by Jennifer Dickinson

The dark-haired man in the suit waves to us from over the fence.

“I’ll be back in a flash, sweetie,” Mom says, waving back.

But she won’t. The man’s been messing with our pool days for weeks. And no matter how many times I ask, Mom won’t say who he is.

I picture slugging the man. I’m only ten, but I can hit like a boxer. My dad said so before he left. I hope I’m as tough as him one day.

“Stay out of the deep end, Frank.” Mom had a nightmare once that I drowned. I’d had a nightmare the dark-haired man stole mom away for good and they became clowns and joined the circus, but I didn’t tell her that.

The deep end is almost empty except for a couple of grandmas wearing flowery caps. I wade in until the water reaches my chin. I swim fast and when I get to the deep end, I grasp on tightly to the edge of the pool. I’m still alive! Not gray-faced and floating, which was how Mom described me in her nightmare.

There’s a huge splash beside me and Bobby Moses’s head pops up.

“You ever get a blow job?” he asks, spit strings dangling from his lips. Bobby is even grosser in water than he is on land. I swim away, but the jerk is on my tail.

A red-faced girl appears at the edge of the pool beside us.

“I saw what you just did, Bobby Moses. Your hurt that bird and I’m going to tell.”

“What kind of bird?” I ask, and swim over to the edge. I can name most birds in Florida. Mom taught me from when I was little.

“Who cares?” Bobby asks.

“It’s got orange spots,” the girl says. “It’s so cute. And he stepped on it.”

It’s probably a Zebra finch. Ms. Nancy had a cage of them and she’d left it out on her back patio and Martine, her cat, tipped the cage over. Martine got two, and the other four flew away. Mom and I caught sight of them for weeks. One even landed on our fence. I almost caught it, but it escaped.
I picture Mom’s face when she finds out I SAVED a bird’s life. She’ll jump up and down. She’ll hug me. Maybe she’ll never go off with the dark-haired man again.

I push myself out of the pool.

“Where is it?”

“This way,” the girl says. “By the way, I’m Amanda.”

“Frank.”

“Idiots!” Bobby Moses yells.

Amanda takes me to a palm tree by the snack bar, where two other girls stare down at the bird. The beak is bleeding. I bend down close and stare into the bird’s eyes. They’re covered in a milky glaze. But the small heartbeat flickers.

I think about doctors on TV, how serious they are when they perform surgeries. I stare into Nurse Amanda’s eyes.

“Bring me a box.”

Amanda comes back ten seconds later with one that says: “SNICKERS KING SIZE” on the side.

I pick up the bird. I place its little sweet body in the box.

What should I do? I stare around the pool, at everyone laughing and eating hot dogs and swimming. They don’t know a bird’s life is almost over. I’m not a doctor. I don’t know how to perform surgery. I must find Mom.

I describe my mother and send Amanda to the bathroom. A few seconds later, she charges out. “Your mom’s not in there.”

Mom isn’t at our chair, either, and I wonder: what if the dark-haired man kidnapped her? What if I never see her again?

“I’ll be back,” I tell Amanda. I pick up the box and run into the parking lot, my bare feet stinging on the black concrete. I scurry to the grassy area to stop my feet from hurting. I look down at the bird, at its milky eyes. His tiny heart has stopped beating.

Amanda darts over. “Is it dead?”

I nod. Amanda begins to cry. Mom left me. The bird is dead. I’ll be sent to live with my grandfather who puts his yellowy toenail clippings in the dirt around his flowers to make them grow. I won’t be able to name birds in Missouri.

“Frank!”

I turn. Mom sprints across the parking lot. She smiles like she’s just finished laughing at the world’s funniest joke. I almost collapse.

She peers into the box.

“What on earth…?”

“Bobby Moses is going to burn in hell!” Amanda rushes away.

“I wanted to save it,” I say, fighting tears.

Mom takes the box from me and sets it on the ground.

“You are the best boy,” she says. “I love your perfect, precious heart.”

I love her heart, too, but I need her to make me a promise.

“I swam to the deep end.”

“Oh, Frank.”

“Don’t leave me again.”

She crosses her heart. She only crosses her heart when she’s very serious, like the time she told me she’d never miss one of my baseball games again. And she never did.

“Eleanor! Frank!”

We both turn our heads to see the dark-haired man in his car. If he knows my name, Mom must be getting serious about him. I ball my fists.

“Frank, we’ll get ice cream next time!” he says.

“Great idea!” Mom’s voice is so sweet she might as well be singing.

I suck in my breath. The man drives away.

Mom says we’ll bury the bird when we get home and picks up the box. She goes to our chair to get our stuff. I go to the bathroom. Bobby Moses is taking a piss. When he looks at my face and says: “Bird fucker,” a fire alarm goes off in my head. I know he’s a fighter, but I don’t care. I swam to the deep end and survived. I walk over and slug Bobby’s ugly, rotten face.

Photo by Rosie Kerr on Unsplash