Rory was used to talking aloud to herself. The little bird righted itself, still looking at her, its dazed eyes winking open and closed. “I think the owl has moved on to find something else to eat for dinner, but you need to get back to your home and be safe.” She kept her voice soothing and very low, hoping to avoid scaring the sparrow.
The bird stayed in her palm rather than jumping out. It flapped its wings several times, all the while looking at her. Rory couldn’t detect fear. The sparrow seemed to be just fine standing in her palm.
After a few minutes of staring at one another, the sparrow finally hopped from Rory’s hand to her thigh and then to the patio floor. It hopped around the two raised flower beds she’d planted and flew onto them as if inspecting them. Finally, after another long look at Rory, the bird took off into the night.
Rory found herself smiling as she picked up her phone and immediately looked up images of birds to see what kind of sparrow would be flying around at night and why. She was a little shocked to find out that her visitor had most likely been going to a clandestine meeting with a male sparrow who was not her mate. She was having an affair—or she had most likely flown out of her nest with the intention of meeting a male. Rory played the recordings of the male calling to the female and the female answering.
“Naughty bird. Maybe that scare with the owl and getting hit by the cupboard door will scare you straight,” Rory whispered. “Who knew birds had affairs? Sheesh. What’s the world comingto? That’s why I know better than to go for the kind of men I find attractive.”
She detested going back inside and thought about putting a bed on the roof to sleep outside, but the weather really wasn’t conducive to that. Sometimes, when she first entered her apartment after being on the roof, air would be trapped in her lungs and she’d feel as if she couldn’t breathe. She knew what not being able to actually take a breath was, so it was silly, but she would have to push down a panic attack.
Rory never invested in a lot of furniture. Buying furniture wasn’t practical, because she couldn’t haul it around with her when she moved on. In any case, she liked as much space as possible in her apartment. She looked for open floor plans, and in the places she rented, the higher the ceiling, the better.
It didn’t take long to get ready and fall onto her bed. No covers. Sometimes, if she was restless, the covers would tangle around her legs and she’d wake up fighting, gasping for air, her heart beating too hard and too fast. She loathed the sensation.
She closed her eyes and pulled air into her lungs. Slow and steady. She was such a wreck. So many silly issues. She knew she wasn’t the only person in the world with health issues that had kept her from running marathons. She also wasn’t the only one having full-blown panic attacks that had more than once landed her in the emergency room, certain she was having a heart attack when she wasn’t.
Rory always assessed her situation at night, before she fell asleep. On a scale of one to ten, where was she? Happiness? She was a solid seven, creeping toward an eight. She liked where she’d landed this time, and she was making friends. Good friends. She liked several coworkers at the bar where she worked, and she liked her boss. She’d made friends with five women at the apartment building she really enjoyed, and that had never happened before.
She’d been in San Francisco five months already. Normally, she’d be thinking about moving on, but she might actually stay here awhile. She liked her job, and it was close to her apartment. Most days, even when it rained, she could walk to work. She had a parking spot allocated to her with her apartment, something coveted in the city, so most of the time she kept her car there and used public transportation if she couldn’t walk. Yes, this was one of the best places she’d landed. Satisfied that she was in a good space, she closed her eyes.
2
Rory avoided the elevator as often as possible, choosing stairs to help keep her lungs as healthy as possible. She had missed the afternoon workout with the circle of women friends she’d made since moving in. That was a sacred time to her, because she didn’t really have friendships, not the kind most people did. Making and keeping friends was difficult because she was a tumbleweed.
She liked the five ladies she’d met, and she had instantly clicked with them, which had never happened before anywhere she’d ever lived. She was cautious, but she had forced herself to be open to exploring the friendships. Four had already been friends before she moved in. The fifth moved in about the same time she did. The women were smart, funny and had good instincts.
Lydia Sawyer was a single mother to Ellen, a three-year-old girl. She was employed by a software company and was fortunate she could work mostly from home. Rory thought she was a fantastic mother and a dedicated worker. She could troubleshoot any software problems the company’s clients had from her home computer.That gave her the freedom to raise her daughter without the added burden of paying for childcare, an ideal situation because she was determined to make it on her own.
Janice DeWitt was the oldest among them. At just forty, she owned a janitorial business. Her husband had left her, cleaning out their accounts in order to keep his younger mistress happy. Janice started the janitorial service, and to her shock, it took off. She worked nights and oversaw three employees.
Pam Williams was putting herself through law school. She worked for Janice at night and studied and attended school during the day. It was easy to admire her. No matter how late she worked, she put in the time to study, determined to make her dream come true.
Cindy Atler had gotten married young to her childhood sweetheart, Matthew, and had two boys: Moses, four, and Isiah, six. Her husband had been killed fighting a fire two years earlier, and she’d been struggling ever since. She had money, but emotionally she needed to put distance between herself and her family. They meant well, but she had to stand on her own two feet and raise her sons the way she saw fit. She loved her parents but felt they were smothering her and taking over parenting duties. She told Rory and the others that she thought her husband would be disappointed in her if she continued to allow her parents to take over, so she’d moved.
Sally Hudson was tall and beautiful, turning heads when she walked down the street or into a room. Perpetually cheerful, she owned a dog grooming service, driving a large van to the homes of her customers. She loved what she did, and her business was a huge success. She’d started out as a dog trainer and then became a vet tech, but she had always dreamed of owning her own business. She had saved until she could put a down payment on the dog groomingvan. It wasn’t long before she was so busy that she had to turn away clients. She had moved in at the same time Rory had.
All five women were waiting in the lounge, a room near the lobby where residents could take visitors if they didn’t want to bring them into their apartments. Mostly, the women used the small lounge when they got together for coffee and sorted their mail. It was a ritual they had created to touch base with one another and keep up with what was happening. The women sat sorting through junk mail, tossing it into bags to get rid of it while they visited.
Rory didn’t get a lot of mail other than bills and junk mail, so she put hers in a canvas tote she had, waited until the mail piled up, and then took it to the office at the bar and used the shredder. The other ladies laughed at her for shredding junk mail, but she’d always done it everywhere she went and was a little obsessive about it. She checked her mailbox, pulled out the stack of mostly throwaway letters and rushed into the lounge.
“You’re late,” Cindy said, greeting her, holding out a tall to-go mug. “Your coffee.”
“I think I love you,” Rory said, taking the mug. “I didn’t have time to make coffee, so this is going to be my first cup. I can’t believe I fell asleep and stayed that way.”
Cindy laughed. “I don’t remember what sleep is. I don’t think I’ve slept the entire night for the last five years.”
Lydia fake-frowned, her hands stilling in midair over the stack of envelopes in front of her. “Isn’t Isiah six? Are you saying you still get up with him at night? Ellen is three, and I was holding out hope that in a few months she wouldn’t be getting into my bed at night.”
“Honestly,” Cindy admitted, “I get up to check on Isiah and Moses. I can’t help myself. That first year with Isiah, Matthew took turns with me.”
“You’ll be checking on those kids when they’re teens,” Janice warned. “Only they’ll be crawling out windows to go to parties.”
Rory found herself laughing as she sorted through the mail, tossing the junk into the canvas tote to be shredded when she had a full bag. It was relaxing and fun to be part of the group even if she didn’t contribute very much in the way of entertainment. There were times when she had funny stories of her customers to tell, but for the most part, she enjoyed listening, and the other women were used to her staying quiet.
She had plenty to talk about if she was put on the spot. She’d traveled so much and was happy to tell her friends about the various places she’d lived in. She just loved hearing them talk about their lives. She loved the camaraderie of being with the five women. In truth, she found she was enjoying San Francisco more than any other place she’d lived.
“I much prefer animals,” Sally announced. “I have no worries at three in the morning that a toddler or a teenager could be climbing out the window.”
