Megan Bergman - Birds of a Lesser Paradise - Stories

My milk was drying up now and my breasts stung. I clutched my chest and returned to the house, pausing to look over my shoulder before opening the door.

It occurred to me that I did not yet know the sound of Poppy’s voice. What it would sound like when she spoke for the first time, called for me.

Russ was still on the couch, missing work.

The light hurts my eyes, he said. And my body — my body just feels like shit.

I called a friend of a friend who would write prescriptions for us without an appointment.

Let me jog over to the pharmacy, I said to Russ. I’ll pick something up for you.

I watched the lumpy shadow my body made on the hillside, my torso backlit by the sun, my rump a shadow on the grass. I hoped my silhouette was a liar.

What happened to the beautiful woman I always meant to become?

First Russ was a body. A big, rippled body, ripe and stone strong. Sweat beading on his skin as a fight wore on, blood slick across his teeth. A strange smile in anticipation of the next punch, a resilient swagger.

Watching him fight was a high. I gripped my thighs, tugged my hair, screamed at his opponent. The light shone on his wet skin. I could hear his breathing, see him planning his next move from my ringside seat.

The first time I went home with him after a night at the gym, he was still in his black silk training shorts. He took his clothes off and walked to the bed as if giving me a minute to take him in.

I had never been attracted to muscular types, but Russ was different. He used his body. It had a function.

Now, married, we slept on a borrowed bed and linens from our grandmothers. I’d learned to appreciate the impoverished elegance of heirlooms, but somehow felt that our own bodies had aged less beautifully.

The next morning we went to the veterinary clinic as a family. It was a split-level house converted into an office. Split-level houses always depressed me.

Given Vito hasn’t passed the sock, an exploratory surgery is our best option, the vet said. The cost of foreign-body removal is two thousand dollars.

We can’t afford that, I said.

I ran my hand down Vito’s body, paused to scratch the base of his tail. He lifted his black nose, then lowered it to his front paws.

Poverty, Russ liked to say, is a state of mind.

Is there a chance he could still pass the sock? I asked.

A small chance, the vet said.

But there is a chance, I said.

He may well pass the sock, the vet said.

I had a feeling he was trying to make it easier on us.

Heart of a fighter, Russ said, patting Vito’s head.

How do you step into the ring, I asked Russ on the way home, knowing how bad it’s going to hurt?

It’s like labor, I guess, he said. You anticipate the pain. It’s productive. Makes me feel alive.

Maybe that’s why, the next day, he head-butted a marine behind the DMV and came back smiling with a broken rib.

This is how Alive looked: dried blood on the corner of its mouth, bald head perspiring, a ripped T-shirt, shit-eating grin.

Months before, my father helped me move into the new house. His mind was slipping, but we didn’t talk about that.

I’m worried about you, he said.

He drove me down the dirt road to the new house. Dog-eared barns and sagging fences hugged the rough-and-tumble road. The truck he’d borrowed from a friend churned up gravel. I laced my fingers over my pregnant belly. You know, he said, motherhood is hard. Marriage is harder. I never pictured you living in a place like this.

He could’ve said anything and left a bruise.

I know what I want, I said. I can take care of myself.

Give up the illusion of control, my father said. Now.

Six weeks later, we used the same truck to move him into the veterans’ home, a place where he had to record his bowel movements, ask permission to smoke.

The hummingbird feeder’s empty, Russ said. You can’t just stop feeding them. They might die.

He had an old towel tied around his torso to hold two ice packs to his side and back. He never went to the doctor — not for noses, ribs, or wrists. He let them heal on their own.

I whisked sugar into boiling water for the homemade nectar.

I think I’ve got a loose tooth, he said. He held on to his eyetooth with dirt-stained fingers.

If you didn’t before, I said, you will now.

He curled up on the floor beside Vito, who slept on a pile of towels.

Think he’ll last the day? I asked.

I think he’ll last the year, Russ said.

Vito did not move. His breathing was labored and shallow.

I picked Poppy up from her play mat. She sucked on my collarbone.

Have you been down to the hives? Russ asked.

I will, I said. Soon.

The truth was, I was afraid to go.

Just big dogs, I thought.

That night I decided to sleep on the screened-in porch with my sword.

See you in bed, Russ said, raising his eyebrows.

I’ll scare him off, is all, I said.

I could tell he thought I was being ridiculous, and I was relieved he didn’t say more. I made a bed for Vito next to me on the porch, set a bowl of leftover rice near his head.

Anything you want, boy, I said, massaging his ears.

I thought of my father as the night wore on, as the cicadas tuned up and night sounds drowned out the washing machine.

If you must cede ground to your opponent, he’d say, break rhythm. Change the tempo. Remember — nature is mercurial.

Vito growled low and long. I sat up from my sleeping bag and saw the silhouette of a bear, illuminated by the porch light, just a screen between us.

I could not move. My mouth watered. My chest tightened. A small sound came from my lips.

Years later, when I told this story at parties, people imagined me defiantly raising the sword above my head. But I was paralyzed. My hands never touched the sword.

Vito growled again, and the bear tumbled down the steps, his musky coat gleaming in the floodlights.

He could smell the rice, Russ said later.

I heard Poppy crying upstairs, awake for a night feeding, or perhaps from the commotion.

I ran up the stairs, past Russ making a bottle. Poppy whimpered in her crib. I didn’t bother to turn on the light and crashed into the bed frame with my shin. I reached for her, brought her to my chest, wanting her skin against mine. She put her lips around my breast, but I was dry.

Russ went to the doctor the next morning. He was worried that the vision in his left eye was failing.

How did it go? I asked after he came home. Everything okay?

I’ll live, he said.

Sometimes, I wondered if that was true.

It seemed like the harder I tried to manage my life and the people in it, the more it fell apart. The more I fell apart. Now the woman I meant to become was on vacation, on the other line, otherwise engaged. She’d eloped with my free time, taken my figure, seized my sense of control.

Every time I thought I was unhappy I looked at Poppy’s face, studied her. Once I watched her, standing where she could not see me. She stirred in her crib, tried to calm herself with steady breathing. Her eyes searched the doorway. Her arms stretched outward— come back for me .

Russ was watching a fight on television.

Turn that off, I said. It’s not the same.

The television went dark.

Russ got up from the couch and limped over to me. I pictured my body as a salve, ran my hands the length of his back. We held each other without words until Poppy woke from her evening nap and Russ went to her.

I could hear her melodic sobs, Russ trying to placate her with Rolling Stones songs.

Later, Vito and I made our beds on the porch. I had rehearsed my moves. The idea was to scare and not to kill. I placed another plate of rice in front of Vito.