In the first light of dawn, Milena thought they were black garbage bags, twisted by the wind into the bare tops of trees at the edge of her lawn. Squinting, she realized they were turkeys, their unwieldly, bulky bodies roosting high in delicate branches. She watched through the window, the thick curtains falling behind her and closing her off from the rest of the house. The cold seeped through the crumbling caulk and the old glass panes. The edges of each pane were scribbled with a delicate frost, but the centers were clear.
As the sun rose, the sky glowed pink and the snow turned blue. One of the turkeys flapped its way down and started walking towards Milena, its long neck preceding it. The rest followed in a flurry of feathers and dark shapes, until there were twenty wild turkeys stalking across the yard. They strutted and darted their heads down to peck about underneath the snow.
Milena heard footsteps behind her and turned to see her five-year-old, Nolan. He stood in his fire-truck fleece pajamas with his thumb in his mouth. He wore the same puzzled expression he did every morning when he awoke to a new day, as if surprised it had come.
“Oh, it’s too early, love, why don’t you go back to bed?”
He shook his head, “What are you doing, Mama?”
She sighed. His expression got more obstinate. She knew if she carried him back upstairs, he would start crying and wake up the rest of the house.
“Turkeys,” she said, “come see.”
He padded over to her and took her hand as he looked out.
“They’re so big,” he said, “I love them.”
The turkeys had made their way to the bird feeder a few feet from the window, pecking and scratching at the seeds stuck in the hardened snow. They were dark- bodied, a hidden rainbow of colors just starting to shimmer in the morning’s light. Some of their heads were blue, some red. Two big toms had wrinkled wattles dangling, and the hens had strong, scaly golden feet. They bobbed their heads as they walked, tilted them at each other. One stretched out its wings and flapped and Nolan took a step back.
“Woah,” he said.
She nodded, caressing the softest skin at the nape of his neck, the fringe of his dark hair. He would need another haircut soon.
Nolan ducked under her hand and ran towards the kitchen, “What’s for breakfast? Do I have school today?”
“No, sweetheart, it’s Sunday.”
He opened and slammed the refrigerator door, rattling the contents of the door. Milena entered the kitchen and he handed her a pomegranate, still red and burnished despite the fact that she could not remember when she had purchased it. There had been an optimistically fancy salad recipe, at some point. She’d never made it.
“I want this. And pancakes.”
“Is that how we ask?”
“Please,” he said, and ran out of the kitchen to the living room, flipping on all the lights and dumping out a container filled with matchbox cars, trains, and planes.
“Quiet, love,” she reminded as his sound effects kicked in. She took out her second-best cutting board and the chef’s knife Fiona had given her for her birthday in October.
The knife sliced easily through the pomegranate, the red juice spurting across the cutting board and onto the front of Milena’s nightgown, surprising her. She had expected the fruit to be desiccated. She dabbed at the stain with a wet paper towel, spreading the color and giving herself a chill. She gave up and returned her focus to the pomegranate, staining her fingers as she separated the arils from the spongy membrane. She filled a small bowl and admired the faceted ruby glitter.
By the time a stack of pancakes stood steaming on the counter, her older son, Riley, had arrived downstairs with a mumbled good morning. The boys had tuned the television to something with endless cartoon explosions.
“Boys, breakfast,” she called, and after a delay, they raced to the table, Riley shoving Nolan out of the way for the win.
“Boys!”
“He pushed me.”
“He was in the way.”
“Eat some pancakes. Riley, help Nolan serve the pomegranate. And not too much syrup, please. I’m going upstairs to Grandma.”
Riley grunted in response and Milena almost lectured him on his manners, but she picked up a plate of pancakes and a mug of coffee instead. The sweet steam of the sugared coffee filled the steep wooden stairwell as she climbed.
The crack between the floor and the bedroom door was still dark, but she knocked anyway before turning the handle.
The curtains were open, and her mother-in-law, Fiona, was staring at the last of the sunrise glowing through the dark branches of the woods. She was propped up in bed, with a blue and white wedding-ring quilt drawn up to her waist.
“Good morning.”
“Oh,” Fiona said, smiling at the pancakes and the coffee, “Good morning! Aren’t you a dear?”
Milena set the coffee down on the white marble coaster that waited on the nightstand next to the bed. She settled a small bed table over Fiona’s legs and eased the pancakes onto it.
“Beautiful day,” Milena said, “I hope the boys didn’t wake you?”
Fiona waved a hand and nodded towards the window, “It’s a morning for poets out there.”
“Nolan and I saw a flock of turkeys this morning; they came to the bird feeder.”
“No,” Fiona said, smiling up at Milena, her face creasing into its fine lines.
“Twenty,” Milena said, nodding.
“Imagine that.”
Milena went to the dresser and emptied the day’s pills into her hand, a startling variety of sizes and colors. She brought them to Fiona, who took them with a smile.
“Cancer,” Fiona said. “Not for the faint of heart.”
Milena forced a laugh, sank into the blue armchair by the window to keep Fiona company. Fiona had brought the chair with her when she moved in, and Milena admired its high back and velvety fabric, worn smooth on the arms. She stroked it with her fingers as Fiona ate her pancakes.
“I’m sure I told you I used to make Aiden pancakes on Sundays.”
Milena nodded, “He loved pancakes.”
Fiona stopped eating, rested her fork on her plate with a quiet clink.
“Three years, this winter?”
Milena knew she wasn’t really asking, but she nodded anyway. Three years since Aiden had died, two years since Fiona moved in to help with the boys and never left, one year since Fiona’s own terminal diagnosis.
“Well,” Milena said as she stood, “I’ll be back to help you dress in a bit. I should go check on the boys.”
Fiona nodded, still eating. Milena closed the door as she left, stopped at the top of the stairs to sniff the essence of coffee, syrup, and pancakes.
After the cleanup, she cajoled the boys into their snowsuits and the sparkling cold outdoors. She coaxed Fiona into her housedress and settled her with a book in the blue velvet chair. For a moment they both peered hopefully into the quiet yard, but the turkeys had disappeared. No wonder, Milena thought, what with the racket the boys were making.
Milena returned downstairs to the living room, which was gloomy and dark, the curtains still drawn. She spread them wide, muted snowy light flooding the room, and settled on the couch. The boys ran past outside, a blur of orange and yellow snow gear. The sun, which had seemed so promising on its rising, had disappeared behind drear stretched clouds. The wind was strong enough to whistle around the corners of the house, blowing up drifts of whatever snow wasn’t tamped down.
Milena waited for something to happen. It seemed like one of those days, when the phone would ring, or a knock would come at the door, or the television would report a new atrocity. But nothing changed. The grandfather clock ticked in the hall, grumbled, and chimed a half-hour. Upstairs, Fiona coughed hard for a few minutes, the way she had since the cancer had settled in her lungs. Milena tensed in worry but then Fiona was quiet. The boys whooped in glory outside. Milena’s stomach gurgled, and the heat ticked back on, the rumbling in the pipes something to do with trapped air that she had no idea how to remedy. All the days, she thought, all the days that come after.
She should be cleaning, could see the dust on the scrolls of the antique lowboy, sprinkled atop the rough granite mantle. She could use this time when the boys were out of the house to give everything a good deep clean, but she wouldn’t. Even thinking about it was wasting the precious time that she had. Upstairs, Fiona cleared her throat again.
The door slammed open and her boys were there, laughing and arguing. Their cheeks were red and sweaty, the hot cold of snow play. They dropped all of their wet gear in the foyer and barreled into the living room, both talking at once. She smiled and let the words wash over her until they veered off to their room to play video games.
By mid-afternoon the turkeys were back, Riley the one to spot them this time. Milena sent the boys upstairs to show their grandmother. She followed, holding the mug of tea that was her daily reward for making it to three o’clock. She opened the door to see the boys pressed up against the window and Fiona standing behind them, a hand on each small shoulder for support.
“Would you look at that!” Milena said.
“They’re so funny,” said Riley. “Look at the way they walk.” He bobbed his head in imitation and Nolan laughed.
“Your father would have liked them,” Fiona said. “Didn’t he paint turkeys, Milena?”
“Yes, he did. A few, at least.” Aiden had been an artist who painted odd scenes from the natural world, playing with perspective until the familiar was almost unrecognizable. The scalloped edge of a pinecone, rendered enormous on canvas. A darkened wash of trees, two owl eyes just visible through the crowding trunks. Towering green tufted moss with bright red bugs scaled like dinosaurs. Milena remembered a small painting tightly focused on a turkey’s eye and the rounded top of its head. Another, bigger work that took a God’s-eye view of a turkey flock scattered across a broad field, menacing woods framing the scene.
“Really?” Riley asked, “Can I see them?” Nolan had gone quiet, the way he always did when their father was mentioned. The therapist had said to let it go, that he’d talk when he was ready, so Milena tried. She smoothed Nolan’s hair as she spoke to Riley.
“I’ll take a look.”
“Cool,” Riley said. “Hey, can we feed the turkeys?”
“Sure, you can take some of the seed from the garage. Just fling it out over the snow.” The boys were running before she finished speaking.
“If you can find one, I’d like to have it,” Fiona said. “I’d like it very much.”
“Of course,” Milena said, “I’ll go take a look.”
All of Aiden’s paintings were in a closet at the end of the stairs. The bigger canvasses stacked neatly against the wall, the smaller, unframed pieces in a battered portfolio. Milena hadn’t looked at any of it since Aiden’s death. The study of the turkey’s eye was in the portfolio, right in front. It was much more beautiful than she’d remembered, the colors shimmering, almost metallic. She touched a finger to a stray blue water-drop on the white margin where the frame would go. Standing and flipping through the bigger canvasses, Milena found herself newly impressed by Aiden’s talent. The big painting of the turkeys was towards the back. It was a darker piece, painted twilight, hard to make out in the dim light of the closet. Milena felt tears start to come and swallowed hard.
When she’d pulled herself together and closed up the closet, Milena went to Fiona’s room and placed the small painting on the shelf next to the window. Fiona nodded in appreciation, her mouth tight, and Milena left her to her own thoughts.
The rest of the Sunday slipped by and Milena found herself tucking Riley in as Nolan slept across the room. She wondered that Riley still permitted this act of mothering at ten. She pulled his door to and knocked gently at Fiona’s. When there was no response, she opened it to discover that Fiona was snoring. She was facing the painting, propped up on her pillow with the lights blazing. Her chin-length hair was fanned across the pillow, and Milena caught her breath for a moment at the family resemblance. Something about the thin nose, the flat spread of lips carried from mother to son to grandsons. She flipped the light switch and closed the door like she did when the boys were babies, with her finger over the latch and the handle turned until the last moment. And then there she was, alone in the hallway. All the days after, she thought.
The gobbling of turkeys woke her, disoriented in the dark. She stumbled out of bed, wondering why they weren’t roosting. She pulled up the blind on her bedroom window, the chill from the smooth wooden floorboards on her feet. There was a full moon, and Milena saw the mass of turkeys below, heaving and flapping, gobbling and clucking. Something silver and liquid was slinking from the dark woods towards the flock. Canine.
Down the stairs, she flung open the front door and ran, barefooted in the snow.
“Stop stop stop stop!” she yelled, halfway across the lawn. The turkeys took flight at her yell, but not the dog. She stopped, and her heart gripped when she looked into the yellow eyes. Of course, it wasn’t a dog.
The coyote looked at her, a hen turkey in its mouth, the bird’s struggle a feeble half-effort. Milena became aware of the moonlight on her diaphanous nightgown, the way the coyote could see right through it to the delicate flesh and meat of her, to the thick red blood that pulsed underneath. She couldn’t breathe for fear.
The coyote, with a muffled crunch, tightened its jaw and the turkey stopped moving. Milena stood, arms still outstretched, feet burning in the cold. The coyote blinked, and she registered the fact that she was close enough to see it blink, close enough to see the puffs of its breath behind the puffs of her own.
Then the coyote turned and sauntered away, the head of the turkey bouncing on one side, the scaly yellow feet dangling from the other. It disappeared into the woods at the edge of the lawn, and Milena turned and ran inside. She stopped the slam of the door only at the final instant, locked it as if the coyote might return and try the handle.
She leaned against the door, heart pounding, and then sank to the ground, brushing the snow off her pale feet. She held them in her hands until she felt the painful prickle of returning sensation. The house was silent, dark.
When her feet were warmer, she made her way to the living room and curled up on the couch with the thick red quilt Fiona had made last winter. She shivered until she fell asleep.
Milena awoke to Nolan patting her on the forehead.
“Mama,” he said, “look, the turkeys are back.”
He had already parted the curtains. He turned and ran back to the window, the sun risen and bright. Milena joined him, braced for a scene of carnage, but there was nothing to be seen. No blood, no feathers, just a confusion of tracks where her eyes lingered.
Nolan was fixed on the turkeys, talking about how big they were, could he keep one for a pet, could he pet them, what would it feel like if he did? Milena listened, running a fingertip across the top of his translucent, pink ear. She thought about the big turkey painting in the closet. Whether it would fit over the downstairs mantle if she had it properly framed. She wondered if she could get a print made of the smaller painting, for the boys to hang in their room. She considered all the other paintings, shut away in the closet. What was she doing? She should buy frames, hang them everywhere. Bring Aiden’s vision back into their home.
It was late, she realized from the angle of the sun, very late. If she did not wake Riley this very moment and feed the boys a breakfast of granola bars in the car, they would be marked tardy at school.
Most days she would have done just that, but today she stood, her hand on Nolan’s shoulder, as he tried to convince her that he would take on all the responsibility for their new pet turkeys. He chattered on about feeding schedules as Milena felt the sun on her face, watched the turkeys scratch at the snow. All the rest of the days would still be there in a few hours.
Sarah Starr Murphy is a writer and teacher in rural Connecticut. Her writing has appeared in december, Qu Literary Magazine, Baltimore Review, and other wonderful places. She’s co-managing editor for the Forge Literary Magazine and eternally at work on a novel.