"They make us conformists look good".
"That's a peculiar way to think". It wasn't just the obnoxious birds that had ruffled her own feathers, of course; she knew that. It was Jim's "little" sister Myra, the unreliable, irresponsible, forever flyaway, Myra. She's a year older than I am, Lucy told herself.
"Come, come", Jim said, jollying Lucy a little. "I love you. Susan ready"?
Lucy listened. Obviously, Susan was not. Upstairs, busy feet, showering like raindrops, pattered around her room. Susan would be visiting her grandmother for only a few days, but even at seven she was a prudent soul; she always packed for a lifetime, just in case. "Not yet. Every doll in the house must be going with her".
"She'd better step on it. It's a long way to Websterville". Jim's fine young face was an expressive one, too; as he looked at her, it registered anxiety. "You know", he said. "Myra wanted me to thank you for taking Cathy. It'll be only a couple of weeks before she finds a home for them in Paris- but even so, she wants you to know that she's awfully grateful".
Lucy did not believe him; Myra appreciated nothing. Jim had put the thanks in his sister's mouth.
"Darling"- she said, and the single word mingled love and exasperation in an equal blend. "She should have told me herself. And will it be only a couple of weeks? Remember what happened the last time"?
Leaving Cathy with them, Myra had gone out to the Coast for a supposedly brief visit; but she had stayed all winter, and Cathy had stayed all winter too- with them. Lucy suspected that Myra would never have come home if Gregg, Myra's husband, hadn't gone out to fetch her. "That was an awfully long two weeks".
For an otherwise silent moment, Jim's keys jingled nervously in his pocket. "But she promised- This will be different", he said at last. "You've got to admit she was smart to scare up this fine government job over there- she'll get a home for herself and Cathy in no time. You'll see, Myra's settling down". On the defensive, he added, "I wish you'd think what it must be like for her to be without Greg, to be a new widow, a young widow".
"It depends on the widow". Lucy had an idea that Myra loved it. And not for one moment did she believe that Myra had settled down. It seemed to Lucy that all their married life, she and Jim had been doing nothing but rescue his sister from the constant crises that were her way of life. Remembering that succession of disasters, she now considered Cathy, an ominous child-cloud on her horizon.
It was not that she disliked Cathy. The youngster drew her, troubled her depths; whenever Lucy saw her, she tried, without noise or fuss, to give her the warmth she had never had from Myra. But Cathy was Myra's responsibility, not hers.
"I wouldn't even be surprised", she said unhappily, "if Myra tried to leave her with us forever". Myra loved big cities; thousands of miles away- in Paris, of all places- she might forget she had ever been a mother. Lucy knew her too well to find it impossible.
"That's a horrible thing to accuse her of"! Jim was so indignant it was obvious that no matter what he said, he too had seen the looming specter of a forever-Cathy. He went to the foot of the stairs and shouted up, fiercely, "Susan! Susan! Get moving"!
A startled piping sound returned.
"Don't yell at us", Lucy said. Was it only a few nights ago that they had been standing together in front of the house looking at the moon-washed river? Their arms around each other, they had been talking of the present and the future; their talk and their feeling had been as deep and warm, as steeped in light, as the air around them. Then, from within the still, sleeping house, the telephone had rung; Myra, with her news, was on the other end of the line.
Jim turned back from the stairway and looked at her. His dark brows, which had been lowered in anger, smoothed. "Please", he said. "There isn't a chance of Myra's letting anything like that happen. Let's stay friends".
But they weren't just friends, Lucy thought; they were husband and wife, and Myra had no right muddling and chilling their marriage. The only thing that had ever come between them was that worthless, selfish sister of his. Lucy was sick of it.
"Well, at last", she said, because Susan was clattering down the stairs.
Susan looked like an overwhelmed baby nurse; her arms were straining with a burden of dolls. "I'm ready", she announced.
"Do you need that big bundle"? Jim said. His voice had sharp edges, as though he knew very well Lucy and he were not friends at the moment. "All that junk"?
Susan stared at him with hurt blue eyes that gushed an instant grief; to her, each of her dolls was a real person with a living heart.
"Now, now", Lucy said, approaching Susan with a handkerchief, mopping skillfully. "Your father didn't mean it, Susan". She gave Jim a quick, shape-up look of warning. "He'll take every one of them".
Jim groaned, but he lifted Susan's suitcase and said, in a gentler tone, "Sure- the entire thousand. And when you get back from Grandma's, Cathy will be here to play with you. Nice"?
"No", Susan said, grappling with her outsized armload of dolls with a Scrooge-like effect.
And at this point, Lucy thought, there should be a lecture on little cousins' sharing dolls- but she could sympathize with Susan; there ought to be a limit to sharing, too.
That was one more reason she didn't look forward to Cathy's visit, short or long; the last one had been a Lilliputian war. She suspected that Cathy had been competing with Susan for attention that she had never had.
"Well", Jim said, out of the silence, "let's get going, dolls and all".
When the car, with Susan's hands waving wildly from the rear window, disappeared down the driveway, Lucy stood looking after its pale dust. The day was brilliant around her- flower-scented, crisp with breeze- yet her inner turmoil darkened it. She had let Jim go with a chilly good-by, a chillier kiss. She was sorry, and angry at herself, because never in their life together had she done that. She turned and began to walk toward the house.
At the feeding station, the raffish group of cowbirds again bobbed and gobbled over the ground, but now, gorgeous among them, was a beautiful red cardinal, radiant in its feathered vestments. The handsome bird was solitary; its mate must be at home, silently guarding their nest. She had better stay there, Lucy thought; the sly female cowbirds took instant advantage of nests without sentinels.
Well, Lucy? she said to herself, abandoning the cardinals and the cowbirds. She had a day of things to do; among them, she had to prepare the guest room. How long would it be occupied? she wondered, with a baffled feeling of helplessness. As long as the unscrupulous Myra chose? For a moment, her mind returned again to the strange, flying world of birds, and she said to herself. It isn't only birds that dump their children in other people's nests.
In the sunshine of late afternoon, Lucy stood looking at the ready guest room. There were new yellow curtains, bright as a child's life ought to be, a new bedspread, lively with hopping rabbits, and hanging from the ceiling was an airy Mother Goose Mobile, spinning slowly in the breeze. A row of little hangers waited for a child's clothes in the neatly empty closet; since Myra had always put most of Greg's money on her own back, Lucy suspected that no more than a few of that long row would be needed. The closet was faintly fragrant with lavender, and as Lucy shut the door an unhappy memory slipped into her mind, like a lavender ghost: Greg's house, on the day he was buried, and the child, pale, silent, baffled, watching the funeral guests with panicky eyes. Many times since his death that memory had worried and troubled her.
Out in the hall, the upstairs phone shrilled, and the small ghost vanished. When she picked up the receiver, her mother's cheerful voice was there.
"Websterville Junction calling", she said. "I just thought I'd let you know. Myra dropped Cathy this morning, and Jim picked Cathy up and left Susan a few hours ago. I'd have phoned sooner but I've been busy".
"I can imagine"! Susan was an active character; for Mother to be able to call, Susan must be napping now, surrounded by her multitude of dolls. Lucy drew out the chair and sat down; she relaxed a little, and some of the tension went out of her. You could think yourself as grown up as Methuselah, yet the maternal voice still kept its comforting magic. "How was Cathy"?
"Subdued. But Myra was the merriest widow I ever saw".
On her way to the airport, on her way to Paris- you bet, Lucy said to herself. "I've been fixing up the guest room for Cathy".
There was a momentary pause, and then her mother said, "How long is she supposed to stay"?
"Just for a couple of weeks, till Myra finds a place for them".
"Well"- This time there was a long silence, while the telephone hummed faintly with a voiceless life.
Puzzled, Lucy stared at the flowered wallpaper; her mother was forthright; she was not usually given to mysterious silences. Was she thinking along the same lines Lucy was- that it was quite possible Cathy might be left with her for good? "You mean once Myra gets to Paris"? Once the soft, pretty moth found the bright light she had always wanted?
Suddenly, seekingly, Lucy asked, "Mother, do you know something I don't know"?
Again there was that curious pause, and then her mother said, "I guess I do. Just before Myra left- She was saying good-by to Cathy, and she didn't realize I was near". She hesitated, as though hunting over words and ways of putting them. "Cathy was in tears, of course, and I heard Myra say, 'Now be good, and at Christmastime I'll send you a wonderful present from Paris"'.
Shocked speechless, Lucy sat there. Then she jumped to her feet, the elastic phone cord uncoiling like a black snake. "Christmastime!"  Then it was no bogey she had dreamed up; it was only too true. Myra had no intention whatever of sending for Cathy in two weeks.
For a moment, anger darkened the hallway about her, and when she found her voice, anger thickened it. "That does it"! she said. "I'll keep Cathy for two weeks. Then, if Myra does nothing about fetching her, I'll pack her right back to her mother- if I have to take her myself"! Her hand tightened on the receiver. "And that's what I'm going to tell Jim". For Lucy, the day's nagging to-and-fro had come to an abrupt end.
As she hung up, she saw through the hall's open window the purple-black flying of the cowbirds' wings, and heard their grotesque singing. Cowbird Myra! She's not going to get away with it.
Cathy is tired, Lucy thought, watching them come slowly up the path. The child's thin legs were plodding. She trudged along slowly, both hands clutching a tired teddy bear. She was at the moment just a small, walking package, being delivered to her aunt's and uncle's house. Unlike Susan, she was traveling light; the worn teddy bear, a tiny suitcase that Jim carried, and the clothes she wore, were all she had. Lucy glancing at the miniature case, knew there would not be enough in it for the shortest of stays; they would have to buy things for her. She opened the door.