The Door to the Cage

Every day I watched the open door. The door to the cage. Yet, the parakeet took no advantage of his opportunity. No longer a novelty, he bored the children. Gold and yellow and blue, like kindergarten artwork, he sat alone, unmoving. The parakeet had lived with us for six months. I'd sing to it, talk to it, hold it, feed it, let it fly around my garden of silk hydrangeas. But for him, none of that mattered. He could have opened the door himself. Yet, he was a bird. A bird brain, so one day I set the cage on the patio table; I again opened the door and waited for him to fly away. Fly away.

I never expected his call after all these years.

I envied the geese when twice a year they flew out then back again. Such freedom. An empty canvas stood in my studio for too long now. The smells of paint and turpentine no longer soothing to my senses. Dust collected on the windows I normally kept clean to let in as much light as possible.

He had once teased that my only degree would be an MRS degree.

Oh, I got my degrees alright, along with my MRS degree and children. And marriage, well, marriage had a way of fading like letters on a t-shirt.

"Parakeets can survive the wild," said our never-could-stop-talking housekeeper I'd hired but couldn't afford. I'd grown sick of housecleaning, sick of it being a priority, sick of it being there after I came home from work. "Flocks fly wild in Texas," she said. It was then I knew I'd set him free. Of course, I wouldn't have if I knew he would die. Ensure safety for all. Cautious. Responsible. There when you need her. It was as if I put on my yellow Mr. Rogers sweater each day and asked, "Won't you be my neighbor?"

Now I put on my yellow sweater and crawl into my yellow wallpaper.

I should have been content reading to the children at night, their soft blond heads nestled into my shoulder. They smelled fresh of soap and berry scented shampoo. "Again. Again," they would say, and I would read until they fell asleep, their faces smooth in slumber, peaceful. I would close my eyes and join them in a place where expectation didn't exist.

Now the wallpaper moves—just like in the story, not the one I tell the kids, the one I read to myself, the one I read in secret—and I'm part of it. I move within the contours of its gentle obscurity. It's where I am free, at last.

I couldn't get it to stick. What was I supposed to be? Was it according to Oprah? Martha? Dr. Phil? God? My brain grew weary. Twenty years ago Luc wanted me to fly; he'd pay for the ticket to visit him in his inherited eighteen-room Victorian, part of an inheritance that also included two million dollars. After anniversary ten, I hated making supper as much as I hated the long, dark hair my husband loved on me. I was great at performing my role. Maybe that's why I accepted Luc's invitation, again, after all these years.

So, Luc and I met downtown across from the church. Bright spring. My freshly cut hair, now much, much shorter. Eight inches toward emancipation. My skirt rested the way I wanted his hands to—along my slender hips. It was just lunch, but I chose red for my lips that day.

He was just an old friend. It was just lunch. We'd spent time like this before, long ago, talking about politics on which we never agreed, about movies on which we always agreed.

I suggested we remain outside, where the flowers bloomed red against white tables, and black and white striped umbrellas kept us cool from the warming sun. A red Audi replaced the 280ZX he drove years ago. Never married, he ran some sort of southern transport business. I didn't know why we lost touch.

The parakeet finally flew, finally realized the door stood open. Finally took the leap, finally relied on its wings. Mrs. Reiz would be proud. That's the day I promised to stop speaking with the other mothers. Clucking hens. Bargains. Cluck. Piano lessons. Cluck. Cluck. A husband's promotion. Triple cluck. If only Prospero's wand could have pulled me from the Dull Lake.

Luc's Victorian home was as lovely as Tennyson's cloud capped towers and gorgeous palaces. I went knowing I shouldn't have. But I ignored the warning, the guilty nudge; I wrapped it, gently folding the corners and tucked it neatly away to some other part of my conscience that I firmly instructed to keep quiet. Elegant wrought iron bars protected the tiny basement windows. The closest building was a church down the road; the steeple jutted through pine spirals piercing the sky.

There was a closet full of clothes. Just for me. Thoughtful, but odd. I was only staying a couple of days. He smiled, his black hair fashionably spiked. He kissed my cheek. He whispered strongly, "I have waited for so long, too long." His eyes seared. My conscience wanted to speak, but I pushed it back and locked the drawer this time. Instead, I fell into his smile, his scent, his spell.

The cool evening in the mountains dictated a fire. I sank into the cream-colored damask sofa, its high back and deep arms supporting my uneasiness. I leaned my head against the black throw draped across the back. The fire cast shadows across large paintings, dark with religious undertones, crosses, crowds in cloaks, large, muscular horses rearing, twisting in agony, some pierced with spears. Candelabras, the size of floor lamps, glowed thick with candles.

The darkness accented his slender cheeks and obscured his face in a way that eased the intensity of his gaze. He brushed back a curtain of hair, his fingers warm against my temple. "I'm so glad you came. This house is too empty with no one to share it."

I smiled nervously and took a long sip of my Bordeaux.

Not taking his eyes away from my own, he whispered, "I need warmth." He touched my cheek. "I let you slip away. You could paint here, set up your studio by the windows upstairs. It might be your paradise."

His invitation anointed my confusion. I closed my eyes and rested my head against his shoulder. I couldn't make out the words he started to whisper. Hebrew? Arabic? Almost a chant that coaxed me into a deeper sense of contentment and swept aside inhibition, thoughts of home, and fear.

During dinner he leaned in to kiss me. We drank more wine, and when he left for the cellar to get more, I was still lucid enough to hear him speaking again in that foreign tongue.

Soon his arms replaced the fire that embraced me. I closed my eyes, let my head drop back as he kissed my neck, let the blouse slip from my shoulders, and let him make love to me before the long, shadows of the fire.

I fell asleep.

That's when the dreams came.

My husband, my children.

I opened my eyes and jolted upright.

Empty walls replaced the paintings from the night before. A pain ripped through my head. A single chair replaced the luxurious sofa. I realized I was in a different room. Small windows, bars on the outside, filtered thin strands of light. I could hear the language from the night before on the other side of the door. A fire burned in a small fireplace, but it didn't heat the room. I moved and felt something pull against my ankle. A plastic-coated wire was locked around it, the other end secured to a bolt in the red, brick wall.

He sings to me from time to time.

He reads to me, holds me, and feeds me.

And on some days, after he drugs me, he walks me about the garden.

But none of that matters.

Now when he leaves me alone, I watch the door.

The door to the cage.

Back to: Vol 2, Issue 2