In the years to come she carried those bags of birds from house to house, decade to decade, hiding them in closets or basements. She had forgotten they still existed until after the divorce, in the days when she was at her wit’s end, couldn’t stop crying, and was sorting through her ex-husband’s stuff and her own. She found the bags right next to his old school yearbooks in the living room’s deep closet.

There were bags and bags full of delicate, fragile birds of every color. She filled her hands with them, and wondered why she stopped before reaching 1000, only short 226. Maybe that started a long string of bad luck, to have made such an effort, only to give up and lose her wish in the end. It showed bad faith.

That night in bed, half dreaming, she heard rattling coming from the living room where she had left the bags next to the couch, as if the birds had decided to stir and now thousands of tiny wings fluttered inside their paper traps. Listening, and feeling half-crazy, she wondered if she might be able to break that streak of bad luck that seemed to follow her if she finished them.

The next morning she rushed out to get supplies, and then spent the next three days making 226 birds as she watched TV in the evenings. Each night, in bed, she heard the rattling of the birds.

After they were all done, she tried to remember what her wish had been when she was a child and making the cranes. Was it a new doll, a new dress, a new friend? She couldn’t remember. And what did she want now? She didn’t know then, but decided later on in bed, while the rattling of the birds hummed on.

Before falling asleep that night, she imagined the birds were rising out of their bags and into the living room. They were caught there. She went into the living room and opened all the windows and screens, hopeful for their escape. Back in bed, out the window, she saw them rising into the sky, a cloud of many colors, searching the world for her true love.