The Third Bird

This is a love story. It begins with a bald bird held in a hoodie.

“It’s a parrot,” Clara said. She stood on my threshold, cradling the hoodie to her chest. “What do we do?”

We brought the bundle inside, and when she unwrapped it, I saw that it wasn’t just a parrot but a budgie, one of the world’s smallest parrots. Yellow and green feathers covered everything except its head, which looked like someone had plucked it bare.

“I found it on the street.” Clara’s blue eyes were wide but also bright.

It was a rainy Berlin night, and the bird was small enough to miss. But Clara saw it, hobbling, soaked, and too weak to fly. Later, the vet would say it was dehydrated and in shock. That it would not have survived if Clara hadn’t chased it around the block and caught it in her hoodie, like a magician performing a trick in reverse.

I wasn’t surprised. Clara was the kind of person who saved things: a dog from Bulgaria, a refugee family who lived with her, a half-broken stereo her ex flung across the room. I think she even saved me.