Hidden in Plain Sight

I was stretched out on the couch reading Outlive. Good book. The kind that makes you side-eye your habits while you stay right where you are.

The TV was on. I wasn’t watching it. Just noise filling the room. Then I heard it. Sharp. Repeating. Not the usual birds you tune out.

I looked up.

Through the window, they were moving fast along the side of the house. Back and forth, not stopping. I pay attention to birds now. They have flown into this window more than once. Loud enough to make you look.

Then I saw my husband outside, pacing back and forth with a stick in his hand.

I’m thinking, why won’t he sit his ass down somewhere, but I said nothing.

Curiosity got me. I opened the door.

“What is going on?”

He turned, a little out of breath.

“They built a nest in the dryer vent.”

The dryer vent.

He said he had already knocked it down. I looked past him. The birds were still there. Circling. Loud. Not pleased.

I asked how he even caught it. He said he had been sitting outside watching them go back and forth long enough to track them to the vent.

By the time I stepped all the way outside, he had finished it. Wire up. No way back in.

The birds stayed close for a minute. Then they pulled back.

Part of me felt for them. The other part knew better. A nest in a dryer vent is trouble. Heat. Lint. The kind of thing you do not ignore.

This is not our first bird situation. Every time, he notices before I do and handles it before it turns into something bigger.

I went back inside. Sat down. Picked my book back up. Read the same page twice.

Then I looked out the window one more time.

I felt for them.

And I was thankful for him.

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