Birds Like Us
BY TAMMY HEEJAE LEE
Hyun Jung Ahn, Black Series_Hundreds of Nights, acrylic on sewn canvas, 48 x 36 inches, 2020. Courtesy of the artist.
Birds Like Us
Tammy Heejae Lee | MAY 2022 | ISSUE 16
The first thing Appa does when he comes to visit is to pull out a toy parrot from his backpack: a gift for Grace’s son, Eli. Grace watches as the two of them hold hands to go to the guest room together, where Appa puts three triple A batteries into the base of the doll and screws the cap back in place. He shows Eli how to turn on the switch, and the stuffed animal begins to mimic their speech.
“Hey!” Eli says.
“Hey!” the parrot shrieks, the sound coming from its voice box shrill and gravelly.
“Stop that!”
“Stop that!”
Eli giggles and leans his head against his grandfather’s chest.
Grace stares at the bird. The body is lime green, complete with a gray beak and talons. She knows Eli would have preferred a red parrot, the kind that matches the ones in his picture books about the zoo. The thought of hiding the toy for some peace and quiet for the night, and the inevitable temper tantrum when Grace prevents Eli from taking the toy to his preschool already make her feel annoyed and resentful.
“You’ve grown so much,” she hears Appa say.
“You’ve grown so much.”
Eli murmurs something in response that the toy doesn’t catch.
Grace backs out of the doorway and heads to the kitchen to prepare dinner. Earlier in the week, she had driven forty minutes to the only decent Korean supermarket to buy groceries for her father. She couldn’t be bothered with making kimchi or other banchan, so she bought the ready-made kind and transferred them out of their plastic containers into small, ceramic bowls. Even the stew she brings to a boil on the stove is a premade broth from a packet, all she has to do is chop a few more vegetables to top it off. The dishes that overcrowd the table may not be the result of her own labor, but when Grace places the silverware on top of napkins that are folded into crisp triangles, the presentation of it all makes it look like they could be.
If Grace’s mother was present, she would’ve known in a heartbeat. Nothing went unnoticed by the woman, not even the scraps of packaging pushed deep inside of the trash can.
“So bad! Why not just make?” Grace imagines her mother looking at her in horror. “You want to give us cancer?”
If Appa suspects Grace’s deceit at dinner, he says nothing. Next to him, Eli picks at his bowl of rice with his Pororo training chopsticks, ignoring Grace’s attempts of placing tiny portions of the side dishes on top of his spoon. Grace’s husband, Henry, asks her father how his flight from Sacramento was.
“Good, good,” Appa says. “No complaints.”
A lot of Grace and Henry’s fights are centered around Grace’s lack of effort to sustain meaningful conversations with other people. Henry doesn’t understand why it’s so hard for her to come up with questions or comments to make others feel more comfortable. Staying silent is the worst possible thing you could do to another person, Henry had said during a couples’ counseling session once. When their therapist turned to Grace and asked her what she thought, Grace told her it wasn’t that she was being apathetic, it was because there was truly nothing left for her to say. Asking half-hearted questions for the sake of keeping up pretenses seemed worse than asking nothing at all.
“Don’t you ever wonder what your father does now that he’s retired?” she predicts Henry will say later, when they’re alone in their room. “Can’t you ask him some basic questions?”
Henry is the one who needs to be in constant conversation with others. From the moment he comes home from work, he spends the rest of the night telling Grace about various details of his day, no matter how mundane or small. Grace has learned to half-listen, nodding and reacting accordingly to the last thing Henry has mentioned when he pauses, and then goes back to folding laundry or walking around the house with him trailing after her. But she doesn’t mind that they’re opposites in this regard at all. Henry’s constant chatter feels like a comforting background noise, something Grace realizes she’s grown to need.
Appa isn’t much of a talker and neither is she. Grace’s mother was the one who served as the background noise for their family, back when it was the three of them. She used to gossip nonstop about the ladies at church, annoying customers at the cleaners, and the latest scandals among Korean celebrities without caring if Grace and Appa chimed in or not. Once Umma was gone, the two of them didn’t have much to share with each other, and slipped into their respective rooms instead of eating or spending time together. They were painfully identical when it came to their personalities: quiet, passive, unassertive, misunderstood.
Henry nudges Grace’s foot underneath the table. She looks up from her bowl to see Appa wiping the dining table with his napkin. When he pauses to push his glasses higher up on his nose, Grace can see that he’s still wearing his black and gold wristwatch—a wedding gift that stopped working years ago.
“You can leave it, Appa,” Grace tells him. “I’ll do it. You can rest in your room.”
He shakes his head. “I promised Eli we’d do bath time together.”
Appa holds out his hand, and Eli slips out of his chair to take it, as if it feels like the most natural gesture in the world. In Eli’s other hand, he’s holding the wing of his parrot, now lifeless and silent as it swings at his side.
*
Appa bought Grace plenty of birds throughout her childhood: two chickens, two parakeets, two zebra finches. He always got them in pairs so the birds wouldn’t be lonely in their cages. Grace had never asked him if she could raise birds as pets, it was just something Appa had come up with on his own.
Her mother hated birds because she said they carried disease. Grace hated that they were creatures with wings, because she was afraid that they would leave her by flying away. She didn’t understand why Appa kept buying her the one pet she wasn’t allowed to touch.
“Only look, don’t use your fingers,” Appa had instructed her. “Animals die faster when we touch them too much.”
All of Grace’s birds had suffered untimely deaths, but a human’s touch had nothing to do with them. The first time was when racoons had gotten into her chicken coop, leaving Grace to be the one who came across Cookie and Kiwi’s beheaded bodies on the ground a few feet away from their roost. Next were the parakeets, who had gotten along fairly well for the most part, until Grace had woken up one morning to find Tiki’s ice blue body at the bottom of their cage. There were bloodied puncture marks at her throat from where Pepper had pecked her to death. Pepper had died a few days later out of grief—or was it remorse?—and Appa had bought Grace brand new markers and a blank box so that she could decorate their graves before they buried them in the backyard.
Grace had prized her zebra finches above the rest because they were the only two that were a couple. Ross and Rachel, she had named them. They were tiny little things with burnt orange cheeks, and Grace had loved watching them hop around the branches in their cage. When she first saw the tiny eggs in their nest, six in total, the size of Lemonheads, Grace had gasped in wonder.
Appa insisted that she take the finches and their eggs to school to show her classmates during Show and Tell. Grace had worried over Rachel’s condition since she hardly came out of the bamboo nest anymore except to eat and drink a little, but Appa had already loaded their cage into the minivan’s trunk the following morning.
The roads to her elementary school were filled with potholes, which under different circumstances, Grace would have ignored. For this particular commute, she kept looking over her shoulder, worried that Ross and Rachel’s cage was being jostled around too much, especially since it contained precious cargo. When they arrived at her school, Grace had opened the trunk to the sight of the finches’ nest toppled over, with Ross and Rachel fluttering on the highest branches in the cage. Below them were all six of their eggs, with dark orange yolk oozing out of the broken eggshells. Grace’s mother had wrapped her arms around her to stop Grace from shaking.
“I’m so sorry,” her mother had said, softly. “Umma and Appa are sorry.”
But if Appa had been sorry, he didn’t express it, once again leaving Umma to be the one who weathered Grace’s angry sobs. Rachel never laid any more eggs after the incident, and then both finches had died a few months later, a few weeks apart from each other. Grace had come to the conclusion that they had died of heartbreak. What else could it have been?
Once she had buried Rachel, Grace tore the birdcage apart. She took down the beaded strings, the lattice balls, and the colorful swing she had strategically placed around their nest before. She had smashed the walls of the cage down and dumped them into their garbage can outside, along with several unopened bags of seed mixture. Grace had hurled the yellow chick plushie Appa had gotten her at the Japanese supermarket into the bins too, for good measure. It poked out of the overflowing trash can ever so slightly, looking like a pair of innocent eyes that peeked at anyone who walked past it on the sidewalk.
Grace was absolutely done with birds, she had told Umma. She was sick of them. Deep down, what she had really meant was that she was sick of being heartbroken, sick of keeping count of how many bodies they had to bury in their backyard. Sick of Appa coming home with more birds in a box, as if the other ones could be so easily replaced or forgotten.
It is for this exact reason that Grace doesn’t want to introduce Eli to the idea of pets anytime soon. But someday, when he is old enough to take responsibility for such a task, Grace is determined to let Eli choose what kind of pet he wants, because already loving something and growing to love something are two completely different things, no matter how hard one tries to believe that they could be the same feeling.
*
It’s clear that Appa is out of his element during Eli’s bath, but still, he tries. He rolls up his pants to his knees and squats down next to the tub, marveling at Eli’s toys.
“This one lights up!” he exclaims. He pinches the blue dolphin again, and the LED light disappears.
Eli shoves Appa’s hand out of the way, impatient to show him how to catch the creatures with his net. He throws the glowing starfish, dolphin, and turtle and waits for them to sink all the way to the bottom. Without breaking concentration, he scoops them up, one by one, with his plastic tool. Appa says “Wow!” every time a critter is brought up to the surface.
Grace is about to step in but stops when Appa starts lathering Eli’s hair. For once, Eli isn’t screaming with resistance. He continues to scoop up his glowing bath toys while his grandfather massages the soap out of his scalp, rubs behind his ears and in the folds of his neck. He is thorough in washing Eli’s body, careful not to miss a single crevice.
“Where are the fish?” Appa asks to distract him.
“All here,” Eli says, slapping his palms against the water.
Moments later, Henry appears by her side with a hot towel he’s fetched from the dryer.
“They’re still at it?” he asks.
Grace knows Henry is relieved to have Appa step in for them, even if it’s only for three nights. To Henry and Eli, Appa is a small luxury. A new person to play with, an in-law to give them moments of rest. To Grace, Appa is a reminder of someone who has failed her, time and time again. Not just because of the birds, but because after Umma had died, Grace had stopped viewing Appa as her parent.
Living together with minimal contact and in complete silence had been so suffocating, even for her. Grace had used any excuse she could to sleep over at her friends’ houses until she left for college and realized she didn’t need to provide excuses for him at all. Appa had only reached out over text to send graphics that said “Happy Birthday!” and “Merry Christmas!” in garish, glittery fonts, with no message of his own underneath them.
That wasn’t trying, Grace had thought, both then and now. That didn’t even come close to trying, even if Appa thought it was.
“I want to hear Carrot read,” Eli says to Appa as the water in the tub drains. Grace doesn’t know why she feels surprised that he’s already given the doll a name.
“She’ll read to you every night,” Appa responds. “Why not let me have a turn?”
Eli considers this while being wrapped in his terry cloth robe that has little bear ears sticking out of the hood.
“Okay,” he says. “Carrot is tired from all the flying she did today.”
*
Appa carries Eli to his room even though Eli is at the age where he could run to his room without tripping. Grace has felt oddly invisible throughout the night, but not in a way that is intended to be hurtful. She’s just so used to being with Eli and doing every step of his daily routine with him that it feels odd to have a few spare minutes alone. She knows Henry has already gone upstairs to watch T.V., something he normally wouldn’t do if they had done bath time together. Grace could load the dishwasher, get a head start on Henry and Eli’s lunches for tomorrow, or browse through some of the furniture she’s been eyeing online lately. Instead, she stands in the hallway with her hands clasped together, lost in thought.
Appa turns and looks at her directly for the first time. “Do you have lotion?”
Grace retrieves the bottle of Aveeno behind the bathroom mirror that’s still fogged up from Eli’s bath. She understands what Appa is about to do before he does it, and knows it won’t work with the kind of lotion they have on hand because it isn’t the right kind of consistency.
Eli is facedown on his bed, naked and giggling. Grace hands Appa the bottle of lotion, and he nods in thanks. “Okay, Eli, are you ready?”
“Yes!”
“Yes!” Carrot the parrot echoes.
Grace remembers the game well, if it could even be called a game. It’s the closest memory she has regarding Appa’s touch when she was much younger, closer to Eli’s age. A post-bath ritual called “Seagulls,” that made sense to no one else except for them. After Grace had been bathed and wrapped in a towel, she would run to the master bedroom, fling herself onto the bed, and demand, “Lotion! Lotion!” until Appa came in with a big, blue bottle of Nivea.
“Bombs away!” he would shout, and Grace’s back would tingle from the anticipation of the drops of lotion that were about to land on her bare skin.
Appa would drizzle the lotion all over Grace’s back, and she would pretend that the white globs were seagulls excreting on her body at the beach. Sometimes, Appa would miss his aim and a drop of lotion would land on the covers, and Grace would laugh and laugh until she wheezed. He had patted the lotion on her back the best he could, but never did a great job of rubbing it in, leaving her mother to be the one to do it later as she dressed Grace into her pajamas.
Eli shrieks into his pillow as Appa pushes the pump of the Aveeno bottle and dots of lotion land on him.
“Yuck!”
“Yuck!”
After watching the two of them interact for a moment longer, Grace silently hands her father Eli’s pajamas. She points to the picture book with a bookmark inside of it that’s resting on Eli’s nightstand, and Appa nods. Grace turns to leave and closes the door behind her.
“Let’s put this away now shall we?”
“...Away now shall we?”
Grace can hear Eli’s whines through the door, but they peter out once Appa begins to read to him.
She wonders what Appa’s deal is with birds in general, but comes to the conclusion that they might be his way of trying to get close with them—both her and Eli—as odd as it may seem. Or perhaps they’re his attempts at an apology, for not doing more. Listening to the low hum of Appa reading to Eli while she stands outside in the dark hallway, Grace knows that she would never be able to ask him which of the two are closer to his intentions because such questions are out of their realm.
Thank god the parrot is fake, Grace thinks to herself. She makes her way back upstairs, where she can now join Henry in the living room.
Still, she remembers the excitement she felt as a girl when Appa would take her to the pet store to buy toys, seeds, and treats. He always let her pick out whatever she wanted, with the assurance that he trusted that Grace would give the birds exactly what they needed, every time.
Tammy Heejae Lee is a Korean American writer from Davis, CA. She has a BA from UC Davis and an MFA in fiction from the University of San Francisco, where she received a post-graduate teaching fellowship. A Tin House Summer Workshop, VONA/Voices and Sewanee alum, her writing has appeared in Sundog, The Offing, and PANK, among others. She is currently a 2021-2022 Steinbeck Fellow in fiction at San Jose State University, where she is working on her first novel about expat and hagwon culture in Seoul.
Hyun Jung Ahn is a Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist from Seoul, South Korea. Through her work, she investigates enigmatic abstract forms. She begins by drawing from her visual diary, which captures feelings, personal connections, and emotional states of being. She then translates these notions into minimalistic drawing and sewn painting. She has attended residencies including Vermont Studio Center, MASS MoCA, and Trestle Art Space. Ahn graduated from Duk-Sung Women’s University, Seoul (2010 BFA and 2013 MFA). She received a second MFA in painting and drawing from Pratt Institute and currently lives and works in Brooklyn and Seoul.