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Abrilliant red cardinal was singingin the dogwood tree, warning off its rivals with a loudcheer cheer, tick tick tick tick. During the weeks in rehab after her accident, she had spent so little time outdoors it was now a joy just to breathe in fresh air again and to listen to birdsong. While her father drove off to park the car, she savored these few moments alone in front of the cemetery gates, watching that cocky cardinal hop about from branch to branch as it loudly declared its sovereignty. In the distance, thunder rumbled and she smelled the tang of impending rain in the air. She hoped her father remembered to bring the umbrella from the car. He might be a brilliant clinician in the hospital, but in matters of everyday life, he could be as absentminded as any other man.
Did she just feel a raindrop? She looked up. In the last half hour since they’d left home, the sky had darkened to pewter. The clouds roiling overhead suddenly threw her off-balance and she had to steady herself with her cane.
She did not notice the man standing beside her.
“It’s amazing how much noise one little bird can generate,” he said.
She turned, startled by his sudden appearance, even if the man himself seemed perfectly harmless. He was in his mid- to late fifties, appropriately dressed for the weather in a raincoat. The coat sagged on his shoulders, as if it were a castoff from a previous owner with broader shoulders. His face was thin and colorless, his eyes an unmemorable shade of gray, yet something about him seemed familiar; she just couldn’t remember how or where they might have met. The accident in March had wiped away bits and pieces of her memory, and perhaps this man was one of those lost pieces. He looked at her a little too long and then, as if sensing that made her uncomfortable, he turned his gaze back to the cardinal perched above them.
“He’s defending his territory,” he said. “His nest must be around here somewhere. By now, he probably has a few hatchlings to protect.”
“I don’t know much about birds,” she admitted. “I just like watching them.”
“Don’t we all?” He looked at her dress, which was a modest and boring black. “Are you here for a funeral?”
“For Sofia Suarez. Are you here for hers too?”
“No. Just to visit someone I knew a long time ago.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know if he meant someone alive or someone dead, and she was afraid to ask.
“I only wish we’d had more time together,” he said quietly, and by the sadness in his voice, she knew it was someone who’d died.
“And you still come to visit? That’s so sweet.” She smiled at him and he smiled back. It felt like something changed between them. As if the air was suddenly charged with static.
“Do I know you?” she finally said.
“Do I seem familiar?”
“I’m not sure. I had an accident, back in March, and ever since then I’ve had trouble remembering things. Names. Dates.”
“So that’s why you need the cane.”
“It’s ugly, isn’t it? I should’ve chosen something cool and fashionable. But I won’t need this much longer anyway.”
“How did it happen? The accident?”
“This crazy driver hit me in a crosswalk. I was just leaving campus, and…” She paused. “Is that where I know you from? Northeastern?”
A pause. “It’s possible we ran across each other there.”
“Art history department, maybe?”
“Is that what you’re studying?”
“Ishouldhave graduated this month, but I spent two months in rehab, trying to get back on my feet. I still feel so clumsy.”
“Well, you look just fine to me,” he said. “Better than fine, cane and all.”
His gaze was suddenly so intent it unsettled her and she turned away. She saw her father walking toward her from the parking lot, and he was carrying the umbrella. With a stork-like little hop, he jumped onto the curb.
“I’m glad you remembered it,” she said. “It’s going to be pouring any minute now.”
“Who’s that man you were talking to?”
She turned to introduce her new acquaintance but the man had vanished. Puzzled, she scanned the walkway and caught a glimpse of him as he disappeared through the cemetery gate. “That’s weird.”
“Is that someone you know?”
