What We Keep by Elizabeth Berg

Author:Elizabeth Berg
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Family & Relationships, Motherhood, Fiction, Parenting, Siblings, Sisters, Mothers and daughters, General, Domestic fiction
ISBN: 9780345435026
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2002-01-02T04:18:43+00:00

The flight attendant asks if I would like something to drink. Sure, about six more scotches. Instead, I ask for coffee, then stare out the window as I drink it. Far below me, I can see some birds flying in a raggedy formation. One of them looks different from the others, though from this distance I can’t really tell for sure.

I used to fantasize that I’d be outside some day and see our parakeet, Lucky, flying illegally in some V-shaped squadron. I figured I’d hold up my finger, call his name, and he’d joyfully alight. Then I’d bring him home and give him a fancy bird treat.

It was soon after I’d met Wayne that Lucky had escaped. My mother had brought the cage into the backyard—to clean it, she said—and somehow he got out. We’d had the bird for five years, and we felt terrible, Sharla and I, and even Wayne—he’d helped us look for Lucky for hours. My mother said she felt bad, too, but I remember thinking there was something false in her saying so. At the time, I thought it was just that she didn’t really care about pets. Now, sitting here and looking out the window into this vast sky, I realize something. She must have let him go. It would have fit, for her to have done something like that about that time. Of course she let him go.

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