Birds of Prey

Trinity Miles, Sophomore, Writing, Colleyville, TX

 

     The pounding was incessant, and it swallowed the song of the surrounding birds. For two days now, repairmen had been banging away on the roof of Thomas and Meghan’s apartment complex, finally beginning to mend the cracks that had made themselves a part of their home. Since they moved in, the cracks had gotten significantly wider, and they had spent that last four years relying on various pots and pans to catch the water that dripped through the ceiling anytime it rained or snowed.

     “Let’s just spend the rest of the week at your Mom’s cabin,” suggested Thomas as he closed the front door behind him and set the plastic grocery bags he was carrying on the counter. The ceiling repairs would take several more days, and several more days of obnoxious pounding and incessant hammering was a burden Thomas did not want to suffer. He helped Meghan take the groceries from their bags before sitting down at the kitchen table adorned with textbooks and files. A strand of dark hair tumbled over his brow, and he tossed his head back to get it out of his eye; he was months overdue for a haircut.

     Meghan was standing at the kitchen sink when Thomas walked in. Her hair was tied up in a knot at the crown of her head, and she was still wearing the same gray sweatpants she had on the night before. Her attention was focused on a small, gray mockingbird chirping along the window sill above their sink; she was completely entranced by the bird and didn’t dare break her gaze to greet Thomas when came through the door. Thomas used to love when Meghan looked like this, her focus and disheveledness somehow always managed to make him feel at ease–but that was before.

     She looked up from the bird, then across the room to Thomas, saying nothing, but clearly registering his suggestion by the way she pressed her lips tightly together. The glasses she was wearing slipped ever so slightly down the bridge of her nose, though she left them like that as she began to put away the groceries Thomas brought home.

     “Going to the lake could be nice. Would you even be able to get away for that long though?” Meghan asked, focused on her task.

     “I’m sure I could work something out,” replied Thomas as he thumbed through a civil procedure textbook. He was twenty-six now and racing to finish his second year of law school. He had started later than most to begin with, but hadn’t prepared to take a semester off in the middle of his schooling, catapulting him even further behind in his academic career.

     It was almost a year ago when he opened the bathroom door to find Meghan crumpled in the shower, crying softly and hugging her knees to her chest. The pregnancy test sat squarely in the center of one of the pale, green tiles on the floor, the stark-red, parallel lines as clear as day. Thomas removed his shoes and joined her under the water, letting her body soften between his legs. She didn’t notice, but Thomas cried too and allowed the water to fall over his face to disguise his tears.

     He thought back to that night a lot now and remembered how scared he felt; he never imagined things could get worse. Meghan was just shy of her twenty-third birthday when she fell pregnant. She grew up in middle-class Chicago with three siblings and two parents desperate to make ends meet. They owned an upscale restaurant downtown and had raised Meghan to take the business over when she was old enough. Thomas met her there the night she was promoted to head chef, and the moment he saw her, he knew he had to make her his. He was twenty-one at the time and still finishing his undergraduate degree at Northwestern, but nothing could take his focus from Meghan and they way he quickly fell foolishly in love with her.

 

     Thomas closed the trunk of his car and carried his and Meghan’s bags inside the rundown cabin situated on a small lake in southern Illinois. It had been in Meghan’s family for years and while it wasn’t much, it allowed them an escape from the neverending headache their roof repair was bestowing on them.

     “I’m going to take a shower,” Meghan announced when they walked inside. She was quick to leave Thomas on his own and he watched her walk away and close the bathroom door, locking him out.

     Even though it was early spring, the nights were wickedly cold and the cabin lacked sufficient heating to keep them warm. Meghan came back into the living room, still wet and carrying an armful of old quilts, but now she was newly energetic and eager to light a fire. Thomas watched as she tenderly stoked the coals in the fireplace, forcing them to make room for the flames that would swallow them whole. He noticed the soft glow of her skin as the embers delivered their light to her and the droplets of water from her hair that sizzled as they fell into the hearth. However, when she moved to the kitchen, he couldn’t compel his gaze to follow her, as he was completely seduced by the passionate flickering of the warm hues that gleamed before him.

     “How does chicken soup sound?” Meghan’s question jolted him out of his stupor and promptly reminded him of reality.

     “That sounds perfect. When was the last time you made that?” asked Thomas as he made his way to her.

     “Oh gosh, I’m not sure, it’s been ages,” she replied as she sliced the backbone out from the body of a whole chicken. She turned the bird breast side up and pressed the heel of her hand in the center of its chest. In one quick motion, she flattened the bird and Thomas winced at the crack that echoed off the kitchen cabinets. She looked up from her task and let her widened eyes focus desperately on his.

     He knew the last time she made chicken soup, and so did she. It was a simple Tuesday night in November the previous fall, and they had nothing to celebrate besides their happiness. Meghan was twenty-four weeks pregnant and they had finally become excited at the fact they were going to have a baby. She had picked up extra shifts and Thomas was now working part-time to help pay for all of the doctors appointments and items they would soon need. Earlier in the afternoon they had purchased a white, wooden crib and the tiniest pair of shoes Thomas had ever seen. He loved the way Meghan laughed when he thumped the shoes up and down her small belly in the aisle of the store; the purchase was out of their budget, but her laughter made them priceless.

     Sitting down at the table that night, he took a spoonful of the soup and let it slip down his throat, allowing it warm him as he thought of everything he had and everything he would soon be able to hold. After dinner, they unboxed the crib and tried to assemble it for hours. Even now, Thomas could hear Meghan’s laughter every time he would forget a screw and could still see the way she threw her head back in blissful exasperation when he told her they would have to start over in the morning.

     They went to bed that night with full stomachs and full hearts, completely and effortlessly happy. The last thing he remembered before waking up to blood soaked sheets was placing a tender kiss at the top of Meghan’s forehead, and the way her voice sounded when she told him how much she loved him.

 

     Meghan broke their eye contact first and became wildly infatuated with the body of the chicken splayed out in front of her. She started slowly, being careful with her cuts as she sliced off pieces of breast and thigh for their dinner, but ended in a manic butchery of the bird. She couldn’t cut fast enough; she couldn’t tear the joints out from their sockets fast enough; she couldn’t rip the skin or break the bones or stop the blood fast enough.

     “It’s alright, it’s alright,” Thomas whispered as he wrapped his arms around her chest and took the knife from her hand. She was shaking in his arms and slowly dripped down his body to the floor. He guided her as she collapsed into him, letting her wail into the thick fabric of his sweater. Thomas smoothed her hair and rocked her slowly until he began to cry with her, mourning everything they had lost. They sat there together for hours, weeping and holding on to each other tightly to stay warm through the icy, black night.

     Thomas eventually dried his eyes and let them flutter open. The first thing he saw was a buttery, yellow sun rising into the mellow pinks and purples of dawn. Meghan’s head rested peacefully on his shoulder, and he counted her delicate breaths as the birds of the morning began their song to welcome a new day.