These Broken Wings

By Elizabeth Smith

“I just don’t know who the real you is,” Nora said, handing her phone to Mitch across the dinner table. It displayed his latest post on his Facebook page.

Alright, everyone, the pendulum has swung too far. It’s time to re-stigmatize mental illness and therapy.

“So, I had just bumped into Doug out walking his dog.” Mitch sipped his drink. “Remember him? We haven’t seen each other in what, fifteen years? And he’s blabbing about how he’s ruined his marriage and fallen into the dark pit of life. I mean, what’s he doing telling me about his crap?”

Nora shook her head, and her silver earrings swayed. “This isn’t about Doug. This is about the things you say online.” She scrolled back to a post from the previous week, the day of Trump’s inauguration:

“OK. You’re overreacting. Let’s just enjoy the food.”

Nora looked at her fettuccine and roasted vegetables. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

Mitch bit his cheek. Nora always had an appetite for his cooking. Maybe she was menstruating. All their previous disagreements had happened when she was on her cycle.

“It’s just politics,” Mitch said.

“And what does that say about me?”

“It didn’t say anything about you.”

“You know what I mean. And you know I voted for Harris. Apparently now I’m a libtard.”

“C’mon, it was a joke. Everything’s so tense lately, and I wanted to poke some fun. It’s just a post.”

“Well, you post too much.”

Nora stood and strutted down the hallway, her stiletto heels clicking against the tile. She returned with the swimsuit she had left by the washing machine months ago.

Mitch rested his fingers on her forearm. “Nora.”

She glanced down at his hand. “Those are the cufflinks I gave you.” She turned her palm face up. “I want them back.”

Mitch sniffed and unclipped the links from his sleeves.

“When I’m with you, you’re polite and generous.” Nora trembled. “And I love you. But you’re a totally different person online. You’re harsh and . . . and . . .” A tear fell as she placed the cufflinks in her purse.

Once she walked out the door, Mitch ran his fingers through his hair, breaking up the gel he had carefully applied an hour prior. He returned to the table; there was no reason to miss out on a good meal the day he got dumped.

As Mitch ate, the only sound in the apartment was the scrape of his fork and knife; in the silence, his mind flooded with the year of dates with Nora. The night at the swing dance club, they had embraced so comfortably—there was no second guessing, no tension in her shoulders. One Saturday he had found wine glasses at the dollar store, brought them along on a picnic, and kissed her for the first time under a maple tree. And there was the sweltering July evening in the pool, when Mitch blushed so strongly at the sight of Nora in her swimsuit that she asked if he had a sunburn.

Mitch dialed Sam’s number. The call went straight to voicemail. He shoved his phone into his pocket. He looked at the place set for Nora and felt a sudden urge to smash the plate and glass on the floor. How could everything they had together end over something so small as an online post? He retrieved his phone again. This time he opened his Facebook and jabbed at the screen’s keyboard.

Why do doctors use the medical term PMS?
Because Mad Cow Disease was already taken.

His phone vibrated in his hand. It was a call from his younger sister, Heidi. After engaging in the usual small talk, Mitch recounted the argument.

“Well, you know what I think about your social media,” she answered. “You swat flies with a sledgehammer.”

Both siblings laughed.

“What’s up?” Mitch asked.

“Dash’s new gym is what’s up. He’s working around the clock to get things started, and I’ve got to take another shift at the makeup counter so we can still pay the mortgage.”

“How can I help?”

“You busy on Thursday nights?”

“Not anymore.”

“Could you watch River?”

“You bet.”

On Thursday afternoon, River wore a dark green sweatshirt with dinosaur spikes running down the hood and back. Mitch slipped into the bedroom to change into a fresh T-shirt and jeans after a long day of installing electrical panels. The doorknob jiggled, and River opened the door.

“Hey, T-Rex. Can you give me some privacy?”

River flexed his fingers into claws and roared before stomping back down the hall. Mitch engaged the lock and sat on the bed. His back hurt as he changed his clothes. He took an extra minute to find a clean sweater.

He went back to the living room, but River was not there. Mitch checked the bathroom and the spare room—nothing. He went to the kitchen. The kid was sitting under the sink, amid the soaps and spray bottles, holding a half-empty bag of marshmallows.

“Where did you find that?”

River stared at his uncle, his right fist inside the bag, his mouth covered in sugary saliva. Mitch smirked.

“Can I see it?”

“No.”

Mitch extended his hand.

“No!”

“You’re not in trouble.”

River held the bag to his chest, yet Mitch yanked it from the boy’s grip. A dozen marshmallows scattered along the floor, and before Mitch could say or do anything, his nephew inhaled them. Mitch studied the packaging. The marshmallows had expired over a year ago.

“I need to chuck these.”

River wailed, leaping at the bag. Mitch held the sweets above his head as he looked around the kitchen for a solution. He threw the bag in a cupboard above the stove, then crouched on all fours. The two chased and wrestled for what seemed like an eternity. Soon Mitch turned on a children’s show, and River lounged on the couch. Mitch tiptoed to the kitchen and popped a frozen pizza in the oven. He opened the fridge, took a swig of Red Bull, and rummaged around for the pears.

There was a clatter followed by a dissonant chord. Mitch raced back to the living room to find his electric guitar lying face down on the floor, fallen from its hanger on the wall, his nephew giggling.

“What did you do that for?” Mitch gasped, picking up the instrument. There was a nick in the blue paint at the bottom. He squeezed his eyes shut.

“I can play?” River asked.

“Absolutely not.”

Mitch placed the guitar back on the wall among the line of other stringed instruments. River begged again, and Mitch refused. After a third identical interchange, the boy melted to the floor and shrieked unintelligible words. The kitchen timer rang.

“Time to eat.” Mitch held out his hand.

“No!” River screamed and bit Mitch’s middle finger.

The following day was Mitch’s day “on call,” which meant he talked homeowners through simple problems like capping a live wire or identifying what outlet tripped the breaker. This was a wonderful rest for his body but a painful exercise for his mind, and the evening was worse. With Nora gone, what was there to do after work? He called Sam again and asked to hang out, but Sam and his wife were sick. He considered going to the swing dance club downtown, but what if Nora showed up? He might break.

On Saturday, Mitch cleaned his pantry and fridge, tossing several jars and bags of expired foods while his mind regurgitated all sorts of muck. The breakup with Nora was certainly his fault. He turned on some music as a distraction, but that only reminded him of his old band. Its falling apart was unbearable. Why didn’t he try harder to find a new lead singer? How was he to improve the skills he learned from his degree? And what about his receding hairline?

That afternoon he walked to the library for something—anything—to keep his thoughts occupied. After picking a thick novel by Brandon Sanderson, he stopped by the children’s section. However, the more Mitch browsed the stacks, the more he became lost in a realm he hadn’t visited since he was a child.

“Need help?”

Mitch turned to face a young woman with curled dark hair, no makeup, and a purple cowl with uneven knitting. Her lanyard indicated she was Judy, the children’s librarian.

“What do you recommend for a three-year-old boy?”

Judy led him to a medium-sized shelf in the middle of the room. She found a book about a family of monster trucks and a story in the Curious George series. Then she turned to a shelf along the wall.

“Is this for your son?” Judy asked as she pulled out a book illustrated with of a humanized hot dog and chicken nugget.

“Oh, no. It’s my nephew. I babysit him on Thursdays.”

“Well, these ought to help.”

“Hopefully.” Mitch scratched his cheek.

“Good luck.” Judy smiled, handing him the small pile of books. “If you need a place to go, every second Thursday we hold story time in the evening.”

This Thursday was the first Thursday of February, and Mitch never took his eye off River. The boy attempted to touch the guitars again, but the stories held his attention, channeling his curiosity into the letters and images on the pages. River even poured the macaroni in the saucepan and stirred in the butter and cheese. At the dinner table, he asked for marshmallows. When Mitch admitted he threw them away, the kid whined and dumped his dinner onto the floor.

“What is up with you?” Mitch muttered.

“I want marshmallows!” River pouted, throwing his cup of juice down as well.

“That’s it!” Mitch dragged the boy to the coat closet.

He left the boy in the dark, screaming and banging on the door, until the floor was clean.

After Heidi picked up her son, Mitch collapsed on the couch. From his position, he could see underneath the instruments hanging on the wall: the ukulele, the black bass guitar, the Taylor acoustic, and, of course, the blue PRS sporting the scratch. They were all a little dusty. He stood and picked up the Taylor, admiring its amber mahogany body. Mitch’s dad had given it to him when he graduated with his bachelor’s in music performance.

He pulled over a kitchen chair and tuned the strings. Although it had been a few months since he had picked up an instrument, Mitch’s fingers remembered the path up and down the scales. It was like driving home on a tiring day, and his body kicked into autopilot.

But Mitch didn’t want to drive home. He wanted to release the dam, expressing his frustration about, well, almost everything. He marched to his bookcase and pulled out one book of music after another. He sight-read through Bach’s guitar suites, but the seemingly similar yet endless options among them made him restless. They were all too tight and precise. He opened Walton’s bagatelles, but he was too exhausted to tackle one of those. He yanked out John Denver, Colin Raye, and Elvis. He thumbed through Simon and Garfunkel, Jack Johnson, and Ed Sheeran. He pulled out a book that Nora had given him: Billie Eilish’s early hits. Without opening it, he dropped it in the recycling bin.

Finally, he took out a fat three-ringed binder, bulging with his countless notes and drafts of the band’s original songs. Mitch scratched his beard. Sam was the one who came up with the melodies and lyrics. Mitch did all the harmony, making the simple ditties into something more sophisticated, and Cody followed up with the perfect rhythms on the drums. To play one of these was to play one-third of a song, which wouldn’t do it justice. He stuffed the papers back into the binder and hung up the guitar, opting instead for the meme generator on his phone. He shared the results online:

On the following Thursday evening, Mitch walked with River to the library after dinner. He slipped the picture books and the fantasy novel into the book return; Mitch had devoured the story more quickly than he had anticipated, spending too many late nights reading just one more chapter while snacking on microwave popcorn.

The large conference room doors were open. He shepherded his nephew inside, where they were welcomed by Judy, who donned a fuzzy robe and pair of slippers. A colorful rug lay on the floor, and dozens of bedtime stories were displayed on a folding table. Several families were already seated—some children were also wearing pajamas—and more were coming in. Mitch sat cross-legged on the rug with River fidgeting in his lap. A girl sat in front of them, a little too close to River, and the boy yanked her braid. Mitch pried his nephew’s hand open, mumbled an apology, and moved backward.

Judy began reading about an owl playing in the woods at night. She manipulated her voice to represent the various characters, and occasionally she stopped to talk with the kids about the illustrations. After reading a comical story about a hibernating bear, Judy unzipped a guitar case beside her chair and sang a simplified version of “Brahms’ Lullaby.” Mitch cringed. Her singing was flat, and her grip on the neck of the instrument was awkward, making the strings ting.

But the children on the rug were mesmerized, not noticing the awful noises coming from the woman. Judy told a simple joke and read several more books before ending her presentation with a horrendous rendition of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Mitch suppressed a laugh as she continued through two additional verses.

When the song ended, River clapped. Soon Judy handed out coloring pages and washable markers. When his nephew was satisfied with the scribbles on his paper, Mitch let him pick out a few books to check out for their next time together. Meanwhile, Mitch approached the librarian.

“Thank you for doing this on a Thursday evening.”

Judy turned and looked at him blankly. Then she smiled.

“Did the books help you with babysitting?”

Mitch nodded. “How long have you been playing the guitar?”

“Oh, just a few months, through an online course.” She blushed. “It’s not going as well as I hoped.”

“It’s hard to stay motivated,” Mitch admitted, as River handed him one book before searching for another. “May I offer some advice?”

Judy chuckled.

“If you push your left arm forward, you’ll be able to curl your fingers more. It’ll sound better, and you won’t have to push down so hard.”

The librarian took off her plush robe and thanked him. River handed Mitch three more books, and they turned toward the checkout.

“Excuse me, but do you know of a good teacher?” Judy asked.

Mitch thumbed through his mental address book of musical colleagues. Most had moved out of state, and the local teachers he knew taught mostly children. He put his hand in his pocket. There was a vacuum in town, and he could fill it.

“I would be happy to teach.” He pulled a business card from his wallet. Cody had insisted on marketing their music as much as possible and had ordered a batch for the band. When Mitch received his fifty, he doubted he would ever have an opportunity to give a card out. Now he was grateful.

“The number is my cell, and the website has my credentials and some recordings.”

Judy raised her eyebrows and took the card.

Mitch and his nephew checked out the books, read them in an oversized armchair, and played blocks in the children’s section. Soon it was a quarter past eight; Heidi was late. He checked his phone’s messages, but none were from that evening. He called her—no luck. Then he called Dash.

A deep, cheery voice answered the phone.

“Can you come pick up River? We’re at the library tonight,” Mitch explained, “but I didn’t take my car because Heidi was nervous. Something to do with installing the car seat.”

“Sure, I’ll be over in ten.”

It was half an hour by the time his brother-in-law came, wearing clean, coordinated exercise wear and a slim down jacket. River bolted to his father, and Dash’s arms engulfed his son. River giggled and shut his eyes, and Dash smiled, revealing his impeccably bright teeth.

The three of them pushed open the large metal doors. Fat snowflakes were falling.

“I didn’t see that on my weather app,” Mitch admitted.

“No worries. I’ll give you a ride home after I get this little man in bed.”

They rushed to Dash’s sedan. By the time they were driving out of the parking lot, River had nodded off.

“Is everything OK with Heidi?” Mitch asked.

Dash braked for a stop sign and shrugged. “I haven’t talked to her yet. She probably just had a hard time with a client or something.”

Soon they were parked in the garage of Heidi and Dash’s townhome, and River was a limp noodle when his father unbuckled him. Mitch followed them through the door to the kitchen. There was a draft; the window above the sink was open. Yet a faint smell of cigarette smoke lingered.

Mitch frowned. Heidi had quit smoking before River was born, and she promised herself she wouldn’t touch tobacco again. She had even thrown a party to celebrate. Now she was sitting at the table, and at the sound of the door thumping closed, she turned around. Dash tiptoed upstairs to tuck the child into bed.

Mitch looked Heidi in the eyes, which were red. Without waiting for her apology, he hugged his sister.

“I got fired today.” She wept.

On Monday afternoon, Mitch drove back to the library after work. His fingers and forearms ached as he carried his acoustic guitar into the smallest conference room. He laid out a book of beginner’s exercises, a typed document, and a composition notebook on the table before stretching his wrists, tuning the guitar strings with a digital clip-on tuner, and warming up.

According to his phone, there were still six minutes left before his lesson with Judy, assuming she was the punctual type. To fill the time, he played a song he had learned back when he had braces: “Blackbird” by Paul McCartney. His mind couldn’t recall the order of the chords or the picks, but his fingers did. They simply landed on the right frets and strings automatically, and that gave Mitch the confidence to sing along.

Judy opened the door. They covered the housekeeping on the document he had made. She tuned her guitar with Mitch’s help, and they explored the first pages of the book. Eventually Mitch asked Judy to play “Brahms’ Lullaby” again. He worked with her slowly, ensuring Judy’s arms and fingers were in the proper position. Mitch suggested a simple, slow picking pattern to replace the strumming Judy had previously learned. He wrote the assignments in the composition notebook, and soon the time was up.

Mitch rested the Taylor back in its case. “You’ve really got a way with kids.”

“That’s kind of you.”

“What’s your secret?”

“Secret?” Judy placed the paper and books in her faded red backpack.

“Whenever I babysit River, it’s like he’s an orangutan in the zoo. But he wasn’t such a lunatic at story time.”

“I’m flattered.” Judy coughed. “I’ve been working on it, reading up on child development and such. From what I gather,” she continued as she fumbled with her guitar’s canvas cover, “a kid is just a kid, before anything else. Before they’re smart or athletic or outdoorsy. They seem to need a calm adult to love them and show them what good values are, good behaviors. So that’s what I’m trying out.” Finally everything was packed up, and Judy shrugged. “But none of those kids are mine. What do I know?”

On the drive home, Mitch thought of River and grinned. What barbarian mess he had gotten into that day with his mother? At the railroad crossing was a freight train with a seemingly endless number of cars. He sent a text to Heidi.

How you holding up?

Heidi responded immediately: Just saw the meme. You turd, I’d never cheat. What did you do that for?

Mitch chuckled, brushing it off. Yet when the railroad crossing gate lifted, he recalled asking the same question of River. He turned onto Main Street with its rows of old trees, today with frosted branches. Judy had said kids need a good example. Dash was an easygoing guy, but he wasn’t with River much these days. Heidi was not a “calm adult” right now, taking up cigarettes again. River was just River.

In the apartment, he unpacked the guitar, but instead of placing it in the line behind the couch, he played “Blackbird” again. There was something pleasing and natural in the shapes his left hand made along the frets. He played them backward. He inverted the picking pattern. He switched to strumming and back to picking. He hummed something new, something he didn’t know was in him but was spilling out of his voice. He snatched his notebook from the bookshelf and sharpened a pencil.

Later Mitch returned to his phone, biting a hangnail while rereading the texts. You can still drop River off at my place on Thursday. Then you’d have more time to job search.

Before he set his phone down, Heidi accepted the offer.

On Thursday Mitch taught the kid how to play slapjack, and although River would sometimes look at the card as he flipped it, Mitch was happy his nephew wasn’t slapping him. After wrestling, eating dinner, and reading the picture books from the library, River asked about the guitars. Mitch hesitated, but soon he sat down with the Taylor.

“What song should I sing?”

“I want to sing too.”

“OK. What should we sing together?”

“A new one.”

“Yankee Doodle.”

“No!” the boy cried. “A new new one.”

The uncle scratched his cheek. Then he played his composition from earlier that week, humming the fragmented melody.

“How was that?” he asked at the final chord.

“Where’s words?”

“What?”

River enunciated slowly. “Words. I want to sing.”

“Well, not all songs have words.”

The boy stared at Mitch.

“OK, OK. You got me. I don’t have words yet.” Mitch stood and sipped a glass from the side table. “How about we make the words together?”

River straightened his posture and bounced to the edge of the cushion. “Let’s sing flying up in the sky!”

Mitch guffawed, yet soon he was singing.

“If you and I could fly,

where on earth would we go?”

River smiled and repeated the lyrics. “Let’s go to the beach or go see a bear!”

“OK.”

“And a monkey.”

“Sure.” Mitch scanned his brain for words and destinations rhyming with fly and go. He grabbed his pencil and convinced River he could have a turn soon. Once he finished scratching his notes in the notebook, Mitch handed the kid the pencil and some scratch paper. He sang what he had.

“If you and I could fly

Where on earth would we go?

I think that we should try

The beach in Mexico,

Or towers in Shanghai.

Let’s meet bears by Juneau

And monkeys near Mumbai.

Amsterdam has Van Gogh,

But I know you would like

Wal-Mart—for marshmallows!”

River whooped, and the two belted the last line over and over until Mitch pulled out two fresh marshmallows from the cupboard above the stove.

After Heidi dutifully arrived on time for her son and gushed over her brother for his help, Mitch sat down again and recorded the helter-skelter song in a voice memo app.

Then he pressed the blue icon to share it online.