Ronald twisted the gold band from his finger and let it clink into the cupholder in the center console of his car. He flipped the visor down and gave himself a final once over in the tiny mirror. Laura hadn’t noticed his new haircut yesterday, hadn’t noticed his new shirt or new cologne this morning as they both had dressed. It had been some time since she had noticed anything about him at all, it seemed.

The hum of the airplane engine vibrates the floor beneath my feet. The fog of white noise from the same fills my ears. I strain over the passenger sitting next to me, trying to look out the window and am able to catch only a glimpse of the green land below. From this height, the landmass is an alligator head submerged in the blue-blue sea. The large man in the window seat shifts and his massive body blocks the tiny portlike window of the plane.

The bird’s face came to me in a dream, although I didn’t tell anyone that when I booked my trip.

The first time I dreamed its face, that’s all I saw. The head of this blue bird with this fancy crown of feathers pluming out. Almost like a peacock’s fan but smaller and sticking out in every direction, like electrical wires, or a crown. Like wiry roots on a plant that’s been pulled from its dirt. The bird’s face had this yellow beak that pointed at me in the dream, and those red eyes, with pupils like arrowheads, shining like pomegranate seeds in its silky blue face. When I awoke, I rolled over to ask Roger what kind of bird it was. It had felt so real. But of course, Roger wasn’t there anymore.

Yellow is Mom’s favorite color.

When we were little, she once stayed up all night painting an entire wall of our living room yellow.

Just one wall.

When Mark and I awoke the next morning, Mom was sitting lotus style in her paint-splattered coveralls on the living room floor. Her back to us, she stared at the wall. She had gathered Mark into the cocoon of her lap and wrapped an arm around my legs. Pulling me close to her side, she kept her eyes on the wall even while she buried a kiss in Mark’s dark curls.