Page 2 of Past the Broken Bridges

Shrugging, I look behind him at my happy place. “Can I come in? I have fruit snacks.”

When he sees me lift the small backpack, his muddy-brown eyes light up. “What kind?”

That night, I tell my parents about my new friend Paxton, who’s nine and goes to a neighboring school. Hisdad isn’t in the Navy like mine, but he teaches about grass or something at the big college in Baton Rouge. Paxton knows a lot about plants because of his dad, just like how I know about boats from mine.

And the next week, he’s at the same spot by the mossy oak, waiting for me like he said he’d be. He tells me that his friends at school only like playing video games, and I tell him mine only like playing with makeup and girly things. I sneak two bags of chips and some fruit cups into my bag, and we share them on the little bridge, swinging our legs above the flowing water.

“You never talk about your family besides your dad being a teacher,” I say, crushing up little pieces of potato chips and holding out my hand to the birds chirping on the oak branch above us.

Paxton watches me curiously. “They won’t come to you.”

I stay still, watching as the robins tilt their heads and creep closer to examine the offerings in my palm, squawking in indecision.

Eventually, the bigger one swoops down and lands on the heel of my hand, pecking at the bigger pieces of the salty snack. I smile at him.

“They’re robins,” I tell the boy staring in disbelief. “See how this one is darker than the other one? That means it’s a male.”

The robin brings back pieces to the female waiting for his return, their rusty bellies moving as they swallow the chips.

Paxton pushes up his glasses. “How did you do that?”

“They know I won’t hurt them,” I answer, brushing the crumbs off my hands. “So how come you don’t talk about your family much?”

He frowns, staring at the birds watching us and waitingfor more food. “I don’t know. They fight a lot.”

“About what?”

Paxton stays quiet, ripping up blades of grass from the ground and watching the breeze blow them out of his palm. “About everything.”

I hug my knees to my chest. “My mom gets angry at my dad all the time. I think it’s an adult thing. That’s why I don’t want to get old. They seem mad a lot.”

He lifts his shoulders silently.

“Do you want to try feeding the birds? Robins are docile. I’m sure they’ll come up to you too.”

Paxton looks over to the last chip before plucking it from my hand. “How do you know so much about birds?”

“My dad bought me books on animals, and there’s one all about different species of birds,” I explain, watching as he crushes the chip and lifts his arm like I did.

We wait for a few minutes before the same bird flies down and takes the offering.

“See?” I ask happily, noticing the small smile return to his face. “Do you feel better now?”

He leans back and watches the birds. “Yeah. Maybe a little.”

The week after that, he brings us snacks and tells me that his parents are getting a divorce. I tell him I’m sorry even though I don’t know what that means. When I ask my parents, they tell me it’s when two people fall out of love and decide to live separately. I ask them if they’re going to get one since Daddy is deployed a lot, but they promise me they won’t.

A month goes by, and I see Paxton every single week. I tell him that my mom is going to have a baby, so I’ll have to share their attention, but that I’m excited. Especially if it’s a boy. He asks how I’d feel if it’s a girl, and I guess I’d be okay with it as long as Daddy teaches her the same stuff he taughtme so she’s not boring.

“I think she caught cooties,” I tell Paxton, trying to teach him how to skip rocks in the streams. “Daddy told me that girls can catch cooties from boys, so that must be how she got the baby.”

Paxton thinks about it, mimicking what I did as he tosses the rock only to see it sink. “Maybe. Someone at my school tried telling me that a stork brings it, but I don’t think I believe that.”

I make a face. “A stork?” I ask thoughtfully, searching for another rock to throw. “I don’t remember reading about that in my bird book.”

Paxton just shrugs.

After almost two months of our afternoon meetups, I find a bruise on his arm that sort of looks like the one I got when I fell trying to climb the tree in my backyard. “What happened?”

---