Bird outside the kitchen

The birds come to our bird house every day. Specks of seeds bounce against the window and sound like thick hornets crashing into glass. If I could be an animal, I'd be a finch. My mother brings the hot pita bread she has heated over the flame and places it over a paper towel. We dip the pieces into Lebanese yogurt and smile as we eat, watching the birds come and go, some fighting to make room on the bird house.

I tell her how it never gets old to watch them eat, always so frantic, looking up, down, through the window. She smiles silently and then looks down with a bigger smile, dipping her bread.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing," she says. "It's just sometimes I think that my dad sends these birds to check up on me.....and make sure everything is okay. I like to think that he comes in this form to see me."