Kim Church - Byrd

Dear Byrd ,

This is how I told your father .

We climbed up on his roof. We could see the ocean, wrinkles of light in the distance. I was wearing a billowy cotton skirt. I wanted to look soft, unthreatening, unselfconsciously pretty. I wanted your father to love me. My legs were pale, not used to sun in winter. I had painted my toenails lavender. I wanted him to be a little sorry he hadn’t loved me all along .

The roof of his apartment was flat, asphalt. All grit and sparkle .

He was glad to see me, he said. He didn’t ask why I’d come back .

He unfolded an orange blanket from his sofa bed and we laid out our picnic: smoothies, crinkle-cut fries from his favorite stand on the beach, canned peaches from his kitchen, and barbecue I’d brought from home, packed on dry ice. So much food. I had to make myself eat. I chewed slowly, counting each bite, the way you’re supposed to, though I couldn’t remember how high to count .

A warm breeze ruffled my skirt .

Your father offered to spike my smoothie, but I covered my cup with my hand .

I wish I could tell you we were young, inexperienced, not yet grownups or ready to be. That’s the story you’re expecting, isn’t it?

We were thirty-two. We’d grown up together. Everything about the afternoon — our picnic, the roof, the sun, the salty air, your father’s pilled orange blanket, him sitting close and warm beside me — had been coming all our lives .

After we’d eaten, when I couldn’t put it off any longer, I told him my news, the news I had carried across the country to deliver in person. I thought if I could see him when I told him, I would know what to do .

I was delicate, telling him. Artful, as I’d practiced. So artful he didn’t understand at first what I was saying. He blinked like the sun was hurting his eyes. The big white California sun, dazzling, warm even in February .

Carswell, North Carolina, August 1965. The summer before fourth grade, the summer before Roland. Addie is playing with her little brother in the blow-up pool under the poplar tree, in the shade. Fair-skinned children. Claree, their mother, doesn’t want them to burn. She is hanging laundry.

“Stop!” Addie yells.

Sam won’t stop splashing her. He is five, small for his age because of asthma. He splashes her again, his hand flinging a few drops of water in her face, her eyes. One in her mouth at exactly the wrong instant. It catches in her throat — so small, a tiny droplet. Who could choke on a tiny droplet? But Addie’s throat closes, and when she tries to breathe, nothing happens. She pulls for air, she pushes. Nothing. Her head starts to feel tight like a tied-off balloon. Her face gets hot. Her eyes water.

“What’s the matter?” Sam says, taunting, little-brothery.

Addie jumps out of the pool and runs to her mother. Sam runs after her.

“What, honey?” Claree says.

“I didn’t do it,” Sam says, crossing his arms over his chest. He is shivering, his swim trunks dripping.

Addie moves her lips. Help , she tries to say, I can’t breathe . But her mother doesn’t understand, or doesn’t know what to do. Seconds are going by with no air, and Addie doesn’t know which neighbors are home or if she could get to them in time or if they could save her anyway.

Finally her mother clicks into gear. She grabs Addie from behind and presses her bony fists under Addie’s ribs — once, twice, three times, until the air comes. Not the big gulps Addie wants, but a thin, whistling stream. Enough, but just barely.

Sam starts to cry. His crying turns to wheezing.

Claree puts her arms around both of them and kneels down. Addie expects her to tell them everything’s fine, not to worry. But she just keeps kneeling until she is all the way on the ground, sitting in a patch of moss with her dress billowed out around her, the blue laundry dress with big pockets for clothespins.

Roland’s last Alabama summer. His family is about to move to North Carolina, where he will start fourth grade in a classroom where the desks are set out in a circle instead of rows, and the teacher, Miss Overcash, wears tight seersucker dresses that show the raised outline of her bra. When she calls roll he will answer “present” instead of “here” and everyone will laugh, kids with crew cuts and pigtails and teeth too big for their faces, all staring because he’s the new boy and his shirt is paisley instead of checks or stripes. His favorite shirt, worn just to impress them. A girl with green eyes and long thin red braids will stare hardest. She won’t even pretend not to. Addie Lockwood. She will stare so hard he will have to look away.

But not yet. Not today. Today he’s still in Birmingham and Dooley is his best friend and they’re at the swimming pool like any other day of any other summer. Except today, as a parting gift, Dooley is teaching him how to dive.

They start on the edge of the pool. Dooley shows him how to bend his knees, lift his arms, cross his hands. He shows him how to tuck his chin to his chest. The idea is to go in clean, without a splash.

Roland has good form. He does everything Dooley says. What he doesn’t know, what Dooley hasn’t told him because Dooley doesn’t know either, is that you can tuck your head too tight, you can curl all the way under yourself in the water and come around and hit your head on the side of the pool.

All he will remember is plunging in, the thrill of going under headfirst, water rushing up and closing around him, swallowing him, the music of it. A burbly, muted symphony.

When he wakes up he is lying on the pavement with people standing over him. Everything, everyone glistens, Dooley most of all, with his slick white hair and blinking, bloodshot eyes.

“Not bad for your first try,” Dooley says. “You almost nailed it.”

Dear Byrd ,

What’s your name now, I wonder. Not Blake, I hope, or Blair. Or Smitty. Please, not Smitty .

I can guess what you’re thinking: what mother would name her child Byrd?

But I knew the name wouldn’t follow you. Which is partly why I chose it — I wanted a name no one else would ever call you. One thing about you that would be only mine .

What I first loved about your father was his name. It was lyrical, something you might hear in a song or read in a book .

Not that anyone would ever write a book about him. Or that he would ever read it .

Addie believes in books. They are more interesting than real life and easier to understand. Sometimes you can guess the ending. Things usually work out, and if they don’t, you can always tell yourself it was only a book.

Also, there’s the paper-and-glue smell of them, and the way the pages turn soft from being read and re-read.

In first grade, Addie’s teacher gives reading prizes: for every twenty-five books, a silver dollar, or, if you prefer, she’ll drive over to your house after supper and let you choose a toy out of the trunk of her car. Addie always invites her over. She likes having the teacher’s giant black Chevrolet parked out front where the neighbors can see. She likes standing over the trunk, inspecting the dolls, cradles, jump ropes, Slinkies, kickballs, knowing any of them could be hers. In the end, she is always practical. She collects enough silver dollars to fill a peanut butter jar, which she keeps on her dresser. It makes her feel rich and important, like someone you might read about in a book.