02 Jun
My mother was holding my youngest sister on her hip, watching us. “I don’t know…” she trailed off, but I could tell by the wistful look in her eye: we had her. Her mouth twisted to the side, considering.
“Oh…all right.”
The store owner, a rotund man in a faded denim buttondown, produced a cardboard box. That afternoon, we left the feed store with four ducklings and two chicks. As we drove away, the minivan filled with gently peeping baby fowl and wildly delighted children, my mother slowly shook her head in a horrified moment of retrospective disbelief over what she’d just done.
Once home, a laundry basket was lined with rags and shavings, the dog was banished to the backyard, the cat was shut in a bedroom, and a quartet of faces watched in rapt wonder as the ducklings napped in the makeshift warmth from a desk lamp. So engrossed were we that we barely heard the front door creak open at 5:30 PM.
But Mom heard. “Quick, quick! Away from the box! Everyone just act normal!” A mad scramble ensued as we sprang into chairs and slammed open school books.
Moments later, Dad entered the kitchen, carrying his lunch box and black leather briefcase. “Hi guys, what’s up?”
“Not much,” Mom answered, nonchalantly giving a stir to a pot on the stove. “How was your day?”
My dad opened his mouth to answer – and was interrupted by a soft chirrup from a laundry basket shoved under the kitchen table.
We stared at Dad. Dad stared at the basket. And all of us fell into an utterly horrified silence.
So slowly, without saying a word, Dad walked over to the basket and looked in.
So slowly, his face fell into the stubborn, stony lines of his least-used expression: not one of mild annoyance or outright anger, but the silent hardness of utter, unspeakable rage.
The Stone Face turned to my mother. “Those things will be returned to wherever they came from, tomorrow.” Then softly, formidably, he withdrew from the room without another word, leaving us in a breathless silence like the vacuum of a passing tempest.
Finally, one of us broke the quiet. “Do we really have to give them back, mama?”
A venting sigh. “Yes…I don’t know. I shouldn’t have bought them without talking to Dad.” She looked indecisively at the door through which my father had just exited. “I’ll talk to him.”
I don’t know what my mother said, but in the end, the ducklings stayed.
Dad didn’t talk to us for a week.
The Day The Ducklings Came To Stay
“Oh my gosh, they’re so cute!” squealed my older sister.
Leaning over the side of the aluminum feed trough, our faces reflecting the orange light from the heat lamp, we tried to resist our childish urge to pick up, to touch. But there’s only so much temptation a ten-year-old can withstand, and before I knew it I was gently cradling one of the fragile, fluffy yellow bundles. Soft whistles came from their tiny lungs and they rubbed their soft pink bills against our palms.
“Please can we get some?” I begged. “Oh yes, yes, please!!” pled my younger brother, bounding at my side.
My mother was holding my youngest sister on her hip, watching us. “I don’t know…” she trailed off, but I could tell by the wistful look in her eye: we had her. Her mouth twisted to the side, considering.
“Oh…all right.”
The store owner, a rotund man in a faded denim buttondown, produced a cardboard box. That afternoon, we left the feed store with four ducklings and two chicks. As we drove away, the minivan filled with gently peeping baby fowl and wildly delighted children, my mother slowly shook her head in a horrified moment of retrospective disbelief over what she’d just done.
“Your father’s gonna kill me,” she said.
Once home, a laundry basket was lined with rags and shavings, the dog was banished to the backyard, the cat was shut in a bedroom, and a quartet of faces watched in rapt wonder as the ducklings napped in the makeshift warmth from a desk lamp. So engrossed were we that we barely heard the front door creak open at 5:30 PM.
But Mom heard. “Quick, quick! Away from the box! Everyone just act normal!” A mad scramble ensued as we sprang into chairs and slammed open school books.
Moments later, Dad entered the kitchen, carrying his lunch box and black leather briefcase. “Hi guys, what’s up?”
“Not much,” Mom answered, nonchalantly giving a stir to a pot on the stove. “How was your day?”
My dad opened his mouth to answer – and was interrupted by a soft chirrup from a laundry basket shoved under the kitchen table.
A basket with a lamp suspiciously over its rag-lined interior.
Everyone froze.
We stared at Dad. Dad stared at the basket. And all of us fell into an utterly horrified silence.
So slowly, without saying a word, Dad walked over to the basket and looked in.
So slowly, his face fell into the stubborn, stony lines of his least-used expression: not one of mild annoyance or outright anger, but the silent hardness of utter, unspeakable rage.
No one moved.
The Stone Face turned to my mother. “Those things will be returned to wherever they came from, tomorrow.” Then softly, formidably, he withdrew from the room without another word, leaving us in a breathless silence like the vacuum of a passing tempest.
Finally, one of us broke the quiet. “Do we really have to give them back, mama?”
A venting sigh. “Yes…I don’t know. I shouldn’t have bought them without talking to Dad.” She looked indecisively at the door through which my father had just exited. “I’ll talk to him.”
I don’t know what my mother said, but in the end, the ducklings stayed.
Dad didn’t talk to us for a week.
