An Uncommon Education by Elizabeth Percer Page A

She smiled. “Look, Naomi,” she said, pointing out, insisting. The sky was beginning to lighten, the moon to fade.
    “Sit, sit,” she said, pointing to the cold ground. I moved closer to her. “Over there,” she whispered, pointing again as she dropped to her knees beside me and pulled me close with one arm. I strained and squinted, just able to make out the muted edges of trees. “Look!” she said, ordering me. I wanted to shout. I was looking. I was doing everything I could to see.
    “There!” she cried, pointing up and out. A single cardinal, its red feathers just barely distinguishable in the newly pale sky, flew up from the edge of the park and into the air. I gasped, watching its sudden flight, as startled by its color and movement as by the fact that my mother had been looking at something that was actually there. She was smiling at me. She caressed my head with her hand. “Don’t cover your hair,” she said, frowning, “it’s too pretty.” She turned back to the trees, watching for the bird once more.
    She pressed me closer to her. The pockets of her robe bulged with hidden items. The one nearest me was hard, resisting. I reached into it. Her stillness was expectant, like a wild mother allowing her child to take food from her mouth. I pulled out the bottle with its mysterious words. Only her name and the date were familiar. She’d been given whatever it was to take home with her from the hospital. I looked down, trying to understand the cryptic arrangement of letters and numbers on the bottle. I recognized them individually, but as a collection they became nonsense, and I was furious that I couldn’t understand, so angry that the tears began to sting my eyes again, warm and unwelcome.
    My mother was watching me, smiling. It was as if someone friendlier and infinitely more relaxed had taken up residence in my mother’s body. In an instant, I decided that I didn’t trust or like her. I grasped the pill bottle tightly in my fist, then raised my arm and threw it as far as I could, twisting my arm and shoulder in the process. When it landed, the quiet park began shuddering in response—a chorus of birds now took flight from their branches, each new set of wings encouraging the ones that came after. There couldn’t have been more than a dozen, but I remember being amazed at seeing so many birds in winter, and then turning to see my mother crying.
    I looked down and away from her, trying to swallow my own tears. I didn’t know exactly what I had done to upset her. “Naomi,” she said sternly, wiping her face with the sleeve of her robe, “you made them all fly away.” She was staring at my face. Then I noticed her feet, which were in slippers. “Oh!” I said out loud, pointing down to them. “Your toes!” I dropped to my knees, afraid to touch what I saw. Her toes peeked out from her wet slippers, dark and swollen. I placed my hand on them, just covering the exposed skin. She cried out in pain and looked down at me, her expression accusatory.
    “We have to go home,” I said, suddenly understanding something I couldn’t explain. “Now,” I said and stood up.
    She looked up at me, confused. “Why?” she asked. “We can wait a while. We’ll wait for them to come back.”
    “They’re not coming back,” I told her. “They’re afraid of us. They won’t come back.” She put a finger to her lips. I grabbed her wrist but she didn’t move. I pulled at her.
    “Stop it, Naomi,” she argued with me. “Stop,” she insisted, struggling and twisting.
    My face was suddenly warm again with tears. I pulled her, finally, toward me, and as she stumbled forward in the snow she cried out in surprise. Her eyes flew open, wide and curious. “My feet,” she said, “they feel too heavy.”
    We walked home, her gait stiff like a soldier’s. As we moved through the front door, my father stood waiting with the phone receiver in his hand, his hair a shock of sleeplessness and guilt. He went to me