Home to Roost
/
Four minutes before the alarm, and Trina was already awake, eyes open. Even in the dim light of pre-dawn she could trace the intricate lines of the cracked plaster on the ceiling. Some mornings, the lines coalesced into starbursts; other days, they reminded her of a detailed pirate’s map, the marked footsteps meandering here and there.
She threw back the covers and remembered—as she had every morning for the last three months. Any pirate treasure would stay buried for now. Amber, the 9-year-old lump in the bed, face buried in her pillow, was the daily reminder that the contours of her world had changed.
Pulling on leggings and an old T-shirt, Trina tiptoed out of the bedroom, down the stairs and out into the steamy July morning. Her niece could stay asleep. Trina hadn’t wanted to be a parent or a fill-in parent, but late on a chilly spring afternoon, sun glare masked the tractor trailer on the bend and her sister, Leigh, pulled out from a side road when she should have waited. For the first month afterward, Amber spoke gibberish, panicking Trina and puzzling the school counselor. And just as suddenly, the girl slipped back into normal speech, announcing at dinner one night, “Can we raise chickens?”
What could Trina say but yes? She knew Leigh would have expected no less of her.
So Trina was now also a farmer of sorts, with five hens in her rural back yard. She opened the coop door and emptied pellets into the feeder. Clucking softly, the Rhode Island reds clustered around her, already pecking at the food. Hallie, Hannah, Harriet, Hazel and Heidi—Amber had named the chicks the day they’d brought them home.
“How can I tell them apart?” Trina had protested.
“You will,” Amber said. “When they grow up.” She had chewed on a strand of hair, pondering. “I think.”
And so they had a pact, she and Amber. Trina would feed and water the flock and tend to the coop, and her niece would check for eggs, waiting for the first one to be laid.
There was no rooster—maybe later, they agreed.
After the round of pellets, Trina emptied and refilled the coop’s water receptacle. She checked that the mesh over the outdoor pen was secure, protection against the neighborhood red tail hawk.
“Any eggs yet?” Amber called from the back porch steps. She was still in her pajamas.
Trina shrugged. “I didn’t check.”
“I’ll do it,” her niece said, sprinting barefoot until she stood next to Trina. “Maybe today’s the day.” She was grinning with excitement.
Amber disappeared into the coop’s interior and was gone several long minutes. When she finally re-emerged, Trina was startled to see her eyes brimming with tears.
“What is it?” Trina said.
Amber held up both hands to her, palms out. There was not one egg, but two.
“At last!” Trina smiled in relief. Who needed buried treasure? “They are the first of many, I’ll bet.”
Amber, still somber, said softly, “The hens wanted to send a message from Mommy and Daddy, so they made two first eggs instead of just one.”
Trina gently hugged her niece. “I miss them, too.”
-
Hannah dipped a brush into the egg wash and spread the pale fluid over the turnovers, mentally crossing her fingers. Beside her and across the steel work table from her other students concentrated on their entries. She had to ace this final exam; if she didn’t, her budding pastry career would never rise to reality.
-
Most of the seats at the DMV were filled when Charla arrived, license renewal form in hand, and she ended up taking an unoccupied plastic chair against the far wall. She had an hour and maybe a smidge more to get her new license before Sam started docking her pay for being late from her lunch break.
-
This is your last chance, people, to find the perfect gift! My perfect gift would be a medical miracle for my dad. He’s been unconscious for two weeks, since the car wreck on I-80. The doctors say he should recover—if he wakes up. But he’s pushing eighty. It may not happen.
That would make a good card theme, right? A get-well wish made for people whose loved one is in a coma. May they snap out of it. Or, how about: Wake up, sleepy Jean. But that’s my dark humor bubbling up. Damn it, now my eyes are blurry.
-
Thanksgiving was three days ago, and I’m still reeling at what I witnessed. My sister hosted, as she has for the last twenty years. That was the only thing predictable about the holiday, though. I was there, of course.
-
At the chiming of eleven bells, the retreat’s evening session began. Squeezed around the table, six people scooted chairs until no one brushed up against anyone else. The room’s reddish glow came from a candelabra on a nearby shelf, and the air hung thick with cedar incense.
Featured Books
FIVE BELLES TOO MANY
When Sarah Blair’s mother participates in a reality show competition for brides in Wheaton, Alabama, things get a little too real as a murderer crashes the wedding party . . .
More info →
MIGUEL’S BRAVE KNIGHT
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra finds refuge from his difficult childhood by imagining the adventures of a brave but clumsy knight.
More info → THE OBLIVIOUS BILLIONAIRE
How can you know where you're going if you can't remember where you've been?
More info → 
A lovely story.
Thank you for you comment, Dan.