Betty's Birds

Connie felt the little tug at the back of her mind that it might have been weeks, months, or even years since she'd thought about how or what Betty Stapleton from next door was doing. This surprising thought occurred when, as she was about to bid three no trump, her partner, Amy Gaines, pointed toward Betty's back yard beyond Connie's glass family room doors. There an unusually large flock of red birds, cardinals, Connie assumed, were furiously kicking up the first week of the new year snow around a large bird feeder. With the mature boxwood and azalea hedges between the yards, the bridge foursome could only see the top two-thirds of the iron stake that suspended the feeder.

"Betty's birds," was what Connie first said in a chirpy voice, which caused a twittering of laughter around the bridge table. Crazy Betty and her love for birds and fixation on feeding them, especially through the winter months, had been the talk of the neighborhood for decades.

Connie had no idea why she was thinking of crazy Betty after all this time and in the middle of a bridge game, but she found her mind flipping through the years. She and the reclusive, quirky Betty could not have been more different; Betty was even a generation older than she was. They had started off close enough as neighbors but primarily through their husbands and because Betty had taken care of Connie and her husband's kids and pets frequently as Connie accompanied her husband on far-flung business trips. Connie had been highly visible and highly successful—president of this and that and active on the state level of the Junior League. Conversely, dowdy old Betty, who had no children of her own, had stuck to her house and her birds—except for when she sat across the street with Mrs. Twilling between the time she fell and broke her hip and they found a home for her, or when she was out with Meals on Wheels, or when she helped that neighbor down the street with his kids for several years after his wife died so young. They even went to the same church, where Connie did important work—putting together all those Christmas pageants and church socials and chairing the altar guild, while Betty just sat in the nursery, worked in the weekly soup kitchen for three or four decades, and started up that visitation project with shut-ins.

Was Betty still even going to that church, Connie wondered. She couldn't remember seeing her there in years. After Betty's husband died and she and her own husband divorced—several years after her children had gone and the last of the family pets had died—Connie only saw Betty when she was out at that bird feeder. Connie's attention was jolted back to the present by a pat on her hand.

"You were about to bid, Connie. You haven't gone to the birds too, have you—like Crazy Betty next door?" Connie turned to the woman sitting next to her, her best friend, Vicky, who drank coffee and gossiped with her for hours on end every weekday morning, and saw her for the first time in her life. She had been using "crazy" with Betty's name in her thoughts herself just now—but hearing it verbalized jolted and embarrassed her—and it made her feel little bitchy.

"Excuse me," Connie said, as she rose from her chair, pulled a coat off the hook near the kitchen door, and went out into her snow-dusted backyard. The old gate between the yards wouldn't budge, so Connie pushed herself between two boxwood bushes, sending clouds of snowflakes back into the air, and propelled herself into Betty Stapleton's yard.

It now was obvious why the cardinals were putting up such a fuss. Betty Stapleton was lying there, in just a thin house dress, at the base of the staked birdfeeder and on top of scattered birdseed. Connie went down on her knees, expecting the worst, but she could see that Betty was still breathing and nothing appeared to be broken. "Betty. Mrs. Stapleton, can you hear me?"

Betty murmured something indistinguishable, and her eyes fluttered. The cardinals were no longer swarming but had all lighted on branches, watching the scene with apparent great interest.

"Here, you'll catch your death of cold. We must get inside and into something warm, and I'll call for some help."

Connie looked toward Betty's house. The kitchen door was ajar. Betty seemed to have become a bit more aware of her surroundings, so Connie helped her up and into the house, which was cold as ice. It was surprising how quickly a house could lose its heat when a door was left open in cold weather.

"Where's your thermostat, Betty?" Connie asked, as she helped the older woman into the living room. The house was a mess inside. Connie couldn't see any Christmas tree, and she suddenly reflected, with self-reproach, on how she had demanded that they add a third tree at her house this year, all loaded with expensive ornaments. "Here, let's wrap you in this afghan. I said, where can I turn up the heat?"

"It's broke," Betty mumbled, as she whispered her thanks to Connie for the afghan.

"Broken?" Connie asked. "Your heater's broken? When did that happen?"

"Oh, let's see. Two, three, uh—"

"Two or three days ago?" Connie asked in consternation.

"Oh, I'm trying to remember. I think it was back right after I finished helping Mr. Lyman with his broken leg."

"Mr. Lyman's broken leg? Why that was almost four years ago. You've been without heat for—?" Connie was flabbergasted, but then she formed an even worse thought. "Mrs. Stapleton, when was the last time you ate?"

"I, uh, well, I don't rightly know, Connie."

No wonder she had fainted out there in the yard. How long had Betty been living in these conditions, Connie wondered. And just next door all of this time.

It was then that Connie caught sight of the pictures on the mantle. There was one of children, but Betty hadn't had any children. When Connie looked closer, she saw that the photograph was of her own children—and of her own beloved, but long-gone cocker spaniel, Ginger. There her daughter and son were, happily helping a much younger Betty fill that same bird feeder in the Stapleton's back yard, with Ginger in half leap beside Betty. It must have been taken by Mr. Stapleton, and from the looks of the children, it must have been taken while Connie and her husband were on that month-long Caribbean cruise and left the kids and pets with the Stapletons.

Tears came to Connie's eyes, as she turned and gently moved her neighbor toward the door. "We can't get you warm here, Betty. We'll go over to my house and call for some help from there."

Betty was putting up a bit of a resistance. "But the birds. I can't just leave them. The cardinals are back. Did you see them, Connie? The cardinals are back. And thoughts of Christmas not even over yet. And they're just the start; the cardinals are always the first to return. They need feeding. They need me."

"Yes, I saw them, Betty," Connie answered in choked-off words. "If I hadn't seen them, if they hadn't shown their concern for you, I wouldn't have known you were out there in the snow. Don't worry. I'll feed the birds while you're being checked over. And . . . and I'll be here when you get back, and we can feed them together then. In fact, it's gotten quite lonely over in my big house with the children gone now, and I've been wondering if you might like to move in with me for a while—you'd be only one yard away from your bird feeders then; we can see them from my breakfast room."

"And Betty," Connie said, urging her neighbor to focus on her face, "thank you for the belated Christmas present."

"Christmas present?" Betty asked, bewildered.

"Yes. Thank you for restoring the sense of true community for me."