Free The Bird Artist by Howard Norman Page A

just flew between you and Orkney and me,” she said. “I’ll subtract them from the rest of our conversation, here, right now.”
    â€œFine by me.”
    She absently rubbed the other lemon half against the back of her hand.
    â€œOuch!” she said, suddenly using a girlish voice, pulling her hand away. “There’s always invisible cuts.”
    â€œThe smell of lemon juice at night. That’ll be a memory.”
    â€œIt is rather exotic, isn’t it? You know, I told the Hollys that we were close, you and I. Do you think that’s true, darling? That we’re close.”
    â€œI think so. I like to think so.”
    â€œWe try, don’t we, each in our own way.”
    â€œYes. But, Mother, these letters going back and forth between you and the Hollys. They discuss my future, but I don’t get to read them. And I don’t sense, deep down, that you even think that’s peculiar. You bought a new letter opener especially for them.”
    â€œI purchased it with money from a shawl I’d knitted for Mrs. Harbison, who housekeeps, as you know, for Reverend Sillet.”
    â€œThe letter opener’s not in question here. Your devotion to the letters is what.”
    â€œWell, I’m very up front in my letters to the Hollys. I told them about your birds, for instance. Why, I’m all but writing your biography to them. That’s a devotion, I suppose,
yes. Of course, I didn’t maintain that you were a scientist of birds. Rather, a serious artist. I did add, for practicality’s sake, that you could repair any boat. I said that not just to please them but because it’s true, and it’s a truth that should please them.”
    â€œA lot has gone into these letters of yours, hasn’t it?”
    â€œI bend over the table just the way you do, I’ve noticed. Though I reprimand myself for my posture.”
    â€œHave you felt well, Mother? You’ve seemed—that your mind’s wandering.”
    â€œA mind can’t wander and come up with a shawl as detailed as the one I made for Mrs. Harbison.”
    â€œDetailed as letters can be.”
    â€œThose as well.”
    â€œI’m a grown man. I sleep with a woman right in the village, which everyone knows. I work. I bring in money. I’m saving to leave Witless Bay. No secrets in any of this. And then one day it turns out that my parents have made a decision for me. On my behalf, to put it generously. Yet I’m not really consulted. I’m more or less told. I’m led into it. It comes to me like news about somebody else’s life, except it’s not, it’s mine. Suddenly the house is filled with this name. Cora Holly. And the sad, aggravating truth is, as time goes by, I all but mean hour by hour, I’m numbed between the craziness of it and the enticement. And I don’t know why. It’s like being crippled with desire.”
    â€œMargaret told me she shot up the photograph. She came right over and said it. I told her it didn’t matter, since Cora’s presence was fixed in your mind. And that we could always get another photograph.”

    â€œPlease, don’t bother.”
    â€œLook, Orkney and I see some basic facts. You’re old enough for marriage, one. Margaret—”
    â€œLeave Margaret out of this.”
    â€œThat’d be my hope exactly. But it’s hardly possible.”
    â€œYou have never once invited her for supper.”
    â€œFabian,” my mother said. She sat back in her chair. “It’s between Margaret and me. Perhaps it’s not logical, as if logic ran the world one minute of any day. Or fair. Perhaps it’s something I see in her that I despise in myself. I’ve given that some thought. Whatever it is, it was powerful from early on and won’t abate. When I see you and Margaret together, I should feel that you look sweet. That you look sweet together. I should. A son would want his