My Father's Keeper

 
“Why haven’t you cleaned up this mess,” my father yelled. “I told you hours ago.”
She pulled a face. I could see her notably confused from the hallway.
“But they’re your things, Daddy,” she replied.
He glared at Madeleine’s as if to say, you had better do it now or else. He pushed his way through the door, disregarding the fact that my body, being a solid object, was not permeable.
     “You know he never told me that, right?” She asked me while picking up the strewn about papers on the floor.
      “I know,” I said.
      “Would you like to hear a story?” I asked.
~
The birds used to visit our house every day; back when it was just Mom, Dad, and I, we used to watch them from the big glass window in the observatory. Father’s papers were stacked neatly and organized by subject matter and then alphabetically.
“Why do the birds always look so funny when they dance?” I asked my mom.
“The birds,” she says. “You know they were just like us at one point.”
My face fell, stumped because this was not the answer I was looking for.
“What do you mean?”
“The birds were once humans, like us, traveling back and forth from country to country, coast to coast, sea to sea. The had beautiful lives before but now their birds.”
She explained to me that when someone dies their body is buried in a huge pile of dirt but there is a part of them that does not die. I asked her what happened, simply entranced in her story. Her face flickered with fear when I asked this.
“Well, when a person dies, their soul is left here on earth. Whether they’ve been good or bad, it doesn’t matter. They are turned into birds. Redbirds. Blackbirds. Yellowbirds. Birds with speckles. Birds with dots. All kinds of birds. They simply become birds and live their lives as such until it’s time to turn into something else.”
Mother was always talking like that. Making up stories that explained scientific things. Dad was a scientist. Mom was a spiritualist. Everything she said went against what he knew to be true and he had enough of it.
“You’re going to confuse her, Madeleine.” He said sternly, gazing out the big window.
“If you keep talking that silly talk about birds and death then she’ll never know the difference between what true and what’s not.”
“But Papa, I like these stories,” I said looking up at his worn face, the wrinkles around his eyes were becoming more prominent and his head no longer had just a few grey hairs.
“Charlie, baby,” he kneeled down to be closer to the floor, “People don’t turn into birds when they die.”
Before he had even finished, Mother had already made her way out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
“So…” he said, stopping to take a deep breath. He let it all out in one sigh, watching it float off like smoke in the cold air. He turned back to the little girl in front of him, swallowing hard. “I’m...I’m sorry Charlotte.” He didn’t want to say it. He didn’t want it to be his fault. He couldn’t have known what was going to happen.
“Papa?” I asked timidly breaking the silence.
“Yes?”
“It’s okay.”
He hung his head low, dipping to his chest. He stood up and pushed his glasses to his face and straightened his back.
      “Come now.” He said, taking in a deep breath. “Let us go run you a bath.”
He pushed on my shoulders and guided me in the direction of the door. The stairs were steep, traveling down the spiral every day was a challenge for little legs but nevertheless, I pushed through.
      Father walked silently behind as I hummed the tune of Little Drummer Boy. The floorboards creaked under our feet as we rounded the corner of the older part of the stairs. The top floor before the observatory was undeniably the oldest part of the house; the door hinges were rusted and the windows never opened because of the water damage and the rooms were all dusty and it was always so dark because the curtains were always closed. We never purposely went up there. Dad said there was too much mildew for me to play up there. So I never did.
      The hair on the back of my neck suddenly stood up as we passed to door to the deck;  I stopped. A bit of light shown from the crack.
      “Mama?”
      I pushed the door just enough so you couldn’t hear the mice in the hinges. It was unusually bright in the room, the curtains had been ripped open like an animal had been let loose.
      “Mama?”
       I had never been in that room before and I wish I never had. Looking back I wish I could’ve said something, did something, anything but I don’t blame myself what happened. After all, you can’t blame a person for wanting a  better life.
~
“You know why Father sometimes gets angry for no reason because many years ago, he watched the person he loved and cared for not want it anymore.”
Madeleine clutched the locket hanging from her neck in an attempt to reach her.
“Is she ever coming back?”
“No…” The words stopped in my throat like someone had pulled the emergency brake. I could feel the avalanche coming.
“Not for a very long time,” I said, swallowing my tears in an attempt to stop them from running.
      “They sound so beautiful.”
      We watched the dancing colors in silence. Wondering. Wishing she was out there. Somewhere. Singing the song she wanted to sing.