I still remember the one who found me as a little squawking mass, dying underneath the orange tree. Her name was Paula, and she was small when she picked me up and carried me with care to the dining room. “No!” Her parents screamed. “Put it back outside!” She begged and begged, though, and soon I was put into a cage. She got me a branch, good food, and spent lots of time with me. Less as she got bigger. She carried me and my cage to her new home, with a new man, and then with a person who was no bigger than her when she found me. I watched her face change, become wrinkled, as my feathers lost some sheen as well. Then, she died.

The youngest daughter took me, leaving me in the same cage. “Harry” the first woman called me; “H” this one called me now. I wasn’t as important to her as I was to her mother; that much was obvious. But when she herself had a daughter, I became important again. That’s who I’m with now, and the grand-daughter of the woman who found me plays with me and sings to me and makes me feel like a little bird again. As if I’m under that orange tree all over again.