Page 112 of Paternal Instincts
It took a beat for her words to connect and make sense. “Wait. Nixon was here?”
“Yes, that’s his name. Her former employer.”
Again, I scanned the halls as though Nixon might still be present, even though the woman said it was fifteen minutes ago. “I don’t understand. What did he want?”
“To offer condolences and see how Clementine was doing. He, um… apologized for his wife and said if it was up to him, he would have kept her on for the rest of the summer. He asked if he could get the house key back. He said in their last meeting, he’d forgotten to ask.”
“House key? You gave it to him?”
“Well, I didn’t know which one it was, but I had her purse. The ambulance people brought it from the scene. The nurse gave it to us. Nixon found the right key on her key chain. He knew which one to look for.”
A house key. Nixon had come to retrieve a house key? No. That wasn’t right. Nixon was hunting Flynn. Nixon was pissed off because he’d found out his wife had an affair and a child with his brother.
Flynn had Crowley.
Flynn slept with Nixon’s wife.
A house key.
Again, I unconsciously dug through my pockets, searching for something I couldn’t find. What was I looking for?
“I heard their baby was born early,” the woman said, cutting into my thoughts. “A boy. Robin is his name.”
Robin. A blue jay. Birds feeding out the window.
Birds.
Birds.
Sparrow. Crow. Robin.
Bird names.
Birds.
The memory crashed into me like a tidal wave.
A drawing. A family. Crow and Sparrow and the baby in the tummy named Robin. It was pinned to my fridge at home, where I’d promised to hang it.
Bird names. Birds.
What was it?
A nanny. An imaginary dog named Rex. A white bird with yellow head feathers.
“It’s a cocktail.”
“Do you mean he’s a cockatoo?”
“That’s it. I always forget. His name is Banjo. He doesn’t talk much, but he can sure dance. Clementine showed us. Crowley and I went with her one day to help feed it. She has to take care of it because her friend is gone all summer, and it’s just him all alone inthe big house.
“All alone in the big house.”
“What was that?”
“Was your daughter caring for a friend’s cockatoo this summer?”
The woman flinched as though jarred by the sudden shift in conversation. “Yes. Marley has gone to Europe to travel with her husband. She’s a professor at the university. Clementine was in one of her classes. They got along well. She paid Clementine to feed the bird twice a day. Why?”
