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