I can’t sleep tonight because the mourning doves are crying out and I know that, across the room, you are watching me. The birds in daddy’s aviary never keep me awake this late. Most nights, I fall asleep to the sounds of the barn owls or skylarks murmuring. The hermit thrushes have been crooning me lullabies now that Mama’s are gone
But these mourning doves. There’s something about their call that makes this quilt heavier than a guilty conscience. There is a wailing in their voices, and it's so lonesome. It’s so desperate that it almost makes me forget about you in the bed beside me, your eyes watching mine like two black crows, side by side on a string of barbed wire. But then you do something you haven’t done since that day last September. You say my name.
“Jane?”
I squeeze my eyes shut and go as stiff as a possum playing dead. My heart clomps against my chest, like daddy’s work boots coming down the hall.
I hear you get out of bed. The floorboard beside the doorway creaks and then the door shuts with a soft click. So you weren’t actually calling for me. You wanted to make sure I wasn’t awake. You wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to follow you.
Well, that sure isn’t happening, Julia. Ivy girls watch out for each other. That’s what Mama always said. And I’m not fixing to forget it.
So I follow you like a bad smell out of bed and down to our screened in porch. The chill of the night pecks at my limbs, and I grab daddy’s work coat from the rocker and shrug it over my nightgown.
An orb of light from your lantern pendulums in the yard, and every few seconds I catch a glimpse of your cream nightgown. I follow the sway of your lantern until I’m standing in front of daddy’s aviary.
At night, the aviary looks different. The stained glass windows aren’t all bright and gemmed like they are in the day. Now, they are wine-dark panels, shadows darting beneath them like falling gray stars. The mourning doves let out another wild chorus of wails.
I slip through the door, crouching low so you can’t see me.
I find you standing in front of the mourning dove cage at the end of the aviary. And the mourning doves have kept right on with their wailing. Their cries siren around the aviary, filling my head. I double over, eyes shut, palms clamped over my ears. It sounds like all the souls who’ve been wronged letting their Job-like sobs leave their chests. It sounds like the whole wide world joining together to try splitting the sky open in search for an answer.
Just when I don’t think I can stand here anymore, with all this anguish pouring out of those birds, the wailing quits. It’s so quiet I can hear my own heart, ba-bumping, ba-bumping in my ears. It’s so quiet I swear you could hear a hummingbird’s prayer.
My eyes open. You’ve lifted the latch and opened the cage.
“Shhh. It’s all right now,” you whisper.
You reach a hand into the mouth of the cage. My breath catches. Daddy has always said the same thing. We can come in the aviary. We can look in the aviary. But we can never, never touch the birds.
One pear-shaped mourning dove flits closer. You are a statue. A dark haired, pale statue.
And it looks so beautiful. So beautiful that I get this sharp pain in my chest. Like when you hear a song that opens a kind of wound in you, and all you want to do is pour those notes like a thick, warm honey right onto where it aches most.
A moment passes and the bird makes a swift landing into your hand. A gasp escapes my mouth. You whip around at the sound. Our eyes lock.
“Jane.”
You say my name like it's a bad word. You say my name the same way you said it on that day in September, when that doctor man put a sheet over Mama without even knowing how she hated things touching her face and all I wanted to do was fix it.
“Daddy says we can’t touch the birds.” I tell you.
“Mama didn’t mind him.” Your voice is low. “She used to hold ‘em all the time.” It’s like you’ve walloped me in the stomach.
“You’re lying.” I say, “She never did that.”
But when I try to picture Mama refusing to touch the birds, there’s nothing but a big white sheet in my mind. A blank. A nervous murmur rises from the mourning dove’s throat. You stroke its head with your long, piano fingers. Mama’s fingers.
“Well she did. You just don’t remember.”
I hate when you do this. You spin stories, you say that Mama loved the color opal when I’m pretty sure it was ivory. You say she put milk into her coffee when I thought I remember her only using sugar. Suddenly, I hate the sight of you and the bird, thick as thieves in a story I don’t know.
“You’re hurting it.” I snap, moving closer. You angle your body away.
“You wouldn’t know how to hold it right.”
“Put it back.” I insist.
I don’t want to see that bird in your hands anymore.
I reach out to grab it. My finger brushes the edge of its wing. It is soft, soft, soft. Suddenly I remember hanging bedsheets on the clothesline. Mama always did it in the cool of the day, when dew was still strung across the grass like pearl necklaces. I remember how she’d hand me the jar of wooden clips, and how we’d start on opposite ends and race until -
“Jane!” you yell, like I’m a rabid dog you’re trying to kick away. You jerk the bird back in disgust and the memory shatters.
The mourning dove bursts into a flurry of panic. There’s a great, frantic battering of wings. The mourning dove is in the air, a whirl of ash brown and grey.
We watch, the two of us, as the grey wings pinwheel towards the door. The open door.
You bolt. I run after, but we’re not fast enough and the mourning dove dives through the gap and into the dark yonder.
“Look at what you’ve done!” You snap the words at me like a whip before running out the aviary.
“It’s your fault too!” I holler back, slamming the door behind me and locking it tight.
We tear across the yard, chasing the smudge of grey in the dark. Wet blades of grass cling to my feet like leeches.
“Get back to the house.” You hurl the words at me.
“No.” I fling back. Hard. “I’m gonna help.”
You scoff and keep running towards the edge of our property.
“Ivy girls watch out for each other.” I remind you.
“It was ‘Ivy girls stick together,’” you retort.
“No it wasn’t.”
But something in your phrasing rang true, and I get that blank sheet again. A blank where Mama’s voice should be.
We’re right at the edge of daddy’s corn fields now. The husks brush up against one another, all shhh, shhh, and hush, hush. I can hear the creak of their roots as they sigh under the weight of the night.
“Where’d it go?” I whisper.
In the watery moonglow, you point to the field.
I’m about to open my mouth and ask what the plan is. But then a coo, clear as a train horn, bursts from a patch of corn right in front of me. I spring to it, launching into the stalks. Leaves crunch and snap. I’ve caught sight of the mourning dove on the ground. Miraculously, it stills long enough for me to cup it in my hands.
“I got it!” I holler.
The body is warm, and its heart beats like a wild rain against my fingers. It’s in my hands for only a moment, but in that brief second, I remember something else. Mama in the rain, barefoot and bolting to grab the tray of marigolds she’d left outside. You and I watched as she kicked the kitchen door open and stumbled in, dripping black rivers of potting soil onto the tiles. The rain had darkened her champagne-colored hair to the color of a gunny sack. Her teeth chattered so hard I thought they’d shoot out like popcorn, and when I told you that we laughed until our bellies ached.
“Give it back.” Your voice dispels the laughter ringing in my ears.
I shake my head and my twin braids get tossed behind my shoulders.
“I’m the one who -”
As if sensing the fight between us, the mourning dove begins to struggle against my grip. It gives my palm a sharp peck. Surprised, my hands loosen and the bird springs out.
“Grab it!” you yell, but it's too late and the bird darts off, sailing over the corn like an arrow.
I turn to you, my hands still cradled in the shape of a nest. Then, like we’re in a cathedral and have to speak ever so softly, I whisper -
“That’s why you remember.”
The realization gives me another wallop in the gut.
“The birds give it to you.” I say slowly, “They give you something about her. That’s why you’ve been sneaking out without me.”
“You remembered something, just now?” you ask.
“It happened twice tonight. And you knew it would, but you kept it all to yourself.”
I’m up near your face now, and even in the dim light I hope you can see the storm in my eyes, the lightning hankering to strike you down.
“And you were going to let it happen. You were going to let every memory bleed out of my body and let me watch her die all over again.”
There is a pause. Long enough for one beat of wings. Maybe another.
“What do you mean?” you ask.
“I’ve -” The words struggle to release, beating against the cage of my mouth. “I’ve been -” Somewhere in the field, the mourning dove calls. A single cry scythes the air. “I’ve been forgetting her.”
The confession falls out of my mouth. Falls like a sparrow to the ground.
For the first time since before that day in September, you look at me. You look at me and those angry crow eyes are gone.
“You never told me you were.” Your words are softer than down feathers.“Which memory did you see tonight?”
I swipe angrily at my face, where warm tears have started dripping off my chin. “Her marigolds.” I start, but a hiccup hacks at my words. “The summer storm.”
“It showed me a different one,” You say slowly, as if it never occurred to you that we could be shown different memories. “When I held it, I remembered the first day she knew she was sick. When we were on the porch, and daddy told us what it was.”
I hiccup again.
“Mama said something.” I say slowly, but the memory blurs. Another blank sheet. “She said -” “Ivy girls stick together.” Your words reach out and pull the sheet back for me. Just a little.
“I…I need to get the bird back,” you say. “And I think we’re only going to get her back if we do it how Mama would want us.”
“Sticking?”
“Sticking.”
I give my chin a swipe with the sleeve of daddy’s work coat. “We’d better start for the other end of the field then.”
You nod and start walking. After a few steps, you pause.
“Jane?”
And you say my name right. You say it like it belongs to someone you plan on sticking with. I hurry to catch up. In front of us, over the field, the pinions of dawn are just breaking in. And light spreads towards us like the wings of a dove.
Emily Charlotte
Emily Charlotte is an author of quiet middle-grade stories. She enjoys tending to and being tended by the work of gardening, studying educational philosophy, and serving in her local church. You can find more of her writing on her Substack, Field Notes. There, she is drawn to themes that explore the formative power of stories, language, landscape, and the beauty of God’s redemptive narrative.
Cheryl Eichman
Cheryl Eichman is a passionate follower of God and an integral part of the HopeWords team as creative director. She desires for people to understand and live out the truth that Jesus loves them. Cheryl can be found exploring the mountains with her family, grabbing coffee with friends, capturing beauty with her camera and written word, or cheering enthusiastically for those around her! You can follow her on instagram @cheryl.eichman.
