Page 91 of The Birdwatcher

Does it all sound so tidy and even sweet?

Parts of it were sweet and still are. Parts of it were not.

Shortly before her fiftieth birthday, Ruth died at Dawn Hill Hospital for Women. She was gardening with another inmate, another patient, and she simply lay down on the grassy verge and died with the sunlight on her face. The cause of death was cardiopulmonary arrest—as was true for everybody, as the medical examiner said in court years before. But though Ruth wasn’t very old, the heart in her chest and the other heart, the one we think of as the seat of spirit, were too battered to last any longer. So was her ruined mind, once finely tuned and trained.

After she and Sparrow had moved to Florida, Felicity visited Ruth in the prison hospital only twice. Ruth’s sisters went often, the hospital being not far from the Minnesota border. After her mother died, Felicity grieved hard for the Ruth who had raised her; but her feelings about her mother remained complicated, streaked with guilt, peppered with resentment. What makes someone change for the worse?

Felicity wondered what would have happened if Roman Wild had never come into their lives, especially since her adored younger brothers refused to see her. They’d chosen their remaining parent—wisely, Felicity thought—flawed as he was, rather than their wayward sister. Guy sometimes wrote to Felicity, asking to see pictures of Sparrow, asking if he could come to visit. Felicity always agreed. Guy never showed up. It was brave of him even to consider visiting, she said. She could imagine the stories he’d been told. Who wouldn’t be ashamed of such a sister? Would Sparrow also be ashamed of her mom someday? Felicity asked me this on long afternoons at her pool. Shejumped into the pool so that Sparrow, playing in the shallow end, might not realize her mother was crying.

The thing I knew from all those uncomfortable interviews was that the best way to make something bad worse was to not talk about it. Of course, Sparrow would find out about her mom’s past. Of course, she would get over it. Felicity would tell Sparrow the simplest thing she could but not one sentence more.

Only a loving parent in the twenty-first century would ask that question. Children forgave their parents for joining Hitler Youth—because their parents admitted this and repented. Children forgave their parents for being part of the IRA—because their parents grew in understanding and repented. For years, Felicity had allowed Sparrow to live with a double murderer. She admitted this, and she repented.

One of the demerits of modern life is too much time to think.

Yes, we are all so consumed by career and family and so on and so on that our tender minds are shredded like cabbage for coleslaw. Still, we have so much time. We do not have to wash our clothes in the stream. We don’t have to build the fire to boil our potatoes. Ordinary people have the kind of time that only philosophers used to have, to toss thoughts back and forth, yes to no, good to bad.

People forgive each other because they need each other. Unless the wrong is too great, the choice is simple, if not easy. This way lies independence. That way lies interdependence. Felicity could have taken Sparrow and vanished, but Sparrow needed us too. As time went on, we tried to help Sparrow see that most of the harm Felicity did was to her own dignity. We would all help Sparrow know that her mother was, on balance, good.

I would love to say that, restored to each other, Felicity and I had a relationship as placid as a day in May. That was mostly true. Once I told Felicity that good mothers didn’t necessarily give their kids everything they asked for. Felicity didn’t sayanything right then, but she asked later, was I saying that Sparrow was a spoiled brat? No, I said, but even good mothers made mistakes sometimes.

Felicity said I had a point.

Later I apologized for sounding like a high-handed ass. After all, how could I blame her? Felicity was making up for lost time and of course, she was afraid that Sparrow wouldn’t love her. No, Felicity said, not a big deal.

A moment later, she added, “Bitch.” For an instant, I was shocked. Then we cracked up.

A couple of months later, I asked her if she realized that Sam had once been attracted to her. She said, “Duh. He’s only human.”

I agreed. Then I added, “Bitch.”

We went on. We tried to live the life as friends we might have lived. Of course, the past is never really past. We did our best.

All of those events happened back when people were still trying to figure out how they would refer to dates that came after 2020. (Didn’t the “twenty twenties” sound weird? Like a vision prescription?)

Sparrow was a little kid then and now she’s a very mouthy but also cuddly young woman, not quite a young adult but nearly. She can do roundoffs and backflips. She can dive off the high board. She wears green nail polish. She reads only mysteries. Nelia is still little enough that she considers Sparrow the equivalent of a movie star she has the privilege of hanging out with.

Felicity has had two or three promising dates. But she’s holding out for a combination of Sam Damiano, Sam Claflin, and Samuel Adams—the signer of the Declaration, not the beer. She’s not holding out to wait for another child; she’s already begun that clinical process. Anyone who falls in love with Felicitywill have to consider Sparrow and a player to be named later as value added. Anyone who falls in love with Felicity will have to understand that she has a past, including but not limited to an erroneous conviction for murder.

It really did take years for me to think of ordinary life, each day not so very different from the day before or the day after, as something it was possible to trust. The first big story I wrote may always be the biggest story I ever do. And you know what? That is 100 percent okay with me.

When I set out to be a journalist, I wanted to change the world. But, as Leo Tolstoy (remember him?) said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

Without meaning to, I changed myself by changing a very small part of the world, helping out a few people, people who were my world. It turned out to be enough.

When we were children, Nell and I made parachutes from the sheets that our mother dried outside on a spinning rack. We had a dryer. But perhaps our busy working mom wanted to give us a memory of another mother, who paid attention to such small details. We would tie the corners together, slip our arms through these makeshift sleeves, and then jump from a tree or from the roof of the shed, and we never doubted, even after Nell chipped a tooth and I cracked my collarbone, that these parachutes would bear us safely to earth.

I still drag my parachute of the past behind me, and in it are the people I have met and made and loved—Sam, my parents, Nelia, Joey, Danny, Sparrow, Ruth Wild, Nell, Lily Landry, Archangel, and Felicity, Felicity, Felicity—and as long as I drag that parachute and my heart keeps pumping, I believe that it will somehow bear me safely to earth wherever I land.

The parachute is love.

For what is this life? Comforting, confounding, besmirched, and bedazzling life? What does it all mean? It means the people we carry. They are our hell, as the philosopher said, but also our heaven.

They follow us everywhere. They become our home.