Bird in the Snow
Father will never see me again. I’ve never seen him lose it like that. Like a panther, springing violent from his deceptive calm. Even when I divorced Robert, eight months ago, Father didn’t react so . . . furiously. My father. And me, cowering into the sofa like a child. God, I swear he terrified me. I thought he’d actually beat me with those fists. He stood over me, all six feet-four of him, in his Sunday suit and the cufflinks like little gold crucifixes, hollering damnation in this life as well as the next.
I almost gave in. I almost said, “Yes, Father, you’re right. I shall not leave the church. Forgive your misguided daughter, and I will give my whole heart back to our Lord, Jesus Christ.” But I didn’t. And for that I’m forbidden to visit, or even telephone, the house of my childhood. I was about five or six—right, it must have been five because I wore the red sleeveless sweater from Sunday school at St. Joseph’s. It was snowing outside, quite a lot if I remember—yes, it was powdery, like that sugar we used on Christmas cookies and angel cake. I was alone in the dining room, and I remember this bird that had perched on the ledge outside. He was so pretty, and I leaned my arms on the window sill and pressed my face to the glass, enchanted. It’s funny. It was just a moment, a fragment of insignificance. Why is it that I embellish it with such an atmosphere? I remember his yellow beak, and the brushed back wings that tapered at the tips, and his speckled belly that made me think of white leopards in fantastic flight. He didn’t move. He knew I was watching, but he wasn’t afraid. I felt tingly and clean, as if someone had just taken a squeegee and run it across the length of my body. I sat for about five minutes, just staring, intoxicated by the bird’s presence. Then he flew away. I can’t say why—it’s just one of those things that stays with you—but I now think of that moment as one of the happiest of my life. I’m twenty-six. I’ve never been to California. Not even New York! Thirty isn’t that far off. But there’s so much I haven’t done! I wonder, is this all there is? Family? Church gatherings? I want that feeling I had. The feeling the bird in the window gave me those twenty years ago. I want to run, like a child, through winter fields of wild white leopards, and I want to fly.
I almost gave in. I almost said, “Yes, Father, you’re right. I shall not leave the church. Forgive your misguided daughter, and I will give my whole heart back to our Lord, Jesus Christ.” But I didn’t. And for that I’m forbidden to visit, or even telephone, the house of my childhood. I was about five or six—right, it must have been five because I wore the red sleeveless sweater from Sunday school at St. Joseph’s. It was snowing outside, quite a lot if I remember—yes, it was powdery, like that sugar we used on Christmas cookies and angel cake. I was alone in the dining room, and I remember this bird that had perched on the ledge outside. He was so pretty, and I leaned my arms on the window sill and pressed my face to the glass, enchanted. It’s funny. It was just a moment, a fragment of insignificance. Why is it that I embellish it with such an atmosphere? I remember his yellow beak, and the brushed back wings that tapered at the tips, and his speckled belly that made me think of white leopards in fantastic flight. He didn’t move. He knew I was watching, but he wasn’t afraid. I felt tingly and clean, as if someone had just taken a squeegee and run it across the length of my body. I sat for about five minutes, just staring, intoxicated by the bird’s presence. Then he flew away. I can’t say why—it’s just one of those things that stays with you—but I now think of that moment as one of the happiest of my life. I’m twenty-six. I’ve never been to California. Not even New York! Thirty isn’t that far off. But there’s so much I haven’t done! I wonder, is this all there is? Family? Church gatherings? I want that feeling I had. The feeling the bird in the window gave me those twenty years ago. I want to run, like a child, through winter fields of wild white leopards, and I want to fly.
Terence Mulligan’s fiction has appeared in The Washington Review, The Baltimore Review, Gargoyle, The Anathema Review, Wordwrights Magazine, and other journals. His nonfiction has appeared in Amazing Heroes, Maryland Musician, The Northern Virginia Rhythm, The Takoma Voice, Alive Magazine, and other publications. He was the publisher and fiction editor for Minimus: A Literary Journal for several years, and he coproduced the Iota Poetry Reading Series 10th and 20th Anniversary CDs.