The Language of Birds by Anita Barrows

Author:Anita Barrows
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press

CHAPTER 29

2002

I wished I had given her the chrysoprase necklace, which was still in the pocket of my jeans. I’d been afraid to give it to her, afraid to show her how much I wanted her in my life. Gina had told me she loved me, and I’d been too self-conscious to let her know what I felt for her.

What was wrong with me?

Everything felt wrong: Gina’s dad had a daughter he didn’t take care of and Martin’s parents had done everything they could to take care of their son and now he was dead. And Martin had wanted to live so badly, and Gina didn’t see the point in staying alive.

I thought again about people replacing other people, and wished for a moment that Gina could have taken Martin’s death, if that’s what she wanted.

What if it worked that way, I thought. In Mr. B.’s Epic Club we had read some of the Greek plays. Among them had been one about a woman, Alcestis, who wanted to descend into the underworld in her husband’s place so he could remain alive.

What if someone had been driving in front of Emmi that night when she chose to veer off the road and plunge her car into a tree? Would the person in the other car have blocked her? Would they have been pushed into the tree instead, and then would they have taken the death that Emmi was aiming for? How different, after that, would her life have been? How different would my life have been?

For the first time since the night of her death I let myself picture that moment, the moment when Emmi turned the steering wheel of her car to the left and let the car careen off the road to the steep drop into the woods.

What had she been feeling then? Frightened? Exhilarated? Numb? Or did she suddenly regret what she’d done and realize there was nothing she could do to change it? Did she die regretting it? Did she think about me and Jannie as the car plunged inexorably toward the tree?

At home, Lizzy came to the door. No one else was there. I sat down on the living room couch with Lizzy and cried. I cried about Emmi. I cried about Martin. I cried about Gina. I cried about the way everything is lost and replaced, lost and replaced again. And I thought of what Gina had said, maybe nothing really matters.

* * *

When Jannie came home she started chatting in her usual lively way about everything that had happened during her day, and I made an effort to listen without my usual impatience. Then she went into her room. I could hear her birds chattering just like Jannie, flying wildly down the hallway. I didn’t intervene, though Dad—after the umpteenth incident where one of the birds had stolen yet another shiny thing—had imposed the rule that Jannie’s birds could fly free only in her room. Jannie never paid attention to the rule when I

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