The Tender Birds, page 19
“He’ll pull through,” said Cam, and she felt in his tone of voice the assurance that it would be so.
With Daisy in tow, she had Easter dinner with Natalie, Elias, their son James, and Cam. It was still early when they left, and Cam asked Alison if she and Daisy would like to go for a stroll in the Public Garden. “Walk off some of this excellent food,” he said.
Alison hadn’t eaten much. She felt pensive, afraid of the air that touched her skin, afraid of her own words. When they got to the park, Cam asked her if she had told her mother off.
“I did,” said Alison. “She responded with a blank page.”
“This I gotta see.”
“I said I wouldn’t call her ‘Jeannette’ anymore.”
“Huh?”
“That’s her name. I wasn’t allowed to call her ‘Mom.’”
“Sheesh.”
“It doesn’t matter now. That blank page means she’s disappeared.”
“To you, anyway.”
She looked away. “I carry her in my bones,” she said. “I can’t get rid of my parents.”
Cam was quiet. “You’re also God’s child,” he said at last.
“I know that,” she answered. “But God didn’t bring me up.”
He turned to her, felt Daisy’s eye on him, took her free hand in both of his. “Alison,” he said. “They made you so unhappy.”
“I came to Boston to have a new life.”
He let go of her hand. “I’m getting too personal,” he said.
“It’s hard to talk about.” She found a tissue and dabbed at her eyes.
“I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Father Matt had a heart attack because he knew too much about it.” Daisy pecked at her damp cheek.
“How do you mean?”
“Someone has to know this,” she whispered, as if she were alone.
“Know what, Allie?”
It was because she trusted Cam that she let her words fall on the parched ground of silence, drenching it like a deep and steady rain. She told Cam how her good father died, how her home life dissolved in grief, how she fell into the arms of a man Cam’s age, how she ended up on the street. She related what Matt had revealed in his office.
Then she told him what Gavin had done to her.
Cam was silent.
“I wanted the snow to bury me alive,” she said. “I can’t forget it.”
Even the birds were still.
“I didn’t mean to cry,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right, Allie.”
The two of them sat, as quiet as the evening.
“And you’re so young,” he said at last.
“My heart is old.”
“Mine, too,” he replied, head bowed.
The Broken Sky
BOSTON, APRIL 25, 2011
After this conversation, we walked at dusk, circling the Public Garden, its fountains and swan boats and charming bridge, the tulips and daffodils in bloom, Daisy drawing stares and smiles, and it was still Easter, and Cam took my free hand again and said, “Remember when I promised to be your friend?” and I said, “Yes, and you said you’d never ask anything more of me and I said that we all need friends.”
Then he told me that I’d seemed so frightened, that he hoped I was no longer frightened of him. I told him no, but it worried me to think where this might be going, and then he said, “I appreciate your company, Alison. I told you my son was your age when he died in Iraq and I lost my wife to leukemia. Both of them left this world too soon, but I am consoled … I find you so refreshing.”
He paused, turned to me, put his hands on my shoulders, and then I knew I had to tell him the truth. “Cam,” I said, “I’ve taken a vow of celibacy.”
He looked surprised. “Are you entering religious life?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“Then why?”
“Because sex almost destroyed me, and I don’t want the life that my mother led, and then there was the rape.”
“Before whom did you make this vow?” he asked, and I told him that I’d made it before God, and I saw that his eyes were wet.
“I promise not to take advantage, but God won’t, either,” said Cam. “If you meet a young man who loves you, don’t be afraid to return that love.”
“In the end we will be judged by love.” It was his favourite saying of Saint John of the Cross, but I wanted to tell him that I would never be able to love a young man because Gavin treated me even worse than Wendell, and then Cam asked if he could just put his arm around my shoulders and we would still be friends and that was all he wanted.
I was grateful for Daisy, perched between us with fierce beak and talons, because I might have forgotten my vow, and I said it was okay, he could put his arm around my shoulders, and then I remembered last summer when he came to give a lecture at the church and I saw the broken sky inside of him.
Now with him pressing against me, what I felt were two savage wounds, two pieces of shattered glass that did not fit together to form a whole, their sharp edges puncturing each other’s skin. We were both desperate enough to allow this, to go further in the falling darkness, but I pulled away and told him I could not.
Insights
MY FATHER TOOK A VOW of celibacy, then died of grief.
It was not my fear of the hawk that killed him.
Am I going to die like this?
Loneliness is killing Father Matt.
It is killing all of us.
Forgiveness
AFTER MATT WAS RELEASED from the hospital, Alison wrote him a letter. She felt that her message was too important for email.
Dear Fr. Matt,
I hope you are feeling better and that you will take as long as you need to get well.
Here is what I would like you to know. You asked me to forgive you. Life has taught me that forgiveness happens bit by bit, and time allows it room to grow.
We both received a terrible shock on that day when we spoke. I think you know that.
I hope you will forgive yourself. As for me, I have been writing about my early life, allowing forgiveness some room to breathe. When I am ready to share my written thoughts with you, then you’ll know that you are forgiven.
Get well soon,
Alison
Alone
MATT WAS AT SHOREHAVEN, recuperating from his heart attack in the late spring of 2011. He avoided vacationers, went for walks, read, did some writing, celebrated Mass. A kind parishioner drove him to cardiac rehab. He prayed and took walks. He’d had occasional visits from Elias and Natalie and baby James, and from Father Ron. Alison wrote him a letter on stationery depicting a robin on her nest, with the requisite three blue eggs and flowering branch. It was a generous letter. She said she was trying to forgive him.
Company
BOSTON, MAY 14, 2011
Life has been easier this spring. Natalie has been teaching me how to cook. Elias loves Daisy and falconry in general, and I like spending time with little Jamie. On Sunday evenings, we have dinner together. On Tuesday evenings, I go to meetings with a group of graduate students that Cam brought together when he taught here in April. He had invited me to bring Daisy to their seminar, and they asked me if I’d like to join their Orni-theology group (Ornithology Plus). Yes, we do theology by reflecting on bird life. We read Teilhard de Chardin, Thomas Berry, and the Peterson Field Guide. Also Cam’s The Birds of the Air. Since it’s May, we have spent some weekend time together, observing migratory birds. The members of the group invited me to join them for a boat trip out of Provincetown this summer — whale-watching, but with an eye for seabirds which I’ve never seen. It feels different here without Father Matt. In some ways, better. I am spending much less time alone. Daisy and I are exploring the pleasures of human company.
They Don’t Care
THE NAMES, TO ALISON’S MIND, were beautiful: storm petrel, great shearwater, northern gannet, pomerine jaeger. Pelagic birds that roam the seas and breed on distant islands; they were the poetry of things imagined, hope unseen. It was July, and she had made it to Provincetown. Five years in Boston, and she had just begun to explore the old settlement at the tip of the Cape, its frame houses brilliant with flowers, its narrow streets crowded and alive. She was happy to be away from Boston, to feel the sea breeze against her skin as she made her way to the dock.
Natalie and Elias had rented a cottage in nearby Truro, and Alison had asked them if they would look after Daisy while she headed north for the whale-watching trip. She planned to call Father Matt before she drove back to Boston, stopping by Shorehaven if he felt well enough to see her. When she dropped off Daisy, Natalie invited her to stay over and leave in the morning.
“Matt hasn’t wanted visitors,” said Natalie. “He says he needs time to himself.”
“He is not happy,” said Elias. “His superior wants him to go on a retreat when he is well. It is likely he will not return to Boston.”
Alison was puzzled. “What about his teaching?”
“They don’t care about teaching. They care about the homeless Mass,” said Natalie. “And the church closing. They care about obedience. He stepped out of line on the Common. They told him to cut it out and he wouldn’t. That, and being famous and getting too big for his boots. That’s how they see it.”
“He’s just … lonely.”
Alison felt their eyes on her.
“It’s the way he lives,” said Alison. “He doesn’t know how to connect.”
“I’ve been saying that for years,” said Natalie.
Elias looked pensive. “He has a degree in psych,” he began. “But he misses so many things.”
“Yeah, and he was shocked when that prick got charged with rape,” said Natalie. “I sure wasn’t. Did he tell you guys about that?”
Alison murmured, “A bit.” She thanked them for looking after Daisy, told them she’d be on her way.
What Good
MATT HAD RECEIVED A VISIT from his superior on the previous day, and the man described his order’s plans for him. He was not going to contest them, understanding, as he did now, that his desire to be among the lost souls of the Common was nothing more than conscience gripping him by the collar, tugging at his muddled thoughts, kicking him in the shins and yelling into his deaf ears, “Look what you let happen to that girl. You could have gotten help for her. You could have sent her to a safe place, but you were not of a mind to do that. You let that young man prey on her. You saw it in his eyes. All those omissions you carried with you to the Common, and that’s why you let John the wino mock you and insult you. Penance not ministry. And what good did it do?”
He could not answer that question. Yet earlier that summer, Alison had sent him some of her writing, her reflections on her early life. “When I am ready to share my written thoughts with you, then you’ll know that you are forgiven.” At least he had that much. Forgive me, Alison. He did not feel he deserved more.
Cape Fog
ALISON HAD NOT SEEN MATT in the three months that had passed since his heart attack, but when she called him, he said she was welcome to come. He sounded formal — what you might expect of a priest who had never met you. Or, sad to say, even one who had.
He’s not feeling well, that’s the reason.
I don’t have to stay long, she thought.
She felt refreshed after the cruise, after seeing the magnificent birds as they criss-crossed the waves in the crash and sparkle of sunlight, after watching a pod of whales playing and leaping and spouting along the side of the boat, after sharing the thrill with five men and women her own age, along with a crowd of excited families. She didn’t want to tarnish that experience.
After the trip, she drove to Truro to pick up Daisy, and then to the south side of Shorehaven, to the rectory.
Matt looked as grey as a Cape fog. His hair had grown white and his trim frame slack and thin. He seemed frail, no longer sturdy and fit. They sat outside, on the rectory’s patio facing the shore. She asked him how he was feeling.
“Believe it or not, I’m on the mend,” he said. “I hope you’re well.”
She told him about the birding trip with Cam’s students.
“Cam’s too old for you.”
“Cam wasn’t there.” She felt annoyed, then puzzled at his state of mind. Matt seemed a bit dazed, as if he were speaking to someone else.
He asked how Daisy was.
Alison put on her glove and opened the door of her cage. “C’mon, Daisy. Let’s pay Father Matt a visit,” she said.
Matt watched in silence as Daisy rose and flexed her wings.
“May I hold her?” he asked.
Holding Daisy
GAZING AT THE FALCON, Matt had felt as if the creature were blessed for a moment with the gift of perception. What do you know about the world to come, my friend? Matt thought.
“Only God knows,” said an inner voice.
Feeling certain that Daisy had heard that same inner voice, Matt had felt prompted to ask Alison if he might hold the falcon.
“Of course,” Alison had said, her face registering surprise, then joy. She’d handed him the glove and tethers without hesitation.
“I had a raptor experience last summer,” he said.
“With Pete. Yes, you told me.”
“He showed me how to hold Clipper. A beautiful specimen. Back then, I was thinking of Daisy as if she were a new parishioner. I wanted to learn to attend to her.”
Daisy stood tall and flexed her wings.
“She’s thanking you,” said Alison.
Matt adjusted his arm to help her balance, as he’d been taught to do. He gazed at Daisy in wonderment at her alert stance, at the gleam in her eye, at the lightness of her body so well adapted to flight and to the hunt. He thought again about Clipper, his beauty, his fullness of life. For a moment, he understood Alison’s improbable professions of faith. She had once said “Daisy is a prayerful bird. I believe Daisy is capable of love.”
Only now, it felt as if Daisy wanted him to speak.
“Life’s a funny thing,” he said. “I went to Vietnam and ended up on drugs. I had a rough youth, but I got help, and I found my calling.”
“I didn’t realize.”
He knew that this young woman had never heard him speak about his life, no less troubled than her own had been.
“It’s true. And I am so sorry, Alison, that I didn’t reach out to you when you were in trouble,” he said. “I of all people, should have noticed.”
Alison gazed at Daisy’s elegant form as if it would yield her reply. “Later you helped me,” she said.
Matt was puzzled.
“You accepted Daisy. You let her come to Mass with me.”
Matt fell silent. “May I bless her?” he said at last.
Alison said yes.
His hand brushed Daisy’s head, the soft, tufted warmth of it. “By the power of your love, enable her to live according to your plan.” As he prayed, Matt felt an ache of tenderness for the life of this creature so unlike himself. He wondered if God ached like this for love of all creation.
What Alison Didn’t Tell Matt
KNOWING THAT ST. BART’S would soon close, Alison had been making the rounds of Catholic churches in Boston in order to find a parish where both she and Daisy would be comfortable. None of them would admit Daisy to Mass. In one instance, she made it past a distracted greeter in the vestibule, only to be reprimanded later by the celebrant, who had noticed Daisy’s seventh-inning stretch during a lengthy Eucharistic prayer.
Alison tried for appointments with various pastors, but they had been warned by colleagues that a nutty Bird Lady wanted to bring a “hawk” to Mass with her, and that raptors were predators and hyper-defecators. All answered her request through emails citing parish policy toward pets and various diocesan restrictions on the admission of animals to Mass.
One assistant pastor, a doctoral student, referenced an obscure second-century Greek text, the Physiologus, which argued that among birds, only the pelican bore pride of place in Christian metaphor, shedding its blood for the life of its young. Injured falcons didn’t count.
That was when Alison understood the gift that Matt had given her.
She shared her experiences with her birding/theology group. “Daisy is a prayerful bird,” she insisted. They all agreed.
Remembering her father’s words, she felt at peace. “Our Creator burst the bonds of death. God cannot be confined to a building or a tomb.”
Alison had no immediate plans to return to church. On Sundays, she sat in the Public Garden, where Daisy would give praise to God by lifting her wings to the sky.
The Torch
AFTER ALISON LEFT, MATT DECIDED to go walking. It had been a warm afternoon, but he felt the coolness of oncoming night and the consolation of darkness. On impulse, he decided to make his way to the sea. Marconi Beach wasn’t far, perhaps not the best choice for an evening stroll. Yet among all the beaches on the ocean side of the Cape, it alone had stairs that descended the steep dunes, which allowed the weary visitor a chance to enjoy the seaside. He could rest at the bottom, then take a meditative walk along the shore. On his return, he could ascend the stairs as slowly as he liked, with no competition from young bathers encrusted with sand, all of them hoisting picnic coolers and umbrellas up the dune like a hermit-crab battalion on the move.
Going where, he wondered. And in such a hurry.
He remembered that he had been young once.
