Page 63 of Big Island Horizons
It was one more headache that she simply didn’t have the time or energy for. But if Ricky never came home, she wasn’t sure she would have much choice. She couldn’t just leave Lucy out here alone; it would break her heart. And she didn’t have the time or the energy to fulfill the macaw’s social needs on her own, either.
“I’m sorry for being such a baby about you and Liam,” Cody said after a while.
Tara kept her eyes on the bird, refusing to betray her surprise. “That’s okay. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about it first.”
“It’s not like you need my permission.”
“No… but maybe your blessing?”
He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t think I’m there yet. But that’s my problem, not yours. I’m sorry for putting that on you. You deserve to be happy.”
Tara smiled up at her son.
“What?” he asked with a frown.
“You’re extraordinary. I love you, and I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and slouched, embarrassed. “I love you too.”
A sudden, distant shriek grabbed Tara’s attention. She reached out and grabbed Cody’s arm.
“What?”
“Did you hear that?” she asked.
“No. Hear what?”
Lucy had heard. She bobbed her head and fluffed her feathers, moving back and forth along her favorite branch.
Tara let herself out of the aviary. Cody followed and closed the door carefully behind them.
“I think I heard Ricky,” she said.
They stood shoulder to shoulder, scanning the trees.
She tried not to get her hopes up too much. There were other macaws in the neighborhood – wild or free ranging, she wasn’t sure. But she heard them from time to time, and every now and then she glimpsed the primary colors of two scarlet macaws high up in the trees.
Today, though, she saw no flash of red in the foliage.
But she didn’t spy any emerald among the green, either.
Mom,she thought,why did you have to pick a bird that’s so hard to spot?
She supposed she had been trying to bring some green into their gray New England winters, some life and vibrancy. Well, she had certainly done that.
The butterfly effect of those birds had given Tara her entire life: the land, the animals, her calling. She wouldn’t even have her three children if her mother hadn’t decided to move to Hawai’i all those years ago.
“There he is!” Cody pointed at a high branch of an albizia tree.
It took a solid minute for Tara to spot him, even with Cody’s help.
“Ricky!” she called out when she finally sighted him. “Ricky, come home!”
Behind them, Lucy shrieked. Ricky called back to her from the treetops.
“He must be so hungry,” she murmured.
Cody loped off and returned a minute later with a big bag of brazil nuts, Ricky’s favorite. He shook them around in the plastic bag, creating a rattling racket.
