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A PITYING OF TURTLEDOVES
by Karen Ackland

Ericka was a tall woman, handsome in a big-boned way. Her house, which belonged to her grandmother, was the only one in the neighborhood bothered by turtledoves. Initially they nested in the pine tree under her bedroom window. Then they settled in the blood orange tree near the street. Embarrassed by the turtledoves' plump pity, she kept her windows closed and the curtains drawn.

After her grandmother died, Ericka removed the needlework pillows and china cabinet figurines and painted the inside of the house a cool, unadorned white. She replaced the mahogany dining room set with a table of beech and black-lacquered steel. She splurged on a sectional chaise in charcoal gray and kept her feelings sandwiched between the pale walls.

She cultivated a positive attitude and was frustrated when the turtledoves wanted to commiserate over sore throats and arrogant co-workers. "Go away," she hissed from inside the house. But they stayed, certain her angular convictions would soften.

Determined to chase the turtledoves from her yard, she tied shiny metal strips to the trees. She aimed a water hose at their nests and, despite an aversion to heights, climbed a ladder swinging a broom handle. Finally, she called an exterminator.

"I want them gone," she insisted, gesturing towards the nests that surrounded her house. "All of them."

"With turtledoves, we can't guarantee gone or all," the exterminator explained. He spoke about maintenance and co-existence. He suggested turtledoves might be good for her. "I think you'll come to find their call soothing," he concluded. "I always have."

"Gone," she repeated.

The next morning Ericka woke free from the noisy compassion of turtledoves. She pulled open the curtains and pushed up the window. Silence. She went downstairs and, with her first cup of coffee, made a list of all she would accomplish.

Returning from a trip late one night, she noticed a turtledove in the pine tree. She sighed and went inside. The meeting hadn't gone well. Her luggage was lost.

"Oh, hon-ney," the dove cooed. "You're tired. Why don't you go to bed?"

"I'm busy," she protested as she sat at her desk. "I've too much to do." She did stop to make herself a cup of tea.

When the job she expected went to someone from outside the company, she was stunned. "Oh, hon-ney," the family of turtledoves who lived in the blood orange tree cooed, "it's not about you. You're fine."

"I should have known better," she insisted. "I should have seen it coming." She told herself there'd be other opportunities and started leaving the windows open at night.

Gradually, she learned to distinguish the members of one turtledove family from another. "Oh, hon-ney," they cooed when she came home after visiting a friend who was dying of cancer. "That must have been so hard for you. You love her."

"Yes," she acknowledged. "I love her." And she sat outside under the pine tree and cried.

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