Advice for 2026: That crazy quest no one else gets? Just do it!

Me and Lulu sticking out our tongues.

The best thing I did in 2025 was also the craziest: Driving several hours just to see a big wooden troll.

And while I still don’t know exactly why I felt compelled to see Lulu, the first Thomas Dambo troll to be installed indoors at the California Nature Art Museum in Solvang, I do know that meeting her sparked an obsession that soon had me driving across two states to see six more trolls in the Pacific Northwest.

That was cool.

Because after seeing Lulu, I started researching the other Dambo trolls I could drive to, and soon found myself visiting an old friend in Washington State who lived near five of his sculptures.

And though I hadn’t seen Patty in 10 years, she still dropped everything to not only offer me a place to stay, but to spend a full day driving us around (and across!) the Puget Sound so we could fulfill my dream of seeing all five of the Thomas Dambo trolls near Seattle in one day.

“That’s why we’re friends,” Patty said. “We both like doing crazy stuff like this.”

And after eight hours of searching that included two ferry rides, when we reached the fifth troll on Bainbridge Island and completed a mission we were told halfway through was “impossible,” I was high as a kite.

“We saw all five today, this is our last one!” I exclaimed proudly to a woman who just happened to be visiting the same troll with her young daughter.

“Wow,” she said flatly. “That's a lot of driving.”

At first confused by her response, I soon realized that she probably just wanted me to go away because I was not only a stranger, but a super strange stranger who was super excited about some super crazy quest that just sounded like a super big waste of time and gas.

So if you don’t want to find yourself on some super crazy quest like me, whatever you do in 2026, don’t go see Lulu.

Or on second thought, maybe do.

Because if I hadn’t gone down to see Lulu, I wouldn’t have climbed Valencia Peak in Los Osos and met my new favorite picnic table. (More on that here.)

And then I wouldn’t have completed my “impossible" quest with Patty, a great travel companion who I am already planning another grand adventure with for 2026. And though talking to that unimpressed woman at the fifth troll on Bainbridge Island had me briefly second-guessing my life choices, on my drive back to California I became even more grateful for Lulu and the troll fever she gave me.

While staying in Oregon on my drive home, I learned that my mother-in-law had taken a bad fall and would not be able to go home again. Even worse, she very likely would never walk again.

The next morning, I got back on the road as soon as it was light, and around sunrise I stopped at a covered bridge I spotted from I-5 in southern Oregon.

Named “Grave Creek” in honor of a 16-year-old who died while trying to complete a far more important quest than mine, that bridge felt like the perfect place to end my journey: Because while walking over it, all I could think about was how just being able to walk at all would feel like an impossible quest to my mother-in-law, which made me even more grateful that I could still take road trips. And, yes, that I decided to take that silly one to meet Lulu.

So my advice for 2026 is this: That crazy quest you're dreaming about? Just do it. And do it now.

Movies I saw in November: Prey, Predator: Badlands, Roofman, Beau is Afraid

I saw two Predator movies last month, and of course the one I liked the most was the one my husband didn’t like at all, declaring it tedious and, worse yet, “not a Predator movie!”

And while I agree that “Predator: Badlands” was more Star Wars than Predator, I disagree that it's a bad thing, since its many nods to my favorite movie franchise made it my favorite of the movies I saw in November:

1. Predator: Badlands (In the theater) Grade: A.

The only thing I didn’t like about this movie was the beginning, as the first fight felt too much like watching a video game, and the movement of the predators’ mouths felt too much like watching a surgery.

But the movie won me over as soon as our main character begins his mission. First with the interesting plants and animals Dek initially tries to fight, and next with introducing us to Elle Fanning as the bubbly sidekick he initially tries to ditch.

Fanning plays two androids in this movie, but of course the one I loved was her C-3PO-like Thia, who quickly convinces Dek that she is necessary enough to strap on his back like Chewbacca did for the golden droid when he also lost his bottom half.

And Thia being split in two created my favorite scene in the movie, as watching her top half and bottom half battling foes twice as effectively as a tag team was the funnest fight scene I've seen since the women fighting with plates in Ballerina.

I was also a sucker for the movie’s main messages about how respecting the plants and animals we live with is always the best choice, even if you don't need them to complete a quest, and how finding a new family is often better than clinging to our first. 

2. Prey (On DVD, rented from the library) Grade: A-/B+

Like “Badlands,” this movie was directed by Dan Trachtenburg and centers on a warrior needing a successful hunt to prove themselves worthy of their clan, only this time the warrior is a young woman. 

And while I certainly appreciated having our hero be a heroine, I was taken so far out of the story by such an unrealistic-looking CGI bear that I could never get fully immersed again. 

Or maybe, I got so spoiled by all the Star Wars that Trachtenburg put in his other Predator movie that I couldn’t enjoy one without it. If you haven’t seen either yet, maybe learn from my mistake and check out Prey first.

3. Roofman (In the theater, 11/4/2025) Grade: B-

There was a lot to like in this movie, especially if you enjoy the Channing Tatum cocktail: Two parts a sweet goof who looks great with his shirt off, one part that pal you can call when you need to rob a bank.

Served with that cocktail is a great heel played by Peter Dinklage, because that’s what his prickly charm is best suited for, and a love interest played by Kirsten Dunst, who perfectly channels the hopeful angst of a single mom daring to believe Tatum’s handsome stranger isn't too good to be true.

And though I certainly enjoyed the extra seconds devoted to watching a completely naked Tatum scramble up a wall to his hidden toy store bedroom, this movie was far too long. Even with all the fun and apparently realistic details the movie includes about the true crimes and people this movie is based on, there was no reason it needed more than 90 minutes to tell us its story, let alone more than two hours!

4. Beau is Afraid (On DVD, rented from the library). Grade: D-/F+ 

This movie was an impulse watch, one that I picked off the shelf mostly because of Joaquin Phoenix, and which I now mostly regret.

Because the best thing about this movie was also the worst: An opening sequence where our main character is trying to get out of his apartment to catch a flight to his mother’s funeral, but everything that can go wrong does, especially since he appears to live on a city block full of actors trying out for the next spinoff to The Walking Dead.

The opening is both brilliant and horrible because it is anxiety come to life, with everything a fearful person could possibly imagine going wrong when they open dare their front door not only going wrong, but spectacularly so. If you’ve never felt such anxiety and have always wanted a master class, then watch the beginning of this movie for the best visual representation I’ve seen yet.  

The only other reason to watch this movie, other than another admirable performance by Joaquin Phoenix, is to see the huge penis monster our hero battles in an attic, an absurd scene that gave me the only laugh in this dismal and confusing slog of a movie that took me two days to finish watching after giving up more than once.

And the movie remained a confusing mess until I read a review by Richard Brody of The New Yorker, who neatly summed it up as just another story about a mom who tries to keep her son from having sex. And Beau’s mom achieves that seemingly impossible goal by telling her son he inherited a horrible infliction that causes a fatal heart attack during the act, a theory he never tests for decades, though Brody rightly wonders how we are expected to believe that not once, not even during his teen-age years, did Beau get desperate enough to decide sex was an experiment so tempting and necessary it was worth dying for?

Movies I saw in October: Bride of Frankenstein, One Battle After Another

Now, finally, I offer my grandmother’s movie reviews from November of 1998. (And boy, do I wish I could know what she would have thought of Beau is Afraid!):

11/7/1998

Wrote letter, to Kmart for lunch at 11.

To show, “The Siege.” Good. Annette Bening, Denzel Washington. Bruce Willis, not listed in front.

11/14/1998

To post office, KFC for lunch.

To show, “The Celebration.” Danish. Man is 60, has abused his children, son tells all. Odd photography, mostly face shots!

11/18/1998

Slept til 8. Usual breakfast. Chores.

To show, “Meet Joe Black.” Liked. Anthony Hopkins.

Home, washed clothes. 

11/26/1998: Thanksgiving

To show, “Elizabeth.” Good.

11/28/1998 

To Show, “Enemy of the State.” Will Smith, Gene Hackman. Great suspense.

Bed 9, awake 12:30. Drank milk, read New Yorker til 1:30.

The Forecast Discussion: How I fell in love with the National Weather Service

I never paid much attention to the weather forecast until I moved to Seattle. Because before, I never felt like the clouds were trying to kill me.

No, for my first 30 years on the coast of California, moisture mostly came from the sky in 30 shades of gentle gray, like fog and thicker fog. So a weather forecast? That was something you checked to see if that fog would turn to rain just in time to ruin your weekend plans.

But the skies over the Puget Sound dropped 30 shades of danger, giving me a crash course my first winter in things like graupel, freezing rain and my new boogeyman: Black Ice.

And when two super scary commutes — one an aborted mission to work on a road turned skating rink, the other a trip home  through a surprise snowstorm that had me abandoning our pick-up truck halfway up Queen Anne Hill — had me vowing to never drive to the office during winter again, my boss introduced me to the “Forecast Discussion.”

That was cool.

Because while other forecasts will give you the main points of rain, sun or snow, the Forecast Discussion is a detailed dive into the next 24 hours of weather written by meteorologists who are not only experts in weather, but experts in your local weather.

And I never drove in Seattle again without reading it, since I wanted to know exactly when the temperatures were expected to go above and below freezing, so I could time my drives properly to avoid the worst of the road hazards.

Years later back in California, I gained even more appreciation for the Forecast Discussion when I started talking to the people behind it in my work as a reporter.

Tasked one day with writing a story about an expected deluge of rain that would likely bring flooding, I was told to call the weather service our newspaper paid for.

After dialing the 1-800 number to put in my request, I waited at least an half an hour for someone from across the country to call me and basically read me the sentence the service prepared for our area. No matter how many questions I asked in an attempt to get more information that might be useful to our readers, the person would only parrot back what I already had.

So I turned to the list of helpful numbers prepared for the newsroom by previous reporters, which luckily included a number for the local office of the National Weather Service in Humboldt County described as the “press line.”

And that call finally got me to person who could tell me what I needed: Helpful details about my local weather, a meteorologist who knew what had happened in the past under current conditions, thereby providing helpful insight into the forecast for my newspaper’s readers, all this expertise provided free as part of the National Weather Service. 

I was hooked, and never called the corporate line again. Why call someone across the country who couldn't even pronounce the city I was calling from, when I could talk to a person who was looking at (almost) the same sky I was, since the clouds above them might soon move south above me in Mendocino County.

Though mostly friendly, sometimes the NWS staff were hesitant, and some did not want to give their names for fear of harassment (yes, even 15 years ago!), but all gave important and useful information to me and all others wanting to know what to expect from the sky.

“Science is the foundation of how we understand the world, make predictions, and actually manage everything from the private sector to our responses to things like natural disasters and fires," said Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, who used to be a middle school science teacher, speaking during a forum on NOAA earlier this year. “And it plays a major part in even the landlocked parts of our country in terms of managing the weather service and advising us on climate issues.”

And I get it, really smart people can make you feel dumb, just like the kid in class who always knew the answers to the teacher's questions was was always raising their hand. And sometimes they use really big words like “anomalous” when “unusual” would do just fine.

But I like knowing there are smart people in charge, silently and competently watching models and data to let me know if its safe to drive, but also whether a flood, tornado or lightning storm is likely to destroy my home, or half my town. 

As climate scientist Daniel Swain wrote, “NOAA Research costs every American citizen less than a cup of coffee a year, with large returns on this small investment. This is a prime example of effective government, one that helps grow the economy and keeps people safe.”

And yes, paying too much attention to weather data can make you feel like the planet is collapsing before our eyes. But when given the choice between truth or happiness, I will take the truth every time. Because without it, I can’t be happy.

Why I started driving with a raccoon: The snow made me so anxious that I needed more than detailed forecasts to help me keep driving in Seattle, so I put a stuffed animal named Nancy next to me.

Movies I saw in October: Bride of Frankenstein, One Battle After Another & Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere.

I watched three movies in October, and the one that impressed me the most was a 90-year-old horror classic I loved seeing in the theater.

1. Bride of Frankenstein (10/28/2025, in the theater) Grade: A. 

Yes, this was the original Bride of Frankenstein (though shouldn’t it be Bride of Frankenstein’s Monster?) with Boris Karloff released in 1935, and it was definitely a treat to see it on the big screen. The visuals and practical effects in this film are astounding, particularly those in the last 15 minutes.

I also appreciated its commentary on the dangers of seeking perfection, especially from humans, as we are the most imperfect beings of all. Instead, the movie advises, maybe we’d all be much better off if we just spent more time pursuing what Frankenstein’s monster did: “Friend, good! Drink, good!” 

2. One Battle After Another (10/05/2025, in the theater.) Grade: B- 

There are a lot of great things in this movie, including one of the best car chase scenes I have ever watched: Leonardo DiCaprio as a desperate dad in a beater sedan he is begging to climb over hills in time to rescue his daughter. 

I also loved watching DiCaprio as a pothead dad running around Humboldt County in a robe and knit hat, especially when Benicio del Toro adds his calm slyness to the mission. 

The bad things were the first 20 minutes and a very distasteful role for Sean Penn, who for the first time made me wish for less of him, though my husband pointed out that we were supposed to hate his character. Still, I think the movie would have been much better if it started with DiCaprio settling on the couch with a pot pipe after his daughter heads to the school dance, and her mother and Penn are only shown in flashbacks. 

3.  Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. (10/31/2025, in the theater.) Grade: D+.

Jeremy Allen White was great as Bruce Springsteen, so you might think that since he was in nearly every scene, this movie would be great, too. But it wasn’t.

The story centers on Springsteen hunkering down in a rental home while creating the album Nebraska, and I was encouraged when Paul Walter Hauser shows up as the recording tech helping Springsteen put his new songs onto a cassette tape he later delivers with no case, only a hand-written letter. But then Hauser disappears as the studio techs (one played by Marc Maron, who seemed to have been hired mostly to grin, which can we all agree is not his best skill?) are tasked with finding someone who could do the impossible: make the songs Springsteen recorded in his bedroom album-worthy, while somehow still retaining the rawness the artist insists be preserved.

I wanted to know much more about how this feat was accomplished, but the movie barely scratches the surface of that painstaking process, and instead takes a magnifying glass to Springsteen’s past, offering twice as many flashbacks than was needed to understand his troubled childhood and strained relationship with his father.

I also wanted more of Springsteen on stage at The Stone Pony, sweaty from performing to adoring fans, and less of him staring at the ceiling, sweaty from lying on the carpet all day. Because it’s not only very hard to make the interior process of wrestling with psychological demons visually interesting, I would also argue that even attempting to dissect anyone’s brain to get to the source of their creativity usually only succeeds in killing any magic they conjured, so it’s best to just sit back and enjoy what they offer us. 

But instead of bringing us onto the stage to soak in Springsteen’s star power close-up, this movie kept taking us back to the dorm where our depressed roommate has again spent all day playing crappy music and watching crappy television while “making my art, man.” And though we are meant to understand that the art he eventually does complete is far from crappy, the movie makes no real attempt to explain why these songs were so meaningful to either Springsteen or his fans.

I will admit that I was never a fan of Springsteen or even bought any of his music, and that I couldn’t help comparing this film to James Mangold’s far superior movie about Bob Dylan, “A Complete Unknown,” which gave audiences more music, more performances, and more intimate moments with incredibly charismatic people. 

Because a good musician biopic understands that what we all really want from such films is the ultimate backstage pass, a chance to see firsthand what usually only their roadies and band members get to witness: That moment when an artist drops their mortal mask and steps on stage, giving us one second of feeling like we breathed the same air as an immortal. 

Movies I saw in September: Jaws, Eleanor the Great, Him

Finally, here are the movies my grandmother saw in October of 1995: 

10/4/1995: To show: “Seven.” First couldn’t hear, dark also. But fast, good direction.
Awake early. Muffin at mall.

10/7/1995: To show at 41st, “To Die For.” Nicole Kidman, Matt Dillon. 
Watched, “The General Died at Dawn,” Gary Cooper, M. Carroll. 1936. I never saw it!

10/10/1995: To show “Kids.” Gross.
Library from 11:30 to 2:30, got 3 books. 

10/18/1995: To show, “Strange Days.” Loud, 2000 LA in chaos, based on police killing blacks. Felt director inferring LA on edge of anarchy.
Home 4 p.m., read, watched news.

10/23/1995: To show “Get Shorty.”
Breakfast McDonald’s. Talked to woman. She also likes travel, opera.

10/26/1995: To show, “Scarlett Letter.” Background Nova Scotia, beautiful scenery!
World Series: Cleveland 5-4.  Hershiser, Maddux mad, lost it. HR in 1st inning.

10/31/1995: To show “Copycat.” Scary.
To Ross, got turtleneck, Cinnamon.

For more on my grandmother’s journals and why she loved breakfast at McDonald’s, watch this video:

The book that saved me: When my family was "Gone With The Wind," Scarlett O'Hara kept me going

When I needed a book to read for a high school history assignment, I picked “Gone With the Wind.”

That was cool. 

Because following a woman as she adapted to the destruction of her way of life was exactly what I needed to pull me through the decimation of my family. 

My teacher chose the book because its portrayal of Southern plantations like Tara crumbling after the Civil War had enough history woven in to qualify as homework.

But I chose the book because it was free, since I found a copy on my mother’s bookshelves. Also, I figured a novel would be less boring than my other options. 

And from the first page I was hooked on the unapologetic audacity of Miss Scarlett O’Hara, though at first we seemed to have nothing in common but seeing no point in being demure.

She was wealthy, I was not. She was boy crazy, I was not. She spent her days in fancy dresses and hairdos she didn’t want to muss up while dreaming of marriage, and I spent mine dreaming of the days when I could still climb trees because I wasn’t suddenly expected to wear stupid skirts and sandals.

But soon I had more in common with Scarlett than anyone else.

“Did your dad give you a big hug this morning?” my Spanish teacher asked when I returned to school after my mother’s death. Though all my teachers were told what happened, Mr. Riordan knew the most about my family since he also taught Driver’s Ed, and learned all about my parents while taking me home after lessons.

So he was the only person at school to even mention the crash that cratered my life, a kindness my face made him immediately regret. He turned to the blackboard and tried to erase his question, while I sat at my desk and tried to remember the last person who hugged me.

Not my father, who was still in bed when I left the house. 

Not my best friend, who just sat quietly next to me when I began sobbing into my lunch, realizing my mother would never make me another sandwich.

Not my sister, who had moved out after making it clear our mother’s death would not suddenly make us close: “You just want to talk about it to make yourself feel better.”

No, the last hug had been at her memorial, a day that wrapped me in supportive arms and words that felt like a life jacket keeping me afloat.

But soon the sympathy moved on, my sister moved out, and now it was just me and my father swimming with no land in sight. 

And when I began to wonder how much longer I could keep my head above water, and who would even care if I stopped trying, Scarlett floated by, reminding me she had handled far worse. 

Because she came home to a mother gone and a father gone useless, but also had a household to support. To eat she had to figure out how to grow crops, I just had to figure out how to buy food and cook it. 

And while my father was unable to take care of me, he could at least still take care of himself (mostly), so again I was a bit better off than her. And if Scarlett could keep going, I told myself, then so could I.

It made perfect sense to me that the friend I needed was in a book, since I had always found more acceptance and companionship with girls like Pippi Longstocking and Harriet the Spy than girls I met in real life.

An odd kid from an odd family with a secret not even we talked about, I had never learned to confide in others about what was really going on in my home. And I wasn’t about to start when it was just my father and me left, because I feared I would be taken away to live somewhere even worse.

I do recognize that many people find the depictions of slavery in “Gone With the Wind” to be very painful reminders of an unforgivable chapter in American history, and might feel that Scarlett O’Hara, who fully embraced the ownership of fellow human beings, should not be celebrated in any way. 

But the grit Margaret Mitchell breathed into that deeply flawed character helped me survive a devastating chapter in my life that I truly believed was not survivable. And I feel that not giving both the author and her character credit for that help would be more unforgivable than her portrayal of a shameful chapter in American history.

Because on mornings when I just couldn’t get out of bed, sure no one would care if I never went to school again, the only thing that helped me push off the covers and stand up was picturing Scarlett steeling her shoulders to the next task. Then she picked up her skirts, and we both walked out my bedroom door. 

***

Real-life role model: After my father remarried and moved away, my grandmother stepped in to protect and support my sister and I as we moved into adulthood, becoming an even more important inspiration than Scarlett O’Hara for the next 30 years.

But my grandmother was a very reserved, even prickly, person who kept everyone at arm’s length, even her granddaughters. And it wasn’t until after she died and I found her journals that I finally felt close to her, and realized how much she inspired me. So maybe I’ve always needed to read people on the page to really understand them?

See her journals and hear about her long, full life in this video:

Movies I saw in September: Jaws, Eleanor the Great, Him

Jaws: A++

Last month I saw Jaws. It was not the first time I saw this movie, more like the 30th time, but it was the first time I got to see it in the theater. And that screening was also the first time I have paid to watch something that I had already seen dozens of times on TV.

That was cool.

Because it was not only great to finally see Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece of pacing and practical effects on the big screen, but to see how many other people came out to watch this classic, which was re-released in theaters for its 50th birthday this year . And while I still don’t agree with my husband that we needed to pay extra for the IMAX treatment, I am glad we finally got to see this movie in the theater.

Jaws. (9/1/2025, in the theater). Grade: A++. Jaws is not just a great movie, it is two great movies: The first about a beach town terrorized by both shark attacks and selfish leaders, and the second about three men on a boat battling a huge shark. And every scene in both movies is so watchable that even though my husband had already seen them dozens of times, he still agonized over when to leave his seat to get more popcorn because he couldn’t decide which scene he could stand to miss.

Eleanor the Great (9/26/2025, in the theater.) Grade: C-. I knew nothing about this movie beforehand except that it starred June Squibb, whom I love watching. And I did like the first few scenes as we join two old ladies eating breakfast, then exercising while deciding what to eat for dinner, then lecturing a young man at the grocery store about how they know more of the specific pickles they want must be in the back because they always shop the morning after delivery day.

And though Eleanor was more nasty than cranky in many exchanges, I could have happily watched a whole movie of the 95-year-olds just navigating the world in their comfy sneakers and visors, since the older I get, the more I covet these fantasies of women friends sharing the end of their lives together à la The Golden Girls or Grace & Frankie. 

Eleanor the Great: C-

But unlike those terrific television shows, or even the much better 2024 movie starring Squibb called Thelma, this movie decided that exploring the million indignities of getting older with these women wasn’t enough to carry a movie; and neither was the touching bond we see form between Eleanor, grieving the sudden loss of her lifelong friend, and a young woman named Nina, who is grieving the sudden loss of her mother.

Since I used to be that teenager left alone with an emotionally crippled father after my mother died, the portrayal of Nina felt very genuine to me, and I would have loved to just watch the women eating pizza together and shooting straw wrappers at each other, instead of following them up the contrived and syrupy staircase the movie decided we all needed to climb.

Most disappointing of all is that this very mediocre movie could actually have been two really good movies: One about a woman who survived the Holocaust and decided in her 90s to finally have the Bat Mitzvah she was denied before, and the other about two grieving women, one very old and one very young, who find in each other the comfort and validation that only a real human connection, thorns and all, can offer.

Him: D-

Him. (9/30/2025, in the theater). Grade: D-. I was intrigued by the trailer for this movie, thinking it looked like “The Substance,” only with football supremacy as the prize instead of eternal youth. 

But while “Him” was also about making unholy sacrifices to achieve more than mere mortals can or should, it was nowhere near as imaginative or fantastically horrific as “The Substance.” Instead, most of its 98 minutes were so slow and repetitive that all of the movie’s plot points and interesting visuals could have easily been sculpted into one three-minute music video.

In fact, I got so bored that twice I almost left, but luckily stayed until the end so I can report that the final scene did deliver enough satisfying carnage to at least save the movie from earning an “F.”

Movies I saw in August: F1, Naked Gun, Thelma & Louise.

And, finally, my grandmother’s movie reviews from September of 1998:

9/11/1998: To show, “Rounders.” Good.

Tennis: Davenport over Williams, 6/4, 6/4.

9/12/1998: To show, “Slums of Beverly Hills.” Gross!

Mail: Package from Mina, video of BBC on Diana.

9/15/1999: To show, “Saving Private Ryan.” 3 hours. Good.

TV:  About 5 minutes of Geraldo, then Morse, Law & Order.

My rejected short stories: Rare Bird Alert (Alternate title: Spotted Redshank)

“You guys looking for it tomorrow?” she said as soon as he picked up the phone.

Silence.

“April?” Jeff finally managed.

“Yeah, sorry. I got so excited when I heard a Spotted Redshank on the Rare Bird Alert! Aren’t you guys going? Can I come?”

“Yeah, kid, of course,” he said, sounding odd.

“Oh, I called too late. I’m sorry.”

“No, no. I’m glad you called, believe me. You just... you, uh, sounded just like your mother. She wouldn’t have bothered with ‘hello,’ either. Just cried, ‘When are we going?!”

Silence.

“I guess you know that’s the bird we were looking for that day?”

“Here, I brought you breakfast,” said Jeff, handing April a warm bag as soon as she got in the car. 

“McDonald’s?!”

“Yeah, didn’t your mom get you junk food on bird trips?”

“Yeah, but only after. She knew it wouldn’t work if we got it before.”

“Oh, right.” He laughed. “Well, we can get more later, too. I just thought you might be hungry, and that's the best breakfast ever.”

“Hamburgers?!" said April, smiling as she reached into the bag until she realized why Jeff brought her food and winced, remembering how embarrassed she felt when he stopped by to find her heating up a can of chili for breakfast because it was the only thing left in the cupboard.

But her smile returned as soon as she unwrapped a soft sandwich and saw melted American cheese, forgetting everything else as she began plucking off all the orange bits stuck to the wrapper so none got thrown away.

“Your mom used to do that, too.”

“She didn’t eat McDonald’s!”

“Not their hamburgers, but I got her hooked on those," said Jeff, waiting until her stomach was full of deliciously greasy egg, ham and cheese before asking nervously: “OK if we pick up Stephanie?” 

April moved the empty bag to her feet and looked at the binoculars in her lap, squeezing them to remind herself to be nice. She nodded and pushed out a “Yep.”

“And, uh, can I ask why you don’t like her?”

April looked out the window, wondering how much truth to tell. She decided on half. “It’s not her. It’s her Thermos.”

“I see,” Jeff said before a coughing fit. When he could talk again he said, “Sorry. Um, what is it about her Thermos exactly?”

“It’s so squeaky, I can’t think!” April said, still looking out the window as the words flew out. “I can’t hear anything else at the table when she twists off the lid and I just spend the whole time waiting for it to squeak again. And if she squeaks it in the car the whole time, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Jeff was so quiet she finally turned and saw he was shaking with laughter.

“It’s not THAT funny,” she said, deciding to go back to not telling any of the truth. 

“I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing because your mother told me that’s what it was, but I thought she was crazy.”

When they pulled up to Stephanie’s house, Jeff hopped out though she was already heading out the door. They went back into the house, and when they got into the car, Stephanie was holding a big blue mug April had never seen before.

“Good to see you, April,” Stephanie said, twisting her hands on the mug. “Really glad you could come.” 

“Yep,” April said, squeezing the binoculars.

“Hey, you got a new Thermos,” Jeff said, meeting Stephanie’s eye in the rear-view mirror. 

“Nope, I... I just felt like using my dad’s travel mug. It keeps my tea just as hot. Almost.”

The car was quiet until April asked, “Why did my mom like birding so much?”

“I don’t know,” Jeff said. “But I guess we all pretty much like it for the same reasons.”

“OK, why do you like it?”

“Well... I like being outside. I like being with other people but not talking much. I like how it feels when you find a bird, especially when you find one together.”

He looked in the rear-view mirror. “Steph?”

“I like knowing the birds are there,” she said slowly. “I like knowing that no matter what we humans are screwing up down here, they are always up in the trees, just living their lives above it all."

She took a shaky breath and squeezed her mug before she spoke again. 

“But I liked your mother first. I saw that story in the paper about her banding the Snowy Plovers at that remote beach, walking miles by herself just after dawn with no one else around, and I went to the next Bird Club meeting to meet her. I asked her to help me recognize birds by their calls, because she said that had been her goal for years, but really I wanted to figure out how to be brave like her.”

So that’s why Stephanie was always glued to her, April thought, feeling the resentment bubbling up no matter how hard she squeezed the binoculars. But when she snuck a look at Stephanie’s face, the tears she saw melted all her anger.

They rode in silence until April heard Stephanie sip her tea.

“So, did my mom really drink tea and read Jane Austen novels on bird trips?”

Stephanie’s laugh was wet and hoarse. “More like beer and cigarettes!”

Jeff glared into the rear-view mirror. “Don't listen to her. Your mother didn't smoke!”

“Yes, she did,” April said, and Jeff pulled over, turning back to Stephanie. “How did you know?”

“I had a beer with her once. And she said she couldn’t drink a beer without wanting a cigarette.”

“That’s how I picture my mother, sitting cross-legged, talking and laughing, a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.” April snorted. “Definitely not a mug of tea and a Jane Austen novel, like it said in your newsletter.”

“So you did see that?” Jeff said. “I’m sorry, it was already mailed. And I thought you didn’t read those?”

“My grandmother showed it to me. It’s OK. I’m glad they did it.”

Stephanie leaned forward, finally brave enough to ask April, “Those are her binoculars, right?”

“Yeah, my grandfather had them fixed. He said the focus is still pretty loose, but I can't tell.”

“That's great,” Jeff said hoarsely. “I was wondering what happened to them.”

“I found her coffee cup, too. It was under her seat. Not a scratch.”

She didn’t tell them about the sweatshirt on the seat, and the blood she hadn’t washed out.

“I’m really sorry she wasn’t with me that day,” Jeff said as if pushing the words out. “My car was in the shop and we just had Steph’s pick-up, so there was no room…”

His voice caught and he stopped. Stephanie patted his shoulder and he took a deep breath. “Damn, I just don't understand why she wasn’t driving instead of him.”

A boy barely older than April had been driving. 

She first saw him behind glass, a shape covered in bandages and tubes. His brain was swelling and they didn’t know if he would wake up again. 

But at least he could wake up, she thought, closing her eyes and imagining the beeps were keeping her mother alive instead. The front of the truck had stopped in her lap, so she would have never walked again. But maybe she could talk again. And April could talk to her.

“know why she wasn’t driving. She wanted to look through her binoculars instead, to keep scanning for the bird.”

“Of course,” Jeff said with a small laugh. “The Redshank was the last bird on her Life List. If she saw it, she would have been the first of us to complete it.”

“So maybe,” Stephanie said softly. “Maybe you could find it for her?”

April nodded, squeezed the binoculars, then looked at Stephanie in the mirror. “We’ll find it.”

“Sorry, kid,” Jeff said when they were driving home. “I really thought luck was going to be with us today. Course, your mother had the best eyes, she was usually the first to spot everything.”

“It's OK,” said April, who had found what she had been looking for. Because when the three of them walked together, she could hear her mother’s footsteps again, feel her fingers on the binoculars every time she looked through them. 

“Can I go with you guys next weekend?” she asked when Jeff pulled up to her house.

“Of course,” he said, his eyes wet. “But, you know, I really think the Redshank is gone, kid.”

“No, we'll find it,” said April, secretly hoping they never did, so they could all keep searching together.

Rejections: The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Sun and The Paris Review

More with April: Bikini Strings and Coconut oil