Megan Bergman - Birds of a Lesser Paradise - Stories

I’m fine, I said, suddenly eager to hang up the phone.

I went walking that night. I itemized my old furniture in my head to the drowned sound of acoustic guitar on the boardwalk. The soft putter of a catamaran motoring into a slip for the night. Someone washing dishes with the alley door open. On the sidewalk, I passed gas streetlights, shadows of old buildings. The empty bank, the map store, fishing nets in the shop windows. Gulls balanced on pier posts, their loose down caught on the jagged wood. The organist in the old church practiced for Sunday’s service.

My mother once told me: Never underestimate avoidance as an effective coping mechanism.

I’d heard of a woman who only had use of her right brain after a stroke. She lost her ego, left it like a suitcase in another country. This was how she found bliss.

My bedroom in the new cottage was still full of suitcases, bags stuffed with old blouses and ceramic animals. Boxes of books lay underneath the bed. I hadn’t unpacked; I was still deciding, still searching for the right company.

I made my way home. My cottage was small and dark and the roof sagged. Yellow paint peeled from the front door. I let myself in and turned on the lights. The cats scattered.

I am vulnerable but not scared, I thought, getting in bed. I’m alone, but in charge of my life.

I opened up one of the Country Crock containers I kept in the drawer of my bedside table. I let the cats lick my fingers, then the packet. I fell asleep, but like many other nights I woke up after a few hours, my mind racing. I pulled on shorts, grabbed twine for a makeshift leash, and walked out the front door. The sound of the key turning in the lock seemed to echo down the street. The park was quiet, the gutter punks had gone, and the organist was satisfied.

I walked to Mussolini’s house, a small brick ranch painted white and surrounded by a chain-link fence. The streetlights hummed overhead. I leaned over the fence, pressed my finger to my lips, and said to the white dog: I have a bed you can sleep in.

The dog did not want to leave. Free of his chain, he went back to the tree and lay down, curling his body into a sickle shape, fanning his tail over his nose.

You can have better, I told him, backing away. This is your chance.

I walked back to the harbor side of town. I took my sandals off, sat on the dock, put my feet into the dark water, laid my forehead against the cool metal railing.

When I was younger, I would put my ears, then my mouth, against the glass walls of aquariums. I would speak to the sharks, the turtles, the translucent squid. Remember me .

But this year, I might eat whatever someone put in front of me.

Rhea called early the next morning.

I heard from Nate, she said. About things being final. Are you okay?

Me? I said. I’m okay.

I want to tell you about this blind cat, she said. The star of the shelter.

He’s all white, she said. Useless eyes. Ulysses, we call him. And every night I watch him jump from the floor to a perch, four feet in the air. He never misses.

Is this to keep me from feeling sorry for myself? I asked. Or does he need a home?

It’s about faith, Rhea said. You’re going to be okay.

On Sunday mornings, a gospel choir would walk by my cottage in their robes, singing Oh shout it out! The first time I heard them, I ran to the front porch in my bathrobe and started crying. They pulled children in wagons, their voices visible in the cool air. Every Sunday I waited for this.

All I needed of religion, I realized, was the beautiful sound of someone else’s faith.

After Rhea’s call, I walked the neighborhood. Only the very old and very young were awake. The retirees read their papers; it was early enough to wear a bathrobe on the porch. A mother nursed her baby on a porch swing. Her hair blew wild in the wind, which had begun to pick up as a morning thunderstorm rolled in.

I came home and picked out a low-cut dress for Al’s party. I hung it on the top of the bedroom door.

If only I had an entourage, I said to Mary. People to smooth my hair, brush eye shadow on my lids, promote my miracles on billboards.

I returned to my bed at eight. Mary hung crooked, but I left her that way, beautiful and imperfect. She hovered over me with the grace of a drunk. The wind stirred the walnut tree next door; shells pelted the siding of my house like gunfire.

I turned on the television and watched from my bed. The morning news footage showed coast guard helicopters searching fruitlessly for a young girl sucked into the sea on a riptide. The weatherman issued a small-craft advisory.

My sheets were cold. I slid my legs to one side. Once, unable to sleep and walking at sunrise, I’d seen a blue heron circle the rooftops downtown, its legs limp, trailing. I pictured it now, gray and archaic, searching for a place to land. In towns like these, I thought, there are no perfect rescues. You go down with your own ship.

Every year we went to a holiday party at Mr. Simons’s, where a haggard orange tabby held court on a chair with broken caning and an apricot poodle wove between guests’ legs. Mom and I always came back to Pawlet for the holidays to be with my grandparents — they were usually staples at the party. This year they were in Florida on a senior cruise, but Mom and I promised we’d attend in their place, especially since we’d just moved back to Pawlet for good.

Pawlet was a small town in southern Vermont, the kind of place where you couldn’t count on cable or phone reception. We’d been used to living in wild places, quiet towns that sat on the verge of nothing, towns that bordered vast deserts or thousand-acre tracts owned by paper companies. Six months ago we’d moved to Pawlet to be near my grandparents, taking a rental next to their house. Mom was sick. Every night, every family dinner, there were unspoken words in her mouth: When I die .

Our life in Pawlet was a contrast to the solitary existence we otherwise led; we went to basketball games at the high school, pancake breakfasts at the community center. In her last months Mom wanted to be around people, to feel the warmth of connection, for both of our sakes.

Mr. Simons’s driveway was iced over and Mom and I shuffled our way from the dirt road to the front door in the country dark. The house glowed, and the silhouettes of neighbors filled the windows. The floodlights revealed the breath of the horses grazing in the side pen, the slick spots ahead of us.

That’s coyote scat, I said, pointing at a pile in the driveway.

Dog, Mom said, trying to hurry me inside with a palm on the back of my neck.

Similar but different and I know when I’m right, I said, standing over it. You can always tell by the hair. And the oval prints.

Mom was afraid of coyotes, and for good reason. Back in Utah, one sank its teeth into her leg as she defended her favorite dog, a terrier named Aida. Round about fall, people in Pawlet started talking about a seventy-pound albino coyote in the woods behind our house. I’d noticed Mom stayed out of the backyard. I hated to see her scared.

Lightning can’t strike twice, I’d said, but then we’d both thought about the return of her cancer. The theory was shit.

Mr. Simons’s slate steps were slick with ice. The soft roar of the party enveloped us as we opened the door. Mom scanned the overburdened coatrack. I stuffed my mittens into the pockets of her jacket for safekeeping. I was notorious for losing things.

Remember, Mom whispered, squeezing my hand, gripping a bottle of wine in the other, be polite.

Marvelous! Mr. Simons cried, walking toward Mom and me. He kissed us each on the cheek. So glad you’re here.

Where are your folks? he asked Mom.