AN: I can't believe I wrote this. I finished binging all six seasons in a fevered haze, like, 'Dude. There's no point writing something for this series. You can't fix the ending.' And my brain was all, 'wanna bet, peasant?'
Then I listened to Emile Pandolfi's "Feed the Birds" and this was born.
'What if I was the last sight you ever saw,
Would you die with a smile on your face?
Well don't even try to say you will,
Because you'd hardly recognize the sight.
The young are getting old and the summer is cold,
All the birds have been singing at night.'
"The Birds Are Singing At Night" ~ Lord Huron
Yeasty bread is very bad for birds of all shapes and sizes. So is anything they can't chew or digest, like the fat cashews one little boy threw at the ducks in Central Park. The best thing for them are seeds, small pellets, or sunflower shells they can gobble down without risk of choking or intestinal ailments.
Many hours of research, both online and through real world observation, have led to these conclusions. Many, many hours of research, usually done when other, more pressing matters should be attended to.
Sometimes though…sometimes it's a better alternative than staring out office windows or sitting in a bathroom, alone, hardly blinking, and being shocked to see that an hour has passed by in what feels like two shallow breaths.
A warm hand, tipped by manicured fingernails, passes along Peter's shoulder and rubs at the skin behind his ear.
"Did you come here to, what was it again? Ruminate?"
Peter doesn't move for a long minute. Then he gives a jilted, uneven kind of nod. "Yeah, that's…yeah."
Elle hums in her throat, rounding the park bench so she can sit beside him. Crossing her legs, she takes some of the birdseed out of the paper bag in Peter's lap and sprinkles it out over the walkway.
Birds of all sort come fluttering towards the offering, from doves to pigeons to your garden variety crow. Even a blue jay. Then again, maybe they're just starting to get used to Peter's presence every Friday morning and the promise of breakfast, feeding birds in the lesser known alcoves of the Park.
"Is your rumination working?" Elle claps off her hands. "It sure is relaxing, if you like birds."
Peter's face barely changes, but a linear divot deepens between his brows. He blinks quickly now. "I don't like birds. I like pigeons."
"Ah, I see." Though Elle's raised brows express that she very much does not see and does not really want to. "This is a new thing for you, since the anniversary passed. Should I be worried about your newfound love of pigeons? Considering a career change to ornithologist?"
That finally gets a smile out of Peter, a small one. "Not a chance. I like my current job too much."
"That's because you're so good at it."
Elle leans in for a kiss and Peter obliges, still smiling against her lips.
When they pull away, Peter watches one of the pigeons do their funny little run. The bird is on its way to a clump of seeds that got caught in a pavement crack. So determined. No competition for it, no predators nearby.
It uncoils something in Peter's shoulders, though his face remains pensive. "Sometimes I just need time to…be still. I'm sorry I've been making a habit of it, Elle."
"Don't be sorry." Elle takes his hand. "If this is what you need, then I wouldn't dream of keeping you from it. We all need downtime. Yours just looks a little different than most peoples' idea of relaxing. And speaking of relaxing!"
Elle thumbs through her phone until she finds a photo. "What do you think?"
"A rooster cake?" Peter lights up. "Where did you even find this?"
"I had a caterer friend bake one specially for us." Elle winks.
"You're a miracle worker."
"You just happened to marry a woman who also loves her job."
Peter laughs again at the red and green cake, cut out perfectly in the shape of a crowing rooster. In the middle of it, on the rusty icing of its wings, is a giant yellow '1,' and Peter is bowled over afresh by the fact his son has been on this earth for a whole revolution of it.
Neal Jr. is obsessed with farm animals and all things barn yard. Well, obsessed might be a stretch, since it's impossible to know the full extent of a baby's thoughts. But he refuses to play with anything except his farm animal toy set and all of his stuffies are pigs and cows.
They tried to hand him a spaceship once and he made a face, complete with unimpressed burble, and picked up his toy barn instead. Elle jokes that they're well on their way to raising a farmer or a rancher.
"Promise me you won't work late tonight," says Elle, standing. "We're having a little celebration for him. Diana might even come over with Theo, since she's in town, and the boys can have a play date."
Peter kisses her again. "I wouldn't miss it for the world."
Later that night, after a day of successful frauds uncovered and paperwork signed and filed and rubber band balls thrown angrily in the trash, Peter gets out of his car and mounts the steps of their home—
And a tiny blue box, dotted with sheep, sits in front of the door.
Peter stops.
Looks around, looks at the box.
The street is quiet for the evening, a windless summer night already starting to get dark. No neighbours are out in their yards or people walking away down the street, and other than a dog barking a few houses up, no sound.
Peter does the only logical thing left, which is to pick up the gift. It's feather light, so light in fact that Peter wonders if it's totally empty, if someone left a box of tissue paper as a prank or a statement on how asinine it is to give babies presents.
But there's a computer-printed label attached to the big blue bow.
'For Neal.'
That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. No fancy trims or decorations and even the string holding the tag down is old fashioned twine. The ribbon doesn't look store bought, more like a thin, silky fabric cut off of a dress or scarf. There are even frayed edges on the non-bias side of the weave.
Then a scary thought takes root—what if it's a bomb? A bio weapon created by some criminal to use against the evil FBI agent who busted him?
Peter unties the bow and lifts the lid slowly, checking for any wires or blinking lights. Mercifully, there are none. Instead, Peter finds himself staring down at more fabric.
His breathing misses a beat.
There is something surreal about the sudden contrast: briefcase in one hand, cheery children's box in the other. Father against son. Hardened man with a gun coming home to be tender man who makes silly faces at his baby.
Peter takes the tag off and puts it in his pocket. Stands there a moment longer, feeling lost.
"Oh, honey, there you are!" Elle greets him when he finally opens the door with a peck and an excited smile. The courtesy of her energy is Diana, already sitting on the couch while their sons romp around on the floor. "Come on in so we can eat this cake."
"Glad you could make it!" Peter makes a beeline for his former agent, pulling her in for a hug. "And I see you've already given Junior his gift."
Diana nods with a sheepish smile to where Peter points, the stuffed chestnut horse clamped in Neal's pudgy hands. "He got into the wrapping paper when I set it down. Felt cruel to make him wait for it."
After dinner, playing catch up on weeks of missed stories, and slices of that giant rooster—Neal shrieked with delight when he saw it, clapped hands and all—they end up in a circle around the play mat, watching Neal tear open presents with his doll sized finger nails and help from Mom and his new friend Theo. It's entertaining to watch the older boy 'assist.'
Peter gives the blue box last, mainly because it's so close to bed time and Neal won't have a lot of time use it. Allowing Peter time to digest the whole thing.
When Elle opens the box, she glances up at Peter in surprise. However, rather than saying all the things he can read in her eyes, she just takes the itty bitty black trilby out of its nest, complete with a midnight velvet band, and sets it on top of Neal's head.
The sight of her hand lovingly pressing the expensive, custom baby hat over Neal's auburn tresses is a freight train full of bricks screaming straight into Peter's chest. He takes another bite of cake to cover it up. Everything tastes wrong.
"Oh, Peter," says Diana, with a meaningful look. "It's beautiful. Maybe we can turn Junior here into a hat connoisseur too."
The tag burns where it hides in Peter's pocket.
That night, half asleep, Elle rolls over and says in a tired slur, "Closure is an important part of the grieving process. I'm proud of you, sweetie…"
She thinks I bought the hat, Peter realizes. Of course, why wouldn't she? A sentimental gift from un-sentimental man.
Peter chooses to let her believe that. And he wants to as well, especially since the hat becomes one of Neal's favourites and his son wobbling around, dapper little hat brim slipping over his eyes, brings a grin to the faces of people passing on the street.
But that first night, a little past the one year anniversary, he doesn't sleep.
Fed up with the never ending tumble of thoughts, Peter silently gets out of bed and pads down the stairs, in nothing but a T-shirt and flannel pants, feet bare. He feels like a ghost, propelled by something without a name. Something no therapist can ever parse out in enough to detail to get rid of inside his aching throat, his shaking hands.
Can loss fairly be called loss if you haven't lost anything?
The wind has certainly picked up now, whipping the maples surrounding their front stoop into a frothy, evergreen lather. Leaves blowing around against the backdrop of a starless night.
Peter slowly, ever so slowly, opens the front door.
He's instantly cold but he doesn't feel it, white toes carrying him across the threshold, from carpet to stone. He peeks out into the night.
There's nothing there of course, no person standing in the shadowy recesses of the trees or his recycle bins. Peter stops blinking again, hair tousled and clothes ripped at by passing gusts of wind.
Nothing sits on the stoop but him. Peter feels like the only one alive, the only human in a planet full of mannequins, plastic people with their plastic smiles and plastic hopes and dreams.
It is then, for the inaugural time, that Peter begins to ponder whether he's the plastic one in a real world.
He stands there and quivers, eyes unseeing.
Somewhere out the dark, an owl calls a long, mournful note.