“The timing isn’t right,” she said. “I’m on my way out the door; we’ll have to meet another day. Or maybe at midday. Today—well, every day—I go to a house to talk to a parrot. This is a job I have for a few months. A temporary job. The parrot’s name is Rico, and I keep him company twice a day. I provide him with a social life.” She laughed.

Allam laughed, too; he was interested.

She told him about Cecilia Grand’s detailed list. She told him about her experiences with Rico, and how she was learning about parrots. How she sometimes read passages from Layamon’s Brut aloud, and that she had successfully coaxed Rico out of his cage, terrified that he might not go back in, and how grateful she was when he returned to the cage on his own. How he’d flown up and in and hopped onto his widest, thickest perch so that he could watch while she shut the cage door and locked him inside. She told Allam that when Rico spoke, she detected something like sarcasm in his voice. Or irony. She wondered if she was imagining those attributes. Was Rico mimicking her? He’d already demonstrated that he could speak in her voice. This was entertaining, but also unnerving. Then she wondered if she’d blurted out too much.

Allam listened to all of this. “I would like to meet the parrot Rico,” he said.

“I’ll introduce you,” said Gwen. “Some afternoon, I suppose you could come with me. He might be hostile at first, because you are unknown to him. If you’re patient and allow him to vet you in his little parrot way, he might be at ease in your presence. I’m not sure about this, because he might also have personal likes and dislikes. I only know that you have to endure his investigative behaviour.”

For her, Rico no longer shrieked when she parked her car in front of the garage. His alarm calls had ceased. That bit of information, outlined on the instruction sheet, had been disconcerting from the beginning: He’ll send out his alarm call when anyone new comes near.

After hanging up with Allam, Gwen remembered, as she drove away from her house, that Rico, clearly upset one day in September, when she’d first started caring for him, had clung to the side of his cage and beat his wings so rapidly and for so long, she was afraid his little parrot heart would explode while she stood helplessly by. She was concerned, felt badly, did not know what was wrong, kept trying to divert him. She spoke soothingly, calmly. Eventually, she spoke not at all. He quieted and began to behave as if nothing had happened. Perhaps he’d had a stab of pain in his little bird intestine. Who knew?

Or maybe, like humans, he just needed his own silent time.

The Floodgates

CHIYO

After breakfast, Chiyo began to select the playlists for winter classes that were about to begin. She liked to introduce new music, but she was careful, too, or tried to be. Whatever she chose had to suit the type of class, age groups involved, tempo required, beats per minute. No breakup music, no music that would remind of grief, nothing too sad or emotional. She was aware of the lyrics in every selection and tried to imagine feelings the words might evoke in the class participants.