The Afterlife of Birds by Elizabeth Philips

Author:Elizabeth Philips
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781554812653
Publisher: Freehand
Published: 2015-09-11T04:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

RAE CALLS THREE DAYS LATER and she can hardly speak; he has no idea what’s going on but he flies out of the house wearing sneakers and an unzipped coat and is at Dan and Rae’s in under twelve minutes.

When Rae opens the door, he doesn’t have to decide whether to hug her or not because she throws her arms around him and hangs on fiercely. He can feel, against his chest, a suppressed sob. She lets go and they move into the living room, where he looks around, bewildered. Dan’s stereo, which was set up against the west wall like an altar, is gone, and so is his pair of huge black tower speakers. Several boxes are piled where the TV was. No clothes are draped over the backs of chairs, no running shoes by the door, no CDs piled on the coffee table, no dirty glasses, no Starbucks cups with a cruddy inch of coffee in them.

Rae sinks down to the floor and sits cross-legged with her back pressed up against the wall. She’s wearing black leggings and a loose white T-shirt that Henry remembers seeing Dan in. It has Play Deep written across the chest in flaking yellow letters. Her eyes are red-rimmed. She carefully adjusts her long limbs so she’s sitting very symmetrically.

“Is he gone?” Henry’s voice is so tight he almost squeaks.

“He’s taken his clothes, his laptop, his PC, all his CDs, but not his stereo.”

“He left his stereo?!” Henry scans the room for it.

“In the boxes,” she waves a hand at them, “along with other stuff he wants you to store for him.”

“Not the speakers?”

“He took them.”

“The speakers but not the stereo,” Henry says stupidly.

“He didn’t tell you he was moving out, did he?” Rae says this as if the words hurt her mouth.

“I didn’t have a clue. When did this happen?”

“Day after his birthday. I came home from work, and there was a note …”

“God almighty.” Henry sits down hard on the edge of the sofa and they look at each other in silence.

He forces himself to ask, “How are you?”

“Well, I’m going to have surgery in ten days — the surgeon’s office just called. I didn’t think anything happened that fast, the papers are always going on about the waiting lists.” She lets her hands drop onto her knees. “They won’t know, really, till the operation is underway, but they think it could be stage three. Which is bad, but not as bad as it could be.”

They both glance toward the window as the sky brightens for a moment. All day the sun has been in and out of high, racing clouds, the temperature rising to zero and then falling to minus five.

“He could be gone for good. I have to face that — and I don’t have the energy —”

“So did he rent an apartment or move in with a friend, or what?”

“I don’t know where he is,” she says, drawing her knees together, getting up off the floor, and then lowering herself carefully into an armchair.

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