Noy Holland - What begins with bird

“We should have called first,” Grace says again.

“Hey, Grace?”

“Yeah,” she says.

“You sure do look like your mother.”

They don’t go in right away when Helen calls them.

Grace stays in the room with her father, talking to the dogs through the sliding glass door. The dogs are whining, prancing, little light caps of snow on their heads. Grace licks the glass door — that’s a doggie kiss — and one of the dogs licks back at her. She giggles.

She has an awful, wincing giggle. It is surprising — even to Walter.

But even this is not surprising, to be surprised. It is the order of the day, of the years she has lived. She has broken something, wandered off; she rode her bike through a plate glass door.

Months pass and not a peep and then, voilà , she appears again with some new affliction. She giggles and it sounds like choking. She sits on the floor and swallows and it sounds as though something living is being squeezed through her throat or sprung.

“Goddamnit,” Walter says. “Get up, get up.”

“It’s on,” Helen says. “It’s dinner.”

Walter gets up onto his legs first, pushes off his knees with his hands. He swings his chest up. Both of his hip joints catch and pop and his ankle wants to slip off his foot when he walks.

Carl glides in, takes his place at the table.

“You got to get your mind right, Doc. That’s the whole trick,” he says. He picks his fork up. “You get your mind wrapped around it. You got to. Me, I got no—”

“I haven’t the vaguest idea,” Walter says.

“Come on, man, I see you. It hurts you just to walk. Me,” Carl says, “I got nothing. I got no pain, I got nothing. I really feel for you.”

“You can shut up,” Walter says.

“Don’t,” Grace says, “Daddy.”

She walks around behind her father and hooks her arms around his chest. She lays her face against his neck and holds him.

“Naw, man, listen. Hey.”

“You all sit,” Helen says, and pours the wine, picks up the platter of ham. “In a minute, it won’t be worth eating.”

“What the hell do you want?” Walter says. Carl picks up a glass, taps it against another glass.

“Here’s to you, Doc.”

Grace is whispering to her father. She kisses the collar of his shirt. She kisses along one shoulder seam, watching for him to speak.

“I love you too, honey,” Walter says at last.

“Here’s to love, then. To love,” Carl says.

They take their places at the table.

Carl passes the bowl of potatoes to Grace. Grace’s hands shake; her whole body shakes. She takes hold of the bowl from the bottom. It is hot. She jerks her hand back, knocks over a glass of wine.

“Pfoo,” she says. “I didn’t mean to.”

Helen finds a towel, dabs at the wine.

“Well, how’s everything?” Walter asks. “How’s your new job, Francesca?”

“It ain’t Francesca,” Carl says, “it’s Gracie. She changed her name to Grace.”

“Did she.”

Walter draws in his lips, puckers his chin.

“Nobody tells me anything. I’m always the last to know.”

He shakes his napkin out.

“Do you like your job?” he asks her.

“What job is that?” Carl says.

“I like it fine,” Grace says.

“Carl,” she says.

“Goddamn. Goddamn, Grace. You kick me? You think I can’t feel you kick me?

Carl jabs at the slice of ham on his plate, eats into a round on the spit of his fork.

“You don’t want her at the VA anyway, Doc. A job like that. All them animals.”

Carl serves himself more potatoes, makes a place with his spoon for the gravy to pool. The muscle knots up in his arm.

“Grace, pass me them beans, please.”

She pushes the bowl across the table.

“Aren’t you eating?” Walter asks her.

She picks her fork up.

“She don’t eat,” Carl says. “You got any bread? Sometimes she’ll eat bread for supper.”

Helen brings her two slices of bread on a plate.

“Butter?” Helen asks her.

“If you got it,” Carl says.

Helen goes to the fridge for butter. Carl is eating the bread, watching her, her skirt pulling tight in places. He winks at Walter.

“You done all right.”

“Listen, buddy.”

Walter stands up.

“You want to fuck with me?”

Carl hops his chair out in front of Walter. He makes a little mocking charge that rattles the plates on the table.

“Yeah, boy, old man. Fuck with me. Please.”

Walter stands there, blinking. He turns and walks out of the room.

Carl winks at Grace. “Give me that loaf,” he says.

Grace goes to the counter, picks up the bread with both hands. She keeps an eye on the bread, walking with it, holding the loaf out in front of her, leans — as though she is making her way against wind.

“You got a real good girl, Dr. H,” Carl says, loudly now. “Them guys at the VA liked her.”

Walter puts on opera, sits down again in the wing back.

Helen tips a slice of bread from the loaf and puts it down in front of Grace. “Eat, now. You haven’t eaten.”

“I haven’t eaten,” Grace says.

“Mostly she keeps shit around, see. Likes to save it.”

“Will you leave her alone?” Helen says.

“Leave her alone? Why, Mommy?”

Carl passes his hand in front of Helen’s face.

“Open your eyes, please.”

Walter swings the door shut between them. A little quiet — why not? Is it so much to ask?

“You people,” Carl says.

He pops a wheelie, knocks his legs into the table. “You’re starting to get to me. Whyn’t you talk to me?”

Helen sits with her mouth pressed closed. Grace tears at the soft middle dough of the bread, rolls a ball in the palms of her hands.

“Grade, okay, I got it,” Carl says. “I seen her a mile away. She’s fucked. I understand that. But, you, cupcake, and the doctor, you confuse me. Because you look okay! No kidding. You look more or less all there.”

He pulls a finger through the mashed potatoes.

“Okay, so a person can fool you. Even Gracie could fool you, pretty as she is, if she don’t say much, if you don’t really see her move. Say if you saw a picture — woo. She’s a looker, our Grade, don’t you think so?”

He licks his finger, holds the lump of potato in his mouth as he talks.

“I carry three shots of her in my wallet, see, just to say, Look here. This here is the one that Doc took. That’s Brenja,” Carl says, and points to the dog. “I guess he’s the one that names the dogs.”

He holds the photograph out for Helen to see: Grace is three, maybe four, lying barebottomed along the dog, watching it nurse its puppies.

“I just love that,” Carl says.

He tucks the photo away, slides another one out.

“This one I took.”

Grace is lying in a fog in a field of cows in the photograph that Carl took, her skin pale as snow, hair a tangle, a clump of grass in her mouth.

“She’s a doozie,” Carl says, “don’t you think so? Here she is a baby, little fat thing, little tub of butter. Hardly moved, I guess — he must of told you. Hardly made a sound. But you can’t see that from a picture, you can’t tell. Keep your distance, that’s the trick. Keep a picture. But you know that, I see. Because Grace isn’t even yours, right? Your kids were born okay, I guess. That’s lucky. Grew up, moved away. The rest of his bunch too — doctors, lawyers, whatnot. Not a peep from them, they been busy. It’s good to keep busy, don’t you think? Don’t you think so, Gracie girl?”

“Oh, yes,” Grace says.

“Take Mommy. Bet you she stays real busy — charity work, blood drives, Meals on Wheels, all that. Am I right?” Carl says.