Erase the Days

“We’re supposed to run,” Grant says.

It’s dinner. We eat at the small round kitchen table underneath the multicolored rustic light fixture, which casts a warm rainbow glow. This is where Family Time is served. Also, it’s Taco Night. Classical music is playing from our iWhatever on the countertop. My wife likes to keep it on when we eat. She says the music is nourishing. Like, maybe with it in the background we’ll have a more inspired conversation. She didn’t use that word, inspired, but it’s what she means. I find it distracting. When a song comes on that I know, I can never quite remember the composer or the title of the tune. For me it’s all Mozart and Beethoven.

To Grant I say, “That’s it? Run?”
“Yeah, if there’s an active ——-. Also, avoid eye contact.”
“Eye contact?”
“With the perp.” “Perp?”
“Dad, yes. It’s short for perpetrator.”
“I know. It’s just that—”
“They got a pamphlet,” Heather says.
“I’d like to see that.”
“It’s on the kitchen counter. Beside the bills.”
“For homework we’re supposed to write how we feel about —–.”
“Feel?”
“Dad, come on. You need to get your hearing checked.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just . . . how you feel?”
“Maybe you could write a poem,” Heather suggests.
“How do you feel about them, Dad?” Grant has this habit of shredding his paper napkin into tiny bits in his lap when he eats. “What poem would you write?”

I don’t want to talk about it, and I certainly don’t want to write a poem. Not ever and especially not during Family Time at the table with the salsa and guacamole.

Just thinking is bad enough. Of the children. Any one of them could have been Grant. My son. We gave him my wife’s maiden name. And the parents of those kids? No, no. I don’t think so. Not going to discuss.

Of course, it doesn’t matter that I don’t want to talk about it. Everyone else does. Radio, television, newspapers, movies, computers, smartphones—pinging, whirring, infinitely ricocheting words, words, words, enough to make you numb. And images. Don’t forget what it looks like. Digitally remastered. Everything crystal clear. Pictures so sharp they slice retinas. Best to pinch eyes shut.

“What do you think I should do if something like what happened at that school happens . . .”

In the aftermath, teachers have been asked to prepare their classes. To bring —– into the classroom as an idea in order to protect kids if they become a reality. As they did at that school, as they could in Grant’s fifth-grade class.

“It won’t,” I say.
“Say it does.”
“You know how small the odds are? Infinitesimal.”
“It’s more common than you think. The teacher showed us the statistics. Numbers don’t lie.”
“Fine, it’s bad. I get it. Talking about it doesn’t help.”
“We can’t do nothing, Dad.”
“Are you sure? Have we really even tried to do nothing?”
“We don’t have to have this conversation tonight,” Heather says. “I don’t want to have it tomorrow either. Let’s just not talk about it. Ever. Not at the table and not at school. Maybe the best way to keep —– out of the classroom is to keep them out completely. Never say a word.”
“Yeah right,” Grant says. “As if.”

A part of me feels like launching into the speech I would have given if I had gone to the PTA meeting this week. That’s usually my wife’s jurisdiction; Heather’s a much better P than I am. If I did go to the next one and was given the opportunity to offer my two cents, I’d say, “Let’s keep —– relegated to the textbooks.” I’d use that word, relegated, to show that I meant business. I’d talk loud and clear. Put a little boom in my voice. I’d say, “Let parents talk—or not talk—about —– at home.

Let’s not overreact. Times have changed, but a child’s innocence has not. Isn’t it up to us to protect their vulnerability? To show them all the good in this world? There is still good in the world. They are what’s good. Let us not forget that. Let us not taint them with the horrors and atrocities of our contemporary moment. What happened at that school . . . abominable. I don’t presume to know what could or should have been done to prevent that kind of arbitrary senselessness. But let’s not abandon reason now. Let’s not frighten the kids.”

That’s what I would say, if I did want to talk about it. Heather reported that the PTA decided the school should—must—do something. So they’ve initiated a plan of action. Better safe than sorry, blah, blah. If there’s a fire, kids are trained to stop, drop, and roll. Tornado? Line up in the hallway, curl into a ball, and protect your head. Now, in the event of an active-——- situation they’re supposed to run. That strikes me as wrong on many levels, but I refuse to bring it back up. Instead, to Heather and Grant, I try to boil it down. I say, “It’s like this: Not talking + Not thinking = No more —– in school. Problem solved.” “That’s fuzzy math.”

“Fuzzy how?”
“Well, if you don’t talk about or think about cockroaches, it doesn’t make them disappear. Pass the sour cream.”
“Pass the sour cream, what?” Heather says.
“Please. Pass it, please, Mom.”
“When you were a baby, we didn’t talk or think about them,” I say. “He’s not a baby anymore, Al.”
“No, I know. That’s not the point.”
“Did you know,” Grant says, “that for every single cockroach you see, there are like a hundred that you can’t see hiding in the walls?”
“I didn’t know that,” Heather says. “That’s interesting. The bug man was here last week.”
“Exterminator,” Grant corrects.
“Touché,” Heather says. She doffs a pretend cap in his direction. “But Grant’s got a point,” I say, “with his cockroach metaphor.” “It’s not a metaphor.”
“It could be, though. Let’s say you’re not talking about actual cockroaches.”
“I am. I read it in—”
“Pretend you’re not. Think of cockroaches as —–. For every actual  you see, there are thousands, maybe millions of representations of them on television, in the movies . . .”
“Dad—”
“ . . . on video games, cartoons . . .”
“Dad, I was talking about actual cockroaches.”
“ . . . in textbooks. And now for homework. You see? —– are in our heads like cockroaches in the walls.”
“That’s more of a simile,” Heather says. “Like or as = simile,” Grant says.
“Yeah, but the idea is still sound. If your mind is a clean house, you have nothing to fear. Unless, of course, you do. Like at that school. That was nobody’s fault except, obviously, that one rotten apple. For every bad one of us, how many good are there?”
“Are we talking about —- or apples?” Grant shifts his eyes to his mother.

If you were to take two blue morpho butterflies, mash them into tiny balls in your fists, and cram them into my wife’s orbital cavities, you’d have her eyes. The irises have a cerulean hue and swirl with flecks of ebony.

“You should use a simile in your poem,” Heather says.
“Yes, but—” I say, with more to follow, when Grant shoves an enormous triangle of taco into his mouth. There is an explosion of sound as he gnashes. It’s enough to drown out the classical music I don’t recognize.
“It’s Brahms,” Heather says, even though I didn’t ask. “You can hear him in the strings.”

Weekdays I’m up early. I beat Grant’s school bus by an hour. It’s April in Richmond; April everywhere. Sun’s still surfing the Atlantic. Light will not find me until I’m settled in my roost.

Before I can get into my car I’m startled by a voice. I was just thinking about that missed opportunity when Grant asked me what he should do if an active ——- ever—God forbid—enters the school. If I’d wanted to talk about it, I could have said, “Lie still on the floor, and pretend that you’re already —–. Try to trick the monster.” The response is imperfect, I know. It means I’m asking Grant to protect himself even if other kids get hurt. That’s not exactly heroic or anything, but it’s the best I can come up with now, which is more than I came up with last night.

“I startle you, Neighbor?” It’s William Pettibone. He’s difficult to see in the misty predawn.

“No,” I say. “You’re fine.” William calls me Neighbor because he can’t remember my name, although we’ve been neighbors for seven years and sometimes he returns my mail when the mailman misdelivers it, but not before opening it—accidentally he says.

“Gonna go stick your head in the clouds, huh?” he snorts. Though it’s still darkish, I can see his bright white teeth.

He’s talking about my job. I’m a bird compiler. I observe and record the migratory patterns of certain waterfowl in the nearby wildlife preserve. My eyes are on the river as much as they’re in the sky. William has made it clear he thinks what I do is worthless. He cannot wrap his head around the idea of counting birds as a means of preservation. He’s a retired plumber. In his profession the toilet flushes or it doesn’t. The faucet leaks until you make it stop leaking. Plunge, plunge, plunge until the clog is gone.

“Yeah, Bill, off to work,” I mutter under my breath.

“Hey, let me ask you something,” he calls, placing one slippered foot upon the dewy grass. He has something in his hands. He’s on the side of the driveway closest to my property. His robe is undone, and his huge eggshell-colored belly casts a pale luminescence. If I don’t get away immediately, he’ll cross through our lawns with his prehistoric gait, attempt to sling a meaty arm around my shoulder, and chum me up. “In a hurry,” I say, turning to my Camry and fumbling to unlock the door.

“A few buddies of mine were talking about converting some of the open space next to the clubhouse into a shuffleboard court, and I thought maybe I’d bring it up tonight.   You are going to the homeowners meeting?”

The lock, it clicks. The door. Opens. The car. I’m into. I slam him away and crank the engine. Reverse. Forward. Goodbye.

“We’d appreciate your support,” Bill shouts, holding his soggy newspaper aloft. His gigantic voice awakens every dog on the block.

I’m in my blind in time to see first light stain the elbow of the James River—the view I’m afforded—a shimmering marigold sheen. The tree house, which I helped build with a carpenter employed by the Environmental Protection Agency, is made of plywood and two-by-fours. We painted everything sap-green so it blends. When it looks like rain, I drape a camouflage tarp over the canopy of branches. Today it’s clear skies. I set my backpack aside, fold myself into a sitting position, and open the logbook.

Every morning I fetch the hefty record book from the on-duty ranger in the office before hiking the three miles here. At the end of the day I return it. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays it’s Ranger Joe, the rest it’s Ranger Susan. They’re both bright young conservationists committed to living simple, unobtrusive lives. They shoo trapped flies out the window. Good, conscientious people. Salt of the earth. Most days we chat for a while about the weather, our health, flora and fauna. Upbeat, forward-thinking stuff. It’s only on rare occasions that they complain. Sometimes they’ll mention how they would like to change the past. They don’t mean fixing the Grand Atrocities like th——— or —-—those are too big and the consequences of messing around with history might lead to other problems, etc. They’re talking about smaller issues. Joe recently told me that an injured squirrel (it had been attacked by a hawk), which he’d been trying to nurse back to health since early March, —–. If a Day Eraser existed in the form of a time machine or portal or leprechaun or wormhole, he’d go back and wave his arms around like a lunatic to frighten off the raptor. And Susan, who has only now realized that she married Tom too soon, would subtract some of those earlier moments—either when she believed she was falling in love or else when she realized that she wasn’t—so the mess of the divorce didn’t fill her occasionally unguarded heart with gloom.

It always makes me a little happy when the Rangers feel compelled to share their problems with me. Not that I’d wish bad days upon them in order to make myself feel needed. It’s just that I’m a good listener who is rarely asked to listen.

This morning Joe was chipper. He gave me a “hump day” high five. And then on my walk over here, after veering off the designated trail, I followed the river and, step by step, began to join the natural world. To be part of the murmuring water flowing beside me. Maybe murmur isn’t the right word. It’s difficult to describe the sound. I’d never think gurgle. Never say tinkle. It’s a bit like being shushed, permanently. Shh, shh, shh, shh; quiet down. Something like that, anyway. It’s a lullaby I wish I could mimic in my head as I lie awake at night. I’ve had trouble sleeping lately. River music might help. Susan mentioned that she has a Babbling Brook (with crickets) app on her phone that she plays at night. Maybe I should get one of those. The problem is that Heather’s a light sleeper and it might bother her. On the other hand, she’s never asked my opinion about playing classical music at dinner. I’m not keeping score or anything. Sacrifice is important in a strong marriage. But I wasn’t thinking about sacrifice while I was walking here this morning. I was thinking about the water levels, which are still high from the snowmelt. I was enjoying the bold, heavy scent of decaying leaves along the bank. I noticed that from the pulpy detritus only the wet stem fragments remained.

My roost is twenty-five feet off the ground and built into a middle-aged sycamore. I nailed several two-by-two chunks of wood into the tree to serve as rungs. The carpenter built a low railing. We both stapled a patch of Astroturf to the plywood flooring to make it bearable for kneeling. Sometimes when it’s slow, I’ll use my backpack as a pillow and take a nap.

Inside my backpack I keep sunscreen, mosquito repellent, a flashlight, a wooden duck call, lunch, binoculars, a notebook, and a photograph of my family on vacation in San Francisco last year. We’re standing on a hill beside a trolley, and I’ve got my arm around Heather, who has her arm around Grant. It’s not the best picture of me. For some reason I’m squinting and they’re not. Still, it’s a fond memory, and I’ll take it out from time to time.

Before becoming a waterfowl compiler I was a trail monitor. I scoped out the miles of boardwalk and well-trodden paths and made sure that visitors stayed on them. That position was fine, really, but I didn’t like being the guy that teenagers scoffed at when they were huddled in an off-limits section of the park smoking weed or giving each other hand jobs or whatever and I had to remind them—in a stern voice—to return to the designated path. I realize how important it is to monitor the park, particularly after what happened to Madeline. It’s just that I hated being Mr. No Fun. I could see a future version of my son—or a previous version of myself—red-eyed, glowering at me from the brush.

When this position became available, I carpe diemed it. Where I live is smack dab in the middle of the Atlantic Flyway, which runs from Maine to Miami. Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the country. In conjunction with the watershed agreement, my colleagues—over a dozen compilers in observational blinds spanning the shoreline—and I monitor the migration patterns of geese, ducks, and swans. The information we gather is shared with the Migratory Bird Data Center, which covers the flyways across the country. While it’s impossible to account for every goose, duck, and swan, it’s our job to try.

Each bird is categorized according to its distinguishing characteristics. You’re supposed to note the bird and its sui generis features in the logbook. For instance, TS19 is a cob tundra swan with a streak of black in its yellow beak. HM85 is a feisty hooded merganser with heart-shaped white plumage on her head. G121, a gander who grooms himself fastidiously, has one milky-colored eye. While I’ve never met the compilers in other regions, I know a little bit about them by the way they describe birds. Personally, to my ears, RD4671 quacks in more of an alto-soprano pitch than a mezzo-soprano one. Sounds deeper to me, like Ack, ack, ack, ack rather than Eck, eck, eck, eck. I know that it’s the same ruddy duck we’re talking about because of the gray patch on its posterior—the other guy just hears it differently. That happens; no biggie. What’s important is that we’re on the same page in terms of recording. That the bird I see is the same bird he sees as it picks its way up and down the coast.

Every afternoon I upload the information into the computer database before driving home. It’s a good gig, a job of great privilege that I don’t take for granted. Despite what William might think, this is important work. Migrations matter. Most people who don’t know or care to know about the wide species variety of ducks in their own backyard can at least comprehend data. Statistics. Numbers. As ecosystems are destroyed, so are birds. When we can show how waterfowl populations are affected, the EPA can make a case for protecting habitats. It’s a simple equation: steady numbers of ducks + swans + geese = greater chances of land preservation.

Out here, though, I try not to think about people or numbers. That’s a major job benefit. Most of my days are golden. There really aren’t many that I’d erase if I could. Well, maybe one or two. One, for sure. That day I discovered SG1538 . . . which I don’t really want to think about. That’s the problem with erasing the days; in order to do so, you have to rehash the bad times.

In our park —- are strictly prohibited. This is government protected sanctuary. Supposed to be, anyway. Like school, I guess. That October day—the one I’d take back—I logged in, made my way to the blind, settled into a comfortable crouch, hoisted the binoculars, and did my usual morning sweep of the shoreline. Like it always does, sunlight arrived. That morning it illuminated what I thought was a plastic Walmart bag littering the waterline. When I peered closer through the lenses, everything became clear. Before climbing to the earth and doing my job, I set the binoculars aside, closed my eyes, and tried to get my heart to quit pounding.

The binoculars belonged to my grandfather. He was a pilot in World War II and used them to survey the ground before releasing “the thunder.” Thankfully, he didn’t often talk about the war or carpet-bombing Hamburg, but once I’d seen him raise his fist in the air and whistle through his dentures—making the sound a bomb might make as it spiraled to the ground—while slowly lowering his hand. Then he pounded his fist into his lap and exclaimed, “Kaboom!”

I’m super grateful for his service, of course. Dead Gramps – Me = No Grant. When he presented me with the glasses—his old hands jittering like reeds in a hurricane—he said, “I hope you see a better world than I’ve seen through these.” I wondered about that. About the binoculars and the horrors he’d seen. Like, maybe some of the sights he witnessed were so bad that they melted into the glass and from time to time their ghosts could escape and haunt my periphery.

When I spotted SG1538 through Gramps’s binoculars, I first felt really frightened, even though I hoped the splash of red on the swan’s chest was a trick of the light off the water. After I realized what had happened, fear morphed to outrage. Some jackass had sneaked in after hours with a hunting —- and —- her just for the thrill of it. SG1538 left a gaggle of goslings behind. That day I clambered down, hoisted the carcass out of the water with a brittle stick, and reported it, like I’m supposed to do. In the official log I wrote: SG1538: —– by a hunter.

I’m sure this news ruined the days of my colleagues up and down the coast. US Fish and Wildlife Service investigated the incident, but nobody was apprehended. SG1538 became another statistic.

That night during Family Time Heather could tell that there was something on my mind—I wear my heart on my sleeve, I’ve been told— and though I wanted to say something, I didn’t want to talk about it. If I did, I’d bring everybody down. Better just me glum than all of us. So I excused myself. I hurried into the basement, where I sometimes whittle bird decoys, and I cried. Cried for SG1538, which was ridiculous. Lamenting is not meant for such a mouthful. So I named her Madeline. Majestic Madeline with the curvy white wings.

Since that day, I’ve named every bird. I record the ID number in the proper column in the logbook—for example, CG4901—and then write Jack in my personal notebook. Jack’s this jaunty common goldeneye that likes to spin in tiny circles after a meal. There’s also Noah—B66—a taciturn bufflehead who grows skittish at his own warbling shadow rippling behind him. Charlotte, the green-winged teal, hides in the marsh. Daniel, a northern pintail I’ve seen grow up right before my eyes, bobs his head like he’s dancing to some private concert. Olivia, Josephine, Ana, and Jessie are Canada geese who always stick together, even in thunderstorms. Their semierect wings form an umbrella against the cascading downpours. Dylan, a mallard, glides over the surface of the river and waits and waits and waits and waits before touching down— ever so gently—upon the diamond-bedazzled surface.

I don’t see any birds now, which isn’t surprising. They’re spending time in the marshes feeding on the spawning minnows, crabs, and frogs. Around noon I eat my lunch: a granola bar, some chips, and apple slices. Afterward I lean back and listen to the river.

I awaken to the sound of a woodpecker in the distance. Two hours have zoomed by. Finding the binoculars, I survey my small slice of the world.

One thing I try to overlook is a feathery crack in the left lens. I’m not sure how it got there. Gramps didn’t pass it down to me with the scratch. Grant has used the binoculars in the past. From his bedroom window he can see a few of the brighter stars that outshine the streetlights. Maybe he dropped them. Probably, I broke them. I kicked them while dozing or something. Who knows. I wish the crack didn’t bother me so much. Wish I had more willpower, could muster the strength to accept that the blemish is there and still gaze confidently forward. Focus on the swaying branches with the promising viridescent leaves expanding. When you stare an hour at a young bud, you won’t notice anything. Stare a day; nada. But if you squint at one specific maple leaf for a week, you can see the way that it begins—ever so slightly—to occupy space. To transform air molecules into a veiny, fibrous, respiring network. To be an individual before becoming just the green of the tree.

This time of year the light changes slowly. The day doesn’t sneak up on you the way it can in October. Sunlight in autumn bending through the old growth, warming the water, coaxes up eager snapping turtles. They torpedo to the surface, clamp the webbed feet of the runts, and dive into the abyss. The briefly turbulent water is tamed by the current. It happened to Lily last Halloween. The curious canvasback strayed from her flock. Gone—snap—just like that. In the logbook, I scribbled: CB194: Deceased due to snapping-turtle attack.

The water along the shoreline in the fall is tannin rich from the bark slough. The hue on certain afternoons is what someone might call —– red. I don’t like to imagine it that way. I prefer the word crimson. I don’t like to associate color with —– because when I do, I start to think of what happened at that school. I remember all the —– on the computer screen after I, foolishly, exposed myself to those viral videos. I know you can’t really trust color on a screen; it’s always a shade inaccurate. Like the yellow of that boy’s smiley-face-emblazoned backpack. It appeared daffodil to me, but to someone else it might have looked lemon colored. Our feeble rods and cones don’t hold a candle to a mute swan’s eyes, which can spot a grasshopper on a cattail from fifty feet. The backpack could have been chartreuse. Crayola would know. The boy—I won’t say his name—wore clean white sneakers. How many words do we have for white? They were off-brand shoes from Target. He was captured in the school’s security camera. Images had been filtered twice: there’s the real color, then the recorded color, then the color on the screen. It’s hard for me to add it all up. Actual + Reproduced + Re-reproduced = what, in terms of reality? It’s not not real.

The first time I saw the event was on television. The Breaking News. Like every other parent I put down my cup of coffee and watched. I was hypnotized by the horror, lulled into imagining Grant at his own school doing whatever he was doing. In the video you could see how the boy’s blue jeans kept slipping down. I remember thinking that he should tighten his belt another notch. Cinch it. I wondered where the boy’s father had been that morning. Hadn’t he seen his son’s ill-fitting pants? Then the boy unzipped the yellow backpack and methodically did what he did. Took his time. What’s the rush? Was he going to get a detention? How many days did he hurry away from bullies? How many swift demons caromed around in his skull? It’s impossible to say, though experts claim he fit a certain psychological profile. Followed a particular pattern of behavior. All the talk, talk, talk in the aftermath as if talking could have prevented the ——-. —— speak louder than words. I watched the televised recording that shows him calmly stroll to the front desk and stare into the camera without a hint of expression on his face. His mouth a thin line. —– eyes far, far away. Then he arranged the smiley-faced backpack over his shoulders, lifted the ———,and pulled the ——-. A premeditated kiss-off to the world.

I was surprised the local station ran that recording. It wasn’t cable or anything. I guess it’s because you can’t see any ——. That’s left to your imagination.

Of course, there’s plenty to see online. There were many other cameras in the school. For a little while, before they took it down, you could find one particular video on YouTube. I made the mistake
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and the recording rolls on and on for eight agonizing minutes before it fades to black.

Oh, if I were a parent of one of the victims . . . who hadn’t been able to trick the monster . . . and I could rewind to morning . . . have offered better words than “Have a nice day at school” . . . not that I know what I’d say . . . and could it have been Grant? Yes, of course. Wasn’t, but could have been. And could still be. That’s the point I tried to stress to him last night, although I couldn’t really because I don’t want to talk about it because what does talking do? Fatherly concern can’t stop —— Would that it could. I wish I was a different dad capable of deluding myself. Wish I was a brick-chinned pop who says in the aftermath, “Welp, it is what it is.” Then I’d clap Grant on the back and watch an Orioles game on a breezy Saturday afternoon. Afterward we’d play catch in the backyard. On Sunday go to church, hit a movie, attend a concert, swing by the mall—and maybe there is still time for me to be a different dad. The first step is digging out my old mitt from the box in the basement when I’m down there whittling duck decoys.

For now I’m here alone in my perch. It’s April. Birds are still in eggs. Beaks are tap, tap, tapping, creating microscopic fissures. The chicks are straining to push heads through the space they’ve created and join this quivering world. They’re not listening for the slither of moccasins along the sandy shore.

The light on the water is nickel colored now. If Grant were here with me, I’d hand him the binoculars that I’ll someday pass down to him and say, “Look at all this, son. Soak it in: The pungent mossy scent. The furtive chipmunk by that log. The ellipse of the dragonfly above that pool of standing water. The distant Morse code from a red-headed woodpecker. You understand? What’s he saying? What do you hear? Ap-ril, Ap-ril, Ap-ril.”

He’s not here. Every time I’ve extended an invitation it has been declined. “Can I get a rain check, Dad?”

I’ll have to take what I get. Conversations during Family Time. I’m sure that as Grant grows, our discussion topics will morph. We used to talk about recess and PE. Tomorrow it will be geometry, geography, history, algebra, and music. Then sex, drugs, politics, and the afterlife.

And —–. I know I can’t swerve around the subject forever. As Grant ages ——————– will age with him—assuming he isn’t a victim, which, of course, he won’t be. The odds are infinitesimal. Talking about it, though, seems inevitable. —– will poison Family Time. Sooner or later the subject will come up. I can imagine it now:

“Did you hear about what happened at that theme park in Orlando?” Grant will ask, maybe tomorrow or next week.

“Nope,” I’ll say, “I didn’t. I don’t. Heather, is that Mozart we’re listening to?”

“Did you hear about what happened at the bowling alley in Wisconsin?” he’ll say next month.

“You mind passing the salt? This potpie is a little bland.”

“My friend showed me some of that guy’s manifesto—you know the one I’m talking about—the kid from San Diego who went to the community pool?” he’ll ask next year.

“Is your chair wobbly? Mine feels uneven.”

“Did you know that nearly twenty thousand students were exposed to —- violence last year?”

“What year are we talking about here? Where did you learn that?” “Last year. They’re predicting it’ll be even higher this year. We discussed it in homeroom. Mr. McGinny brought it up after, you know, what happened at that school—”

“Right. Yeah. Hey, can you excuse me for a minute?”
“Where are you going, Dad? Into the basement again?”
“I’ll be back in a second . . .”

I know there’s bad news clouding my crystal ball. It could happen when my iWhatever vibrates six years from now with a message from Heather that will read: EMERGENCY. Something happened at the school. Call me now. I’ll call. I’ll learn that Grant’s high school is under lockdown. A —– was discovered in the boys’ locker room, and learning this, I’ll skitter down the ladder, frighten a few crows, and speed home where (whoosh—thank God) I’ll discover Grant and Heather in the foyer. He’ll keep repeating I’m fine while my wife and I cling to him. How many future days will I need to erase to protect him? How can I preserve Family Time now? I know it will eventually end. The apron strings must be severed. Grant will need to be nudged from the nest. He’ll wing off to college and crest the horizon.

I’ll stay here, in my blind, compiling and recording. Wildfowl will migrate. I will fill notebooks with names: handsome Ross, quixotic Jamie, furtive Lauren, witty Brian, brave Austin, resplendent Jocelyne, golden-throated Kevin, mischievous Matt, Cassie, Steve, Corey, Kelly, John, Isaiah, Rachel, Kyle, Dan, Zoe, Andrew, Shaylee, Gia . . . on and on and on and on. I will try very hard to understand what that poet meant when he said that nothing gold can stay. Everything is only temporarily lovely. I will continue to believe that it matters that we rise in the morning and hunt for elusive beauty. That hope exists in the ghostly contrails of the passing birds.

How quickly it becomes twilight. Just like that, my workday is over. I fight to blink away the encroaching dark. With effort I stand and stretch. Shake out cobwebs. In the logbook I note that there was nothing to report. I pack my things and climb down the rungs I’ve driven into this tree.

Tonight’s dinner is fish. Everyone’s in a giddy mood. Heather tricks Grant into admitting that he has a girlfriend (though he won’t reveal her name). I say, “Attaboy,” and attempt to tousle his hair. I do the dishes. The television shows inflate the family room with a swirl of color and sound. Then, Nighty-Night and the good-night tuck-in. “Don’t let bedbugs bite.”

Later, in our bed, I toss and turn for I don’t know how long. Nothing new about that. I can’t see the digital clock on my nightstand. It’s blocked by a box of tissues. Our overhead fan is super quiet. Though I’m sure she’s not awake, I say, “Heather?”

She doesn’t reply.

“Hey, I was thinking about getting one of those nature-sounds apps on my phone. Something I can play at night. You wouldn’t mind, would you?”

No answer, of course. I’m sure she wouldn’t. Mind, I mean. Maybe she would even learn to like the buzz of the crickets.

I’m thinking I should get up and turn on the shower in the master bathroom. Release a trickle of water. I can pretend it’s a river lullaby and trick myself to sleep.

Out in the hallway the night-light glows school-bus yellow. The door to Grant’s room is ajar. I hear him snoring softly. His breathing is deep

and slow. It ebbs and flows. I can hear the faintest whistle. Delicate instrument. He is as steady as a metronome. I’ll never know the score that plays in his skull, but what sweet music he makes now.

If someone were to blindfold me and lead me to a roomful of dreaming children and ask if I could identify which child was mine, I’m certain I could pick Grant out. “That’s him right there,” I’d say.

“You sure?” the blindfolder might ask.
“I am. I’d bet my life on it.”

Read more from Issue 17.1.