#mar. 18

Photo: NY Daily News

Also Riley is not deaf. I did a home test of snapping my fingers a little bit away from Riley’s head, and snapping them. She turns her head to see where the noise came from, in the direction i had snapped, every time. I’m relieved.

She unfurls her wings and they’re rotting and bent and there are blackened feathers falling out everywhere but she can’t be bothered with any of that right now because she’s just rediscovered she had wings, and in her eyes they’re beautiful. She straightens them carefully and they’re so incredibly sore but the pain means nerve endings and nerve endings mean eventual flight so she’ll take it. Feathers break off every which way as she runs her fingers down their length but underneath all the rot she sees the faintest hint of blank-page white. She digs for it eagerly, ignoring the pricks every time she pulls out another darkening feather, and eventually she reaches the pure core. Here the feathers are straight and unstained, though small and weak. She doesn’t care. She’ll nurture these feathers – these new wings. She won’t forget them this time, and she won’t forget this moment when she learned that second chances do happen.