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I huddle down in the dusty pen, not caring too much if my skirt drags on the ground, wet and a little muddy from the morning dew. There are more important things to think about right now.
I can hear the mockingjays just starting to chatter. They’re like me, in that they prefer the early hours of the day. Less people around, less nonsense. I can get right to work without much fuss from anyone. And plus, the way the sun rises right between the loblolly trees and sprinkles on the ground through the branches is enough to make anybody’s heart fill right up to the brim.
This morning, though, I’m not really thinking about the sunrise. Before me, a box carefully hammered together special by Tam Amber nests nine beautiful, speckled brown eggs. And I tell you, swear it just by the feeling I had when I woke up this morning, that these geese are going to finish hatching today.
The last three days they’ve been shaking and quivering all over the place, under the warm lights we built for them. Today, I’ll welcome them to the world.
As the first shell starts to crack, I kneel down next to the box and gently reach out my finger to stroke it. The whole egg seems to quiver, and I giggle. These birds are already showing some spunk.
We’ve already got a few geese where me and Tam Amber and Clerk Carmine live- they mostly wander around our yard, and we feed ‘em. Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved those geese. Topey, Gilda, Wildon, Fluff and Gran. They’re the most precious thing in the world to me- maybe more precious than my darlin’. My uncles gifted me these eggs for my fifteenth, and since then, I’ve been keeping watch for the last month, waiting for them to hatch my very own flock to take care of.
I wonder if Haymitch will come to visit in time to greet them as they’re born. It’s doubtful, I know he’s working for his Ma all day, but a girl can hope. He tries to get on the good side of our family geese, just like he tries to get on the good side of my uncles, to his everlasting credit, though he’s not usually very successful.
A second egg starts to split, teeny, jagged seams running down its side.
“Hello, there,” I whisper, impatient with excitement.
It takes another two hours for all the goslings to break free of their tiny prisons. Despite my eager antsy mind, I let them take their time, and I help them ease their way out of the shells. As each one emerges, I gently stroke its little beak, feed it a little water from my hand, and whisper a friendly salutation, which I think they appreciate.
I sit with my brood, content and happiness in my heart. There’s a breeze in the air, the spring is just starting to spread through and settle in our District. I love the spring. It’s my favorite time to be alive. One of the babies has nestled his way into the folds of my skirt, and who am I to stop him?
I am just opening my lips to muster up a song for my new brood when I hear a shrill little whistle, which is echoed twice over by the mockingjays scattered in the trees. I turn and look and there he is, that boy, standing high on the hill that looks down over our yard. I smile.
“Haymitch Abernathy, you get down here or else!” I call. Obedient as a trusty dog, he bounds down the hill to me, grin plastered on his face for all heaven and hell to see. As he approaches the gate, I take the gosling and carefully set him back in the nest under the incubator with the rest of his siblings, and stand to greet him at the low fence.
“Hey,” he says, on the other side. In response, I just lean over the wood beams and kiss him, which he seems to like. When we come up for air, we’re both smiling at each other like crazy, but mine quickly slips into a frown.
“The kids are here. You missed it.”
His face crumples down a little into genuine disappointment.
“Oh, I did? Damn it, thought they would wait for me.”
“Nope. They do as they please, just like their mother.”
He stacks both forearms on top of each other and leans on the fence in a rascal-y sort of way. Oh, I love him.
“Well, when am I allowed to meet the bunch?”
I purse my lips, playing along with his little bit.
“I don’t know. I’m not too sure they care to see you, since you were late to their birth and all.”
“Oh, come on,” Haymitch says, slumping down dramatically. “Every day I slave away, working to run this town, and this is the thanks I come home to? An ungrateful wife and children who don’t even want to meet their own father?”
This cracks me up.
“Are you supposed to be the mayor now?? That took a whole turn,” I laugh. He’s laughing too.
“I dunno, wasn’t thinking about that part. I think I just wanted to play house with you for a minute.”
And this gets me, and my cheeks are pink and I smile.
“Well, come on in, then.”
I open the gate for him, and he’s gentle and careful as he walks in. This is something I like about Haymitch- he understands my deep love for these animals, and he does his best to be respectful of them. It’s the quickest way to my heart, that’s for sure.
I take his hand and lead him over to the nest, where we kneel down as softly as we can before the huddle of fuzzy bodies. Admittedly, they don’t look their nicest, all scraggly and still a little wet, but they’ll turn out in a year or two and become sweet and milky white. I watch his face as he takes them in.
“Well, they’ll look better after they’ve dried out,” he says decidedly after a moment. As if on cue, one of the geese hisses at him, and another follows. I laugh and laugh.
“That’s what you get for insulting them!” I cackle, as he sits helplessly, unsure of what to do while they all just sit there, curled up and hissing. He shakes his head.
“I should have been there when they hatched, all right,” he says.
“Should have,” I agree, but I quickly give him a peck on the cheek to console him.
“I’ll grow on them.”
“You will,” I say. He grows on everyone, this boy.
Clerk Carmine comes into view from the doorway of our house. Haymitch has not grown on him.
“Abernathy, don’t you go scaring those goslings away,” he calls out, frowning.
“No sir, couldn’t if I put my mind to it!” he calls back. “I’m more scared of them than they are of me!”
Clerk Carmine just scowls at this, and moseys his way back inside. I wonder if that was all he came out to say. I lose myself, staring back at the house for a minute, until Haymitch clears his throat, bringing me back.
“Lenore Dove, in celebration of your first official day as a real goose-keeper, I got you something,” he says. Those grey Seam eyes are full of earnest, even though his words jest.
“Oh yeah? What is it?” I ask, genuinely curious.
“Hey, just hold out your hands and close those pretty eyes of yours, and I’ll give it to you,” he says. This time I am the one to obey immediately, wondering what he could have brought and how he could have scrounged it up with such perfect timing.
I feel something soft and coiled drop into my hands softly, just barely feeling the brushes of his rough fingertips along the way.
“Alright, you can open them.”
My eyes flutter open to meet the mystery. In my cupped hands lies a long, neatly curled up strand of thin, velvety grey ribbon. I exclaim in delight.
“It’s for the geese,” he explains. “You can tie it around their necks on special occasions, to get them dressed up.”
I can’t help but laugh at that, because that’s so silly, and it’s so sweet, too.
“Aww, Haymitch, you’re the cutest kid in the whole darn Seam,” I tell him, my face crinkled up with mirth. He seems relieved and very happy I like the gift- and I do.
“It’s that dove color, y’know- so everyone knows they’re yours,” he says.
The thing about this is, he’s always getting me things that are dove-colored to match my name, which is real nice of him, and don’t get me wrong, I love it. But what he always fails to consider is that his eyes are almost the exact same color of my name. In this way, my brood will have a piece of Haymitch to hang onto just as much as they will have a piece of me. I find it very poetic.
I have tried to explain this to him before, but he insists his eyes are plain old brown. They aren’t, though, not even close.
I hug him, anyway.
“Thank you,” I say, into his scratchy neck that smells like firewood.
“Anything for my girl,” he tells me.
Okay, maybe the geese are the second most precious thing in the world.