Sona McDowell

Baby Birds

The sky was a blue so light that George laughed to himself, thinking about God accidentally mixing in too much white paint and hoping no one would notice. It was one of those mornings that came once every year just to tell you that Spring had arrived. George sat with Hattie outside, both of them slumped over on the last step of the tiny, wooden staircase like lazy, sunbathing dogs. Hattie thought about the sun and how the warmth of that morning or maybe just that time of every morning was hard to describe; It was hot and sticky, but it didn’t weigh you down. The early sun was friendlier than the one they were used to coming home to in the mid-afternoon.