Mrs. Robin's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

Mrs. Robin flew back up to the nest and settled beside her babies. They had watched her build the shade wall over the catfish, and now they were quiet in a new way. Then the smallest one opened his beak. He was hungry. The other two followed, thin chirps rising together. Mrs. Robin looked down at the swamp. The flood had swept the ground clean of worms. The insects had scattered or drowned. She had nothing in the nest and nothing waiting below. She told her babies to stay in the center and pushed off from the branch. She flew low over the mud first, turning over wet leaves with her beak, but every hollow was empty or full of silt. She flew farther than she liked, past the edge of the flooded ground, until her wings burned. Near a fallen log at the forest's rim, she found what she was not looking for: a thick cluster of wild berries, red and blue and dark purple, hanging heavy on a tangle of stems. She had never fed her babies berries. Worms were what mothers brought. But worms were gone, and her babies were waiting. She tore a soft red berry from the stem and tasted it. Sweet. She pulled three more free and carried them back in her beak. At the nest she split the first berry with her beak and pressed a piece to the smallest one's mouth. He swallowed, blinked, and opened for more. The other two crowded in. She fed them one at a time and said thank you out loud after each berry, the way she always did, so they would hear it before they understood it. When the first three were gone she flew back for more, and then again, until all three babies sat heavy and quiet in the woven walls of the nest. Mrs. Robin looked at the stained smudges of juice on their beaks and felt something loosen in her chest. She had fed them. Not the way she had planned. But she had fed them, and tomorrow she knew where to go.