The Hummingbirds Page 4

  Ezra sat down and the old springs beneath the vinyl seat covers sunk beneath his frame.

  “You guys,” said Maria, sliding her hair behind her ears. “You can see this, right? I mean, all of this. It’s meant to be.”

  “I’m beyond happy for you two,” April said.

  He couldn’t look at them. Instead he studied the vintage travel photos trapped beneath the clear plastic table covering. While they celebrated, he tried to smile. Tried to laugh. Tried to encourage. Tried to become that starchy packing material around which everyone at the table could exist, snug. But their joy mocked him. So he did what worked best: retreat behind his camera to record the facts, one click at a time, as the waiter brought desserts, as Bryce and Maria whispered sweet nothings to each other.

  April stared at them. He wondered if she was jealous too. But then she sighed and turned to him, cheek resting on her fist. “So,” she said. “Tell me more about your photography.”

  He cleared his throat and hoped his voice would hold. “I’m most interested in birds,” he said. “Hummingbirds in particular . . .” He drew out his answer, reveling in the safety of explaining a solitary hobby that could in no way be offensive to anyone, ever. He didn’t feel photography was boring, but he tried his best to make it seem that way. His mother would have approved of his misdirection, calling it respect. It felt like building a moat. “. . . it really requires a lot of patience to capture a decent photograph of a hummingbird. I’m up at five most mornings . . .” When he finished with the hummingbirds, he began holding forth on the ever-popular topic of camera features.

  April didn’t seem to mind. She smiled and inched closer. Bit the side of her lip. He knew what was happening. The air felt thick, swarming. And then April’s hand was on his thigh.

  He almost jumped. Bryce and Maria looked over, startled. God, the embarrassment. April’s face colored and she palmed her glass.

  “Excuse me,” Ezra said. “I need to . . .” He removed a twenty from his wallet and laid the cash on the table. “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. Congratulations to you both. Sincerely—congrats.”

  “You’re leaving?” asked April.

  “Don’t leave,” said Bryce. “You haven’t even finished your pie.”

  “I only like the meringue,” he said, and walked away before anyone could argue.

  FIVE

  Outside, the weather was still and cool. A few people stood beneath the streetlights smoking, and it seemed that someone covered in blankets slept beneath every awning. As he walked, Ezra gave in to the feelings of the city. Some days the vibe got so tense it seemed to gather in your sweat. When you wiped your brow, you expected to find soot on your wrist even though nothing was burning.

  He’d felt like this a few times before: struck by the realization that he was alone, with little promise of that changing. It was like seeing a photograph of yourself that you didn’t realize was being taken, at a time when you didn’t realize you were even being watched. You saw yourself as others saw you, when you haven’t had a chance to gather your best self. It was illuminating in an uncomfortable way.

  It was like that morning of the supposed Apocalypse. He was thirteen and overlooking the coastline as dawn tinged the horizon. The long dune grasses swayed and gusts of wind hurled rain into his hair. There were enough thick-coated parishioners present for a fleet of church vans, not counting a group of reporters and photographers.

  Ezra studied all their faces, because he could feel his doubt inside and wanted to be less alone with it. He reminded himself of what he knew about the night his mother woke with the date and time seared into her soul. Had she not run into Ezra’s room only moments after it had happened, crazed, fearful, and in grave doubt over what she’d been told? Had she not groaned for days trying to figure out what to do, because who would want such a responsibility?

  Had she not performed miracles before, the vision would have been much easier for his mother—and Ezra—to dismiss. But there was the unexplained regression of prostate cancer in an elderly gentleman whose radiation treatments hadn’t worked. The bedridden teen whose car accident left her with no feeling below her hips, who proceeded to walk after a simple visitation and prayer from the Prophetess. But most incredible and distressing was her prescient dream.

  Years before, she’d awakened with a vision of a scattered pile of bones and a human skull buried a foot beneath the soil, in a gulley among thick fescue and ferns, next to a quick, bright stream. She recognized the spot immediately because she’d hiked past it dozens of times. In the dark of night, while Ezra slept in his room, she hustled to her car and with a flashlight found the spot.

  A case that had been cold for nearly thirty years was solved.

  But an Apocalyptic prediction was a prophecy of an entirely different scope. The vision tormented Ezra’s mother. She didn’t want it. She tried to ignore it. But she couldn’t, and Ezra alone was with her through it all, afraid, piecing through Scripture and picturing each horrible scene as real. Real. A word used called into question the nature of reality itself.

  Finally, nearly a month after the night of the vision, Ezra’s mother broke. For an entire day, she cried. I have no choice. I have no choice. Despite all the pain and sorrow and ridicule and lost friends it could cost her, despite all it could cost her son, she would share the news with everyone who would listen, come what may.

  It was real.

  What she told them was this: When God promised Abram that his ancestors would number as many as the stars in the sky, what did he ask for in return? A ritual sacrifice. Cut the heifer, goat, and ram in half, he said. But what of the birds? Keep them whole. Keep. Them. Whole. Why, I ask you? They’d be far easier to split than the rest of the animals.

  Her answer was that birds were the closest to a pure spirit inhabiting the earth. Did the Holy Spirit descend into Christ as a horse? A tree? A butterfly? No. You laugh, but think with me here. You might ask—and you’d be right to, I wish more people would—why, exactly, the Holy Spirit didn’t just descend as a human. We’re made in the image of God, aren’t we? So why didn’t God descend as, well, God? And you might also ask why the Holy Spirit needed to descend into Christ at all. Before that point, he was already the Son of God. Sure, the moment was important, a sign for those watching. Sure, John the Baptist needed to perform the baptism to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy. But why, you might ask, a dove?

  The answer had come to the Prophetess in another dream, where she was led by a dove into the eaves of their former church sanctuary a mile away, one they’d acquired from a mainline denomination when that congregation had gone under. Something was missing from the religion of my youth. I didn’t know what, but like many of you, I could feel the lack. She found a ladder and scaled the side of the building. Nested just above the old wooden cross were seven mourning doves, all in a row. The smallest of the doves flew over to her and landed on weathered wood, mere inches from her face. It spoke. “Unite with us and what you desire will come to pass.”

  The unity between birds and humanity has been broken for centuries. Our part is to hasten that reality to prepare for His Second Coming.

  And years later, the date had finally come. They were at the beach, waiting for dawn and the arrival of the Four Horsemen. The Atlantic breakers poured in, one after the other, spending the last of their energy in a sandy froth. Overhead, a handful of seagulls negotiated the stiff wind; if not for their subtle adjustments, they’d look suspended. Purgatorial, someone joked. A few laughed, but most didn’t.

  Ezra shivered.

  “You’re worried,” his mother said, tousling his hair. “Me too.” She checked her watch. “It’s funny how stuff like watches will be worthless from now on. So much is going to change. It’s impossible to even conceptualize. We’re so stuck in this world.” She squeezed his shoulder. “Everything except our soul is made up of everything else.”

  “What’s our soul made of?”

  She winked. “We’ll find out.”

 
; One of the reporters crept through the dune grasses, with a small spiral-topped notepad in his palm. His hair, unmoved by the wind, resembled brown glass. On the outskirts, a photographer in a gray turtleneck snapped pictures.

  “I wish you wouldn’t make light of this,” Ezra’s mother hollered to the reporter.

  “We have as much a right to be here as you,” he said. “And we’ll see how this plays out. Do you have anything to share before it happens?”

  “Making light,” his mother said, ignoring the reporter’s lead. “I hadn’t thought about that combination of words before. Maybe it will be precisely that.”

  The reporter smiled and jotted something down. For a moment, Ezra felt like telling him to get out of here, that he wasn’t welcome. But he didn’t, and not because he felt it would be in the wrong spirit. He feared what the reporter clearly felt—that this was all foolish, just some big mistake—and that doubt shamed Ezra.

  “Some space, please,” his mother said to the reporter, who backed away and continued taking notes. She then stepped out in front of the crowd, flanked by the dawn. There was less than ten minutes to go. “Now is the time,” she yelled, “to confess anything you’ve been hiding. Soon it will all be out in the open, so here’s your chance.”

  Ezra bowed his head, knowing he’d say nothing, and wondered whether she’d confess all that she did in secret. The man standing next to him grunted. Ezra looked up and saw that he was holding back tears. His wife took up his hand and patted it gently, her eyes still closed in prayer. The man opened his mouth to say something, but stopped.

  Someone in the crowd hollered out, “I cheated on my taxes.”

  Ezra looked up.

  “Forgiveness is coming,” his mother called out. “And to those who don’t believe?” She nodded to the reporter and photographer as others came alongside them. “There is still time to repent.” She swayed and began to hum.

  The previous night, she’d locked Ezra in his room and left the house. He’d heard the door shut and the hum of an engine in the driveway. He tried to rest but couldn’t, until around four a.m., when the door to the house finally opened. Her footfalls creaked down the hallway and she unlatched the bedroom door. He’d expected to smell alcohol, to see the pink glaze in her eyes. Her face was puffy from crying; otherwise, she appeared awake and alert.

  “Where did you go?”

  “I needed to right a few wrongs.”

  He didn’t prod any further. Her appearance revealed the truth of her words. She looked lighter. She’d made her peace with the johns, probably visited each of them and told them the truth about herself, shared with them the gospel as she knew it, and left.

  A breeze hustled in from the bay. The rain stopped and the haze of a rainbow appeared out over the remaining mist.

  “Speak now,” she called out to everyone. “It’s nearly time.”

  There was a buzzing in Ezra’s ear. He swatted it only to realize it was coming from inside. He found himself short of breath.

  The man next to Ezra coughed and then whispered, “I cheated—” He coughed again and opened his eyes and looked around. “I . . .” he said, blinking. “I cheated on my wife.”

  Someone gasped. The man’s wife turned pale and stumbled for a moment. Ezra stepped out and caught her, but she wasn’t having it. She lunged at her husband—who was now on his knees, groveling—and began clobbering him with both fists.

  “Forgiveness will come even for those untrue,” yelled Ezra’s mother. “Confess before time runs out.”

  The woman stopped pummeling her husband, shoved Ezra aside, and began walking away, back down the path toward the parking area. A few of the parishioners trotted after her, trying to give consolation while still looking back over their shoulder at what was to come.

  “Stay the path!” his mother called.

  Ezra watched the reporter scribble across his notepad, a grin on his face. The photographer was hovering about, snapping pictures.

  “Have faith! There will be no more pain where we are going!”

  Ezra looked back at his mother. She was not only undisturbed by what had happened, she seemed buttressed by it. Was she glowing? Her look steeled Ezra.

  Precious few seconds remained. He scanned the ocean and something moved through him, like a wave, or a wind. He felt elated. It was wonderful. His doubt had disappeared.

  His mother turned and faced the sunrise, hands open in an embrace. Ezra did the same. Orange light streamed out from the edge of the ocean. There was silence. A few people collapsed. But other than that, nothing.

  What felt like an hour passed. Everything around Ezra seemed to burst with life. The grasses dancing in the wind, the seagulls in the air, the clouds painted with color—it was all so beautiful.

  They waited.

  He could hear his heart in his ears, thundering away, and for the first time it seemed miraculous to him that hearts beat on their own, without any permission; all around him hearts were beating in the same way.

  They waited.

  Life was coursing through it all: worms burrowing in the ground beneath him, spiders awaiting prey just inside the entrance to their nests—millions of them!

  They waited.

  A mother rested her arm on her daughter’s shoulder. Both had their eyes closed in anticipation.

  They waited.

  Someone said, “Nothing happened.”

  “Have patience,” yelled Ezra’s mother, still reaching out toward the sun, which was now a blinding shard just edging over the horizon.

  Everyone did wait, for a few more seconds, then more, and more still. But soon it became clear to Ezra that only the common miracles of life and breath and the sun were present, though each felt less miraculous with each passing moment.

  “I sold my house and gave the money to charity,” someone yelled.

  “My marriage is ruined,” said the man next to Ezra, still prone on the ground.

  Ezra’s mother lowered her arms and turned slowly toward them. Ezra couldn’t see her face; she was a dark silhouette with the sun bright behind her.

  “Hold true,” she said. “This is a test. A lesson. Nothing the Lord does is without purpose. We will find meaning in it ere the end.”

  A lesson. A terrible thought occurred to Ezra. What if he’d somehow prevented the Apocalypse? What if while everyone else had been confessing, out loud for everyone to hear, the Lord had been waiting on him to do the same, and because of Ezra’s pride, the Lord had decided to postpone the event? It was absurd, he knew it even as he thought it—who was he?—but at the same time, he could imagine how his name would be spoken of were it in Scripture: All the faithful were ready, but at the last minute the son of the Prophetess proved unfaithful, and for that reason the Lord decided to wait on His followers so that His followers would truly learn to wait on Him.

  A seagull called out. Ezra woke from his daze and realized that the rest of the crowd had dispersed. Only he and his mother were left. He went to her.

  She was crying.

  “Mom.” He grabbed her hand.

  “What everyone must think of me,” she said.

  “I—”

  “Ezra, you know. You know more than anyone here. I would never have done this if I didn’t—”

  “I understand,” Ezra said. He really wished he meant it.

  “I so hoped it would happen.” She wiped her nose with her sleeve. Her hands shook. “It doesn’t make sense. We shouldn’t be here. We should be with Him.”

  “I know.” He grabbed her hand and squeezed it. He heard a click.

  The photographer was kneeling, snapping pictures. Next to him smiled the reporter, hands in his pockets, seeming content to wait for any further developments before going home to draft a column.

  Ezra tried to ignore them, but couldn’t. “Stop it,” he said.

  The photographer kept taking pictures.

  “Stop it!” he yelled.

  “It’s fine, Ezra,” his mother said. “They have as much a
right to be here as we do.”

  He’d never heard her voice so empty. Ezra realized something far worse about himself than his doubt. Unlike his mother, he wasn’t at all sad that they weren’t in heaven. In fact, he felt relieved. His only wish, in that moment, was that he was also behind a camera, instead of in front of one.

  A cab flashed its brights to see if Ezra needed a ride. He shook his head and kept walking. Maybe, he thought, I should just take the job from Hudson. He didn’t like what saying yes made him, but what was he already? The kind of guy who took nude pictures of married women outside his window. The kind who lusted after his best friend’s fiancé. Would getting paid for it be any worse? But he knew what was stopping him. It was the same stuff that kept him from letting those shameful moments take over, the same stuff that kept his exploits from being points of pride or indifference. It was why he kept trying to change, or at least pretending he was someone better. Whether he liked it or not, he could never be like Bryce: joyful and shameless. He would never be free. Blame faith, misplaced hope, his mother, father—even stupidity. Regardless, he was tethered.

  Footsteps clapped behind him. He turned. April.

  “Hey.” She stopped to catch her breath. A lowered sedan rumbled by, rattling the storefront windows with bass.

  Ezra nodded back in the direction of the diner. “You looked like you were enjoying yourself.”

  “You’re angry,” she said.

  “I’m just tired. Not thinking straight.”

  She paused for a moment and folded her arms, as if cold. “I’m sorry if I’ve done something.”

  “You haven’t. No need to be sorry.”

  Her fingers played with the latch on her brown leather purse. He nodded that they should keep moving up the street. They could walk for a bit and say their goodbyes. A walk might mitigate her disappointment. And tomorrow was his day off, and if there was ever a night to hit the bottle, this would be the one. It was his birthday. He’d been diligent in his work, so he could sleep in and get back to it the day after.