ogeron

The truth was that she didn’t know how she felt, though that sounded silly and girlish. After all, if she didn’t know how she felt, who would? No, she had to decide exactly how she felt. She thought first about his touch and about how it had begun to feel tired and old. She had nothing against age, but this was different. Old was different. He seemed, too, to be less sure, less assertive. He waffled, sometimes, though he called it being “more thoughtful.” She always despised him – yes, despised – when he lost his confidence, acted weak, acted needy. Why the hate? Why so strong? Maybe because she didn’t want to be here and that made it even worse. Maybe because she could be needy and she hated that in herself. Who knew? It was time, though, now. She was waiting for him at the Starbucks. She would tell him, here. This was the best place. He walked in with a sadness in his eyes. She smiled, kissed him on the cheek and said, “I’m pregnant.” It would be their first child. They would name him Ogeron. It was his choice, the name. She would stay with him and try to change things. Her name was Sadie. She grew up with a cat named Exeter.

gibraltar

She had a parrot named Gibraltar that rode on her shoulder around the shop. She never used a nickname for him. Never Gibby. Or G-bird. Or ‘Tar. And she corrected those who tried. His name is Gibraltar, she would say. Gibraltar was three shades of green, with blue highlights and some flashes of orange. She didn’t know which type of parrot he was, only knew that he’d been smuggled in through Mexico (she was told) and that she’d bought him off the side of the road from a friendly man named Cochito, who also was selling pit bull puppies. Fifty dollars. One day, the old lady who worked for her in the shop, Junie, left the door open and Gibraltar flew out and away. Junie soothed herself by telling herself and anyone who asked that Gibraltar had been waiting for that moment and that now he was free. The next day, a small child named Rooney found a dead green bird with orange flashes in a backyard, about four blocks from the shop. Gibraltar’s owner was Magdalena. She’d graduated from Brown. She went on thinking, as Junie’d advised, that Gibraltar had flown to his liberty.