Byrd, chapter one

Dear Byrd,

This is how I told your father.

We climbed up on his roof — he lived at the beach; we could see the ocean, wrinkles of light in the distance. I was wearing a billowy cotton skirt. I wanted to look soft, unthreatening, unselfconsciously pretty.  I wanted your father to love me.  My legs were pale, not used to sun in February. I had painted my toenails lavender.  I wanted him to be a little sorry he hadn't loved me all along.

He had a mustache and his hair was cut in what we called a mullet — short in front, long in back. He was tanned and lean. Long arms, long flat fingers. He was glad to see me, he said.  He didn’t ask why I’d come back so soon.

The roof of his apartment was flat, asphalt.  All grit and sparkle.

He unfolded an orange blanket from his sofabed and we laid out our picnic, a lavish spread: smoothies, crinkle-cut fries from his favorite stand on the beach, canned peaches from his kitchen, and barbecue I’d brought from home, packed on dry ice in a travel cooler.  So much food.  I had to make myself eat.  I chewed slowly, counting to thirty with each bite, the way they say you’re supposed to.

There was a warm breeze blowing. It ruffled my skirt.

Your father offered to spike my smoothie.

No, I said, and covered my cup with my hand.

I wish I could tell you we were young, inexperienced, not yet grownups or ready to be.  That's the story you're expecting, isn't it?  In fact we were thirty-two. We’d grown up together. Everything about that afternoon — our picnic, the roof, the sun, the salty air, your father's pilled orange blanket, him sitting beside me close and warm — had been coming all my life.

After we’d eaten, when I couldn’t put it off any longer, I told him my news, the news I had carried across the country to deliver in person. I’d thought if I could see him when I told him, I would know what to do.

I was delicate, telling him. Artful, as I’d practiced. So artful he didn’t understand at first what I was saying. He blinked like the sun was hurting his eyes. The big white California sun, dazzling, warm even in February, constant, as if it knew already, and forgave, as I never will, everything that had happened between us, everything that was about to happen.

painting: Anna Podris