Chapter Text
Tommy Innis was never a very adventurous child.
Most of the other kids in his town spent their weekends climbing trees and running down to the beach to splash around in the water, build sand castles, and occasionally torment the local seagulls.
Tommy didn’t like trees. Or the sand. Seashells? Maybe. Seagulls, however, were an immediate 'no.'
When Tommy was five, his mother brought him down to the beach for the first time. It wasn’t very memorable. Tommy avoided the water, poked at the sand with a stick, and screamed when he saw a crab. Three times, there was a crab - and Tommy screamed at all of them, until his mother decided it was time to leave.
They didn’t go back to the beach after that. Tommy’s mom took him plenty of places - the amusement park, the forest - but she soon learned Tommy just wasn’t a very adventurous kid. He was smart, though, and so Tommy grew up with puzzles, books, and a sketchbook that he used to draw the birds that lived in the birdhouse in the backyard. Bluebirds, finches, the occasional owl. Tommy drew all of them, over and over.
His mother was an artist, Tommy knew that. Sometimes, he’d go out to the porch, where she stood in front of an easel, paint specks across her apron, a paintbrush balanced gently in her hand. She’d turn, smile softly at him, and Tommy would sit and watch her paint till nightfall. She was good, a professional; most of the time, she painted the sunset, or the stars, or even the view of the forest from their cabin. A great deal of these paintings ended up in the market, where his mother would sell them for just enough money for the two of them to live on.
When Tommy was eight, he asked his mother if she’d ever paint birds.
She did.
Bluebirds and finches and owls. Mockingjays. Hawks. Crows. The depictions on her canvas soon surpassed those she saw in the wilderness - the birds were born from her imagination, and Tommy was fascinated by it.
Their house was full of birds, now - birds on canvases, birds in frames, on the decorative edges of ceramic plates, sewn into the creases of the sofa pillows.
Tommy never got tired of birds. Not once, not ever.
“Birds,” his mother once said to him, “are exquisite. Do you know what exquisite means, mon ange?”
Tommy shook his head minutely. He dragged his pencil across the sketchbook in his lap. A jagged line followed. Tommy narrowed his eyes at it.
“Beautiful,” his mother murmured, “and delicate. As nature’s creatures often are.” She let her paintbrush flick across the background, lightly, a certain technique behind it. “An art form, really. But not by humans. Do you understand?”
Tommy nodded. He continued sketching.
“There we are.” His mom leaned back and stared at the painting she'd just completed. A faint smile appeared on her face. “Exquisite, don’t you think?”
Tommy glanced up. “Mountain bluebird.”
“Exactly.”
The child held up his own sketch. His mother hummed, a glint in her eye. “Snowy owl.”
Tommy nodded proudly.
“ Magnifique.”
“Mom, there’s a bird in the house.”
Tommy was thirteen years old.
“Do you know where the net is?” Tommy asked. His mother glanced at him. “Let’s see if it’ll fly out on its own, shouldn’t we?” She walked over to open the front door. In the hallway, the bird’s wing’s fluttered.
“It’s not gonna fly out.” Tommy muttered stubbornly. “Can we just-“
“Shh.” She held out her hand.
Out from the hallway, a large bird flew across the room, black wings extended. It circled near the ceiling, once, twice, then dove down, its feathers barely brushing over her fingertips as it flew out the door and into the sky.
Tommy’s mom lowered her hand slowly. “There we are. What bird was that, sunshine?”
Tommy shrugged. “I dunno. Raven, I think.”
“Crow.” His mother corrected softly, closing the door behind her. “One of nature’s most ethereal birds, I've always thought. What’s ethereal mean, Tommy?”
“Beautiful?”
“ Untouchable.” She let her eyes rest on a painting of a blackbird that hung next to the door, one that had been there since before Tommy could remember. “Heavenly, almost. Reflecting a world beyond ours.”
“You mean, like, the afterlife?” Tommy raised his eyebrows, confused. “I thought we weren’t religious.”
“Not in that way.” His mother leaned on the windowsill, staring up at the sky. “Tommy, have you ever seen the northern lights?”
Tommy nodded. “Last winter. Up in the mountains.”
“It’s like a glimpse into another world, is it not?” She glanced back at him. “And sometimes, the crows fly through them. Sometimes, it looks like they’re entering another universe. The lights reflect on their feathers, like a lighthouse, on the surface of the ocean. Heavenly. Ethereal.”
“Huh.” Tommy muttered. “I always thought that was doves.”
“Perhaps it’s both. Who knows?” She shrugged. “Maybe it’s all birds. Maybe it’s nature. Maybe it’s everything.” She gently brushed Tommy’s hair out of his face with a smile. “Maybe it’s you, sunshine. Next to the trees, and the doves, and the birds. You are my songbird, Tommy. Mon soleil.”
Tommy was fifteen years old when his mom died.
She'd been sick a long time. Tommy didn't remember when it started, or even how- probably with a cough or something subtle that he'd never noticed, not once. Not until it was too late to do anything. Only after she was gone did Tommy realize just how much he'd brushed off as unimportant, harmless. Maybe it was because the light didn't leave his mom's eyes until the very end.
Tommy was fifteen and a half when he started going to the beach again.
He made necklaces out of seashells, sandcastles that got washed away by the waves. He watched young children splash around in the water and scream joyfully as their parents smiled at them from afar. He wandered the beach for hours, dragging his feet through the sand until the sun set.
His mom painted the sunset once, twice, a hundred times.
She painted birds even more.
Nowadays, as Tommy stared up at the sky, he didn’t see anything but clouds.