The Night Parliament

The blackest section of the county road was only lit by the last sliver of a summer moon. She was driving too fast, we could barely keep up with the headlights. Hearts were racing to deaden the sharp hollow pain in our guts from the fight. She was staring straight ahead anticipating every bump in the long strip of asphalt. Frost heave had taken what laborers had laid down flat and waved it into a wobbly and undulating curved amusement ride, we provided the fear level with our ’64 mustang. The steering had loosened over the years and caused the old car to drift. We treated her like a sailboat constantly correcting and revolving the wheel left and right, even on straight flat drives.

Restaurant work had always strained our relationship. We made ourselves believe it was what made us closer and stronger together. With the drop in business and our individual workloads doubled, the weight and responsibility of a relationship seemed frivolous next to the survival of the business.

We hadn’t talked to each other since we fought. All thru service it was ordering this, fire that, picking up table…..

She wouldn’t even look at me and dropped her towels on the counter after the last ticket and left the cleanup for me and the rest of the line cooks. She was counting tickets and punching numbers into the desk calculator with stacks of bills and register receipts spread out in front of her. Lately, this didn’t take as long as it should have.

“I’ll be in the car when you’re done” she didn’t look over at me but lit a cigarette from a pack she had stashed in the office. The glow of the liter reflected off the dried grease and sweat on her cheeks and nose and she took a long slow drag and let it drift out her mouth and nose as she exhaled with a sigh.

“Marie, I’ll be in by ten. Can you start a list when you come in and make it short, we don’t have a lot to work with right now” Marie shuffled her apron and nodded, and went back to sweeping under the counters. She went out the back door and let the screen door slam and double-tap as it came to a close.

Small family restaurants don’t have a long life historically. Five years and you can say you’ve been successful, but you have to count the mouths you’re feeding. We had been feeding ourselves and six others, counting the front of house waiters and dining room manager along with our kitchen staff of prep cooks and dishwashers. We could manage this, but we knew that any more may take away from any chance of a profit we could ever see. The thought of a child had never been brought up, we both knew it was there though.

“Are you stupid or should we just shut the doors of the restaurant now and tell everyone “Sorry we want to have a kid, so, no more restaurant”. You-have-just-about-lost-your-mind! Oh, and you can carry it since you think it’s’ such a good idea.”

I clearly had not read the situation right this time. I started out with “You know, maybe being slow isn’t such a bad thing. We could start our family now. I can handle the restaurant as it is and if we get busy, we can always hire a new line cook to pick up the slack while you’re at home.”

I don’t think words could ever describe the look she gave me at that exact moment. Go to hell came to mind since that is where my evening ended up.

“What part of being slow and not making any money, No, losing money, said to you “Hey let’s have a baby, what a great opportunity.”” She had become wicked.

“I’m working my ass off here seven days a week to build our business and now to see it get crushed and you think “Let’s have a kid””.

I had nowhere to hide and I did this to myself. I should have probably let it go, but….

“You know you’re the one who keeps dropping hints and maybes. Looking through magazines and watching home renovation shows, commenting that that’s not what you would do if you were decorating a nursery. Oh, look how cute…..ugghhh.” I was done now. Even if she were going to let me have another word in it wouldn’t be the last.

“Oh my god you are so dense…..” she was flush red and she was crushing the grip on her knife. “Now I can’t even make random comments? You just sit there and watch, do you even want a kid? You even know what it takes to have a kid?....”

We were done for the night. The ticket machine began to print off kitchen dupes, and she took the ticket out and went right into expediting mode. The rest of the night was robotic. Ordering, fire, pickup. When the last plate went out, she threw down her towel and walked away.

I could hear the radio playing from the car, she had rolled down the two front passenger windows. I let the door slam shut as I pulled it while falling into the front seat. The transmission slipped into reverse and I was jerked forward, stopping myself by pushing with my right hand on the cold hard rubber dash. With a sharp quarter reverse turn, the transmission was shoved into drive and the old pony pushed out of the gravel parking lot into the cool night air blowing in my open window.

The thirty-minute commute was always longer when we fought. This late at night creatures would frequently wander out onto the road and many times we had either taken out or barely avoided them. The farmhouse we had bought with the restaurant lacked all modern conveniences but over time we had updated what we could when we had time, which lately seemed to be more available with the sudden slowdown. The drive was visible from the road when we came up over the last rise and the rusted white mailbox was slanted into the road with the door open when we didn’t get any mail.

She slowed and pulled into the lane and drove up to the barn door, far enough away from them for me to open them. She just stared straight ahead as I got out and pulled them open pushing the left one out and pulling the right one along with me as I walked out of the way. She pushed the old pony into the dark barn, and I was lit by the brake lights as I followed her in.

“Why would you want to have a child now” she had parked the car turned off the engine and was just sitting in it. “Isn’t it hard enough now as it is, and we should bring a child into this?”

“I was just thinking out loud, I didn’t even really think you had thought about it much, we never talk about it.” I had walked alongside the car and was sitting on a bench that stretched along the inside wall. “Do you, do you want to have kids?” It seemed like a question I shouldn’t’ have to ask.

“I don’t know, yes, but not now. Not when we can barely afford how we are living.” The muscles on her face had begun to relax and her voice had become more tender again. “and I be damned if we hire someone at the restaurant before you stay home to take care of the kid first” she let out a mad laugh and chuckle.

“Ok, maybe I didn’t think this through much” I hadn’t thought at all, again I was just thinking out loud.

“you think” she quipped.

Pepper screamed a long high-pitched wail. She repeated herself over and over till we both looked up to acknowledge her. She was sitting alone, perched on the edge of a rail that joined the rafters of the pitched roof. Looking down on us, her flat, plate-shaped face with two olive eyes glaring over her long-curved protruding beak.

“Screeeeeaaachhhh, screeeeeaaachhhh” her beak opened wide to let out a yell at us for disturbing her.

Suddenly she looked up and a bright white double-wing glided over us and perched next to her, Salt.

We weren’t the most imaginative people at naming things so when these two barn owls moved in, they just seemed like a Salt and Pepper. She had a beautiful light brown gown of feathers with hints of white and pale yellow and he matched her but when they faced us, she had dark speckles on her breast and under her wings and he was pure white, Pepper and Salt.

Just as he landed, he passed off to her a brown furry token and she lowered her head to meet the small beaks breaking the line of their perch. They had started their family in our barn and tonight was the first time we had to meet them. She deserved to scream at us for being so impolite to interrupt her family with our squabbling.

Together they stared at us. Pitch black eyes on a bed of white feathers with the long deadly beak. They were just staring and at their feet, claws clutching the bean were three small white heads each with the same black olive eyes and pickle beak on a pillow face.

“Good evening” She was looking up at the barn owls and she was gleeful now. She looked at me in amazement and joy. She was effervescent now “They had babies, did you know?” I shook my head no. This was the first time either of us had seen them and we certainly didn’t make a very good first impression.

“How have you two been? We’re so sorry to interrupt you, we're just going in now.” She signaled to me to come along and follow, and she gave the owls a good night wave.

She reached into the mustang and turned off the lights which had been on this whole time and followed me out of the barn and took the left door as I pushed over the right to meet their edges in the middle.

“Tomorrow we’ll talk about kids.” She took my hand, and we walked the path to the back of the house and into the mudroom. We had been in the dark so long we didn’t even turn on any lights making our way to the bedroom. We kicked off our shoes and stripped down to t-shirts and underwear before collapsing in bed.

Pepper let out another screech that we could hear from the open windows and we let the cool summer night air brush over us as we fell asleep.