For research into the world of parrots, I am grateful to Anna Durie-Matrahazy; Pam Tallon; Sally Hawks; and Margaret Williams in Brockville, who unknowingly sparked the idea. In Carleton Place, Judy Tennant, executive director and founder of Parrot Partners (parrotpartners.org), shared her expertise and showed me around the aviary, introducing me to many parrots, including one of the African greys. This caring place provides a safe environment for relinquished parrots, rehabilitates and trains them, makes efforts toward re-homing and educates the public. I thank my cousin Joel Oliver for accompanying me to Parrot Partners, and for assuming the role of photographer. Also, thank you, Joel, for the many trips to antique markets, where we learn the trade. For the article about the goose falling from the sky, I acknowledge the Ottawa Citizen, February 3, 2018. Excerpts from Robert Pollok’s poem “Byron” and Mary Howitt’s poem “Coming Spring”—the latter read by Tom at the wedding—are from The Casquet of Gems (W.P. Nimmo, Hay & Mitchell, 1885). Thank you, Aileen Jane Bramhall Itani, for permission to use lines from your poem beginning with “A voice that is mine,” referred to during the funeral. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1798) is by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “To Autumn” (1819–20) by John Keats. The sentences from Layamon’s Brut (also known as Lazamon or Lawamon) are from a 1977 Middle English paper that discusses the Arthurian Chronicles; the Modern English translation was initially done by Eugene Mason. The epigraph beginning with “Hold your collar” is a variation on a chant in Iona and Peter Opie’s The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (1959). For recounting memories of Guy Fawkes Day, as well as conditions in England and Scotland during and after the Second World War, I thank Janet and David Hemings and Charles Magill. Christine Déry, you’re the one who helps so many of us to be physically fit and to stay that way. I appreciate your taking time out for interviews about various classes and music selections, and about the work in general. Maria Thompson dances her way through life and makes the world a better place. Christina Cole, instructor at the University of Toronto’s International Foundation Program (IFP), thank you for sharing your impressive and extensive knowledge about courses in academic listening and speaking. Until I met you, I did not know such courses existed. To my movie buddy, Fran Cherry, I express my gratitude for our never-ending conversations—always laced with humour—about human behaviour and the vagaries of LIFE! Last to be mentioned, but remembered with great measures of love: my sister, Marilyn; my close friends Jill McMurtry, Donna Wells and Helen Best.

About the Author

FRANCES ITANI has written eighteen books. Her novels include That’s My Baby; Tell, shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize; Requiem, chosen by the Washington Post as one of the top fiction titles of 2012; Remembering the Bones, published internationally and shortlisted for a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize; and the #1 bestseller Deafening, which won a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, selected for CBC’s Canada Reads and translated into seventeen languages. A three-time winner of the CBC Literary Prize, Frances Itani is a Member of the Order of Canada and the recipient of a 2019 Library and Archives Canada Scholars Award. She lives in Ottawa.