When the birds burst up and out from the sidewalk grass in front of my car as I’m driving home from the store on Mother’s Day, and I think: how beautiful! as the unexpected blue of their wings flash before me, and then: oh no! did I hit them?—it’s a near thing, a miracle: I miss them, just. Because the birds live, when I arrive home and honk to let my family know I’m back, let’s go, and my husband emerges, he does not stare perplexedly at the bumper of our newly-purchased SUV. And, because the birds are both still winging through the clear May sky, I do not slide out of the driver’s seat and find a dead bluebird resting like a macabre figurehead just above my Texas license plate. I do not marvel at its tiny twisted legs. One splayed skyward. Reaching. My son doesn’t nudge it with a stick so it falls glittering to the concrete of our driveway, a jewel torn from the crown of heaven. Let’s keep it, I don’t say, so my husband doesn’t have to shoot me that look both disgusted and affectionate like: you’re such a weirdo and I love you, but absolutely not, no way, dead songbird in the freezer is where I draw the line. The bird is still alive so I can’t take a picture and post it, like an omen, on Instagram. So, because I don’t kill this bird on Mother’s Day, the universe does not decide, a month later, that four and a half weeks of pregnancy is all I get. No, the bird flies free and this baby—the one I don’t know I want until I see the pink parallel lines and feel a yes so deep it rings like a bell? This baby lives.
Claire Hanlon spent her formative years moving frequently between the various islands and nations of Oceania; she's also lived in California, Montana, and now Texas, where she lives with her husband, son, three cats, dog, and a whisker collection. Her work was most recently in HAD and is forthcoming in a number of journals, including Passages North, Image, and Under the Gum Tree. Find her at www.clairehanlon.com or on Instagram as @loveyclairey, or at home, where she's probably yelling at an animal.