The feeders are empty, he says.
I just filled them this morning, I reply.
The lower one too? he asks. The male cardinal is sitting there chirping for you to fill it.
Tell him to go to the other one, I say.
He is silent for a moment. ‘Tell him to go to the other one?’ By now he’s laughing. At me, I think.
Yes. You’ll notice that the sparrow who used to fling the seed onto the ground doesn’t do that anymore since I told him not to.
Oh. Okay, he grins and as he leaves I know he doubts me.
What more can I say?
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology