We were hitting our stride this Saturday morning, bodily rhythms in sync. Then came the first thud: a strange knocking from somewhere at the other end of the house. Something against a window, cutting against the grain of our syncopation.
“What was that?” Barbara asked.
“What,” I said, trying to sustain the rhythm. “What was what.”
The second thud came. Louder, harder. Solid.
“There it is again,” Barbara said. She froze, and her attention shifted to the noise beyond our bedroom.
“Dan,” she said. “Stop. Listen.”
Another thud. A pause. Then a fourth.
I rolled aside, defeated, and we grabbed our robes from the floor and stumbled toward the noise.
We followed the sounds to the sliding glass door that led from the kitchen and dinette area to the deck. There we found a solitary robin hurling itself repeatedly against the glass.
“He sees his reflection,” Barbara said. “He thinks it’s another robin. A girl robin.”
She stood at my side. I put my arm around her, still feeling amorous, or trying to.
“Must be spring,” I said.
Our son Casey stepped toward us. He walked stiff-legged, his high forehead furrowed in ire as he rubbed sleep out of his eyes.
“What’s going on?” He wore a Chicago Cubs robe loosely around him.
“A crazy robin,” said Barbara. Another thud. “He sees his reflection in the glass, and he thinks it’s a female robin.”
“He’s in love,” I said. “Like Narcissus.”
Barbara rolled her eyes. Casey shrugged, blinked his eyes hard twice, and opened the refrigerator. He stood leaning against the open door, inspecting the contents.
Again the bird rammed the glass, dropped, and skittered across the wooden deck floor, away from the door. Then it flew toward it again.
Ram, crash, drop, skitter. Ram, crash, drop, skitter.
“What should we do?” Barbara asked.
I shrugged. “He’ll leave soon,” I said.
“We can’t just leave it like this, Dan. Look at the mess he’s making already on the deck.”
“Yeah, Dad,” Casey said as he poured Frosted Flakes into a mixing bowl. “We’ve got to do something about it.” He poured milk over the cereal and set the plastic jug on the table.
“I’m telling you both, the bird will leave in time. He’ll get tired of crashing into the glass. He’ll come to his senses and leave. We just need to give him time.”
“Give him his space,” Barbara said, her voice tinged with sarcasm.
“Exactly,” I said.
She rolled her eyes.
“Casey,” I said, “what time is your ball game?”
“Not until ten,” he said, scooping cereal into his mouth with a soup spoon.
“You’d better get ready, Casey,” Barbara said. “That’s only a little over an hour from now.”
The boy nodded and slurped.
Turning to me, Barbara whispered, “I really wish you would do something about that bird.”
“Fine,” I said. I cinched the sash of my house robe, walked into the garage, grabbed the push broom, and stepped out to meet my adversary.
“Hey, little guy,” I said as the bird hopped against the glass, then careened backward. The walnut-stained deck planks were splotched with robin droppings.
I brandished the broom like a pike.
The bird ignored me, made another run for it, flitted up against the window, fell, and staggered backward.
“That’s not your mate, matey,” I said as I waved the bristled end of the broom at the robin. It fluttered and chittered and flapped its wings like madness, a bird possessed.
“Listen,” I said, swiping the broom on the ground toward its tiny taloned feet. In the window, I saw Barbara and Casey watching me, a reluctant gladiator thrust into the arena. My honor and manhood were now on the line.
“Listen, little guy. I know what it’s like to be in love.” The bird paused as I brushed the broom closer. It appeared to be tiring of this ritual. “Or to think you’re in love.”
Again the bird threw itself against the glass. Again it fell backward.
“I know how you feel,” I said. “I know what it’s like to be misled, mistaken.”
Ram, crash, drop, skitter.
“I know, dammit!” I said as I swung the broom hard like a baseball bat at the elevating bird.
The wood of the broom head connected. I heard the hard, dull thwap of it as the bird soared a few feet before dropping to the deck. A bloop single.
It did not get up.
I nudged the robin with the broom. A faint spot of red on its beak began to leak onto the walnut-stained boards.
“Dad!” came Casey’s muffled cry behind the glass.
Then, from my wife, “Oh, Dan. Did you kill it? You didn’t kill it, did you?”
I glared into the glass at them both. In unison, they turned away.
I stepped off the deck and back into the garage. Barbara and Casey were both in there, standing at the door connecting to the kitchen, when I picked up the dustpan and stepped back to the deck.
“I’m pretty sure it’s dead,” I said.
They both stood silent, watching me with judgment in their eyes.
“Well, you wanted me to do something, right?”
“Yes, but –”
“But what, Barbara? Not kill it?”
She said nothing, just looked at me with tight lips and saddening eyes. My son in his Cubs robe looked at his feet.
“Well, I did something,” I said.
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” I said, turning my back to them and, dustpan in hand, returned to the deck, to the bird, whose only crime, only mistake, was to crash into the illusion of love.
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