Hummingbirds Remember Every Flower They Visit

When the hummingbird hovers over the dead coneflower, Dylan stops twirling to get a better view. He’s made himself dizzy, staggering across our backyard, loopy from spinning, and we try to imagine how the tiny creature appears to him, its scarlet throat a blur, its beak vibrating shakily.

At preschool, he careens down the hall, deliberately knocking into walls, into other children, once colliding with a teacher who dropped the scissors she was holding and yelled at him, causing him to kick her ankle. We’ve had three meetings with the school’s director – once to talk about options, once leaving with three therapist referrals, the last time to discuss leaving, period.

The bird’s wings make a humming sound that Dylan tries to imitate but it comes out wrong, high-pitched, more of a mewing. Its turquoise body is the color of gaudy costume jewelry you’d find at Savers. What does Dylan see? A trick? A wish? He is so focused that we want to capture the hummer, show Dylan how to feed it sugar water. Let it fly around Dylan’s room until they both wear themselves out and we are allowed to stroke Dylan’s tangled curls, press our lips to his forehead.

Dylan spins towards the startled bird, which flits over the fence, disappearing as suddenly as it arrived. We expect rage. Even a lost sock produces wild, hysterical shrieks. But Dylan merely plops down on the lawn, stares at the space where the bird has been, dazed with longing, as though someone died. This is how it will be forever – scaring everything he loves away.

He rips out a handful of grass, shoves the blades into his devouring mouth, and we do the same, swallowing the easy shape of grief.