Crows

Mary Peterson Mary Peterson was born in Minnesota and began writing fiction as a graduate studentat the University ofNew Hampshire in 1973. Herfirst short story won an award there and was later published in the South Dakota Review. She was a writer-in-residence at Bradford College, Massachusetts, in 1976, and the following summer was a special guest at the Fiction International Writers' Conference. Her short stories have won an O. Henry Award (1979), a Pushcart Prize 1977), a Citation for Distinction in Best American Short Stories (2977), and the South Dakota Review Award for Fiction. She now lives in Maine and teaches writing at the University of New Hampshire. Crows FOR WEEKS, it seemed—since her thirtieth birthday—the crows had been noisy around the house. Karen watched them through the kitchen windows after Michael left for the office. Theyliked to fly from the tall, dead elm on the harbor side, to the other elm, as bare and dead, toward the back two acres and the small field. Often she counted as many as seven, large and glossy. She looked at them through the binoculars. They were supposedly among the most intelligent of birds. She thought they were ominous, and she didn't like them. They were loud, and they startled her when she walked the retriever—one even cawing from a branch only a few feet over her head, insolent. Michael, who had lived in the country all his life, thought her attitude was funny. One night he jumped at her frombehind when she was doing dishes. He made a loud caw sound, and gripped her shoulders. "Stop it!" she said, stiffening. "You're being horrible." "They're only birds," he said. When the dishes were through, she told him she didn't like to be teased, or surprised. She said she wasn't used to the country, and the crows made her uncomfortable. He was sitting across the room in his favorite chair—he had a boyish shock of dark hair over his eyes, and whenever she became serious he affected an abused look which only annoyed her. Now he was pouting like a child. He refused to listen. Well, she would make him listen. How did he think it was for her to be so lonely in the country, or with his friends who never talked about anything but snowshoeing or hunting? Their wives, even the ones who had jobs, talked only about recipes and new drapes. And she had to shop in the stupid little town where he worked. And she had to try to get along with his children. She wanted—he should know—more: dinners out, movies, friends who knew about the world. He rubbed his chin and asked her with moody eyes why she had married him, then. She sat at the table, facing him. She had thought about it a lot, she said, and she'd decided he was a different person when they were going out. After all, they had met at a bar in Cambridge. He had taken her to restaurants. Once, when she mentioned a book she liked, he'd said, "If you care about it so much, I'll have to read it myself. I want to know everything about you." And he had read the book. Did he remember? Did he know how much he'd changed? Just last week he'd tossed away the newspaper article she left out for him. Now, since they were married, every day foUowed the same routine. They had stopped going out on weekends. She told him they werebecomingboring, dull, like old people. 98 ¦ The Missouri Review Mary Peterson "I can see us at sixty," she said, "staring out the windows with our morning coffee." "Is that so bad?" He had given her, he reminded, the first house she had ever had. In the morning, when he'd left for work, Karen put out mixed seed for the sparrows, the towhee, the cardinal. She filled the tube feeder with thistle for the finches, and the window feeder with sunflower seed for the chickadees. The chickadees were always the first to come in; they were the least timid. Sometimes they nearly...