Megan Bergman - Birds of a Lesser Paradise - Stories

I held Zydo in the backseat of the car as we drove down the pine-lined highway toward Raleigh. I spooned his tired back, rubbed his ears. I massaged the muscles weary from the Big Swim. My fingers ached from planting, but I did not stop stroking Zydo. My heart was subterraneous, a root crop, damp, hiding from the sun in shame.

It could be simple, I thought to myself. I could tell Mac how much I want a baby. I could tell him that I think we can do more, that I need his enthusiasm.

I went to find him. Zydo trailed me.

Mac sat next to the motor with his feet in the water. He was smoking a cigar and looked satisfied with life.

Sam quit, I said. And I want a baby. I’m willing to do anything. Things that cost money.

Looking pensive, Mac nodded and blew smoke toward the clouds. He wasn’t the type of man to respond quickly; he liked to have processing time. He lay back on the deck, hands behind his head. It had taken me years to find comfort in his silence.

I peeled off my T-shirt and jumped into the ocean. Zydo followed.

I closed my eyes and felt the water rush over my head. If Mac left me, I could take up agility training with Zydo. We could walk the halls of hospitals. We could corral errant geese at airports. We could find a sperm donor.

But what if it was me who didn’t work? What if I was rusted inside, imperfect, past my prime? Cursed?

Zydo and I paddled around near the boat. I let him swim to me, felt his claws on my arms and chest. I didn’t mind the welts, not now. I inhaled the smell of his wet fur. In a moment, we would both be tired enough for land.

Stay with me, I said to him, and I will make it up to you. Again and again.

Treading water, I turned to look at the fading sun. There was something appealing about an uninterrupted horizon.

I imagined Zydo swimming out into the open water. Sometimes you didn’t know what you were after, I thought. Maybe there was a speck on the horizon and you followed it, hoping for the best.

I pictured Sam leaving the garden, knocking off her boots before driving away in her expensive car. Tiny would sleep there, watch out for things until I was back. She’d shoo Phil away from the early cucumbers, keep Saint Charles from eating too many strawberries. I never asked, but I knew she’d do it anyway.

Tiny with her tired feet and cavernous mouth. Tiny with her varicose veins and dirty snowsuit. Tiny discarded by her family. Tiny with her whispered threats and kind actions.

Mac helped Zydo and me back onto the boat. I kissed his forehead and went to shower. As I stood underneath the sliver of water, I panicked. I needed to know that Zydo was safe. I ran out onto the boat deck, towel halfheartedly tucked between my breasts. Zydo and Mac were napping on the bow, a bottle of beer in Mac’s hand.

Trust me, Mac said, both eyes closed, fingers tangled in Zydo’s ears. Just trust me.

He opened his eyes and removed my towel with one hand, led me to the cabin with the other.

After making love, Mac peeled himself off of me and offered me the towel.

I shook my head.

Zydo put one paw on the side of the bed.

Do you ever get tired of begging? I asked Zydo, though I was happy to have what he wanted.

Mac left the room to pour us drinks.

No rocks for me, I said.

Ice on the boat was made from frozen seawater. To me, it filled bourbon with the taste of crustaceans, shells, salt, soft-bodied mollusks — the building blocks of living things.

Raise your hips, I’d read, let gravity help the sperm make its way to your eggs. I gripped my hip bones and thrust my pelvis into the air.

Just days before, Tiny had lifted up her shirt and showed me her sagging breasts, the jagged white stretch marks surrounding her areolas.

My babies done sucked me dry and moved on, she’d said.

The boat rocked with Mac’s shifting weight. Zydo paced the hallway, keeping one eye on me and one eye on Mac. Though my chances were ugly and greatly diminished, I put my legs up on the wall to hold them all inside.

The month after I found out my husband, Nate, slept with a woman who rode dressage, I rented a run-down cottage on Abbet’s Cove with sloping pine floors and a large front porch that caught the sound-side breeze. The Realtor dropped a marble and it rolled from the front door to the back. I’d always wanted to live in an old house, but Nate had preferred new construction. Perfect, I said to the Realtor. I’ll take it.

I attached an oil painting of the Virgin Mother to my headboard with a Chip Clip. She was street-vendor beautiful and reminded me of Donna Reed, draped in a blue bedsheet, lipstick and rouge faultlessly applied. That night I almost slept, the faint smell of Fritos above my pillow.

Dear Mary, I prayed, let me be celibate and rational. Let me, for once, forget about men and be happy.

Lights off, I lay in bed, no one but Mary listening, remembering all the men I’d slept with, the boys I’d wanted who hadn’t wanted me back, and how it had ruined parts of my life. The love letters I’d left in a locker for the star pitcher in high school — he hadn’t read them. The beers I’d bought for the guitarist six years my junior — he’d blushed. The husband I’d loved — he’d strayed. Maybe I hadn’t tried hard enough. Better not to try at all, I figured. Better to cut out the complexity and admit that I never really believed in marriage, the power of a vow between flawed people.

Mother Mary, I said. How can I find peace after this year? Have faith, she said.

You always say that, I said. Everyone does.

Two cats were already living in the house when I moved in. I let them stay. I let them sleep in the bed.

When I couldn’t sleep — I’ve had insomnia for years — I walked through my new neighborhood and gazed into other people’s living room windows. Televisions lit rooms like squad cars. I saw the backs of people’s heads, arms around shoulders, the moments when a family has relaxed into itself, into the couch, faces unwatched and watching.

Sometimes I sat outside and watched the silhouette of my new neighbor on his ham radio, his tin-sided shed lit up at night. From the porch swing I could hear the anarchist funk band practicing in the abandoned barbershop, the metallic sound of the doughnut shop stacking trays in trucks for the morning delivery.

I was a runaway from a husband who had cheated but felt bad about it — bad enough to want me back. I just wasn’t brave enough to go. I was onto something about myself. Even if my heart was broken, maybe this was my chance to live the way I wanted to live, and where. Sure I’d be lonely. Sure I’d crave companionship. But the idea of real freedom was seductive.

Within two months, I’d made one new friend in town — Al Hastings. Al was a food writer who frequented the mom-and-pop restaurants of Eastern North Carolina. He talked about vanishing Americana, red-eyed gravy, the genericized Southern vernacular. He was fat and harmless, and we shared a love of comfort food. Five mornings a week at eight o’clock, Al and I ate breakfast at Ella’s, a brick diner a few blocks from the harbor. He only had eyes for food, but he was company. I didn’t have to sleep with him to earn a conversation over breakfast. Though we spent a lot of time together, we never held hands, or even hugged for that matter. I’d only seen him look at Mae’s plates with lust, never my décolletage or tanned legs. I didn’t want to sleep with him, but I wanted him to want me all the same.

My husband once said attraction is accidental, that bodies decide on each other. Al and I seemed to have bodies that ignored each other, bodies more focused on what hip, cheap meal lay ahead.

In Abbet’s Cove, I found comfort in routine — in scratch biscuits and Sanka, in the company of a man who loved to lick grease from his fingers. Sometimes Al ordered things I couldn’t watch him eat, like brains and eggs. When he placed his order, his accent was thick, like he was trying to get in good with the waitress.