The Real MacAw by Donna Andrews Page A

Michael grabbed the coffeepot and refilled Grandfather’s cup with the real stuff. I tried not to drool.
    “You didn’t answer my question,” Grandfather said. “What’s he doing here? Don’t you two have enough on your hands already?”
    “Timmy’s mother’s in the army,” I began.
    “Drafting women now, are they?” Grandfather muttered. “What’s the world coming to?”
    “She joined up to take advantage of the educational benefits,” I said. “Try the coffee.”
    I hoped he’d drop the subject. Too much talk about his absent mother’s whereabouts upset Timmy. For that matter, her absence wasn’t a happy subject with me. I had sympathized when my friend Karen decided to leave her job in Caerphilly College’s Human Resources department—a dead-end job with a miserably controlling boss. In fact, I’d encouraged her to quit. But her decision to join the army came as rather a shock. Hadn’t it occurred to her that she might be deployed somewhere where she couldn’t easily take her son?
    “She doesn’t have family?” Grandfather asked.
    “No,” I said. “And not a lot of friends who could care for a five-year-old.”
    “And Timmy likes it here,” Michael said. “And we like him.”
    Timmy’s anxious expression gave way to his usual sunny smile.
    “Which reminds me,” Michael added, looking at me. “Timmy has a T-Ball game today.”
    “On a Friday? I thought they were always on Saturdays.”
    “Yes, but it’s rained the last two Saturdays, so they’re trying to catch up by holding one today. Can you…?”
    “Sure,” I said. I took out my notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe and flipped to today’s page.
    “One P.M. at Peter Pruitt Park,” Michael said.
    I nodded and scribbled.
    “What about the animals?” Grandfather asked.
    “The Corsicans are looking after the animals, remember?” I said. “I have Timmy and the twins.”
    “Where is the mother, anyway? Off in the desert somewhere, I suppose, or some remote mountainous part of Afghanistan.”
    “Germany,” I said. “Wiesbaden. Lovely, safe place. On the Rhine. They have wine festivals there.”
    At least Karen wasn’t in a combat zone. Not at the moment, anyway. We were hoping to get word soon that her posting in Germany would be fairly long term, which would mean Timmy could join her. In the meantime, thanks to my brother, Rob, she wasn’t going to miss too many of those precious childhood moments.
    “Look this way, Timmy!” Rob said. He was once again wielding his new little video camera—a marvelous bit of technology, simple enough for a mechanical klutz like Rob to use and small enough to fit in his pocket. Which meant no one was safe from his quest to capture every single significant or picturesque moment in all our lives.
    Timmy grinned, displaying three very large blueberries stuck, with suspicious regularity, in his front teeth. He and Rob both dissolved with laughter.
    Timmy was currently Rob’s favorite video subject. He had days of footage of the boys, of course, separately, together, and with every willing member of the family. But since at four months the boys’ repertoire consisted of eating, sleeping, crying, having their diapers changed, making cute faces, and being played with by family members, even as doting an uncle as Rob eventually became restless for new subjects. Timmy’s arrival several weeks ago had been a godsend.
    “Come on, Timmy,” Rob said. “Let’s go film some of the animals.”
    “Let’s talk to the macaw,” Timmy said. “He’s funny.”
    “Not the macaw,” Michael said. “He’s sleeping.”
    “Can’t we wake him up?” Timmy asked.
    “Maybe later,” Michael said.
    “We need to document the animals in the barn anyway,” Rob said.
    They dashed out, followed more slowly by my grandfather.
    “Macaws need a lot of sleep?” I could sympathize.
    “This one does,” Michael said. “The more he sleeps the better. When he’s awake, he has a vocabulary that would