February Robin

Her hands at a militant 10 & 2 on the steering wheel, Jessica gritted her teeth as she began the wide and gentle turn off of the side street.

"God help me; I loath driving on ice. On snow. In the Winter. I can work from home. Why didn't.... easy there, now. Easy. Why didn't I bring the laptop home? Why ... there you go. Why did I even go in this week at all? I have coffee at home...", she muttered as the car completed the turn and slowly rolled to the traffic light which was, mercifully, red.

There always seemed so much to do, and as she did each morning Jessica reviewed the exhaustive to-do list that was just a thought away, hovering at the back of her consciousness.

Things for work, for home, to prepare, react, reach out. Busy calendar for January. No. No not January. It's February now. February...

"Oh, Dad," she moaned softly. "Oh Dad. It's February again. Saturday is", the light turned green as she finished aloud, "Valentine's Day. It's 19 years tomorrow."

Throughout the rest of the slippery trip to work Jessica remembered the shock of that phone early Valentine's Day 19 years ago. The sorrow in her aunt's voice as she told her that a gun she didn't know about had been used by her father to take his own life just after midnight. Right after he had finished his customary bowl of toasted almond fudge ice cream.

"I didn't forget Dad, I just didn't want to remember it, didn't want to feel it this year. There's so much going on that doesn't make sense, so many families broken apart.," she confessed as she pulled into the parking lot and saw that her usual spot was heaped with snow.

Sighing, she carefully navigated as close to the cleared path the early-morning plow had made and the even tinier stem of salt it had left in its wake.

It had been an even bigger snowstorm that year, with her 500 plus miles away. As if the distance mattered. She could have lived next door and it wouldn't have changed the fact that she'd never speak to him again.

So many things left unsaid. Pulling her purse and lunch from the car with one hand, wrapping her scarf around her neck with the other, Jessica bumped the car door closed with a fast bump of her hip and clicked the key fob to lock the car. It was a habit; she was so used to doing it she didn't check for the fast pulse of the headlights to show it was locked. She pressed again and waited for the 'chirp' of the car as she took the first slow careful step towards the building.

A chirp is what she heard, and then another. A second chirp was NOT routine. She turned to look at the car, and as she did a graceful eruption of brown feathers took flight from the bare branches on the trees next to the parking lot.

Robins. One, two, four... at least seven of them. Startled by the chirp of the car lock they briefly were alight then reseated themselves on their perches. The color stood out against the heaps of still-white snow on the ground and lining the nooks of the trees.

Jessica stood there quietly taking in the sight of the first February robins. As far back as she could remember, her father would announce at dinner the day he saw the first robin of the new year. It was solemnly spoken, given the dignity and weight of a spelunker discovering a crystal cavern, or an Arctic explorer finding the sheen of a blue ice cave.

Jessica remembered the first time, when at 19 years old, just months after she had married, when she'd seen her first February robin while she'd waited shivering for the bus to take her to town. She's called her dad that night, after dinner dishes were done.

"I saw a robin today, Dad."

"You did? That's pretty early. Are you sure?"

"Absolutely. I just wanted to let you know."

That was the first time she'd felt adult. Seeing the world. Connecting with her father on a level he had declared important. It was repeated year after year, sometimes she was the one that made the call, sometimes it was him. In the age of rotary phones and long distance those calls might come late at night, often with the sharp rapping of snow peppering the windows, adding even more fog to long distance fuzzy connections.

It must have meant something to him, hadn't it? For him to participate in that yearly sharing no matter how frayed their communications, how fraught their truce? He'd known it was important, something that they shared. Something special. He must have known.

He was gone before she had a cell phone, before she could have snapped a photo and texted it to him. Shared the image and not just the words.

He was gone. But she wasn't.

"I saw a robin today, Dad", she whispered into the swirling snow. "I just wanted you to know."