connor gibson

The boy on the roof

He liked to see the sunrise before anyone else. 

He was lucky to live on a hill, and lucky that his house was one of the older ones whose roof was shingled with black cracked asphalt, rough and uneven. The newer galvanized tin roofs were good at keeping off rain, but no good for climbing. 

The shingles were wonderful at holding water, swelling, pregnant after the rain. In the humid summers they grew a thick carpet of green moss. 

He liked rooftop summers the best—not just because the moss felt fresh and alive under his bare toes, but because a whole host of creatures called it their home. Bright red ladybugs stretched their wings and sunbathed on their backs. Fat black ants marched in meandering lines, neat as soldiers—sometimes he brought up cookie crumbs, dropping them strategically to split the lines, then made two groups race each other to a finish line marked with a twig. 

His favorite animals were the banana slugs; their fresh-churned-butter color stood out against the moss. He had learned to hold his hand as still as the shingles below it and wait patiently for one to slide its way up his arm. In the past few months, he had become convinced that he recognized a certain pair of banana slugs—they were almost identical in color and traveled everywhere together. When he picked one up and moved it away from the other, they switched courses instantly: moving toward each other, stopping only once united. He never separated them again.

It rained in the winters, but never snowed. He would bring an umbrella up with him and wedge its handle in a large crack where two shingles had split apart. Protected, he watched the drops fall and splatter onto the bricks below. When the rain stopped he searched for worms, measuring each one’s length with the ruler that came in his second-grade school supply kit. Almost every pair of shorts he owned had the outline of the ruler worn into its left pocket. 

Today, the forecast was rain, so he was constructing a home for a cricket he had seen that morning. This week’s history class had focused on the Miwoks, and the drawings of teepees in his textbook inspired him. A village of failed attempts littered the roof in a circle around him. 

His father’s whistle rose up to the second story, agitating the birds that had already settled down to roost for the evening. The sun was beginning to set, the air growing dark. Dinner was on the table. The pungent smell of garlic and onions rolled out of the kitchen window and up into his nose. 

He liked to see the sunrise, but loved the sunset more. The air, which never got cold enough to bite, felt crisp and clear—more so than the morning air, which bore last night’s dew. The last rays of the sun over the mountain shone through the mist, bathing the house orange. He descended the trellis, stole one last glance at the sunset, and shut the door behind him. 

. . .

“I’m sorry to have to call you in, Mr. Trisolini. I understand you’re a busy man.”

“No kidding.” The man couldn’t have looked more out of place in the guidance counselor’s office. His legs crossed self-consciously; he was absurdly large for the child-sized chair in which he sat. He seemed afraid of staining his surroundings—not just with the splotches of paint littering his work uniform but with his very presence. 

“This meeting won’t be long, I promise. Mark has had an excellent record—up until this school year. You and your wife have a lot to be proud of.”

Frank coughed. “She died. Couple months back.”

The counselor’s eyes widened under her red-framed glasses, then glanced down at her clipboard. The glasses’ pointiness, combined with her pressed-straight hair and sharp features, reminded him of a fox. One time, in the early morning, he had arrived at a job—a stone garden wall, he remembered, a bitch to seal—to find a baby fox nestled between two bags of mulch. The poor bastard was shivering violently in the cold. He wrapped it in his hoodie and brought it to a shelter. When he got home, he told his wife—his girlfriend, then—and her eyes widened. Her gaze was so tender. That night, she told him she loved him. Not the first time she had said it, but the first time he really knew it to be true. 

The counselor was speaking. 

“... deeply sorry for your loss, Mr. Trisolini, and I can see how that might affect Mark’s behavior. The reason I called you in is that more than one teacher has had to chastise Mark for bringing animals into class. Last Wednesday, he had a mouse hidden in his jacket pocket. He scared another student with it.”

“Was the mouse okay?”

“I—Mr. Trisolini. The issue is that Mark needs to be practicing appropriate classroom behavior. His grades are already lower than in previous years—which I understand. I can work with missing assignments. I can not work with a mouse.”

“Yeah, no, I know.” He ran a hand through his hair, thinning over the past six months. She hadn’t answered his question.“Markie ‘n I will talk about it.”

“Mark is a bright student, Mr. Trisolini, and we all want the best for him.”
“Me too.” She didn’t seem satisfied with that answer. 

“Have you considered signing him up for grief counseling?”

“Um, yes.” He didn’t sound convincing, even to himself. “I mean, I have considered it. And I will look into it.”

“Mhm.” She made a note on her clipboard. Even the scratch of her pen sounded disappointed with him. “Thank you, Mr. Trisolini.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He stood, knocking the table between them with his boot. A box of Kleenex wobbled, and he hastily righted it. “Thank you. You have a nice day.”

“You as well.”

. . .

“Your counselor and I had a talk today.”

Markie stayed silent. 

“You had a mouse in your pocket in class.”

He stabbed a forkful of pasta, but didn’t lift it to his mouth. His father cleared his throat. 

“Mouse was okay?”

“Jamie Ayers threw him across the playground. I gave him some water from the fountain, but then the bell rang, and I forgot I had him in my pocket, and then I was in math class, and Bella H. saw him moving, and then she—”

“Kiddo.” Markie’s father held up a large hand. “I get it. You did a good thing. Your teachers, on the other hand, are not happy. Don’t let them see you again.”

“I won’t.”

“You’re spending an awful lot of time up on the roof lately.” Frank took a long drink of water. He had given up drinking right around the time Markie’s mother got sick. “Your counselor, she said I should get you someone to talk to about your mom.”

Markie had no idea of what to say to that. 

“Is that something you want?”

An image alighted in his mind, as soft and sudden as a swallow on a branch. A woman, standing at the front door, calling him to come down from the roof. The image flickered and changed: he was on the ground, the woman’s arms wrapped around him. She smelled like the summer sun. 

As quickly as it arrived, the image disappeared. He could hear, faintly, the beating of wings. 

“I don’t think so.”
“All right.” His father rolled his fork around in his hand. “If that is something you want, you let me know. You can always change your mind.”

. . .

They had an arrangement: Markie got to spend as much time on the roof as he wanted, provided his room was clean and his homework and chores were done. That night, he raced to finish everything. He wanted to get up on the roof before the sun went down and the temperature dropped, so that he could finish his teepees by the time all the animals on the roof decided to go to bed. 

Miraculously, the half-built teepee he had constructed before dinner still stood. He picked up a bent twig, weighed it in his hand, then slowly, gingerly, leaned it against one side of the structure, near the door. 

The entire thing collapsed. Most of the sticks fell flat and stuck to the moss, but a few rolled down to the edge of the roof, almost landing in the gutter. 

The mist in the air made the shingles slick, and Markie’s hands, cramped from the cold, could only weakly grip their edges. Undeterred, he made his way down the side of the roof. 

On the side of the house farthest from the door, the roof’s slope increased, forming a steep A-frame above the attic. It was there that Markie found the nest. 

At first he thought it must be empty. The lip of the nest was higher than his head. Only by gripping the edge of the roof and stretching as high as he could reach was he able to peer over the nest’s side. 

Inside the bowl of twigs and scraps sat a fat little bird, its head tucked under one grey wing. It looked like an oak titmouse, but without the crest. A junco, he thought, a female junco. Under her side, he could see the outline of one pale blue egg, spotted with dark brown. A mother. 

She shifted, shaking out her wings and cocking her head to the side, and he spotted two more eggs. Something inside him knew that they were about to hatch—and as strongly as that thought arose, another one followed it, even stronger: I have to be here when they come out of their shells. I have to watch over them.

“Markie!” His father stood in the doorway. The porch light was off, and he cut an intimidating figure, backlit by the light from the kitchen. “Stay off the edge!”

Frank rarely yelled. Markie could count, on one hand, the times he had heard his father truly sound angry. The coldness in his voice made Markie scurry away from the edge, back to the flat part of the roof. He crossed to above the door and clambered down the trellis.

His father wrapped him in a hug, crushing the breath out of him, lifting him off his feet. He set Markie back down.

“I’m sorry for yelling, bud.” He looked shaken. “Just—please, please be careful. I can’t—I can’t handle thinking about you falling.”

“I’m sorry, Dad. I was just looking at—near the attic window, there’s a nest. You need to come see it. There’s a mother and three eggs. I have to watch them hatch. Can I stay up? Can I—”

“Mark.” His voice was stern again. “You may go on the roof, if you are safe about it. You may stay as long as you want, if—new rule—if you come down before sunset. Can we agree on that?”

“Yes, sir. But—”

“Mark. Please.” His father looked exhausted, older than his years. Markie hadn’t seen him like this in months—not since his mother left. 

“Okay.” He climbed the stairs for bed, pausing at the window on the landing. Even when he craned his neck he couldn’t see the nest, but he imagined reaching out to it, cupping it in his hands. He could feel the heartbeat of the mother bird on his palms—and softer, quieter than hers, the three heartbeats of the baby birds inside their shells, warm and alive. 

“Good night,” he whispered. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

. . .

  “Have you considered finding someone for Mark to talk to?”

“Second time today I’ve been asked that.” Brian, Frank’s cardigan-clad therapist, cocked his head and said nothing. “Markie’s guidance counselor called me in. He’s been bringing animals into his classes. Scaring kids.” Frank imagined a rodent’s beady black eyes peeking out from his son’s jacket pocket. “She said he should do grief counseling.”

“What’s holding you back?”

“Why d’you think that?” Brian was always impossible to read, even before Frank had switched to doing therapy online. Maybe it was the bushy white beard covering half of his face, or his eyes, wrinkled around the corners and permanently half-closed under wire-rimmed square glasses. Frank’s first session, he thought that Brian was about to nod off the whole time. He considered shaking him awake more than once. 

“It’s been five months, Frank.”

“That long?”

Brian nodded.

“He doesn’t—Markie still doesn’t get it. He hears when I say she’s dead, but I can tell he thinks she’s just left. Not gone. I—you know what I mean.”

“This is a difficult time for Mark. He’s started school again, and is clearly facing some challenges with attachment. I’m sure he knows he can talk to you, but he needs somebody else.”

Frank didn’t like that idea, whether it was suggested by Brian, the guidance counselor, or his mother-in-law. Tight-lipped, he turned away, picking at the worn seam on his armchair. 

“Frank.” He turned to face the screen. “You can’t be everyone.”

. . .

He woke with the sunrise. 

Saturday mornings were always for cartoons. Depending on what was playing, he might not make it up to the roof until noon.

Not this Saturday. 

His father had left the house around an hour ago. The late September heat kept him from working in the middle of the day, so he took early hours and got home in time to nap, wake up, and cook Markie dinner. Breakfast, Markie could make for himself. 

Not this Saturday, though. 

Before he was even fully awake, he was outside and climbing up the trellis on the side of the house. 

The moss sparkled in the sunrise, kissed damp by the morning fog rolling in from the ocean. The teepee he had built last night still stood. He walked past it, crossed to the steep part of the roof, and leaned out to peer into the nest. 

The mother bird was gone. Three shells sat, empty, bone-white, gleaming with the remains of their albumen. At the bottom of the nest lay one frail baby bird, eyes wide. Its mouth was open a fraction, wet and red inside. Wisps of feathers stuck to its bony body, slick from the remains of its yolk sac. 

As gently as he could, Markie stretched out an arm and lifted the bird from its nest. He cradled it in his hands. 

The egg hadn’t yet entered this world, but was a part of it—hadn’t taken a breath, but was alive. The newborn was still. 

Markie did not cry. Slowly, methodically, he sat, tucking his knees up to his chin, cupping the stillborn junco in his hands. He lowered his mouth to the corpse and breathed on it. 

It has to stay warm, he thought. It has to stay warm or the mother will come back and think it’s food. The mother and babies will come back and think it’s food and eat it. 

Baby birds don’t leave the nest. 

He sat on a carpet of moss, ants marching around his bare feet, ladybugs crawling up his arms. He sat for hours. A banana slug inched its way up his leg and clung to the crook of his knee. He didn’t move. 

Every few minutes, he lowered his head to breathe warm life on the baby bird. It never so much as twitched. 

It has to stay warm. 

Frank Trisolini returned home around two in the afternoon smelling of paint and turpentine, toolbag over his shoulder, to find his son sitting on the roof. Curled into the fetal position, mouth opened a fraction. Wet and red inside. 

“Markie?”

Frank dropped his bag. It clattered on the steps. 

“Markie! You okay?” 

The son looked down at the father. 

“I have to keep it warm, Dad.” His voice was hoarse. “I have to keep it warm so that when the mother comes back she won’t think it’s food.”

“Oh, Jesus,” said Frank. 

“I have to keep it warm, otherwise she’ll feed it to her babies.”

Baby birds don’t leave the nest. 

“She’s not coming back, Markie.” Frank’s voice cracked. Throat as dry as his son’s. “Don’t you get it? She’s not going to come back.”

CONNOR GIBSON IS CURRENTLY PURSUING AN UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE IN PUBLISHING FROM EMERSON COLLEGE. A CALIFORNIA NATIVE, HE ENJOYS EXPLORING HIS NEW HOME OF BOSTON. THIS IS HIS SECOND PUBLISHED PIECE.