Diana Abu-Jaber - Birds of Paradise

Now Felice stands in his kitchen, eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Stanley feels layers of disorientation and distance gathering around him like the folds of a cape. This is my sister, he tells himself. Nieves is motionless, holding a scraped-out jar in one hand, as she watches Felice eat. The boy — Felice’s friend — barely speaks. He ate his sandwich in three bites, then politely declined offers of more. He hunches on the stool, one bulky arm resting on the kitchen counter.

But Felice.

The last time Stanley had seen her, she was on her way to another “party.” He had just turned seventeen and no longer believed anything she said. She’d run away five or six times by then. Their parents had recently started allowing her to go out again with her friends at night: her new curfew was ten o’clock and up till that point she’d been relatively good — twice she’d come home by 9:30. But Stanley knew. He’d asked her again, that very night, What is wrong? Why can’t you tell me what’s happening? He didn’t know why he still bothered at that point.

At thirteen, she was already five feet seven, a little hollowed-out by her growth spurt, her chest concave, her eyes with their ineffable violet light enormous, her bangs cut straight across her brow so she looked very young and serious. He realizes only now that as time passed he’d continued to think of Felice as that thirteen-year-old child, preserved like a geranium between the leaves of a book. She is still young and slim, yet changed. Her shoulders are straighter and more refined; the bangs are gone — her hair swings to her shoulders. Her eyes no longer seem overlarge: they are wide, almond-shaped. Nieves stares at her: he’d failed to mention his sister’s beauty.

Stanley tucks his chin: inside, a ragged blank — the feeling that this couldn’t possibly be his sister: she is still out there — a thirteen-year-old, who vanished into the night, a black orchid. There’s no way to reconcile this adult with the lost child. She mumbles to the boy (boyfriend?) as they eat, the two brushing up against each other, casually but continually, a kind of ritual of reassurance. Stanley notices their exhaustion — especially in the boy, who scanned the room as they entered — as if they’ve been through some sort of ordeal together. Their clothes look creased with sweat and grime and there’s a rancid whiff of unwashed hair and skin. Felice’s eyes have an odd cherry-red wire of light at their centers — a glint of barely contained panic. Stanley — who hasn’t been able to say more than a handful of words — now finds his fingers are growing rigid on his glass of water. Some sort of energy field has invaded him, starting when his sister came to the office door and said, “Stan — it’s me.” He carefully places his glass on the kitchen counter. Her extreme state catches at something in his chest, but he ignores it: he feels little more than a cold absence — perhaps, now, a few wisps of anger. All those years in free fall, living through plummeting fear, living through her inexplicable loss. Is he supposed to snap his fingers and be done with it? He regards her with some fascination: Apparently people are capable of things like that — of running away without a word of explanation, of leaving you to years of nightmares, images of them bound, beaten, tortured — and then they are capable of magically, brazenly reappearing years later to request assistance!

Stanley notices again the boy’s shoulders as he leans closer to Felice for one of their whispered conferences. He looks broad and strong, but he moves with restraint, as if to make himself smaller. Stanley feels an impulse to stop him, to say: Save yourself. Or perhaps he should say, more simply — It’s time for you two to go. He crosses his arms, the tendons in his neck and shoulders tighten. Just ask them politely to be on their way. Above all, it seems imperative to keep his parents from knowing about this visit — to spare them, if possible, one more iota of pain. After furtive meetings with her runaway daughter, his mother used to return with the disconnected expression of an assault victim. Stanley found himself in agreement with his father: insist Felice return or cut things off.

Evidently sensing his unhappiness, Nieves begins to rattle around the kitchen, pouring drinks, wiping counters. “The bathroom is over there if anyone needs it. Hey — really — how about you let me make you another sandwich? There’s plenty of food — we’re practically living over a grocery store.” Their dumb old joke. Ha-ha. She smiles and leans against the fridge, and Stanley’s neck prickles as he sees, for possibly the first time, her hands slide unconsciously over her stomach.

Felice finally seems able to focus — her gaze grazes lightly over Nieves. Her eyes widen. “Oh. Wow. I just — you guys — there’s a baby?” She turns toward Stanley. “You’re gonna be a dad ?”

With a despairing breath, some of that fortifying anger rushes out of Stanley. Nieves nods and fans her fingers over her belly. “Not everyone can see it yet. People aren’t sure if it’s a baby or just blubber.” She smiles and glances at Stanley. “But yeah — we decided to have it.”

Felice breaks into a radiant smile, as if Nieves has just uttered the loveliest, most sentimental thing she’s ever heard. Stanley shifts closer and places his fingers on his sister’s wrist. He says, “Feef.” Carefully, he encloses her in his arms, and beneath the grime, catches a whiff of that thirteen-year-old kid — grass and air-dried jeans — still there.

OUTSIDE, THE WIND GROWS more intense. Wrapped in blankets on the living room floor, Felice and Emerson lie curled together. Stanley listened to their low whispers for a while. They fell asleep quickly, despite the lights left on, the rain thrashing against thin windows. In the small, darkened bedroom, he and Nieves sit up in bed, Nieves’s profile glimmering and imperious as she watches the foul weather. “We should just put them to work in the market,” she says quietly. “Put your sister in wine or cheeses — she’d bring people in off the street. And that boyfriend is custom-made for the stockroom.”

Stanley stares at the clock radio, its luminescent numbers look watery, floating in darkness: 2:48. Ever since he’d learned that Nieves wanted to keep the baby, he’s started waking up at 2 a.m., his heart skipping, his breath at the top of his throat. Tonight, he hasn’t fallen asleep at all. “They want to go to Seattle,” he says to her profile.

“Oregon, dummy.” She hits his knee. Then her expression flickers in the dark room, wry and suspicious, “Why didn’t you tell me about her deal?” Stanley assumes she’s referring to Felice’s vanishing, but Nieves says, “God, she looks just like that old movie star — you know who I mean?”

Stanley gets out of bed and moves to peer through the door. His sister is so slim she’s barely a lilt beneath the covers. “That guy — is he her boyfriend? He says he wants to go train at some gym out there.”

“In Oregon, I know.” Nieves nods, an archness to her voice. She crosses her legs, a hand on her stomach.

“I can’t believe it’s her.” Stanley’s voice is low. “I really can’t. She was just such a kid when she left.” He tries to get a better look. His sister’s face is partially obscured by blankets, but he makes out that it seems to be contracted in a wince. A sharp line runs between her brows, her eyes squeezed like she’s dreaming of an explosion. Even though the apartment air is lavishly humid, tropical with night heat, the wall unit sends cool currents streaming over his arms, between his fingers; his extremities are all cold. He retreats from the doorway. Nieves gathers the bedsheet to her chest. “Stan?” Her free hand scoops the hair up from her neck. “I mean, I know that we’re not even really parents yet — we haven’t even met the baby or anything. But already it’s like, when I think about what your sister did to her. To your mother, I mean.” Her voice is subdued. “Stan — that can’t happen to us.”