The Jungle Room

I sit on the front step with a cold cup of coffee watching the nuthatches defy gravity on the feeder tree. The two robins bounce back and forth, cacking. Four hours after finding the powder blue eggs broken on the grass under the rhododendron, I still have no idea what to say to Sam. The half-day bus should be here any time now. Normally, I'd be fixing his lunch, but I know neither of us will want to eat today.

The rhododendron came with the house. It stands almost eight feet tall, completely obscuring Sam's bedroom window. We pruned the branches so they rim the window like a living picture frame. Sam's always been crazy about jungle animals, monkeys, tigers, lizards, and the like. Cheryl and I painted trees and vines on his walls with animal faces poking out from behind tree trunks. The foliage around the window added a third dimension. Cheryl and I called it the “Jungle Room”.

Sam's still fascinated by animals, but the days of us crawling on the floor lion roaring are over. Now he catches snakes and frogs along the rock wall border of our yard for pets. The jungle walls are hidden behind stacks of tanks and terrariums. The paper banana bunch covered light hanging from the ceiling is never on. Instead, the room fluoresces. Like the Memphis king, he's taken to shutting himself in the Jungle Room for hours.

The robins built their nest on a branch just off Sam's window. They alerted him to their new address by landing on his open windowsill. Sam was fascinated. After school that first day, he bolted down the driveway just to see them again. When I saw him running toward the house, my mind raced to some horrible event happening at school. Since Cheryl went back to work two years ago after I lost my job, I've struggled with my position in the minute details of Sam's life. I admit I'm terrified of failing as a father. Helping him tackle adversity is a job I’m not well suited for. The two perfect eggs he pointed out to me that day were a gift for both of us.

We walked to the library and checked out all of the bird books we were allowed. On the way home we stopped at the drug store, and I pulled together enough change to buy him a pocket notebook and some Swedish fish. We made plans to observe and document every waking minute of the robin's lives in front of his window. We talked about digging worms in Cheryl's flower garden, and leaving laundry lint and hair out in a basket to encourage more nest construction. Our house, Sam's rhododendron in particular, would be the number one robin sanctuary in the neighborhood. We could see ten or twenty nests set up around his window. We'd have a bird condo!

The whirring of the bus wheels slows against the resistance of our hill. A few more minutes now. One stop in the middle of the hill for the Hopkins kids, then he'll be home. I put the cup down on the stair next to me, and stand up. I'm suddenly aware that I'm still in my pajamas, but it’s too late to change. The diesel engine roars alive to fight its way up the incline. I hear the clack-clack of the warning lights just before they emerge from the trees.

As I shuffle down the driveway, I can't help but feel this is another ending for us. Sure, we'll have more times together, fishing and little league and all that. Cheryl's been pushing a bit lately for me to get out and start the hunt again. I get the feeling her biological clock is pounding away at her inner ear. Sam will go back to closing his door on my involvement in his habitat, and when I do go back to work, there'll be more distance. I look at the mother robin cack-cacking at broken nest pieces blowing over the grass. "I know how you feel," I whisper as the doors whine open.


Previously published at The Pedestal Magazine.