelled a bit off.

Now she was with me in the dining room, nibbling on a cookie, and I nibbled one, too, just to keep her company, to have an excuse to be near her. I leaned over, breathing her in. She smelled of strawberries and milk. It was a smell you wanted in your life forever, like laundry on the line, or the dusty ears of a well-loved teddy bear. I imagined it was the smell of fresh shampoo. I liked to think she’d taken measures, too.

When she finished her second cookie she looked up expectantly, with a “now what shall we do?” look on her face that indicated she had no real ideas of her own. I was beginning to see a trend; I could ride this trend, yes.

“I thought,” I began, “that in a little while, it might be fun to go out and take some photographs together, then go have lunch.”

“Photographs of what?”

“Oh, I don’t know, whatever we find. There’s a squirrel’s nest in the park where they swing from the trees like chimpanzees.”

She shrugged, which was better than lodging an objection. She paused then said, “You said in a little while. What about now?”

“Now,” I leaned in conspiratorially, “I thought I’d show you another family secret. Like you asked about.” I picked up a flashlight I’d laid on the sideboard.

“Really?” she said, eyes wide.

“You see, today is my mother’s birthday, and one of the secrets is about her.”

She followed me to the attic stairs and when I pulled them down, a puff of dust came with them. I told her to go up first but she hesitated, so I said she could follow me. I turned on the flashlight and we walked up. I headed straight to the dark brown trunks. I had nestled the small safe in one of them earlier in the day, for dramatic effect.

“This,” I said, kneeling down with some effort, “is where the photo albums were.”

I opened one of the trunks and pulled out the safe. “And this,” I said with a flourish, “is almost all that’s left of my mother’s fortune.” I dialed the combination, aware that the metallic spin mesmerized her. I pulled out the ring box and held it aloft. Her eyes were wide and I nodded my permission.

As she opened the box, I held the flashlight above her so the gem would sparkle. Her mouth dropped open.

“Did you used to be rich?”

“Yes. My mother came from a very wealthy family. They owned a lot of railroad land, and a lot of land in general. When I was growing up we had three houses in different cities and servants in each one.”

“Wow, Grandma, that’s cool.”

“It was, rather. Until my father started stealing from my mother, liquidating stock portfolios and hiding money in offshore accounts. That was not so cool.”

“Did he go to jail?” Ellie whispered.

“No, my mother didn’t know what was going on at first. And my father was so nimble, nothing could be proved.”

I told her that when my father left he said he was going on an extended trip, doing business in Hong Kong; the day he left I went shopping for a prom gown, oblivious. When I came home I rushed into the living room to show my mother, tearing open the box from Bryant’s Department Store, exclaiming over the turquoise satin, too giddy over my purchase to take notice of my mother’s detached distance. She told me the dress was beautiful and that she had to go down to the bank, that there was a “glitch” with one of their accounts. That’s the word she used, “glitch.” She came back from the meeting dumbfounded and dizzy, but said it was nothing, she just had a little headache. She kept the truth from me for over a month, and it was only when June arrived, and it was time to go to Nantucket, that she broke the news: while I had gone to my graduation parties and prom, she had sold her family’s cabin in the Adirondacks, and both her Nantucket homes, even the cottage, to pay for taxes. In less than a year’s time, she would sell our main house and move into a cottage on Aunt Caro’s estate. She’d managed to hide only the emerald when she got wind of what was going on.

“How old were you?” Ellie asked.

“Nearly seventeen.”

“Did he take anything from you?”

“Well, I just explained, Ellie, that—”

“Did he take your clothes or your toys?”

“Well, no, but he took away my inheritance, my family home, my summerhouse and summer plans, everything.”

“So you couldn’t go to college?”

“Well, no, he made provisions to pay for that. But that’s all.”

“Oh,” she nodded. “What about when he died?”

“He left me seventy-five thousand dollars. The rest went to his new wife.”

“Isn’t that a lot of money, though?”

I sighed. “It covered your father’s schooling.”

She nodded.

“Don’t you start taking his side now, little one, just because he made me a bird house once.”

“I didn’t say anything, Grandma.”

“All right then. It’s my mother’s birthday, remember. We must take her side.”

There was no pity in her eyes. Was college all a person should expect from a parent? I remember my college graduation, how I surveyed the crowd like a Secret Service agent, scanning the faces for his. Not wanting to see him, not wanting to miss him. And later, how he waited until my mother and Aunt Caro had gone. I can still picture the outline of his sheepish frame as he lumbered up to me and my friends. The way he shook their hands solemnly as their wide eyes questioned me over his shoulder, wondering why I’d never mentioned that I’d even had a father. I’d pretended, as I recall, that he was dead.

“Annie,” he said. “I know you don’t understand this, not yet, but I did what I had to do. What was fair to do.”

“Fair, Dad? Are you crazy?”

“I made sure you got to college, at least, even after I—”

“Even after what, Daddy? After you decided to hate me because I had the bad luck of looking like her?”

“It’s complicated, Ann-o,” he said softly.

The ring box remained in Ellie’s curled palm. “Hey, are you okay, Grandma?”

I waved my memories out of the air like a bad odor. “Of course I am.”

“It’s a sad story. You must have missed your daddy after he left.”

I swallowed hard. “Well, I was older, it wasn’t as if I were truly a child anymore.”

“But you only have one father,” she said.

“Yes,” I said softly. “Well, would you like to try the ring on?”

“Oh yes!” She twirled it on her index finger. “My mommy hides things from Daddy, too.”

I swallowed hard before I dared to answer.

“Really?” I smoothed the fabric in the trunk, trying to be nonchalant.

She nodded. “When she buys shoes she always says, ‘Don’t tell Daddy.’”

“Oh,” I said quietly. Did the disappointment seep into my voice?

She twirled the ring on her hand. “This looks just like the one in the photo.”

“What’s that?”

Ellie was silent, reverential, as she looked at the ring with her head cocked.

“There was a ring like this in one of the photos.”

“Oh, I doubt it, dear. My aunt said my mother never wore it.”

“No, I think she did. My mom showed it to me.”

“Tinsley? When on earth—”

“When I took home the albums that day, Daddy said, ‘That’s my grandma,’ and my mom said it was a really pretty ring and wondered whether you had it.”

“I see,” I sniffed. Trolling for jewelry before I was even sick, let alone dead? Tinsley had to be more careful now—I had a spy!

“Well, sometime when we don’t have luncheon plans, perhaps we can find the photo.”

She nodded and followed me to the stairs. “What’s in those?” she asked innocently, pointing to the two green trunks in the corner.

“Oh, nothing. Baby things,” I said dismissively, with a wave of my hand. I couldn’t bear to glance at them, but she did, lingering in front of them after I was already on the stairs. I reached back for her hand to tug her along and she let me hold it for a few moments before she pulled away.

Downstairs I poured us each a glass of cola and I raised mine to hers.

“Well, to my dear mother on her birthday,” I said.

“To my great-grandmother,” she replied, and the sound of that phrase nearly broke my heart.

My plan was to walk into Bryn Mawr Village, since it was sunny outside, and quite pleasant for the end of March. We weren’t even two blocks into the walk before Ellie fell behind my brisk pace.

“Grandma, if I get tired, will you give me a piggyback ride?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Oh.”

“If you get tired, we’ll lie down in the hedges and nap with the hedgehogs!” I said and she giggled so loud it was a squeal. It hung in the air like a bell, like something you could see.

I crossed the street, and she followed me, skipping. We followed Barrett Lane until it turned onto the curving walkway that looped around the college. On clear days like this one, the path pulsed with students and the buzz of music coming from their earphones. Some walked, but most jogged, alone or in packs of ten or twenty in some semblance of uniform. Track teams, soccer teams. Even older people seemed influenced by the rhythms of the college, and joined them on the path. Everyone was in training for something. The energy around us seemed to feed Ellie, and for a long time she was able to keep up with me. The camera swung around my neck, but the tree where I’d seen the squirrels leaping the day before was empty, and I didn’t see anything else worthy enough to document.

It was still early, and not nearly as crowded as it would be at 2 or 3:00, so we were able to walk side by side without having to avoid anyone. A few college girls passed us, with bouncing ponytails and springy sneakers that made them look like they could catapult moonward.

“Promise me you’ll never wear a verb or a noun on your bottom.”

“I promise, Grandma,” she said, and I buzzed with pride when she called me that.

Another jogger zoomed around us, so close we had to dodge her droplets of sweat. So close the words on her yellow pants were abundantly clear: CHIQUITA.

Bryn Mawr Diner wasn’t really in Bryn Mawr proper. If it was, it would be on the edge of Bryn Mawr College’s campus instead of the edge of Villanova’s. Its green neon OPEN sign was almost as large as the small building; as we approached you could hear its thrum against the windowpanes. There was a short line for tables, but Stuart’s was too far away to be practical, so I pointed Ellie toward the counter. I ordered a club sandwich and Ellie decided on pancakes. She looked up at me as she poured the river of syrup, as if waiting for an admonition that never came. What, I’d like to know, is the point of eating pancakes without at least a decent-size tributary of syrup? When she offered me a bite I poured even more syrup on it, and she smiled.

Afterward we wandered through the small downtown. Over the years it had become more and more oriented to the college—vintage clothing, used books and music stores, a “raw foods” restaurant where all the patrons looked pale. At the art store I bought Ellie a new set of markers for her next project. Outside the thrift shop, a pair of young men played guitar and when they saw Ellie, segued into “Thank Heaven for Little Girls.” It was a cheap trick but it worked—I gave her a quarter to toss into their case, and she insisted I take a picture of them, as if they were famous. She stood at the edge of the frame, smiling.

Halfway home, the sun directly in our eyes, Ellie’s energy started to flag. She walked so slowly I heard her sneakers scraping on the sidewalk, and I had to keep turning around to make sure she was there. I motioned toward a bus shelter on the opposite edge of campus, and even though we were almost home, suggested we take a break.

I’ve tried hard to remember every detail of sitting there—how long we lingered, who else walked by first, the faces and gaits of the knot of joggers who swallowed Tinsley and her friend before and after we saw them, as if they were a Secret Service detail designed to keep them out of sight.

I saw her first, not him. It was the familiar flash of light in her hair that caught my eye, which I’d seen so many times in the sunshine of an Easter egg hunt, or the twinkle of a Christmas tree. Lots of women have streaked hair but Tinsley’s highlights had a particular golden glint, flying loose around her head like maypole ribbons, and I saw them right away. Her hair, then her, then him.

“Look, it’s your mother,” bubbled out of my mouth, regrettably, as soon as I saw the hair. Ellie stood up and looked in the same direction, not speaking, the way children do when they’re truly concentrating. I stood up, too, but I don’t know why. To protect her? To leap in front of the view?

“Take a picture of her, Grandma,” Ellie said excitedly and I raised the camera to my eye too quickly, finding my focus too easily. Tinsley’s companion came into the frame through my viewfinder, and he looked wrong, all wrong, like a tourist wandering onto a film set. Their elbows bumped and my finger snapped the photo quickly, as if I could capture her before he did. Then, in close up, in miniature, his arm looped around her as they ran in synch, and he kissed her, lingering there, though it must have been difficult, coordinating feet, arm, mouth. Did I admire their grace, the duet of effort? Was it a beautiful image, the light just right on her buttery hair? Is that why my finger clicked again just before he pulled away? Why, I can’t precisely say.

We stayed where we were. The Plexiglas enclosure of the bus shelter was cracked on both sides. It reminded me of cups that had gone through the dishwasher, and survived, intact, but not the same.

“Did he just kiss my mom?” Ellie looked at me with a deep furrow in her brow, a portent of her older, angrier self.

Here it was, I thought. The rightness I sought, my hunch realized, and I didn’t want it anymore, wanted only what we had before. I still tasted butter and syrup at the edges of my mouth, the smeared napkin, diner coffee, the cheap sweetness I longed to have last.

“Just a good-bye kiss. Lots of grown-ups do that,” I replied. I wasn’t lying to her. I was stating a fact.

“They weren’t on a doorstep,” she said quietly. “Or near a car.”

“The path splits,” I said. “He probably lives off to the left.” I lifted my hand, fluttering it in that direction. Tinsley’s house was straight ahead, not far, perhaps half a mile. They were out of sight now, over the last small rise, and could be anywhere. Together, or not.

We walked back slowly and didn’t talk much. The camera hung around my neck like a heavy stone, pulling. We stopped at a pond next to the local McDonald’s, where some toddlers were feeding French fries to the geese, straight out of their hands, squealing at the threat of being nipped.

“Fries probably aren’t good for geese,” Ellie said quietly, throwing a pebble into the water.

“Nonsense,” I replied. “Birds eat all kinds of things. In New York City, the pigeons prefer hot dogs to birdseed.”

On another day, there would have been questions, perhaps. What did birds eat in Philadelphia? Do geese eat differently from pigeons? But not today. We had only a few blocks left to walk, and I felt bad that I couldn’t carry her. It was as if she’d known she might need a piggyback ride.

The block where she lived was quiet. The houses were close enough that you could hear a door slam or a vase break, but there was nothing to listen to. Outside her front door, Ellie thanked me, as if she didn’t expect me to come inside. But I opened the door and followed her in. In the back of the house, Tinsley stood at the small kitchen island, looking through the mail, her face flushed, her hair caught up in a bun. The golden pieces in front looked wavy now, dull and damp from all her effort.

She didn’t hear us.

Ellie took her markers up to her room and I cleared my throat.

Tinsley looked up with a start; I forced a smile.

“She’s just run upstairs,” I said. “We had a fine time.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks so much, Ann,” she said, her wrists poised above the mail as one might be above a meal, anxious to get back to it.

When I got home I forced myself to look at the pictures. There was less in them than I remembered, no telling smile of contentment or blush of shame. What struck me most was the shape of his hand on her cheek, the stoutness of his thick fingers, the width of his palm’s shadow, so different from my own son’s delicate hands.