The Hint of Rain by Nicole Sheehan (best book clubs .TXT) 📖

"What a perfect day to graduate from high school on," I said to my yellow, peach-faced lovebird which perched fluffily upon my shoulder. She knew I was being sarcastic. It was cloudy. I hate cloudy. My whole life I’ve always felt like something bad was going to happen whenever it was gloomy outside. And a lot of the time, I was right. Since I was already nervous enough about the graduation ceremony, I wasn’t too thrilled about these clouds.
I hadn’t changed into my robe yet out of fear that Sammy would poop on it, so I stood there wondering whether my mom would yell at me for being in my crappy old pajamas an hour and a half before I was supposed to graduate. I was nervous. And Sammy always made me feel better. She knows just how to distract me from anxious thoughts. She’s a wild little thing and loves to climb in and out my shirt while making sounds she learned from random noises around the house, like a dog barking. Lovebirds are a small species of parrot and can learn to mimic sounds. But today she simply relaxed on my shoulder, listening to everything I had to say. She simply nestled up close to my face, clicked her beak contently, and fluffed up her feathers till she looked like she might blow up. She reminded me to take a deep breath and relax. I love this bird. I’ve always had an incredibly deep affinity for animals and Sammy is the first pet that I’ve ever been entirely responsible for. I have a cat and a dog as well, but it’s different with them because they mostly belong to my mom. Sammy is a lovebird, and since she does not have another lovebird to love, she loves me. And only me. She is completely dependent on me and I’m practically dependent on her too. Being with Sammy is one of the very few ways I have to relax. I love and appreciate her to no end. My friends think it‘s disgusting that I treat my bird like my child. They just don‘t understand. No one does really. She truly listens to me - I know she does. Once while I was laying on my bed with her as I often do, I started telling her about a problem I had with one of my friends while she fell asleep on my chest. At some point I paused and said, “what do you think Sammy?” and she opened her eyes, looked at me, and made the kiss sound she learned from me. She understands me when no one else does.
I decided to risk mom seeing me in my pajamas and went out onto the back porch with Sammy. Mom saw me - and yelled at me. But she understood that I’d want to be with Sammy right now and that I can’t wear nice clothes when I’ve got a creature on my shoulder that poops every eight minutes. I think any other mom would be pissed at having an animal that produces such a large quantity of poop in her house. But not mine. She loves Sammy almost as much as I do. Mom was sitting at the light-colored wood table on our porch while Sammy and I enjoyed watching the birds in the garden. I stood as far away from my mom as I could while she lit up a cigarette. I didn’t really care about my lungs it was Sammy’s little respiratory system I was worried about. Despite the smoke it was always nice being on the porch with mom and Sammy. Mom and I would talk about everything while Sam played around by my feet and chirped at all the other birds flying around the backyard. I wasn’t worried about Sammy flying away because her wings are always trimmed and she never bothers trying to fly off. It became a routine for the three of us to hang out while mom had her after-work smoke and coffee. Unfortunately, this routine would soon be broken.
Mom and I were conversing about how strange it felt that I was graduating and how annoying it was that it was cloudy out. I noticed Sammy was not nearly as relaxed as she was a moment ago. “What’s wrong Sam?” I asked, noticing her inability to sit still. Suddenly, a couple of birds flew past us unusually low in the direction of the backyard- and Sammy’s little birdie instincts told her to follow the flock. I watched in utter terror as my child flew away from me. My body was stuck standing in shock. My first instinct was to watch at first and keep my eye on her to see where she landed - if she landed. Thank God her wings were trimmed, because this disabled her from getting very far. She somehow managed to pump her flight-featherless wings far enough to where she ended up landing on my neighbor’s roof. I jerked myself out of my trance and ran toward her screaming with the shaky voice of a mother about to lose her child. I began hyperventilating and became dizzy. I heard Sammy chirp for me and I snapped out of it. My mom was panicking too, standing there watching - not sure what to do. For a moment I also just watched Sammy to see what she was doing and where she was. It would not have been so bad had it not been for the fact that anything could spook her into flying away again. And if that happened it would be unlikely that I would find her. There is also the fact that she is bright fricken yellow - and there are predatory birds everywhere. As if these thoughts were not scaring the hell out of me enough, I watched in horror as two blue birds, notorious for being mean when protecting a nest, began threatening Sammy on the roof. These birds could easily kill her. My mind could not comprehend the sight of these birds terrorizing one of the most important things in my life. Unsure whether to hop the fence to my neighbor’s backyard as fast as I could and risk losing sight of Sammy or continue watching to make sure I know where she is, I stood there as one of the blue birds scared Sammy into a crevice I could not see from where I was. I needed to get over there as fast as I could. At that moment I realized the fence was too tall to hop - even for a desperate mother. I had to run through my house, out the front door, and around the corner to my neighbor’s house while my mom continued to watch where we last saw Sammy from our backyard. I pounded on the front door of my neighbor‘s house, hoping to scare whoever lived there into getting to the door quick. But no one came. “Fuck it,” I thought. The last thing I cared about was whether my neighbor got upset about my invading their property. I found a side gate to the house, but since it was locked I had to climb over it. I hopped that fence like my own life depended on it. I later discovered that I had injured my foot hitting it on the grill on the other side of the locked gate. At the time, I hadn't even noticed. I called Sammy’s name over and over, but she didn’t call back. I began to panic again. I was screaming her name when I realized that Sammy usually only calls back to me when I mimic her chirps - I’d become fairly good at imitating her calls. So I chirped to her, not caring at the least that I looked absolutely deranged running around in my torn-up pajamas in a strangers backyard chirping like a bird - because she chirped back. Every time I chirped she chirped back to me - as if she was looking for me too. I instantly felt relieved to know that she hadn’t been killed by those blue birds, but still felt a strong sense of urgency to get onto the roof before something scared her into flying off again. I still couldn’t see her, but I could hear her. I told my mom to bring a latter around to the side of the house, which she managed to do in what seemed like less than a minute. She was going to climp up herself, worried I'd hurt myself since I'm extremely clumsy, but I insisted I go, knowing that Sammy will come quickly if she sees me. I nearly cried when I found her hiding under a tarp on the roof - she was okay. She saw me and climbed into my shirt like nothing had ever happened, and I ran as fast as I could without scaring her back into the house. My heart was beating on my ribs like a caged animal.
I played it off to everyone that everything was okay now. But when I got back into my room and closed the door behind me, I buried my face into Sammy’s soft feathers and cried. It had started to rain outside. I didn’t even care that my graduation ceremony may be ruined. I almost lost her - my child. Sammy began frantically giving me kisses, which since she’s a bird is really more like her putting my beak on my lips and making a kiss sound. We were both relieved to still have each other. As she gave me “kisses” and preened my teary face I said, “I knew those clouds meant trouble.”
Though life went on as usual, I have not quite been the same since that day. I often have nightmares of Sammy flying out of the window and I never find her - no matter how brilliantly yellow she is. Twice I’ve had a dream in which she was lost in a flood caused by an excess of rain. No amount of time can alleviate the pain I feel every time I am reminded of the day I almost lost my bird - my constant loving companion. People don’t know how serious I am when I say, “I don’t trust those clouds.”

Publication Date: 10-03-2009

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