For the third consecutive morning, Mildred was yanked from sleep by a frenzied patter across the roof. A surge of arthritis clamped her shoulder and elbow joints--but she clinched her dry, naked gums, forced herself off the pillow. She wondered if she could make it to the window in time.

She threw back damp, sweaty quilts, her body chilled by a spring that couldn't wriggle from a crawling winter. Bloody nursing assistants. Too cheap to tap the thermostat--except to nudge it down. Nearly five hundred a month, and she still had to shiver out her final days on a merciless mattress. But to hell with the cold. To hell with arthritis. The window! Snatch a glimpse of pigeons she hadn't seen in years--pigeons whose family tree stretched deep into her childhood, to warmer seasons when her father--the great bird man--possessed the skill to summon gulls, crows, all kinds of fowl swooping from skies, cliffs, trees ...

Come on, come on ...

And they'd flock like crazy around him, the harbour screeching as he rippled the water with leftovers tossed at random from a stained beef bucket. They had always kept pigeons as pets--her favourite, with their silky-clean feathers, their tiny heartbeats throbbing against her palm.

She turned over, facing drawn curtains, dawn light seeping through the sides, splitting the center, shading the room with a thick, grey tint. She had been warned not to wander out of bed without supervision. But what could they do? Call the police?

She shoved her weighty thighs to the edge of the bed, pink, rumpled nightdress dragging upward, veins on her ghostly legs so pronounced in places she swore they were highlighted with a purple marker. Above her, pigeon claws on shingles picked up an unbelievable pace, urging. They had impelled her yesterday and the day before, but she had failed to scramble to them in time. She recalled stumbling to the window, fighting stubborn curtains, gazing up at a sky smothered with clouds.

Her legs flopped over the bed, feet thumping cold tiles. Stepping over the blue wool slippers that were curled half inside out on the floor, she hurried to the window.

No challenge from the curtains this morning, but it was difficult to see, rain so savage against the glass. She remembered then why she hadn't seen the pigeons. The commotion on the roof had only been rain.

Memories had sucked her from sleep. Pouring from a place that had been eclipsed in the shadows of four vigorous children, hungry husband scuffing in twice daily from the sawmill, bottomless laundry baskets. Now the shadows had receded, uncovering the white two-story with the redwood trim, where pigeons had awakened her nearly every morning as they skittered across the roof.

She scurried to the opposite side of the bed where she had spread yesterday afternoon's outing garments on an easy chair. They hadn't stood up to the chill as advertised, but they'd have to do. She plopped on the bed, began the tedious task of dressing herself--something she preferred to battle alone anyway. Who wanted these young women mauling? Pretending not to notice her breasts, flat as beaver tails, nipples glaring at her bellybutton. Besides, if they discovered she was out of bed, she'd never escape.

Adjusting the hem of her forest-green sweater, she combed her wiry, white hair with her fingers, and sighed. Three rocks back and forth, fists denting tangled quilts, she heaved forward, stood, muscles baking in her lower back. She trudged to the closet, opened the accordion-style door, squinting hard as if she could stifle the squeak--hoped no one heard. They'd be rushing in as though flames were pinching their asses.

She separated several dresses, metal hangers jingling, resurrecting Peyton's grocery store doorbell. How she would skip in just to hear the tinkering, Johnny Peyton stuffing his pipe with tobacco, yellow grin ear to ear. He had toppled the big one hundred before popping off about ten years ago--healthy bugger. She wondered if the store was still there. If they still sold birdseed.

Against the right wall of the closet, on the only plastic hanger, was her winter parka, a navy, double-lined coat that seemed to be getting heavier each time she wore it. Her husband Sam, had bought it for her on her seventy-sixth birthday, almost three years ago, a week before he tumbled headlong into the well--heart attack.

From the inside pocket, she retrieved a worn, puffed manila envelop. She peeped in at the pile of twenties she had been stashing away one at a time for the past two years--usually on the twenty-fifth when they rationed the skimpy spending money. Nurses and family had refused her request to return home, so she'd been saving in secret.

"The old house is a disgrace, Mom," her daughter, Laura, had insisted. "Rundown, even leaning to one side now. Bill received a notice from council last week. House got to be condemned. Collecting ants. Whorehouse for teenagers."

They didn't understand. It wasn't the house. It was the memories--the magnetic spirits of all that had unfolded there. Hide and seek, laughing, dancing sweaty jigs, fighting, making up with tears tickling cheeks--the invigorating patter of pigeon claws.

She pocketed the envelop again, groped for the zipper, fingers quivering as she dragged it to her chin.

Stooping by the night table next to the bed, she flicked aside the spiraling phone cord, fished under the phonebook in the drawer, pulled out the stainless steel butter knife she had swiped from a supper tray, dropped it in her side pocket. Next, she hauled out a scrap of white tablet paper with a number scribbled on it. She lifted the receiver, cracked fingernail stumbling over the buttons. Nearly a dozen rings irritated her before one was chopped in the middle, the line rattling as someone fumbled the receiver on the other end.

A male voice wrestled with a yawn. "Kelly's Taxi."

"How much for a cab to Dover?"

The pause seemed endless. "Bonavista Bay," she said. "Not England."

"Two hundred and forty."

"24 Winston. Can you be here in fifteen minutes?"

"No problem."

She hung up. 24 Winston wasn't her address. She couldn't risk directing the taxi to the driveway here--she'd never creep through the front exit without being snagged like a con on the cut and run. 24 Winston was a big split-level house just a few minutes down the road. She remembered it because it's two-story section reminded her of her childhood home in Dover, the redwood eaves and the matching panes of three upstairs windows facing the road. She had spotted it during a brief outing when the nursing assistants had finally decided to whip the dog chains out, take the residents for a stroll. Her plan was to slip through the back patio door, cross the backyard, trample over the lawn of 22, the front yard of 24--sneak to the side of the house, make the taximan think she's exiting her own dwelling. Crafty, she thought.

She twisted the handle of her room door, imagined Ruby, weasel-face, red-headed nurse turned people-catcher, lurking on the other side, sniffing her out like a hound. But the hallway was empty. She stepped out, tiptoed to the main corridor. Occupying the first room on the west wing was an advantage, not having to clump over those tiles with their tattling echoes.

Ruby was standing back on in the lounge, stuck to the television with Delta, another nurse--a tall, scrawny brunette with rouge plastered like birthmarks across her cheeks. If either of them turned around, Mildred would jam her eyes shut, extend her arms, walk like a mummy.

The corridor's early morning emptiness amplified the soft thumps of her rubber soles as she sneaked pass the lounge, but the girls were too wrapped up in a conversation about cutbacks to healthcare, and an ugly mole on the Premier's face. Mildred crept towards the back patio, occasionally glancing over her shoulder.

She was elated that these smaller senior citizen centers couldn't boast the complicated security systems of the mightier ones in larger communities--no wanderguard around her wrist to broadcast her breakout. The simple locking mechanism's only brag was a latch much too hard for an old person to lift. Where there's a will, there's a way, she thought, as she rooted in her pocket, withdrew the butter knife. Lodging it's middle on the door handle, she slid the blunt part of the blade underneath the latch, bore down hard. It budged twice, but the knife slipped, nearly dropped to the floor. Positioning it again, she strained with all her might. The latch jetted upward with a loud snick. She parted the vertical blinds enough to ease the glass door open, a sudden gust of wind thrashing freezing rain into her face. She tugged her fur-trimmed hood over her head, stepped into the pricking drizzle, tossed the knife over the patio, about to push the door shut, when Ruby suddenly appeared in the hallway. Mildred jumped aside, heart fluttering like a miller's shadow.

"Delta! The patio door. You open it?"

Footsteps ricocheted down the hall.

The patio steps were sheets of ice. Mildred hugged the guardrail, hood blowing off as she slid downward, legs sprawling like a pony wrestling its first stand. Thankful there were only four steps, she steadied herself on the ground just as Ruby halted in the doorway. Mildred crouched beneath the floorboards.

"Came off the latch somehow--I don't like this," Ruby said. "We'll have to check the rooms."

After some brief shuffling, the door slammed. Somewhat relieved, Mildred peeped over the floorboards. Through the swaying blinds, she could see Ruby and Delta whipping the other way. They'd arrive at her room first. So much for the advantage.

She waddled across the garden, energized by the same rushy wave that used to overtake her while on the run from robbing Beatrice Kelsey's apple trees, with poor Beatrice limping unto the back porch, arms flinging, cursing Mildred in heaps. Wishing she could run now, she slipped the hood over her head again, yanked the drawcord, wind slapping, tossing her unto the wet, slushy lawn of number 22, arthritis digging her left shoulder, lungs burning. Resisting the urge to check behind, she staggered unto the lawn of 24 Winston, nearly crashing into one of three middle-sized junipers. The trees, iced branches swaying, perishing, stirred the frosty sting in her bones. She wondered if the taxi would ever show. She'd perish too.

A pair of pale, yellow daytime running lights rounded a turn just up the road. On top of the car was the unmistakable, dull glow of a taxi sign. Mildred leaned against the side of the house, calmed her breathing as she waited, stepped out again when the cab tires crunched into the driveway.

The driver's door sprang open, and a young, dark haired man in his late twenties, jumped out, rushed towards her, his hands cupping her arm slightly above the elbow.

"Nasty one, ma'am. Anyone else?"

"No," she said, glancing back at Sunbeam Manor. If either girl appeared on the front bridge, Mildred might be recognized at this distance.

"Got any bags, ma'am?"

She skidded along the tarmac to the car, leaning into the smell of new leather, her face barely chest-level to his tall, blocky frame. "Only bags I got are under my eyes," she said. "Never could sleep in a strange house."

He kept his hands around her arm until she flopped unto the back seat. The door closed, but he stayed there, puzzled eyes shifting back and forth from the house to Mildred. But the rain and another gust of wind jumbling his hair worked in her favour. He shivered, sputtered a burr, leaped behind the wheel, and pulled from the driveway.

Inside the car, Mildred's body hugged the heat like a cherished gift. As they approached the bend where she had first spotted the cab, she wheeled around in time to see someone pacing the front bridge of the senior home. Ruby, no doubt. Mildred smiled as Sunbeam Manor coasted behind the jagged cliff that stretched into the ditch to her right.

"Dover, is it?" the driver asked.

His eyes were framed in the rearview mirror. Deep blue, striking, uncannily similar to those of her deceased husband when he was in his twenties. Heavy eyebrows. Slightly thinned above the nose, but thick enough to appear as one complete stroke of hair in this dim, dawn light.

"Dover?" he repeated.

"Yes, that's right," she said, grabbing her mouth, realizing she had left her teeth soaking in a tumbler back at the home.

He kept glancing at her with a disconcerted look. "You from there?"

She wrenched her hood down. "Yes."

"Family there, I take it."

"Pigeons," she blurted, switching his expression to one of perplexity. "Left my pigeons there and I'm going to check on them. They miss me, you know."

He nodded, but she still sensed the mistrust.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Jarred."

"That's a nice name. My sister has a son named Jarred. Real nice young fellow. Except he picks his nose. But we all have bad habits, don't we?"

"We all do," he agreed.

A thick silence filled the car as she tried to conjure something else to say. Maybe it was just her mind. Or perhaps his expression of uncertainty was a natural part of his complexion--the way some always appeared happy, while others appeared glum, none of it having anything to do with how they felt. She wondered if he was into birds.

"Would you like to hear my pigeon call?"

His eyebrows jerked into inverted v's.

"Roo ... Roo," she said, trying in vain to roll the r's, but she succeeded in pulling a smile from him. She was tempted to tell him that he reminded her of her late husband, but she was afraid he'd think she was making a play for him. A little more at ease now, she tilted her head back against the seat, yawned, wished she had a pillow. The heat spurting from the dashboard, the droning engine, and the trees whipping by to her left lulled her, as it had always done whenever she and Sam traveled in their old green Chevy Nova. She drifted to sleep, dreamt of being ten, jumping rocks, scooping panicky squid on the beach with her father--marveling as he called the birds, Come on, come on .... In one dream, she was one of the birds, a stray white pigeon with a grey streak on her wing, soaring, eyes peeled for familiar landmarks.

Suddenly, something shook her. In a sleepy daze, she surfed her palms over the seat, half afraid of discovering she was still in bed.

Reaching under her coat collar, she rubbed her stiff neck and straightened up. When she peered through the back windshield, her heart leaped. The car had hit a bump. The bump. A patch of eroded shoulder near a drainpipe about a kilometer inside Dover had been that way for as long as she could recall--

How Sam would sometimes smack into it because there always seemed to be a stingy vehicle rolling the other way, the hole appearing to stretch, as though it had a mind of its own, constantly on the lookout for them.

She could never stay awake in the Chevy, and like now, the bang was what had usually awakened her whenever they entered Dover. The hole, seldom repaired, had always irritated both her and Sam--nearly beating the hell out of the car several times. Now it was something she could pull out of herself and relive with a smile.

The town hadn't changed much. The road snaking toward the proposed park still slashed half way through construction, evergreens and alders becoming braver, sprouting up like they'd never be chopped. How she had longed for the completion of that road to whisk her to Salt Water Pond, where she'd swim until her skin shriveled, bury herself in the cool, clinging sand.

Shoal Bay Island, land of the partridge berry, sprang out of the horizon when they crested Wakely's Hill. How she had whizzed down this one numerous times on bike as a teenager, the dread of wiping out, adrenalin spurting. But the best was the turn at the bottom.

"That's it down there," she said, pointing as the car negotiated the sharp, left turn. "Straight up that road--Look! See the eaves?"

The car edged into a narrow lane, shook as the tires couldn't evade a thousand potholes no matter how much Jarred twisted the wheel. Mildred leaned forward for a better view of the house, but she kept getting tossed around, hands slipping along the driver's headrest, nearly toppling her over. The car halted next to a shabby, wooden gate ripped from one of its rusty hinges.

The house had changed drastically. Most of the white paint pealed, the clapboard deep grey, like a humongous hornet's nest. Windows shattered, several of the holes barred up with plywood in what looked like a hurried job--the handy work of Bill, Laura's husband, she supposed. She glared hard, thinking maybe they had chosen the wrong turn somehow, and this was really a shack over in dingy Little Cove, where that part of town had always been the black eye with its dirty children launching stones as soon as you crept within range.

But certain familiar features of the garden gave it away. Two damson trees down over a hill to the left of the house. The trees too, had obviously suffered a battering, branches broken, dangling like arms plied the wrong way. The dogberry, once broad and thick, was a thin, sickly thing--even for this time of year. The wild cherry tree was leveled, as though raked with a plow. A garden splattered by trespassers, teens on a senseless romp of drugs and booze.

Heart racing, Mildred fumbled for the car doorhandle. By the time she found it, Jarred had already gotten out and pulled the door open, but instead of stepping back or reaching in to help, his body blocked her, his eyes fixed on the house.

"Excuse me ma'am, we got the wrong place. You must be mistaken."

"Think I don't know the house I grew up in?"

"Been a long time since anyone's grown up in that." His head jerked suddenly towards her. "I'm not saying you're old--"

"I'm old. And I'm paying for this trip. You can't tell me what to do--just 'cause you look like my husband."

He stepped back, mouth dropping open. But he couldn't seem to dig out the words.

"I mean when he was young," she clarified. "I'm not being a hussy, if that's what you think."

He shrugged. "I wasn't thinking that. Just concerned about your safety, that's all. Why would you want to come to a place like this?"

Setting her feet to the gravel, she leaned forward, clutched the door at the base of the window, tried unsuccessfully to pull herself out. She flopped back to catch her breath. His hand slid under her arm, holding most of her weight as he helped her out of the car.

"Thank you," she said, tugging her coat zipper down far enough to reach in and drag out the envelope.

She stuffed it against his chest. "Here."

"What's this?"

"It's all there. You can count it if you don't believe me. You're still in my way."

He moved aside, squeezing the puffed bottom of the envelope. "I'll help you in and then I'll take you home again. You're not staying here for long?"

"Depends. And I'm going in myself."

He gestured towards the house with his thumb. "Look at it."

It did seem lopsided, but it had always looked a bit that way. It was a trick of the eye--the way it was set against the slanted, grey cliffs with their deep recesses, the towering apse trees leaning eastward in the background. And it had always needed some kind of repair. There had never been any danger though. Only fond memories. She was certain there was no danger there now. Why was everyone afraid she might fall? Back at the home they kept bugging her to be careful. Whenever her family visited, they squandered the day trying to talk her into being an invalid.

The nurses can do it for you, Mom. That's what they're here for.

Well they weren't here now, and Mildred was glad of it. She trudged toward the house, back nagging her about the ninety minutes she had slumped in the back seat. Beer bottles littered the garden, some broken, poking through the leftover snow. Coke and Pepsi cans squat, ripped apart. Cigarette butts scattered like dead slugs.

She studied the second floor. The window of her old bedroom was shattered. Suddenly, she felt extremely vacant--as though the house had been new only a moment ago, and in one pull, something had yanked away fifty of its years. She used to stand in her nightgown behind that window, watch the pigeons take flight after they had danced across the roof, beating the rooster to the wake up call.

After she had married Sam, her father had given her several pigeons as part of a wedding gift. She had carried them two hundred miles away. They had settled the birds in the barn for a day or two until the chicken wire cage was finished. One pigeon, white with a grey streak on the left wing, had spotted the barn window, and thinking it was a hole to freedom, smacked into it, crashed to the floor, fluttering, jerking. It survived, gutsy thing. And when they had released the birds from the cage more than two weeks later, this pigeon had flown off and didn't return. Two days after, Mildred had received a phone call from her father. The pigeon had flown back to Dover.

They'll fly back here, she thought. This had to be the day. Why else would she have been sucked here?

The front door handle had been pounded off, but the door had warped too badly to swing open on its own. She pushed with both hands. It scraped against the floorboards, a faint, stale odor crawling through the doorframe.

"Excuse me," Jarred shouted behind her. "You realize how much money is in this envelope?"

Mildred waved him off, stepped into the porch. The canvas was cracked, ripped up in places--especially where the floor had sagged in the middle. The wood box still lingered at the rear, surprisingly untouched except for the mess of chip bags, pop cans, beer bottle glass, torn cartons, half filling it.

The walls of the kitchen and the adjoining livingroom were splattered with graffiti and graphic drawings, boasting who had screwed who in each spot and at what time--mutilated with holes from brutal fists and boots. The toilet had been dragged from the bathroom, tank battered to pieces on the livingroom floor, bowl rammed into a corner, cracked down the center. From the rancid stench and yellow smear on the floor, she could tell it had been used recently.

She turned her head away. Before this moment, she had figured Laura's description of the house had been farfetched just to stop Mildred from begging for the revisit. Now she believed that her daughter had been reserved in her report. But she hadn't returned here to explore, nor to soak in depression over the destruction she was facing.

She plodded through the doorway on the far side of the livingroom. In front of her, the warped staircase sagged with a tired look. But standing fifteen steps from a landing that led to her room accelerated her heartbeat, plucked out a memory of herself as a ten year old scurrying up and down these stairs, her mother bellowing for her to slow down before she crashes and breaks her neck. She'd never run them again, but she'd crawl if she had to.

The first step sank and split when she bore her stumpy hundred and fifty pounds on it. The guardrail was snapped in two, so she pressed her hand against the wall to her right. She tested one stair at a time--right foot, then the left one grabbing the same step, icy wall preventing her from tumbling like a clumsy porpoise. The middle step looked as though someone had hammered it deliberately with a maul--but probably with their head.

Not being able to pause and gather her balance like she'd done on the other steps unnerved her. She leaned harder against the wall, lodged her foot on the edge of the broken stair. Determined not to bear all her weight, mumbling one, two, three, she sprang for the next step, skidded, knee and shin banging, scraping. In a desperate effort to stay on her feet, she grasped for the guardrail, forgetting it wasn't there. She fell, her back, shoulders, and neck thudding the stairs, everything blending in an instant blur.

She expected excruciating pain. Or blackness. Instead, the ceiling, wall, and stairs hobbled from the murk, breaths jerking back. She wondered if she had passed out without realizing it--must have. With the absence of pain, she figured paralysis was the consequence. But she discovered she was able to move--and oddly, with ease.

She stood. Lightheaded, she gazed up the stairs through a haze.

I'm knocked senseless. There'll soon be more pain than I can bare.

But until then, she was taking advantage of this peculiar development.

On the top, she turned left. Her bedroom waited a few feet ahead on the right. She recalled the dark space where her window had once been, the ruthless damage downstairs. She couldn't imagine the condition of her room.

Hinges groaned when she pushed back the partly closed door. Her eyes widened, mind spinning, unable to sponge the incredible scene before her. She blinked hard, shook her head. But her bed remained, covered neatly with the multicolored bedspread her mother had stitched using rags from worn out clothes. The window glass was in one piece, untouched except for several tiny smudged fingerprints just above the sill. Pink curtains dabbed with patterns of blossomed flowers.

She tiptoed to her bed, afraid the slightest disturbance might toss her from whatever this was. So many memories charging back--all the times she had awakened to the thrill of pigeons beating across the roof.

She had always been crawling from sleep on this bed when they arrived. She bent, touched the coverlet. Soft, cool--the kind of cool that needed Mildred to share her warm body with. She lay down, light squeak like a welcome.

She remained still. Eyes closed. Listening.

It began as very light taps, the kind that a child's fingers would create on a tabletop while waiting for the next slice of toast. Another sound--someone sprinting--floorboards creaking. An arm sliding beneath her neck. Jarred's deep blue eyes, wide.

"I shouldn't have driven you here," he said urgently. He sounded further away than he appeared. "Police called me on the CB. They found my number in your room."

She smiled. "Soft. I could stay forever."

He lodged a hand on her shoulder. "Don't move. I'll radio for an ambulance."

He wrenched off his coat, wrapped the scent of leather around her, faint cologne floating from the collar.

Above her, the patter quickened, louder.

"Is it raining?" she asked.

"No. Sun's peeping through. Don't move."

"The window."

He gazed at her with that expression of uncertainty. "What window?"

She pointed. "There."

He glanced in that direction. Shook his head. "Nothing there only stairs."

Something white swooped past the window. "See that?" she said. "Beautiful."

"You've hurt yourself bad, Mrs. Baker."

"I'm supposed to go to the window."

"What window?"

The white form flashed again.

"Look! See? Told you."

"I don't--I mean ...." His expression suddenly changed, as though he had discovered something pleasant. "I mean, yes. Yes. It's beautiful like you said. But you mustn't move okay?"

"Tired," she said. "Think the pigeons will still be here when I wake?"

He nodded. "They'll be everywhere."

Fear stole his face again, his hand easing from under her neck. He disappeared, footsteps pounding, rapid, fading. She yearned to stand by the window, but couldn't fight the pressing haze.

She closed her eyes.

Come on, come on ...

Wings fluttered around her.