The Mallard

Last fall, our pool cover gathered enough water to create the look and feel of a small pond. One day, late in that autumn, I heard a splash through the open kitchen window, looked outside and saw a beautiful mallard land on the gathered pool water. Its bright green rainbow beauty was a familiar sight, one that sent a shock of longing and nostalgia through me, because when I was growing up in Belgium our large property had a large pond, on which my brother always kept mallards. I could not keep my eyes of the duck as it happily swam across our pool, preening itself, shaking out its tired wings. Perhaps he had missed the group flights south, because the chill of winter was already in the air. I fed the duck bread, I gently talked to it,and the bird seemed to respond to my fascination with him. When I looked at the duck, I saw my brother before me, in our garden, feeding his ducks, and the pain of not having seen my only surviving sibling for going on 15 years now, filled me with a raw sense of pain and loss. I so much wanted the duck to stay, and each day for several weeks, the mallard would fly into the pool, swim around, eat the breadcrumbs I tossed him, I would talk to him, making duck sounds the way my brother taught us, and the duck would answer in turn. I found myself looking forward to the daily visits, wondering what the animal's story was. Would he be alright through the winter? Winter came,and still the mallard came around. The pool's water froze, and still the duck would show up, and the bread crumbs would fall soundlessly onto the frozen surface. I worried about the duck, why was he not with the others in his group? This went on for most of the winter, and just when I had allowed myself to consider the duck a friend, who treated my conversations to and with him with great deference, he stopped showing up. I felt an acute sense of loss, but hoped he had finally found his way to where he belonged,and I hoped I had somehow helped him make the transition. When he stopped showing up, I still would look for him, like a child still wishing the fair ground would not be empty of all the fun booths and rides that now made the place seem so dead. My brother lives in Texas, far away,even by American standards of distance, and I so much wanted to cover the distance in time and space. Parents should not make their children choose when their marriage falls apart. My parents 'marriage blew up, like a slow motion bomb, doing maximum damage to us four kids. My father was too weak to stand up to my mother, and our mother poisoned our relationship with our father one drop of venom at a time, and by the time we realized what happened, we all had become suspicious strangers, exhausted and too traumatized to save the pieces. I miss my brother, I miss the childhood that was thrown out with the bitter warfare, the intrigue, the lies, manipulations that polluted our hearts and souls. Both my sisters are dead, both my parents are dead. My brother is alive, way down in Texas, but in a way he too, is dead. I will always think of the mallard, each fall, as the winter's chill comes near, wondering if I ever will see the mallard, who I named Bart, again. Bart is my brother's name. Bart Julian, such a beautiful name.