It is rare that a story comes to me because of a setting, but this story, which is set in my favourite bookstore, started while I was looking at the photos in the bistro. To be completely honest, I was on a date with a man you could probably spot by the description of him in this story, but I am not Veronique (don’t worry Mom!), and there was no lust-filled wine-binging. We had a few dates, the last of which (I think?) was at the bookstore. We talked about the photos and how to say Louise Halfe’s name (I have since met her,  and I was correct!). Age was an issue, his turtle-embroidered hat was beautiful and he did really love his children. That’s all I remember–not even his name! The rest is made up.

Thank you to Cindy for her love of this story–I read her the original. It was the first of my stories I ever shared with anyone. And thank you to Linda who helped me bring it to this level of depth.

I hope you enjoy!

Little Nuthatch

Rachel Laverdiere

 

I spy Norman near the discount books, and my heart flutters like it did the first time I saw him. I clutch Italian for Beginners to my chest, take a deep breath and step out of the language section.

It was clear from the start that I was attracted to Norman, but it was also clear that what I felt was not allowed. But things have changed. He’s no longer my subject and his wife is dead. Other things have not changed—like the butterflies in my chest and how much he adores his children. I’m not sure if that is part of my yearning—it’s hard to imagine having a father, let alone one who would have loved me like that.

In my family, the women tend to go it alone. They seem to think they can do it better without men. I’m not sure where I stand on that—I’ve never really been with a man and I’m flailing now. It seems everything with me is half-hatched—my dissertation and my application to do a post-doctorate in Italy, my loveship with Norman. Everything. There’s nothing standing in your way but yourself, so shove over! Gran used to say.I wish she could tell me that now, but she isn’t, so I walk towards Norman.

A black newsboy cap has replaced the cowboy hat I’ve never seen Norman without before. I wonder if he keeps a hankie tucked up inside this hat, too. I am about to call out to him when he digs into his jacket pocket and pulls out a smartphone. He’s finally upgraded his ancient flip phone that clipped to his belt like a miniature holster.

Shortly after we met, I told him, “The way you rest your hand on that clip makes you look a little like John Wayne.” I giggled—probably nerves. I did not sound like the serious Ph.D. candidate I was supposed to be. Flirting with subjects is strictly prohibited with any ethics approval.

Norman frowned at me and solemnly shook his head. “I probably look more like one of the Injuns in the background. All I need is war paint and a blanket to drape over my shoulders.”

I’d meant to make him laugh, but the opposite happened. “Oh crap. That’s not—”

“—As an educated woman, you should think before you speak, Veronica. No Indian likes to be compared to John Wayne.” He pulled the hankie from his tattered straw cowboy hat and dragged it across his forehead. “Fiona’s not going to pull through, you know. The kids are shattered. I can’t imagine what life will be like without her as my centre.”

Though I knew she was in critical condition, I hadn’t even thought to ask about his wife. I turned away so he wouldn’t see my reddened cheeks. I wanted to kick myself for feeling jealous.

I needed to keep the facts straight: She was dying—she was his wife. He was my voluntary subject. He was grieving. The only reason we were sitting across from one another was for me to gather facts for my doctorate and he happened to have what I was looking for—a long and successful relationship with a much older woman.

It wasn’t Norman’s fault that I was attracted to him. We cut our session short so he could get back to his wife and children, and I went home to google John Wayne.

No wonder my comment had triggered Norman. “I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them,” John Wayne said. “There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.” What an ass.

Two weeks later, Fiona died, and Norman dropped out of my study. I didn’t blame him.

Now, Norman bites at the cuticles of his left hand and squints at the phone extended in his right hand. I know he keeps reading glasses tucked into the inner breast pocket of his jacket, but pride keeps him from reaching for his crutch.

Determined to get what I’ve come here for, I cough to get his attention.

Norman meets my gaze and pushes the phone into his jacket pocket. He places one hand over his heart and sweeps a wide arc through the air with the other. “After you, Chickadee.”

 

***

 

We chitchat in the queue to the bookstore’s café. Norman tells me he’s become a grandfather for the fourth time a few weeks ago, and that next week, the kids are gathering for the second anniversary of their mother’s death. I can’t believe it’s only been two years. It feels as though I’ve been pining over him much longer than that. I tell him about the opportunity in Italy.

“You’ve talked of travelling to Europe before,” he says, pointing at the book in my hand. “Jump at the chance while you’re still young. You never know what might be waiting around the corner.”

But there are so many things I need to jump at while I’m still young!I scream in my mind. I imagine my once-plump ovaries trying to squeeze out a shrivelled up egg. I think of the stacks of papers to be marked, the half-finished dissertation collecting dust. I think of the sheets crumpled into a nest in the middle of my bed because who the hell will notice? I haven’t had company since New Year’s Eve.

When the hostess seats us, Norman folds down into the chair, removes his hat and places it between us on the small round table. I put the book down beside it. Perspiration beads his thin upper lip and the ridges of his finely etched brow bones. Grey pouches puff up below his droopy eyes, and the furrow between his neatly trimmed eyebrows is more severe than it was when I saw him months ago. He looks tired, but his eyes are calmer than I’ve ever seen them.

If he looks at me in the next three seconds, I’ll tell him what I’ve come to say, I coach myself and begin to count—One pink elephant, two pink elephants, thr—

Our eyes catch, but instead of reciting what I’ve been rehearsing, I glance down at my menu and flip the page. I used to know how to grab what I wanted. Or maybe it was Gran who coaxed me along. Now that she’s gone, I’ll sit stagnant for the next fifty years. Norman pulls a handkerchief from his cap and wipes the sweat from his smooth head.

I imagine what his grandbaby must look like—those pensive eyes and a nicely shaped bald head. I smile and turn another page. Maybe that’s what our baby would look like.

He checks his phone and locks the screen before placing it facedown on the table. Then, he smiles at me and his eyes grow soft. My heart leaps.

I take a deep breath. “There’s something I need—”

“—So, have you decided yet?” Our singsonging waitress interrupts.

Norman jumps a little and claps a hand to his heart. “Well, hello there, Chickadee. Best not scare an old man like me.” He chuckles. My heart drops a little. I guess I’m not his only chickadee. “Could you bring us two large dark French roast coffees? With room for cream?”

Norman grins and pats my arm. Crow’s-feet crinkle around his twinkling eyes, but his phone vibrates and he pulls his hand away and frowns down at the screen.

Crossing my legs, I clasp my hands together in my lap. I twist the large pearl ring I haven’t removed since last summer, when Gran freed it from her swollen knuckles and placed it onto my ring finger. She made me swear I wouldn’t remove it for anyone she would disapprove of if she should happen to die before she herself could toss the pretendant out on his ear.

“Gran, I’ve been a wallflower all my life. The men haven’t been lining up to fill my dance card! What’s the worry?” I laughed. Sure, there had been tears in my teens and lonely nights in my early twenties, but research had fleshed out the last decade or so. Gran knew I’d pretty much given up on finding a man. “Besides, my mother didn’t prove to know much about men or babies. The apple probably didn’t fall far from the tree—besides, I’ve got you. What more could I need?”

“I always say, better an empty dance card than a head full of stones.” Gran chuckled, but her eyes turned serious again. “Things change quickly, Veronica. Sometimes we don’t realize what we’re missing out on when we’re too damn busy chasing dreams we think we’ve wanted all along.”

I’ve often wondered if Gran was warning me. Or maybe she was thinking about her own regrets. She’d never talked about regrets though, just the accomplishments.

Gran prided herself on having the energy to mother again. To care for me, which allowed my mother to pursue her passion, red algae in the Artic. She was proudat having been a divorcee in the early 60’s, before there was even a Divorce Act in Canada. She’d gone on to become one of the first female managers at the local Co-op.

“Being a woman should not stop us from doing anything men themselves might think of doing. No matter how wild what we want might seem to them,” she’d declared more than once.

I’ll never understand how my genes and my upbringing allowed me to turn out so soft. Strong and independent women paved my way, but I’ve always been more of a hopeless romantic. Maybe those genes come from my father’s side, but I’ll never know because I never thought to ask my mother who he was on her short visits home. Gran was certain my father was either the longhaired hippie my mother met at a Greenpeace protest in Vancouver in the summer of 1971 or the visiting professor from Italy with whom she had a whirlwind romance that same summer. Gran said the professor had a passion for reciting love ballads, but she knew nothing about the hippie. I’ve always been keen on poetry myself, so I’m thinking romantic Italian blood might be coursing through my heart.

When I was fifteen, my father’s identity drowned with my mother. She and another marine ecologist stepped out into a sinkhole and disappeared. They were trying to beat the spring thaw to get another sample of cherished ice algae.

I’ve seen his picture, and my mother’s bearded partner was ridiculously handsome, and she wasn’t the type to leave handsome alone. Sometimes I dream she’s still out there—that my mother’s sea ice partner was her lover and they decided to go off grid and rough it in the arctic wilderness. Maybe they have a log cabin with a front stoop, so they can look out at the icescape they were willing to die for.

I push Gran and my mother from my head and squint at Norman. Through the fingers I’ve laced together over my eyes, Norman could pass for a hardened Iroquois warrior. All that is missing is the horse, some war paint and wispy feather earrings. But rather than swooping me up onto his horse, my warrior jabs at his phone his index finger.

I sigh and take the book from the table—it looks easy enough to follow. My high school French might help propel me along. Maybe his lack of attention serves me right. Maybe it’s a sign that I need to give my head a good shake. I tend to get fixated when I’m in a rut, and I’ve been in a rut since New Year’s.

“Sorry, Chickadee. We’re teaching an old dog a new trick here. Be patient for a few more minutes while an old man texts with stiff fingers.”

The waitress brings our order, and Norman puts down his phone and looks out the window as he stirs cream into his coffee. I follow Norman’s gaze to the red-breasted nuthatches dashing in and out of the bushes. They disappear, reappear and change direction mid-execution. I set the book down on the table.

“How’s the dissertation going?” Norman asks after a few minutes. He flips through Italian for Beginners and reads, “Dove è il caffè? Where is the café?”

I sigh. “I seem to have developed a fatal blockage. I can’t focus these days. You know, ever since Gran passed.” I blink and stroke the pearl. He was the one to comfort me then, but things have changed since our last encounter.

Norman’s eyes grow serious and concerned. “It’s difficult to lose the person that seems to hold the world together at the seams, but it does get easier as time passes.” He blinks and looks back out the window.

Putting my hand on his bare arm, I say, “Does it really, though? It didn’t seem that way the last time I saw you—”

“—No worries, Chickadee.” Norman pulls his arm away and fiddles with his phone. This time he doesn’t pull his gaze from mine. “That night was the only one I spent off the wagon in many moons. I haven’t touched a drop since. Sometimes you’ve got to sink before you swim. I’m moving past Fiona’s death now.”

“Going to meetings?”

Norman nods, and his eyes say he’s telling the truth. He glances down his phone again. “I’m sorry, but I have to respond to this text. I really don’t mean to be rude.”

“No problem. It must be important,” I say, hoping it didn’t sound too sarcastic.

When I check my own phone, I’m not surprised there aren’t any messages so I examine the large black and white photos of important Canadians, mostly writers and intellectuals, line the bistro walls.

“Have you read her new one? Hag-SeedI think?” He points to a serious-looking photo of Margaret Atwood.

“Not yet but am planning to as soon as I’ve defended my dissertation.” He remembers how much I love her writing. I point at the photo next to Atwood’s. “What about your beloved Louise Halfe?”

Norman’s chuckles. “How did you say her name? It’s not “half” but “hal-fuh.”  Louise Hal-fuh!”

“Whatever.” I roll my eyes and laugh. “I still haven’t read her work.”

Norman winks and whispers, “Actually, I haven’t either.” We chuckle. He’s an adjunct professor in Indigenous Studies—his dissertation, which I’ve practically memorized, is entitled Native Literature: Still on the Peripheral of Native Studies.

“It’s almost my birthday,” I say.

He glances away. It was his birthday New Year’s Eve when he showed up at my place. He’d been out celebrating and was already tipsy and had a bottle of wine uncorked. I’d called him that evening, after Gran’s burial. We’d had a few glasses of wine before we got tangled up in my sheets. That night, the idea of having Norman’s baby was born.

I hadn’t known about his struggles with alcoholism, but the details came out in the long phone conversations where I tried to convince him that our May-December romance could work out. Fiona had been his rock—she’d also been his sponsor mothered four children with him. She’d given him forty years of marriage and sobriety.

“You’re too young, Chickadee,” Norman has claimed over the phone. “You’ve got all the time in your life to find a man who can provide more than the opportunity to practice geriatric care.”

“This after forty years married to a woman decades older than you. I’m just asking for a fair chance when you’re ready.”

Every conversation ended with something like, “But I had to bury her in the end. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

Now, Norman pats my hand in a fatherly way and says, “Life picks up after thirty-five, but even more so when you start collecting pension!”

I pull my hand away, take a deep breath and look into his beautiful eyes. “I want a baby.”

Norman chuckles. “Oh, Chickadee, you’ve still got time to fall in love. Fiona was in her forties and fertile as all hell. You’ll find your man once you stop looking.”

I rub the smooth surface of the pearl. I feel heat rise from my cheeks to the tips of my ears, but I’m determined to make him understand how serious I am. “I want your baby,” I say as the waitress’ tray clatters to the floor behind me. Liquid drenches my calf.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” The waitress says. She bends to dab at my jeans, but I wave her away.

“No worries,” I say, embarrassed. I don’t like the attention I’m gathering.

She pushes broken plates and half-eaten crusts onto her tray.

“I want to have your baby,” I repeat as Norman scrapes his chair backwards and bends to retrieve his cap. The waitress holds her tray with both hands as she scurries to the kitchen.

“Pretty loud in here. Better get out before we’re both wearing cheesecake,” Norman says, chuckling. His lack of reaction tells me he hasn’t heard a word. “I’ve got to skedaddle pretty soon,” he says, tossing a few loonies on the table.

 ***

 

Norman leads me toward the Aboriginal collections, and though I’m still thinking about our baby, the discussion turns back to Louise Halfe.

“Let’s see what she’s written,” Norman says, pulling a paperback collection of poems from the shelf. I’m puzzled when he shows me the cover because it’s Louise Halfe he’s talking about. Pointing to the image of a polar bear on the cover, he says, “So, I know someone famous that might be coming to town…” He examines the loopy signature on the inside cover of the book as though trying to decipher a secret code. “And if she does, we will definitely be getting together.”

“Oh?” I say, my pulse quickens.

“You see, Chickadee, we’ve had this long-standing, mutual attraction for such a long time now—even when I was with Fiona. We did our Ph.D. together, but I was still a married man all those moons ago. But now, I think I’m ready to move on.” His voice trails off. Flipping to the bio page, he hands me the book.

My heart drops into my stomach when I look at her photo. The camera catches her gazing brazenly into the camera—tall, thin and doe-like with a streak of white in her black hair. “Well, at least now I can put a face to who you’ve been texting all afternoon,” I say as I turn on my heel and walk toward the checkout.

I press the cool cover of Italian for Beginners against my feverish cheek.

 

***

Outside, Norman takes my elbow and steers me past the nuthatches popping in and out of the bushes. His grip is firm. “I’ve been wrong about you all along.”

I cock an eyebrow at him. “Yeah? How so?”

“You’re not a chickadee at all. Most young women are chickadees, but you’re more of a nuthatch.” He pauses. “Do you know how they got their name?”

I shake my head and try to swallow the lump closing up my throat.

“Well, nuthatches jam large nuts and acorns into tree bark and then whack at them with their sharp little beaks until, voila, the nut is hatched.”

“Okay. How is that like me?”

“You are persistent. You’ve already exposed the answer, yet you’re blindly whacking away. The nut is exposed. Open your eyes, little nuthatch.” Norman puts his arm around my shoulder and tucks me into his side. “And, like a nuthatch, you are small, but your voice is loud.”

I have no idea what he’s trying to say. I put my arm around his waist. “Best of luck with that gorgeous poet,” I say with a tinge of jealousy.

Norman tucks herbook of poems before he hugs me and kisses my forehead. His long legs disappear into his SUV. “Finish that application. Italy is crying out your name.” Norman pulls out of the parking lot and disappears down 8^thStreet.

When I tilt my face toward the sun, the warmth feels spectacular—I’ve needed winter to end for months. “Apparently, I’ve got a nut to hatch,” I tell the nuthatches flitting in and out of the cedar bush as I pass them on the way to my car. They yank-yank in response, but I’m not listening. I’m running towards the pad of paper in my car—the ideas dammed up in my mind are busting free.

 

***

 

A few weeks later, Norman tells me on the phone, “My northern poet is moving to town.”

I am delighted. “And I broke through the writer’s block after our coffee.” I twist the pearl ring and smile. “I’ve managed to compose the final parts of my dissertation. I’ll save the detail for our next coffee.”

As we are about to hang up, Norman says, “Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Check your front door.”

A cloth shopping bag tied with a bouquet of helium balloons sits on the welcome mat. Inside, there is a book of poems written by Louise Halfe’s with Norman’s notes scrawled in the margins. I chuckle, realizing that I still don’t know how to say her name. A package of premium French roast coffee beans and a note sit at the bottom of the bag.

Sometimes we need to modify our dreams. John Wayne was right—they took away our land, but we are rising united. Fiona and your Gran passed before we were ready, but life continues to flow through us. You need to keep whacking that nut, little nuthatch. Expose that seed.

I set the bag of gifts on the boot rack, lock the door and push in my ear buds. “Una tazza di caffè con crema, per favore,” I repeat after the husky Italian man in my ear. I hug the envelope containing my completed application against my chest.

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