“Papa’s had a string of rough nights. And . . . it’s been ten years, Gav,” I say softly. I can tell by the crease in his forehead and the pinch of his lips pulling together that he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. “Our parents. Ten years since they—”
“Oh God. I didn’t realize . . . I’m an idiot.” He looks so distraught that I forget my own pain in the overwhelming urge to comfort him. He gets the Look, as I’ve begun to think of it. The one that says I’d really like to take your pain away, take you to bed and make it all better with my dick, but your brother would kill me so I’ll just stand here awkwardly while trying to figure out what to do with my arms.
“It’s okay,” I tell him, to ease his suffering. “Just weighing on me more than usual today.”
Little does he know, the Look comforts me. Because even though he can’t put his arms around me, can’t whisper sweet comforting words in my ear, or soothe my pain with kisses or more, his eyes tell me that he wants to—or he’s tempted to, at least. And for right now, it’s enough. The knowing. I just don’t know how long it will be enough.
Gavin pulls a soft pack of Marlboro reds from his pocket and deftly slips out a cigarette. I frown.
“Thought you quit?”
His eyes cloud over, his stormy gaze pressing against mine. “I can only deny myself so many things, Bluebird.”
As irritated as I am at catching him smoking, the nickname he gave me when we were kids still sends a wave of warmth right through me.
Dallas and Gavin mowed lawns the summer I turned thirteen. Dallas was saving to buy a truck and Gavin was . . . well, I don’t really know exactly. Probably hoping to make enough money to provide for himself so he wouldn’t feel like Nana and Papa’s charity case.
I was living smack in the middle of the in-between—mind of a child, budding body of a woman. Feeling very much both and neither all at once.
Nana sent me a few streets over to where they were mowing to let them know supper was ready. Fighting the urge to skip so as not to get all sticky and sweaty and gross in the Texas humidity before sitting across the dinner table from Gavin, I walked as calmly as I could manage, letting my hands dance on the breeze and trying not to get distracted by flowers I was tempted to pick.
When I arrived at Camilla Baker’s family pond, where the boys were mowing, they were huddled together and staring at the ground. Thinking one of them had been hurt and might be bleeding or possibly could have lost a foot or some toes at the least to the mower, I broke into a sprint until I reached them.
“Shh,” Dallas said, raising an arm that barred me from stepping on what they were staring at. “I think it’s still alive.”
“What’s still alive?” I whispered, entranced by the stillness of two boys who I knew firsthand hardly remained still or reserved this type of reverence for much of anything.
“Look,” Gavin said, nodding to the ground. “Its chest is moving. It’s still breathing.”
A thrill shot through me as I realized it might be a snake or something wildly unappealing, but I looked anyway. And there beside a patch of pond grass, monkey grass Nana called it, was a small, mostly round bird with midmorning-sky-blue feathers breathing rapidly but not moving. Instinctively I reached down to retrieve it.
“No,” Gavin practically shouted at me. “Don’t. You can’t touch it.”
“Why not? It needs help.”
He shook his head and then looked at me with this hollow expression that haunted me for years afterward. “Because if it’s a baby and too young to fend for itself, the mother won’t have anything to do with it if she can smell your scent on it. She’ll abandon it and it won’t survive on its own.”