Erin Fisher - That Tiny Life

“You want me to listen?” Kendra leans in and scans him. “You listen. That bird is overlarge. And some recessive pigment. It’s off. Fly it yourself.”

He lets go of her and reaches for his prosthetic. He will fly the white, he’ll take her out now.

“What?” Kendra spreads her arms and gestures to the leg he’s holding by the knee. “What? You gonna hit me with that? Slap me like you slapped that girl?”

Axel sets the leg across his lap. That hit bothered her? Hadn’t thought it would bother her. Hadn’t thought about it at all.

She drops her gaze and pushes her fingers into her eyes. “You know, there’s bottles everywhere. And he claims he’s quit.” She pours all three of them a shot. “Like that’s possible.”

He hasn’t given a thought to what’s going on at the dairy either. Would rather not think of Austin. Saw him once after the stroke. Swaying mess carted into the house. Once was enough. He turns his jigger. The quality of the home-still dropped when Milo took over, that’s certain.

He downs his home-still the same time the power cuts.

“The lights are out,” the kid says.

“Snow’s heavy.” Axel slides the kid’s shot to him. “Gonna need more than a thimble.”

The kid doesn’t touch the jigger. “When will the power come back on?” He tugs the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands.

“Not tonight.” Kendra pushes her chair back and goes to the spare room. She comes back with a deck of cards, a crib board, and a candle. “Game?”

“Why not?” Pours another jigger.

“That sure you’ll win?” She deals.

Look at her. She bates — tugs at her jesses — she’s restless. But it’s more than that; her discomfort is muscular. He has what she wants, a bird, and she can’t see how to get it. What she thinks she needs. She scratches her neck and tugs her braid to her lips. By her age — no, younger, he’d been younger than her — he’d already travelled south through Chile, then Argentina, and been hired on at a convent to hawk pigeons off the church. He sorts his cards. Jack of diamonds and eight of spades to her crib. Cut is a two of diamonds. He opens the play. “Three.”

Kendra lays her card. “Six for two.” She pegs.

The way mountains bit the sky. The flock of dove-grey nuns that crossed by him daily on the stone garden path. The coos and strutted challenges from the pigeons up the steeple. Orange trees. Sugarcane — he chewed a stick like a child until the gardener christened him Sweetie. Dulce , Sweetie, dig the yams. Sweetie, over here, help tie up flowers.

“Taking your sweet time.” Kendra tops their jiggers. Snow whisks the window and sticks.

“Nine for six.”

“Fifteen for two.”

“Nineteen.” He’d been too spirited to stay put, despite the draw that country had, how it urged one to settle. Girls there married Christ as fledglings, and even the glaciers deemed the mountain crevices home-worthy. After a year he jumped a freight ship and pitched up the Atlantic to Greenland, to Iceland, where he first saw gyrfalcons, and hurried back to the north of North America and the nesting grounds.

“Twenty-nine.” Kendra lays a king. She hasn’t been anywhere. She comes from an hour’s drive away from this place, from a town of semi drivers whose highlight is racing a rig on logging roads after coyotes. Sure she’s been to falconry meets, but what does that mean? Everyone there has a purchased bird. Not the same if you buy it.

“Go.” The rim of the candle melts and wax spills down to the holder. The wick curls and the flame lengthens. He found the birds nesting in the cliffs and climbed. Dried mute came loose under his fingers, crumbled over his back, and dusted away behind him. After half a day he reached into a hole in the rock and lifted a pin-feathered eyas. He held the falcon to his chest and descended single-handed until his foot slipped on the dusty rock and his leg broke badly. Still he managed to kayak back with a splintered calf.

“One for the last. Nine.” She pegs.

“Fourteen. One for last.” He paddled into camp with the bird in his shirt keeping him awake — its flurried heartbeat racing faster than his own. After that, hospitalization, where the doctor took his leg. Immobile, he begged them to bring the bird in and prove it was fine. Hired a kid to keep it in a toolshed. Trained the child to catch mice and rats to feed the falcon. His first apprentice, he supposes.

Kendra pegs for him. “Show already.”

Cody fiddles with the damper and sits between them at the table. He pushes his jigger Kendra’s way.

Axel lifts his leg off his lap and hands it to the boy. “Your mother’s father, my brother, drove to the hospital when it first came off. A self-proclaimed priest. Not a real priest. An asshole. Don’t know how he found a woman who could stand him. Always beating on everyone. Including himself.” Not beating, berating. He remembers the visit as a film, as if it wasn’t him it happened to, as if he’d been the bird the child held in the corner as his brother shook his head, disgusted at the stump — disgusted by the waste — and by the joy of the man in the hospital bed.

He spreads his cards. “Fifteen two, plus two runs plus a pair. Twelve.”

The kid clutches the leg at the top and lets the foot dangle. His face is round and his hair, dried in the heat of the fire, fans with a slight curl over his forehead into his eyes.

Kendra rubs her neck and lays her hand. Three, six, nine, king, all diamond. Flush. He could have seen that coming during the play.

“Look,” Kendra says. “Maybe I’m wrong.”

There’s no way she’s wrong about that bird. But it’s possible she shouldn’t have told Axel. And maybe she shouldn’t have poured the boy a shot, as he’s still staring at it like it’s the gateway to hell. Between that postcard and the leg Axel handed him, he’s not doing badly — given himself a job tossing logs to the woodstove every hour, although it was way too hot to start.

Kendra crosses and uncrosses her legs beneath the table, pushes her sleeves over her elbows, then peels off her layered tops till she’s down to her undershirt. She deals. Behind her, the woodstove blazes.

Goddamn Axel though, spying through the window this afternoon, being pissy about her truck — he pushed her too far.

Let it go and relax. Count to ten, or meditate on, on what? That she feels sorry for Axel despite the last three years of building rage?

Both of them next to naked and failing at cribbage. She’s distracted during the plays, Axel is frustrated. And trying to teach the kid is pointless. He doesn’t understand suits, and talks the whole time, breaking the quiet with awkward little laughs, and she’s worried that Axel — with the mood he’s in — will either hit the boy, or say something else weird about their family.

“Here.” Kendra downs the kid’s home-still that’s been there all evening. Better for both of them. “Axel, we should feed him.”

“You want me to feed him?” He hops to the counter. The rabbit is still on the counter in the bag and he picks it up.

“Are we—” Cody says. “Is that dinner?”

Kendra says “no” at the same time Axel says “yes” and she follows up with “Give the boy a break.”

Axel tosses the bag to the freezer.

“The power’s off, outside would be a better storage place.”

He ignores her. Grabs a Tupperware full of frozen empanadas and hops to the porch, slams a half-dozen on the barbecue.

“Jesus, it’s freezing, put some clothes on.” How does she always end up with this role? She holds out a coat. He accepts. All three of them stand in the dark on the porch. Cody’s brought the fake leg, but she doesn’t point it out. The cold is a welcome break from the heat inside.