Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 73, No. 3. Whole No. 424, March 1979

Only the Cardinals Always Returned by Patricia L. Schulze[3]

A sensitive and poignant story by a new writer (this is her third story in EQMM) who is making great strides toward fulfilling her talent...

Now that I am an adult I realize that few things in my life remained constant. People disappeared and never came back. There were the two small brothers who nestled for a little while in the crib my father had built for Jeff and me and then went away, leaving only two marble lambs in the graveyard as evidence that they had ever been here. And there was the little sister who never made the trip from the hospital in town to our house on the farm. Another marble lamb.

Only the cardinals always returned. In early spring, when the snow still covered the earth, the small red birds came from their winter home in the corn crib at the end of the field to perch on the upper branches of the juniper tree at our front door. It was my mother who first showed me the cardinals in the spring when I was three or four. The red bodies flashing among the close-growing branches of juniper, bits of twig or string dangling from their beaks, were magic to the eyes of a child.

As I grew older I waited eagerly for the return of the birds, the male resplendent in his scarlet coat, his olive-gray and buff mate toiling patiently by his side. When the loose-knit nest was finally assembled, the female disappeared inside, nursing the pale blue and lavender speckled eggs, while her mate took over the task of bringing her the seeds and insects she needed to sustain life.

When the eggs hatched, the busy parents would flit about feeding their offspring and keeping a watchful eye out for any enemies that threatened their happy family. Even the nest-threatening bluejay fled in fear from the cardinals’ wrath.

We would get up before dawn on the great day when the baby birds, their down partially replaced with straggly feathers, would perch trembling on the end of a branch of the juniper tree. The father would take his station on a branch of the crab apple tree by the gate and start his encouraging call, “Good-cheer-cheer-cheer. Good-cheer-cheer-cheer.”

The-dove-colored mother would follow with anxious cries the maiden flight of her offspring, and if, as so often happened, the young fledgling wearied in his flight and fell to the ground short of his destination, she would swoop down beside him and keep an anxious watch until, rested and confident, the young bird clumsily launched himself and attained the crab apple tree where his father kept watch.

The cardinals always came back. Every spring, before we were even aware that spring was coming, the cardinals were busily building their nest in the juniper tree.

They came back the spring that Mother returned empty-armed from the hospital and the promised little sister went to join my two brothers on the hill. Mother and I watched the birds’ mating dance, the flight of their young, but without our old excitement or joy. As the heat of summer came on, Mother seemed to wilt, as the blossoms of the crab apple tree wilted and fell from the tree. When the tree bore its tempting inedible fruit Mother drooped further, as though reminded of her own barrenness.

Then in the fall she bought a set of encyclopedias from a young man who came to the door. She seemed to recover after that and her face took on a new glow. It was like the birth of a new year rather than the dying season of an old one. I had not realized that buying a set of encyclopedias was such a complex thing, but it seemed to involve a lot of negotiation. Every week the salesman came back to discuss some new aspect of the books he was selling.

Knowing that I would be bored by their long discussions, Mother always sent me out to play. Sometimes I went to the orchard behind the house to climb in the branches of the old trees there; sometimes I went out to the oat fields to watch my father and older brother, Jeff, busy with the threshing. More often I just sat on the front steps and watched the cardinals caring for their second family of the year and listened to the sounds coming through the open door.

Then, for the only times that fateful year, I would hear my mother’s laughter, and sometimes much later, her gentle crying and the salesman’s soft murmuring voice comforting her. Often they would leave the house, my mother carrying an old blanket that we used for picnics in the orchard. The salesman would raise the heavy iron door that lay at ground level over the cellar in the house yard. Then I wouldn’t be able to hear their talking.

The old root cellar in the yard was used to store home-canned goods and garden produce in the time of my grandparents. My parents had installed a deep-freeze and pantry shelves in our house basement, so now the outdoor cellar stood empty except for some cans of food and water that Daddy kept there in case of a tornado. We hadn’t needed to use the cellar for so many years that I had almost forgotten what it looked like inside. I do remember that it was completely underground and you had to go down a flight of earthen stairs to get to it. It had only two doors, a heavy wooden door that sealed off the cellar itself and another door of iron that lay flat on the ground and closed off the stairs.

It was on one of the days that they had gone to the cellar that my mother disappeared. I watched them from the front steps and then after a while I went back to the orchard to play. I saw my father come back from the field and go into the house and then a little later Jeff came back and took the milk pails that had been drying in the sun and went out to the barn. I wandered down to the barn and stroked the nose of the Jersey cow that was my special favorite while Jeff did the milking. When we went up to the house it was suppertime and Mother was gone.

She didn’t come home that night. The cold winter passed into spring and my father had notified the sheriff, but still there was no word about my mother or the encyclopedia salesman. That spring the cardinals came back and Daddy packed up the clothes that Mother had left behind and took them into town to the Salvation Army store.

On the day the cardinals were first trying to teach their babies to fly, Jeff went down into the old cellar to replace the water bottles for the summer storm season. I was standing at the top of the stairs when I heard him give a strangled cry. He came running up the stairs, very white in the face, and was sick all over the ground. He slammed down the iron door before he ran into the house to the phone, but just before the door shut I got a whiff of the terrible odor that had probably made Jeff so sick.

That afternoon there were people all over the place. First the state police car came with two men in it, and then more police cars. Daddy hugged me for a minute and then went away in the first car. The other policemen stayed until a red and white ambulance came. The ambulance men went down into the cellar and came back carrying two stretchers covered with blankets. Soon everyone left but the county sheriff. Then Grandma came out from town and the sheriff left too.

Grandma put her big suitcase in Mother and Daddy’s room. She explained that she would stay with us until Daddy came back.

That summer the cardinals’ first family flew away and they raised their second. But Daddy didn’t come back. In the fall Jeff had to hire some men to help with the harvest because at 17 he couldn’t handle the work alone. Daddy still hadn’t come back.

Then one afternoon in November I wandered into the kitchen to see what had come in the mail and found Grandma and Jeff sitting at the table. Jeff was looking very stiff-faced, like the time he had had to bury our old collie dog when she got hit by a car, and Grandma was crying quietly. The newspaper the mailman had brought had slipped to the floor. I just got a glimpse of the headline. “Lights Dim Briefly in State Capital.”

Grandma saw me and grabbed the paper. Jeff sat me down at the table and explained that there had been a change and Daddy wasn’t coming back any more.

That winter Grandma brought the rest of her things from town and moved in to stay. In the spring we watched the cardinals together. That fall, after the cardinals deserted the juniper tree for the corn crib, Jeff left too. He went up north to the agricultural college.

He came home at Thanksgiving and again at Christmas, but during the times in between Grandma and I were pretty much alone. I guess it was a lot of work for an old woman, even with the hired help and nice neighbors.

After Christmas vacation, when Jeff had gone back to college, Grandma started talking about moving into her house in town and renting out the farm, at least until Jeff was through college. I knew that if we left it would be forever. Jeff was transferring to the State University and planning on studying law after he graduated. When that happened he would probably sell the farm.

I wandered around the orchard and out to the barn to the cows that had become my responsibility now that Jeff was gone. I would miss all this if we moved. But most of all I would miss the cardinals when they came in the spring. I knew I couldn’t leave the cardinals.

That night, when Grandma went down to the basement to get some ice cream out of the freezer, I shut the basement door and slid the sturdy bolt into its catch. That way, no matter how much she pounded, the bolt would hold and Grandma couldn’t get out. I didn’t mean to keep her there that long. Just until the cardinals returned.

It was like that day I had sat on the steps to the old cellar and listened to the salesman and my mother laughing together. Then they had stopped laughing and started talking about going away together and never coming back. It was hard to push that big wooden door closed and then lift the heavy iron bar into place in the brackets on either side of the frame. But I was determined and could do lots of things people never imagined I could, just looking at how small I was.

I didn’t mean to keep them there so long either, just until they changed their minds. But there never seemed any good time when I could get Daddy alone and tell him where Mother was.

I like it here in this place. The people are more dependable. If they go away it is just for a little while for something called treatment. Then they always come back. There aren’t any bars on the windows, just a heavy screen mesh.

I write stories about growing up on a farm. In my stories Mother and Daddy and Jeff and I are all together and nobody ever goes away.

I like it here, but there are times when I wish I could leave. Jeff is married now and has a family, so they don’t have room in their house for me. Jeff and his wife come to see me sometimes, on visiting days. Sometimes they bring the children but this makes Jeff nervous for some reason. Jeff has sold the farm to strangers, so I couldn’t go back there. I don’t really want to anyway. It’s just now, while the snow still covers the ground but there is the least hint of spring in the air, that I would like to go back and see if the cardinals have returned.