The Arithmetic of the Sky 

The first time the robin appeared, I still didn’t know how to hold the word death in my mouth. It fell apart, like a bite I couldn’t quite swallow.

I lived in a tall building, the kind that doesn’t allow for roots. Concrete is a vertical desert. There aren’t enough trees for a bird to lose its way. There are no reasons for one to land on my railing.

But it arrived.

Red on its chest, small, leaning forward. It moved its head as if listening to something I couldn’t hear. It tapped the railing gently with its beak.

I thought it had gotten lost. Then I thought I was the one who had gotten lost.

She told me: “It’s your grandmother. She came to see you.”

She said it with a gentle certainty, as if tucking a blanket around me. I didn’t argue.

The bird came back the next day.

And the day after.

I left the balcony door slightly open, not so it could come in, but so it would know that it could.

It never did.

* * * *

When my grandfather—her husband—died, another bird appeared.

It wasn’t as red. It was grayer, more reserved. It didn’t perch on my railing; it stayed on a nearby antenna. Sometimes, when the sun was setting, I would see the two of them on the same power line. They didn’t touch. But the space between them seemed full.

I didn’t feel surprise. I felt that someone was keeping count.

As if death also knew how to arrange itself in pairs.

* * * *

Before another of my grandparents—my mother’s father—died, I saw three birds.

Not together.
Not exactly.

One on the railing.
One on the antenna.
One that allowed itself to test the air.

As if someone had left three ellipses hanging over the city.

That day I didn’t go into the apartment right away. I stayed downstairs, pretending to look for my keys in my backpack, while watching the three birds.

The phone rang an hour later.

* * * *

Now I fear the arithmetic of the sky.

I’ve stopped looking at the balcony in the mornings; I’ve stopped looking at the clouds and the tree branches. I open the curtains with my eyes half closed. I tell myself that birds migrate, that everything can be explained.

Something has shifted by just a few millimeters.
Before, when I opened them, I expected to hear something behind me.
The faint sound of someone approaching unhurriedly with an explanation.

Now the birds are only coincidences.

* * * *

But there is something that truly has no explanation. The balcony is the same. The birds, sometimes, too. My gaze is different.

And love—even the kind that is no longer here—still knows how to find a place to land.

Photography by Jerónimo Andrade