The Understory Read Online Free PDF Page B

vous-en!’ ”
    After wondering how the bird could already miss her, a complete stranger, Story walked closer to the cage and stuck out her finger. The bird then squawked, “Fuck it all!” in a very different tone, but it was obvious both phrases had been heard and practiced many times.
    Story heard footsteps, so she hid under the desk.
    The light came on, and Story saw a woman’s feet with half-polished toenails shuffle across the floor. Story peered around the desk corner to see an attractive woman—actress-pretty, the kind of woman whose soft features and wavy blonde hair captured an entire room’s attention. But her beauty seemed tarnished somehow. The woman shut the window, looked outside, and walked back over to the office door. She shut the door with authority, as if this was part of her night’s routine, and approached the bird.
    “Hey, Sonny,” she said in a soft, melancholy tone. Story peeked out a little further from behind the desk, just enough to see a visibly upset Claire Payne take two pills from her pocket. Claire turned her head, so the bird wouldn’t see, and swallowed them. After facing the bird once again, she said, “Well, Coop drew an inappropriate picture at school today, then refused to go to his baseball game, and I verbally assaulted one of my patients during a therapy session. So,” she said, snickering, “it was a good day.”
    Her eyes began to well up. “I’m sorry about the door. I know how you love imperfection, but I called someone to fix it.” She paused, and her voice cracked. “Every time it pops open and creaks, we think you’re coming home.”
    Her hand trembled when she spoke again. “Friday’s his birthday, and I don’t think I can . . .”
    Tears streamed down her splotchy face. “He’s so angry, David.”
    Then, suddenly, she wiped the tears away, threw her fists in the air, and shouted, “Fuck it all!”
    “Fuck it all!” the bird repeated as she walked toward the door.
    Just as Story was about to get out from underneath the desk, the woman stopped in the doorway and greeted her raven-haired son.
    The woman turned into another person, a pretend-happy person, for a split-second, and smiled like a good mom would. “I’m great, honey. Now, say goodnight, and then it’s bedtime. I’ll meet you upstairs,” she said, heading out the door.
    Neither the woman nor the boy acknowledged the lie. Only the bird got the truth.
    Small feet pitter-pattered over to the birdcage, and the boy seemed okay, until he spoke. “You promised,” Cooper stated matter-of-factly, staring at the bird, now perched on a yellow mini-trapeze. “You promised you’d take me to find It when I turned nine.” The bird stared back with black, motionless eyes.
    After biting his lip, Cooper then made an all-too adult declaration. “Maybe you were wrong. Maybe there’s no such thing as magic.” He paused for a moment, and then his tone turned reckless. “If I don’t find It by my birthday, I’m gonna do it,” he said, his whole body tense and anxious.
    Do what? Story wondered. Run away? But then Story’s own muscles tightened, and she felt the boy’s gloom pass over her like an invisible wave. A thought made her panic. Shit, is this kid gonna kill himself? Okay, I get it. My life is not that bad. Story was really starting to think she should break into more stable households, where children didn’t make suicidal threats or talk to cantankerous birds. She envisioned this little boy’s body sticking out of an oven. Do eight year olds even know how to turn on an oven? As Story pondered whether broil was a third-grade vocabulary word, she felt this boy’s loss of innocence as her own, and almost shouted “abracadabra” in hopes of fixing the desperate situation. Between the bird, the boy, and the mother, Story had three different perspectives. I had the story, bit by bit, from various people and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.
    The boy