Migration

This was the fifth call Simon had responded to about the ducks. The squad car door was hot under his hand as he pushed it shut. Through the open window, Simon could hear the radio. At first, the dispatcher had used Animal Control codes, but now she spoke in words: “Mallards at 325 Magnolia. Woodland Elementary has a pair of black ones on the playground. Please respond. Report. Report?”

Simon rounded the nose of his car and spotted the ducks immediately, two mallards huddled together on the lawn. Their flat bills gleamed as their heads turned toward him to track his movement. A shiver crawled up his spine despite the heat of the sun on his uniform. He wanted to scratch the back of his neck but did not let himself do so in front of the ducks, in front of the citizen inside the house who had called the police for help.

When the first call about the ducks came over the radio, Simon had been amused and expected a frightened senior citizen who needed a little attention. He thought he would shoo a duck off the lawn or reassure an elderly lady that her well-fed cat would be alright. Instead, he found a portly man, in an expensive suit, holding a Japanese steak knife and sobbing so hard he could barely gesture toward the gray ducks floating in his koi pond. He kept repeating, “I just wanted a piece of candy.” Simon drove the man to the hospital and filled out paperwork for a psych hold.

It had been happening all over that morning, the ducks descending in pairs, terrorizing the people who saw them. The police department was bringing in off-duty officers to meet the demand.

The call Simon had just taken was from an older couple. They had been swimming laps outdoors at the YMCA, as they did every morning, when two black ducks landed in their adjoining lanes. The ducks made no splash when they hit the pool’s surface, but their dark bodies broke long Vs through the water. The couple leapt out of their lanes and hurried inside to insist the front desk call the police.

They still wore their wet swimsuits as Simon interviewed them. Their skin was deeply tanned, and the lady’s thighs were wrinkled in ways Simon had not known were possible.

Sitting a few inches apart on a bench outside the men’s locker room, they did not look at each other as they recounted what had happened. In a flat voice the husband explained that the ducks had transported them back to their wedding day, to the car ride from church to reception. They’d ridden in the backseat in silence—her corset a pinching cage around her ribs, his mouth dry from the half pack of Parliaments he smoked before the ceremony.

The wife cried as she described to Simon why they had agreed to be bride and groom that day. She still loved someone who had walked away, and he needed the job in her father’s construction company. They had not meant their promises to be binding or forever.

As she devolved into quiet sobs, the husband reached over and placed a hand on her wrinkled thigh. There was so much tenderness in the gesture that Simon almost forgot to write down the details.

When Simon thought of his own apartment, empty since Shoshana moved back to Portland, he hoped there was not a pair of ducks waiting for him on the balcony. He did not need that kind of company.

Now, he braced himself to respond to this fifth call. As he walked up the path to the front door, he kept one eye on the mallards. The brown female looked like she was about to fall asleep, her eyes half-closed, while her mate twisted his head around to rifle through his wing feathers. Simon swallowed hard.

The house was painted a creamy yellow, with white shutters and flowers in windows boxes. A tire swing hung from a branch of an old elm tree. Simon figured a young family lived here, children and their parents. Perhaps a dog, the cheerful, shaggy kind, that liked to run through the sprinklers and let the children pull on his ears. The front door had a mat that said Welcome to the Wilsons. Simon put one black boot over the first W and the other over the final s. The leather squeaked as he adjusted his feet into the ready stance. He rang the doorbell and heard it chime inside the house.

After a few seconds, the deadbolt turned in the lock, and the door opened as far as the chain would allow. “Who’s there?”

Simon bent down to meet the one eye he could see through the crack. It was a startling crystal blue with dark lashes spiked in clumps. “It’s the police, ma’am. I’m Officer Peterson. I’m here about the ducks.” He slipped off his sunglasses to meet her gaze. “Ma’am, Mrs. Wilson, can you open the door?”

“How do you know my name?” She sounded panicked.

He did not point out the mat under his boots. “It’s in the report, ma’am. I am here to help.”

The blue eye disappeared, and the door closed. Simon did not straighten until he heard the chain being pulled back. Mrs. Wilson was roughly his age, and although it was almost lunchtime, she wore a faded bathrobe over plaid pajamas. Her feet were bare, and the top of her head barely reached the badge pinned over Simon’s heart.

“I’m Officer Simon Peterson,” he repeated and withdrew his notepad. He had noticed that appearing to take notes reassured people. “You called about the ducks.”

“They’re just sitting there.” She shivered. “They won’t leave. I don’t think I can take another second.”

“When did the ducks first appear?”

“My husband leaves for work around seven, and the bus gets the children before eight.” Her voice gathered strength as she strung together the events of her day. “I was washing the dishes from breakfast and looked out the window, so around nine.”

He wrote the time of the ducks’ arrival. “Have any of your neighbors reported similar occurrences today?”

“No, or rather I don’t know, we don’t really talk to the neighbors.”

Simon noticed the embarrassment in her voice, but did not look up from his notepad. “Do you have a dog?”

“What?”

“A dog. I would want to know his reaction to the ducks.”

“No dog.” Her fingers plucked at the collar of her robe. “My husband is allergic.”

He thought it was a shame. This was a house made for a dog. “What about your husband? Did you contact him at any point?” Simon held his pen still on the page in front of him.

“No,” she answered. “Drew doesn’t like to be disturbed at work.”

Simon wrote Drew on his pad and then tucked it back into his utility belt. “So, Mrs. Wilson, what seems to be the problem? The ducks appear calm now.”

This news did not reassure her. “What?”

“Here on the lawn, like you said.” He gestured behind him.

Her face grew paler, which Simon had not thought possible. She leaned around him to get a clear view of the front yard and the ducks fluffed out on the grass. “Oh, Sweet Jesus, there’s more of them.”

“What’s wrong, ma’am? I thought you called about the ducks?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “But the ones in my backyard. I didn’t know about these. What am I going to do?” She looked up at him, and in her eyes Simon could see the little control she had left finally fracture.

“We will follow procedure,” Simon replied, using his most commanding tone to make her hold it together. “It will be alright.”

But she did not gather herself, did not ask more questions to get her taxpayer’s money’s worth. Instead, she moaned, “I don’t need to see it again. I get it, I get it.”

Simon hesitated and then gripped her shoulders. Through the thick terry of her robe, he could feel her bones trembling. “Hey, look at me. Don’t faint, alright?”

Inside the front door, Simon saw a chair. He hesitated. He was not supposed to enter a citizen’s home without probable cause or an invitation. Mrs. Wilson was in no shape to invite anyone to do anything.

He backed her into her house and urged her into the chair. A tangle of coats hung behind the seat, children’s rain slickers, sweaters in Mrs. Wilson’s size, and a man’s larger windbreaker. Simon went down on a knee to bring his eyes on level with hers. He rubbed her hand. Her breath stuttered in her chest, each pant shallow. Her eyes kept darting to the front door, so he closed it, sealing them inside and the ducks out.

Simon inhaled noisily. “Follow me.” He released the air in a controlled stream. He could hold his breath for over two minutes, a skill learned in high school when he worked as a lifeguard.

Her first attempt was shaky, but she kept following Simon’s rhythm. For a minute, the only sound was their breaths keeping time. When a bit of pink returned to her cheeks, he told her, “That’s better.”

Mrs. Wilson nodded and lifted her hand from his grasp. She smoothed her bathrobe over her knees and then touched her hair. “Oh, I’m a mess. Excuse me.”

His first impulse was to tell her she looked fine, better than fine, beautiful, but that was not appropriate. “Let’s see if you can stand.” Simon rose to his feet. His right knee clicked at the movement. “Don’t rush it.”

He offered a hand in assistance, but she stood up on her own. “I’m much better now. Thank you . . . Officer Peterson.” Simon saw her eyes check his nametag. “You’ve been so helpful.”

“It’s my job, ma’am.” He resettled his hands on his hips. In the small space of the front entrance, the gesture felt out of scale. He dropped his hands. “May I see the ducks in the back?”

“Of course.” She led him through a living room occupied by two plush couches with a lot of tiny pillows. There was a pile of magazines on the coffee table and a knitted blanket puddled on the floor. Over the fireplace hung a framed picture of a boy and a girl with Mrs. Wilson’s eyes.

Simon glimpsed an orderly kitchen through a doorway. A bottle of wine sat on the counter. From the wet ring of red on the tile, it was clear the bottle had been recently opened. Beside it a plastic cup with a cartoon puppy was halfway filled with wine.

At the sliding glass doors that led to the backyard, Mrs. Wilson paused before she sprang the latch. “They’re in the sandbox.”

Stepping out in front of her, Simon surveyed the backyard, brick porch, swing set, soccer ball. The sandbox was set against the back wall that enclosed the yard. Another pair of mallards nestled inside it next to a red bucket. The male had a green-jeweled head, while the female was a soft tan with darker striping. Even with the whole yard between them, Simon felt the strange chill of their presence. The sun was bright, so he slid his sunglasses back onto the bridge of his nose. “How exactly did they frighten you?”

“I know they look fine.” Mrs. Wilson pulled her robe tighter as if to hold her parts together. “But they won’t leave.”

This was not the real answer, but before Simon could clarify, a pair of ducks, so white it hurt to look directly at them, cruised into the backyard. “Here’s two more.”

Mrs. Wilson swung around. “Oh, God.”

“You’re not the only one with ducks today,” he offered. “You’re the fifth call I’ve responded to.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” she said. “If I’m the only one, then maybe it isn’t true, maybe I’m making it up.”

Simon did not like hearing her wish for insanity. At the first four calls, he had not approached any of the ducks because there was no property damage. But this could not continue, the ducks frightening people in their homes, making them feel unsafe.

When he stepped across the porch toward the lawn, Mrs. Wilson demanded, “What are you doing?”

“I have to investigate,” Simon said over his shoulder. “It’ll be alright. I have a club and a weapon.” He gestured to where they hung on his belt and walked down the porch steps toward the sandbox. As he approached, the uneasy feeling in his stomach grew more urgent. The ducks were both asleep. The tan one had her bill tucked under her wing. Simon reached toward the male slowly, so slowly.

“Don’t touch them!” Mrs. Wilson called.

Simon did not stop, and the duck did not stir, even as he brought his hands around either side of its body. The feathers were dense, slightly oily. He lifted it from the grass. The duck was heavier than expected, than the chickens he bought at the store, beheaded, plucked, wetly naked.

Then the duck opened one eye. It was like a switch turned on, and a waterfall crashed through his chest in a fierce rushing. In one swift second, Simon felt the present pull away until he was alone, a child, hiding inside the closet of his mother’s apartment. The carpet on the closet floor was a thick-tufted gold. Simon wove his fingers through the carpet as if it were the fur of his dog, the golden retriever he called Fetch, who barked only in his mind. The hems of his mother’s hanging clothes brushed across his face. The closet smelled like candy-sweet perfume and cigarettes.

Outside the closet, Simon could hear the CHiPs theme song blaring from the television, and his stepfather bellow at his brother, “Turn that shit down.” He heard his brother snap back, his voice still young and high, still alive, not silenced by an overdose.

The television shut off abruptly, the sound replaced by the slap of a hand against flesh. His stepfather said, “Worthless fuck.”

Simon knew this was the time to be small, to stay quiet. It was what his mother did, as if her stillness could create a camouflage from his stepfather’s fists. But that man always found her. Simon reached his hand up into the darkness to feel the clothes hanging there, slick polyester skirts slipping over his fingers.

“Officer Peterson!” At the sound of Mrs. Wilson’s voice, Simon jerked as if struck with a bat. He was in a sunny backyard. He was holding a duck.

He flung the duck down on the grass. Then his gun was in his hand. The action of snapping open his holster, sliding the muzzle from the leather, releasing the safety, steadying the aim with both hands, was so familiar Simon could not remember the individual steps, just the gun in his hand.

Simon sighted the duck’s eye and fired. The gun jerked against the heel of his hand. The report of the shot echoed around him. There was a disgruntled duck noise and a spray of feathers.

The duck and his mate were both on their webbed feet, their dark eyes solid like marbles. Simon could see the indentation in the grass where his bullet had hit. He breathed in gun residue and put his finger on the trigger to fire again, but someone said “That’s enough” and put a hand on his back.

“Come on, that’s enough.” Mrs. Wilson pressed both hands against his tensed muscles. He could feel himself shaking, sweating. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the pressure of her hands on either side of his spine. He slid his gun back into its holster and turned away from the sandbox, nearly tripping over a new pair of spotted ducks.

“I’m sorry.” His thoughts swam inside his skull. “So sorry.” He could not believe he had discharged his weapon, put her at risk. It had been so many years since he had lost control, but simply the remembered ghost of that man left him helpless.

“Here, sit.” Mrs. Wilson guided him down to the edge of the porch. She knelt in front of him and removed his sunglasses.

She was brave to cross the yard to rescue him from the ducks. On a normal day, Simon knew she must be extremely competent, a reliable and respected employee, a well-organized and careful mother, a steady partner. She folded his sunglasses, tucked them into a pocket of her robe, and took a seat next to him.

Simon slumped forward to hold his head in his hands. He wanted to cry for every day that had slipped away from him since he was that boy inside a closet, even though he had learned long ago not to weep for lost things. Out in the yard, a soft thump announced the arrival of another pair of ducks.

Mrs. Wilson asked, “You felt it too?”

“Yeah,” he managed to say.

“It’s terrible.”

Simon nodded and rubbed a hand over the bristle of his hair. He wondered why the ducks returned him to that memory, rather than a more momentous one, like his brother’s funeral or when his Humvee got hit in Afghanistan or Shoshana’s car driving away.

“The ducks sent me back to church,” Mrs. Wilson continued. “I was a teenager, and we were singing, all of us, an old hymn. I’m sure it wasn’t actually good, but for a moment our voices joined together and it was perfect, like we were united as one. It felt like God reaching down to bless us.”

“That sounds nice.” Simon had never attended church or learned much about God, but that did not sound so bad.

Mrs. Wilson cleared her throat and then answered his unasked question. “I grew up in the church, but I gave up on all that. The traditions, the rules, the beliefs. I thought I was okay with that choice. But—” She folded her hands very carefully over her knees. “I should be at work right now. I’m on medical leave. For a miscarriage. I lost a baby.”

“I’m so sorry.” Simon had always wanted several children, three or four, maybe more, so they would have many lifetime companions. Shoshana had not been sure she wanted any.

“The baby wasn’t planned. We have two. That was the plan. But I lost it, and my husband said maybe it was better this way and went on with his day. I haven’t been able to do the same. I got upset at work in the middle of a meeting, and they suggested I take time off.” A pair of gray ducks coasted down onto the grass.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she said. “To grieve, without God, without the church. The ducks made me realize that I was holding onto the hope that I could believe in a greater purpose. But that’s stupid. I only have myself, my own body to rely upon, and that is a really fucking fragile thing.” Mrs. Wilson turned to meet his gaze. Her blue eyes were devastated but clear.

“My stepfather was an asshole,” Simon told her. “I never felt safe for one second when my mother was married to him. He broke her down into such tiny pieces she never found herself again.”

When he saw Mrs. Wilson’s mouth contract in sympathy, he went on. “My fiancée left three weeks ago. She said I didn’t care about what we did, what we bought, where we lived, that I never wanted anything. She said she couldn’t live with that apathy for the rest of her life. I just wanted her to be happy. I didn’t care what restaurant we ate at or what color we painted the bedroom more than I cared about what would make her happy.”

“It’s hard being the one left behind,” Mrs. Wilson said. “Harder than the one choosing to leave.”

Simon nodded, relieved she understood. He had not spoken to anyone about Shoshana, not really. He had no one he called family, and it was not the kind of thing he discussed with his fellow officers. The sound of wings pulled their attention to where two jet-black ducks sailed to a soft landing.

“Is there anything you want?” Mrs. Wilson asked. “Now that she’s gone, anything you’d like for yourself?”

“A dog.” He did not need to think about this answer. “Shoshana didn’t like them, the barking, the smell, but I’ve always wanted a dog.”

“Well, that’s an easy one.” She smiled at him, crinkling the corners of her eyes. “There’s an animal shelter a few miles from here.”

Simon blinked. He had never considered this option. He could get a dog, anytime. His apartment allowed small ones, or he could move. He returned her smile. “Okay.” A flurry of movement announced a quartet of brown ducks with red tails landing under the swing set.

“Officer Peterson, what are we going to do?” she asked. “Now that we’ve seen this, I can’t go back to my same life, not that job where I’m not happy. So, what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, and the truth of this was brutal inside him. It was his job to help people, take control, and not leave until things were set right. But there was no protection against lost babies, abandoned faith, against the sense memory of fear. These are the things each person must wrestle with and learn how to survive. “We’ll have to figure it out.”

Two ducks, with a curl of feathers arching over their heads, circled the yard before gliding down. Mrs. Wilson exhaled softly and then gave him a decisive nod. Simon felt wrung out but clean, as if a corrosive residue had been scraped away.

The backyard was full of ducks waddling through the flowers, squatting on the grass, grooming their feathers. Four balanced on the top of the back wall, and another small flock roamed across the porch, fluttering up to investigate the table and chairs. Simon had never imagined there were so many different kinds of ducks, of ways their feathers could be arranged and colored. They were beautiful.

As if on signal, the ducks paused in the middle of preening and sleeping and investigating and turned toward the sun burning in the midday sky. For a moment, they remained still, one hundred different duck bills pointing up. Then, all over the yard, on the grass and in the flowerbeds, in the sandbox and across the porch, the ducks unfurled their wings.

Simon heard Mrs. Wilson gasp as the ducks began flapping their wings in unison, one slow beat, and then another, faster and faster. He held his breath. Together, the ducks began to rise from the yard, from the grass and flowerbeds, the sandbox and patio, until all Simon could hear was the rushing of feathers.

He turned to Mrs. Wilson and stretched out a hand, hoping she would meet him there in the space between them as the ducks moved up into the sky.

SARA JOYCE ROBINSON

Sara Joyce Robinson is a native and current resident of Southern California. She earned her MFA in Fiction from the University of California, Irvine, and served as Editor-in-Chief of their literary magazine, Faultline. Her work has been recognized as a finalist for Glimmer Train’s New Voices Prize and published by Grist and Scribendi. She is currently at work on a novel.