LOIS PETERSON's work has been published online at Eclectica, In Posse Review, Southern Ocean Review, and The Paumanok Review, as well as in a range of print publications. She is a creative writing instructor in Surrey, British Columbia, and the editor/publisher of the new print literary journal Words.

                                                               birds in the family


Ken watches the old man snoring through his teeth. "Dad.”

His father's head shifts on his pillow. One eye opens. Then the other joins it in a long gaze.

Ken eases him up on his pillows. "You O.K?"

"Not bad for an old guy. How's the birds? Got water, have they? About time they had some fresh cuttle."

Ken hasn't been out to the house since the first stroke five weeks ago. His sister’s been taking care of the birds. He can't stand to go near them. "Remember the budgie?" he asks.

"Sure. Dandy. Little bugger."

It’s not the bird his father's cursing, but his eight-year old son who set it free. "It was my bird."

"May have started out that way. Could have died of thirst for all you cared. Here. Pass me a drink." His father sucks from the straw. "Think I should get rid of them, son? I'm not going home again, am I?"

Ken smooths the blanket that’s pulled taut across his father's legs. "How'd I know. I'm no fucking doctor. Course you're going home." He remembers his sister's words a couple of days after the second stroke. "He may get better but he'll never get well."

"I could take them," he tells his father.

"Bullshit. I haven't forgotten that budgie. I watched you that day you let it go, you know that? After you'd opened the cage door, you sat in my chair, waiting for the show to begin. Didn't take long. That bird flew from his perch to the cage door. Then across the room and sat on the afghan covering the couch. Shit on it, too. Then he tipped his head as if he heard something beyond his cage, beyond the room Then he was through the French door and out and away across the yard. I saw how you let that bird go."

"I never liked budgies," Ken says. "I don't mind the canaries. The cockatiels. But budgies remind me of old ladies and beeswax and mints."

"That would be your grandmother you recall. There's always been birds in our family.”

Ken plunges his hands into his pockets and rattles his change. "You should get rid of them."

"Now I know I won’t be going home. Just needed someone to say it. So.You'll take care of the birds?"

Ken wonders what the old man means by 'take care.' Maybe he should build an aviary at his place, and live in the detritus of shed feathers and grit and bird shit, the way his father has all these years.

Or maybe he should just let them go. Maybe his father’s not talking about birds. Could be something else all together.

Ken remembers watching Dandy go. As the budgie flew away, he’d stared into the air until there was nothing to see but a hole in the sky where the bird had been.

And he had known his father was watching. The same way he's watching him now.      

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© 2002 Lois J. Peterson