November 2021

The narrator and her mothers try to come to terms with some terrible news There was a mourning dove sitting on our roof. Well, sitting might not be the right word. Most of the time, we say one word because a better word doesn’t exist. For example, if there was a word that meant there is a bomb whistling toward your family and all you can do is wait for the explosion which will ruin your life, then the nurse with purple lipstick would have said it, instead of just “I’m sorry.” And how do you receive an apology when you can never accept it, even if you pretend you can? Most of the time, people act like apologies are gifts the apologizer is giving to the person they’re apologizing to. But, looking at the shiny purple lips of the nurse, I wondered what to do with her apology. When you have a gift you don’t want, do you still have to write a thank-you note? I guessed you did. So, I just told the nurse, “It’s okay.” I think that was maybe the first lie in an avalanche of lies. Or maybe it wasn’t. But there was a mourning dove sitting on our roof. And the reason that I wasn’t sure that sitting was the right word, is that it wasn’t moving at all. Usually when people sit, they fidget, or move their head around if they’re a bird. But the mourning dove wasn’t moving at all. “Why won’t it move?” asked Aunt Jasmine, trying to pretend everything was normal despite the traces of tears on her cheeks that proved the opposite, looking up at the beautiful bird. It really was beautiful, with its gray-brown feathers with smudges of purple, and eyelids a brilliant blue green. But I didn’t want beauty. Or maybe I did. “Maybe it’s dead,” I said, in a voice that didn’t sound or feel like me. The words didn’t sound or feel like me, either. “No, don’t, I mean—” Aunt Jasmine’s eyes filled with the kind of fear a six-year-old gets. She had flinched when I said the word “dead.” “Dead” was the word that the doctors and the nurses had been afraid to say. It disgusted me that Aunt Jasmine was afraid of it too. I wondered if she thought that if we didn’t say that word, the bomb wouldn’t explode. But it would explode. I knew it would explode. She looked at Aunt Mama. “It’s okay,” said Aunt Mama. But we all knew it wasn’t. We weren’t. Was that me? The not-okay girl. The not-okay family. Aunt Mama was afraid too, only she was trying not to show it, while Aunt Jasmine’s fear was too big to contain, so big that Aunt Jasmine had given up trying. She had cried in front of the purple lipstick nurse. But I hadn’t. I wasn’t ready to give up anything, even with the bomb coming closer and closer. I didn’t want to give up. Or maybe I did. Aunt Mama covered her fear by changing the subject back to the mourning dove, who still hadn’t moved. “You could try to sing to it,” she said, acting like the conversation had never changed. Part of me was grateful, but I knew we would still think about the bomb, even when the conversation was elsewhere. I played a mourning dove’s song through my head twice, enough that I felt ready to replicate it. Even with the bomb, we could still have our bird obsession. Aunt Mama and I had always loved birds. Aunt Mama could recognize any bird in the sky, in a bush, or swimming in a lake. I could recognize every bird by their song or call and could respond to them. Aunt Mama called me “The Bird Whisperer,” but I really couldn’t understand them at all. I couldn’t understand anything, really. I couldn’t understand why the mourning dove wouldn’t move. I couldn’t understand why the purple lipstick nurse didn’t use a better word, or why a better word didn’t exist. I didn’t want to understand the words that the doctors and nurses had used, words like “terminal” and “end.” Any word but “dead.” I didn’t want to understand that word either. Mostly, I couldn’t understand myself. So, I tried to sing the song of a mourning dove. “Coo-oo, coo, coo, coo.” The minute the sounds left my mouth, I knew they were wrong. My pitch was too high. Instead of a mournful lament, it sounded like the feeble human imitation it was. I knew how it had to sound in my head, but I just couldn’t make it sound right. I tried again twice, but neither was right. One was too low, and one I jumbled up the sounds, even though I usually never jumbled up the sounds. The mourning dove didn’t move at all after any of them, didn’t even blink. Didn’t even sneer, like I would have done if I were a mourning dove. I tried not to slump, but I think I failed. Aunt Jasmine started to chant “you can do it,” but was too exhausted to continue past “you can.” Aunt Mama put her arm around Aunt Jasmine and kissed her, but ruined the comforting effect by starting to cry, making Aunt Jasmine cry too. But not me. I didn’t cry. The bomb hadn’t even exploded yet, and already we were all mourning. But I wasn’t going to cry, because I had to be happy before the bomb exploded, even if it was impossible. Aunt Jasmine and Aunt Mama had sat down on a rock, the big boulder under the oak tree in the backyard. There was room for three people to sit there, but I remained standing. I was too afraid that if I joined them, I would start to cry too. Afraid that somehow the tears would hasten the explosion. I imagined the bomb whistling toward my family. Aunt Mama and Aunt Jasmine were sitting on the rock,