No one knows who made The Wooden Bird. The artist carved it out of a humongous redwood stump, wooden feather by wooden feather. It must’ve taken years, ten or twenty even. It’s huge and each feather is unique. Now there’s a trail to it from the road and a bench by it that overlooks the ocean, but when the artist carved it, there was none of that. He was like Jude, doing it because he liked to, not really caring if anyone ever saw it. Or maybe he did care and liked the idea of strangers stumbling on it and wondering.
I’m hidden in the brush, yards away from Mom, who’s sitting on the bench staring out at the sea. The sun’s broken a hole in the fog and light’s reeling around in the trees. It’s going to be hot, one of those weird warm winter days. Dad’s not here yet. I close my eyes, find Brian; he’s everywhere inside me now, always swimming up my body. How can he shut this off? Will he change his mind? I’m reaching into my pocket for the rock when I hear footsteps.
I open my eyes expecting to see Dad; instead there’s a strange man strolling down the trail. He stops at the tree line and stares at my mother, who doesn’t seem to sense his presence at all. I pick up a stick. Is he a psycho? Then he turns his head slightly and I recognize him—that face, its geographic scale. It’s the artist from Day Street. Here! I drop my sword, relieved. He’s probably making a sculpture of her in his head, like I do with paintings. Is he out walking, I’m wondering, when all of a sudden, the sky comes crashing down in shards because my mother has flown to her feet, dashed over to him, and fallen into his open arms. I feel myself ignite.
I shake my head. Oh, it’s not Mom, of course, that’s it. The barking maniac sculptor has a wife who looks like my mother.
But it is her in his arms. I know my own mother.
What. Is. Going. On?
What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On?
Things start coming together. Fast. Why she was in front of his studio that day, her kicking Dad out, her phone conversations (his phone conversation! Hurry, my darling), her happiness, her unhappiness, her spaciness, her cooking and baking and stopping at green lights, her salsa dancing, her bangles and circus clothes! Everything clicking madly into place. Them, there, so clearly together.
The howling in my head is so loud I can’t believe they can’t hear it.
She’s having an affair. She’s cheating on Dad. She’s a two-timer. A toilet-licking asshat liar. Mom! How could this not have occurred to me? But it didn’t occur to me exactly because she’s Mom. My mother would never do anything like this. She brings donuts—the best donuts I ever tasted—for the toll collectors. She doesn’t have affairs.
Does Dad even know?
Affair. I whisper it aloud to the trees, but they’ve all run away. I know it’s my father she’s betraying, but it feels like it’s me too. And Jude. And every single day of our lives.
(FAMILY PORTRAIT: And Then We All Blew Away)
They’re kissing now and I’m watching and can’t stop watching. I’ve never seen her and Dad kiss like this. Parents aren’t allowed to kiss like this! Now Mom’s taken his hand and is leading him to the edge of the cliff. She looks so happy and it cuts into me. I have no idea who this lady is spinning around in this stranger’s arms, spinning and spinning, like they’re in some lame movie until they lose their footing and fall to the ground.
(PORTRAIT: Mother in Blinding Color)
What did she say this morning? It takes a lot to break through her armor. This man has broken through her armor.
I pick up the stick. I need to defend my father. I need to fight this asshat artist. I should throw a meteorite at his head. I should shove him off the cliff. Because my poor artichoke of a father doesn’t have a chance. And he knows it. I understand now that what is shrinking him, what is turning the air around him that awful gray, is defeat.
He’s a broken umbrella. Has he always been one? We both are. Like father, like son.
Because I know it too. I don’t have a chance either. “It’s done with us. It has to be. Okay?”
No, it is not okay. Nothing is okay! They’re kissing again. I think my eyes are going to fly from their sockets, my hands from my arms, my feet from my legs. I don’t know what do. I don’t know what to do. I need to do something.
So I run.
I run and run and run and run and run and when I reach one of the last bends before the trailhead onto our street, I see Brian walking with Courtney.
His meteorite bag is wrapped around his shoulder and their arms are crisscrossed behind them, his hand in the back pocket of her jeans and hers in the back pocket of his. Like they’re together. There’s a smudge of bright color on his lips, which confuses me for a second until I realize it’s her lipstick. Because he kissed her.
He kissed her.
It starts as a tremor deep inside, growing quickly into a quaking, and then it’s all erupting together, what happened at The Wooden Bird, what happened in my bedroom last night, what’s happening right now, all the rage and confusion, the hurt and helplessness, the betrayal, it’s a blowing volcano inside me and out of my mouth flies, “He’s gay, Courtney! Brian Connelly is gay!”
The words ricochet around in the air. I instantly want them back.
Brian’s face slides off and there’s loathing underneath it. Courtney’s mouth drops open. She believes me, I can see it. She steps away from him. “Are you, Brian? I thought—” She doesn’t finish her sentence because she sees his expression.
This is what his face must’ve looked like when he was inside that storage closet all alone hour after hour. This is what a face looks like when all the dreams get sucked out of it.
And I did it to him this time. Me.