Nora looks up

A colorful canopy of wings

Too many to name

Not that she could if she tried

Darting, chittering amongst fan-shaped leaves

She has seeds in her cupped hand

Offers them to the sky

Her daughters watch

Too nervous to hold out their own hands

Something yellow flits down from the trees

And lands in her palm

She sings to it, the bird

A song about itself

And she thinks:

How easy it would be

To open the door to its cage

And let it fly free

But the bird doesn’t even look at the door

Her youngest extends a finger

Barely glances off the crown of its head before it takes flight

I scared him, her daughter says

No, honey, she answers

It was just time for him to go

Finn knew where she was before she even opened her eyes. The familiar squawks and whistles and cries took her back to a time when her mother would hoist her on her shoulders so that she could get a closer look at the cockatoos and parakeets perched in the umbrella trees. What was unfamiliar was the damp feeling on her back.

Finn rolled over and found that she had been lying in a puddle, runoff from the sprinkler system that misted the giant fan palms above. How she had ended up passed out on the floor of the zoological gardens’ aviary, she wasn’t sure. The last thing she remembered was standing awkwardly in front of her party guests while Kathy regaled everyone with stories of her youth.

Then it all came rushing back to her: the song, the bird, her mom’s outstretched hand.

Her mom.

She had shown up to her party after all, just not in the present. Nora’s memory was at least a decade old, but to Finn, it felt as fresh as just-cut grass. She could still feel the gentle pinch of the bird’s toes on her finger, the way it tickled her palm as it pecked at the mound of seeds. It was the first echo of her mother she’d ever had, the first sign since her disappearance that she had ever existed.

Finn caught the eye of a lovebird nestled among the palm fronds. The little creature was still aside from the visible thumping of its heart in its chest, a lot of effort expended by one organ simply for the act of waiting. Finn had been waiting for her mom for five years. Neither the police nor the internet had yielded any clues as to where she had gone or why she had left. Her echo didn’t answer those questions, either, but it had given her one important thing: hope. If Finn could access her mom’s memories, maybe she could use them to piece together what had happened the day she left. And maybe, if she was lucky, they would lead Finn to her mom.

“Finn!”