Word Count: 361
She comes to me as a hummingbird, zooming by, hovering when I sit outside with my cold cup of coffee hunched over my thoughts. She is the spirit of Jean, my best friend.
“Yes,” I tell her, “Mike’s fine.” Mike is, was, her husband. Married thirty years. I think I must tell her the truth. “He’s seeing some…..” She zooms off again.
She should know, I decide that. Then it dawns on me, maybe she does know and that’s what she’s here to tell me. She’s spent the winter down in Puerto Rico or maybe she just jumped aboard and took form here, in my backyard. In Mike’s backyard maybe, where she would hang out her own feeders.
Later that day she is at my kitchen window looking in at me. I turn off the faucet, move slowly. I don’t want to scare her away. I don’t know how much is her and how much is a hummingbird’s instinct.
“Hi, Lady,” I say. “Eat, eat. You need strength.” Does she? Will it bother her if her husband is with another woman now? She perches on the feeder, takes a few sips of nectar and stares in at me.
“Jean, he’s seeing someone,” I say. “A good woman who loves him. Is good to him.” She takes off.
I miss her so much. I miss the flea markets on Sundays and the breakfast stops we’d make to start out each trip. Sometimes I think that’s what she liked the best. I miss our secrets.
It’s late September and I’m starting to worry. The males have already flown south. She is the last one that visits so I still fill the feeders with fresh nectar daily. I hope she knows her way back to the sun and warmth and will leave before the frost and cold winter mornings. I must tell her to go. To be safe. To be happy.
I haven’t seen her in a few days, then suddenly she’s back. I look up from my huddled perch on the back step. “Jean, it’s me. it’s me.”
She dives and circles, stops at the feeder. Dives and circles again. Then she’s gone.
