Rigor mortis had set in by the time I found Peanut Butter’s body.
His claws were gripping the bottom of the cage as if he was heading to the water bin for one last splash of refreshment before he fell to his untimely death.
We will never know the time of death, but the discovery was made at 3 p.m. Christmas Eve.
Peanut Butter and Jelly … that is what my daughter Mary had named her parakeets. They were a gift from her father and I for her ninth birthday, just five weeks earlier. The news that Jelly was a surviving widow wasn’t exactly what Santa wanted to deliver.
Jelly was screeching when I had unlocked my apartment door. I had left the birds alone for two days to visit family. They still had food and water. The only fortunate part of this scenario was that my daughter was not with me when I dropped by the house. I called my daughter’s father.
“Do we tell her? Wait until after Christmas?”
The decision to have Christmas at his place gave us more time. He thought Mary needed to say goodbye. But we would wait to tell her. This decision meant a dead bird would lie in state next to a lean cuisine and an ice cream sandwich for the next 48 hours. A brief time later, I made a call to my bestie.
“Cecillea all those birds look the same, get to Petco after Christmas and buy another.”
Peanut Butter 2.0 was the best 20 bucks I spent that holiday season.
“Mom, look at what Peanut Butter is doing.”
Mary called me into her room to watch the new spectacle. And a show it was. This bird, unlike his predecessor, had no fear of the human hand. He latched onto her fingers and squinted his eyes when she petted his head.
I had made a good decision. I am a good mother. Jelly, quit looking at me like that.
In the cage, they lived the lie that many couples do — the lie that everything is fine and nothing had happened. As months went on the distance between them on the perch increased. Eventually they used a separate perch and closed their eyes nightly as though they lived in separate cages.
The purchase of Peanut Butter 2.1 came one year later. It was after Christmas, but just before the legislative session. I work at the Capitol. Preparing for session is comparable to cramming for a final knowing you won’t put your pencil down for the next four months.
This was no time for another dead bird on my hands. But here was Peanut Butter 2.0 in my hands, wrapped in a thousand Target bags and heading to the curb.
“I’ll take a yellow parakeet, male please.”
Petco should really offer a drive thru.
Haste leads to mistakes. And this one almost had me.
The next day I hear, “Hey mom, why are Peanut Butter’s feathers black on the end?”
Mothers lie. It’s part of the job description.
“Yes, that elf on the shelf got marshmallows out of the cabinet while we were both sound asleep.”
“No, I didn’t touch your Valentine’s candy.”
“Those shoes fit just fine.”
The story this night: “Hmm … I think I read somewhere that when parakeets get sick their feathers get darker.”
“Can I Google it?”
“U-verse is down.”
How did I not notice the feathers? Who have I become?
Peanut Butter 2.1 expired before Petco’s 14-day guarantee. But this time, Mary was home. The gig was up.
The scene was every bit as traumatic as I had anticipated. And had it been possible, I would have replaced that bird until the day she went off to college.
But the truth was here. Peanut Butter was dead and she knew it. Only Jelly and I knew this had happened twice before.
After a proper burial, we headed to another pet store. I brought Jelly in the cage and told the clerk we needed another male.
“You don’t want a male,” the clerk told me. “You can’t put a female and male parakeet together unless they mate. She’ll kill him.”
“And how exactly would that happen?” I asked.
“Well, the female will peck at it and once the male knows he’s rejected his heart stops functioning. So really he dies from a broken heart.”
I didn’t know if 23-year-old Katie the pet store clerk knew anything about birds or reptiles. But if I chose to believe this theory that Jelly was in fact a cold-hearted murderer, I was an accessory.
I took Mary out for ice cream hours later and came clean. I told her about Peanut Butter Nos. 1, 2 and 3. She laughed. And then she laughed some more.
If we truly are as sick as our secrets, those laughs cured a growing cancer.
She named her new bird Apricot. I’m happy to share that Apricot and Jelly have been getting along splendidly. They share foods and baths and wake us up with sweet songs every morning.
If birds were people, Jelly would have been locked up for life. But the sad truth is she already is.
I’ve learned a great deal in the last two years about why birds shouldn’t be caged, how much truth young people really can bear, and how sometimes life can just be easier hanging on the perch with your girls.