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Back The Wilderwomen Save as PDF
Chapters (37)
  1. Copyright Notice
  2. Dedication
  3. BEFORE
  4. AFTER
  5. ONE THOUGHTS ON SUN HATS
  6. TWO TIME FOR CAKE
  7. THREE TWELVE MONTHS
  8. FOUR PSYCHIC KARAOKE
  9. FIVE A SECOND SLEEPING BAG
  10. SIX SIX MONTHS
  11. SEVEN THE EARLY BIRD GETS THE PANCAKE
  12. EIGHT SIX MONTHS
  13. NINE FOLLOW THE MUSIC
  14. TEN THE STARS ARE BRIGHTER IN THE DESERT
  15. ELEVEN SIX MONTHS
  16. TWELVE EVERY STAR HAS A SONG
  17. THIRTEEN PSYCHIC KARAOKE
  18. FOURTEEN ONE MONTH
  19. FIFTEEN A WELL-TRAVELED HAT
  20. SIXTEEN JOEL VS. THE VOLCANO
  21. SEVENTEEN TWO WEEKS
  22. EIGHTEEN HOUSE OF MEMORIES
  23. NINETEEN IF TREES COULD TALK
  24. TWENTY THREE DAYS
  25. TWENTY-ONE SEARCH PARTY
  26. TWENTY-TWO NOT THE SAME ZADIE
  27. TWENTY-THREE WAVES OF SMOKE
  28. TWENTY-FOUR THE DAY OF
  29. TWENTY-FIVE THE SKY IS FULL OF BIRDS
  30. TWENTY-SIX NEST
  31. TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. EPILOGUE
  33. TWENTY-EIGHT A SONG ABOUT A BIRD
  34. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  35. Also by Ruth Emmie Lang
  36. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  37. Newsletter Sign-up

One morning, after a sleepless night and four Tom Waits albums, Zadie was particularly ornery. “Hey! I don’t make fun of your music,” Nora joked feebly and stopped the tape.

Out of ideas, Nora crossed the room and opened a window to let in some fresh air. “Feel that breeze?” she said to the writhing, red-faced creature in her arms. “Isn’t it nice?” Zadie’s bleating abated a little and she cautiously cracked open a pair of eyelids that until now appeared to have been swollen shut. Nora tracked her child’s gaze to something in the walnut tree outside the window: a thrush. It puffed out its spotted chest, tilted its head back, and sang four lilting notes with a trill at the end, and just like that, Zadie’s crying stopped. Nora was so relieved she started laughing. “So you like birds, too, huh? Well, at least we have something in common.”

That afternoon Nora bought a bird feeder at the hardware store, filled it with birdseed, and hung it on the tree outside Zadie’s bedroom window. When it was time to put her down for the night, Nora opened the window, and the room filled with the sounds of whippoorwills, mockingbirds, robins, and thrushes. Zadie’s eyes opened wide; then slowly they began to loll. As the birdsong turned to crickets, the arms that cradled Nora’s baby grew feathers the color of the night sky, and Nora sang a song about a little bird who was both very near and very far from home.

AFTER

ONE THOUGHTS ON SUN HATS

Zadie Wilder owned six sweaters, four pairs of leggings, and one extra-large beach towel. The reason she knew she had exactly six sweaters, four pairs of leggings, and one extra-large beach towel was that she was attempting to cram all of them inside an already bursting suitcase. She had to work fast. Her ex, Dustin, would be clocking out in a few minutes, and she hadn’t even packed any of her cassettes yet. Out of all her worldly possessions, her cassette collection was the one thing she couldn’t bear seeing smashed on the pavement below their—okay, his third-story apartment window.

Dustin was never quite able to grasp why she cared so much about them. “They were my mom’s,” Zadie had said.