Flying the Coop

Her name is Makena Nkomo. But here, in the middle of America, she was Kena. Her brother Diallo called her Kena, and since everyone she’d met since coming here was through him, the scant number of people she knew here called her Kena. Sometimes she wanted to correct them. To look them in the eye with her back straight and her head held high, eyes focused on whoever was calling her not-her-name, and say, “Makena. Ma…ke…na. My name is Makena.” She’d been named after her Bibi, her grandmother, the strongest woman she knew, who had raised Makena to speak up and be proud of who she was. But Makena was not strong here. The flat land and weak sun, and then the winter snow and cold, had sapped her strength. Any energy she had left went into her job of taking care of her two little nieces, Analise and Amara. Her brother’s wife, Jordan, was an attorney and worked long hours at a law firm. So Makena worked long hours, too.

Her brother Diallo had brought her here with the flamingos. On a plane from Tanzania to this flat, windy land with no mountains, no salty lake, and bananas available only in large, sterile stores, each market holding enough food to feed everyone back home in her little town of Mto Wa Mbu. Diallo was older than her. Old enough that she barely remembered him when he came home to talk to Bibi about taking Makena back to America with him, after their father dropped dead one day in the little shop where they sold banana beer and lunch to the tourists visiting the National Park. They rented out half the space in the shop to four men from town who sold carved wooden handcrafts to travelers after they got tipsy on banana beer. Makena sold her artwork there, too: paintings of the zebras and hippos; the vervet monkeys with their bright blue markings; towering giraffes and trumpeting elephants; tree-climbing lions and sleek, spotted leopards; fig trees and huge-trunked, branching Baobab trees, and the flame trees with their orange-red flowers.

Diallo said he could sell the shop and the little house with the thatched roof, and Bibi could go live with one of the cousins, who all had nice houses and servants from the money they made running deluxe safari tours. He said it would be good for her to have a nice place to relax, and someone to wait on her in her old age. The proceeds from the house and the shop would mean no more hard work for Bibi. And taking Makena to America would mean not having to worry that she would end up impoverished, or sick with a virus from marrying the wrong boy, or working her whole life for little pay in the shop or at one of the lodges for rich European tourists. Instead, Diallo could take her to America, where he had been for many years. America, the place of wonder, where Makena’s father had always wanted to go and visit his son, but never had.

When Diallo was a boy, the priest at his school, a special scholarship school in Arusha for the brightest but poorest of boys, talked to a friend in a place smack dab in the middle of the map of America, and that friend had arranged for Diallo to go to the university there after he finished secondary school. Diallo was too smart, the priest said, to waste his life selling banana beer like his father. He could get an education in America and be a businessman, and make his father proud.

Now, twelve years later in 2003, Diallo would do the same thing for his sister Makena, who had learned English so well from her teacher at school, and her father, and from talking to the tourists. English was the key to a good life, a chance to make more of oneself than was possible in Mto Wa Mbu. A chance to be like Diallo.

Diallo would arrange for Makena to get a visa to work at his company, which imported goods from all over the world to the United States. Even pink flamingos from Tanzania for the zoo in Kansas, the task which had brought him back home to Tanzania. He’d arrived in a big truck, with a blond-haired white man, and they hired men who built special wooden crates to fly the birds back to Kansas, and hunters to capture the flamingos at Lake Manyara. He paid a keeper at the park to let the blond-haired man and the hunters capture the birds, while he sat in the yard with Bibi and drank tea. Makena thought it no coincidence that the zoo wanted to buy flamingos at the exact time her father had died. Bibi said every trip Diallo took was for a reward, even a trip home for his father’s death. Diallo was a businessman who could sell anything. Even flamingos from his home country to a zoo half a world away.

When the flamingos were ready, Makena packed up her clothes, the few things she had of her mother, who had died when Makena was born, and the necklace her father had given her when she graduated from the small school she attended. She kissed Bibi goodbye with a promise to write a letter at least once a week.

Now she lived in this flat, busy, loud, and crowded place. Diallo had held out the promise of school for her when he sat in the yard with Bibi. College at the same university where he had gone, which he would pay for, but none of that had materialized. “In time,” he told her. He had a lawyer working to get her a green card. First, she would work for him for a while. Not in the business, but at his home, helping to take care of her nieces.

It was hard work for Makena. Much harder than working in the shop and painting pictures and helping Bibi take care of the small house in Mto Wa Mbu. Diallo’s house was huge. Jordan expected her to keep it spotless, alongside taking care of Analise and Amara, who were sweet girls she immediately loved, but were spoiled. If Bibi were here, she would have given them a list of chores and taken away half their toys, because no child should have that much for themselves.

There were many things to learn. How to operate the vacuum cleaner, and how to work all the buttons on the appliances in the kitchen and the laundry room, and how to cook on the stove that was shiny and white instead of blackened and monstrous like Bibi’s stove, so ancient it looked like it had grown up out of the earth hundreds of years ago. Diallo said he would teach Makena how to use the computer on the desk in the den, and that she could work at his company after she had learned. But he was always too tired when she asked him to show her. He said it would be easier next year after Analise went off to school.

Jordan paid her every Friday, in bills counted out on the table. It seemed like a lot of money compared to what she made in Tanzania, but not very generous for how much things cost in America. Makena squirreled her money away in a carved acacia wood box that Ibada, one of the men at the shop, had made for her before she left Tanzania.

“Auntie Kena, when are we going?” Analise was pulling on the leg of Makena’s jeans and whining, and Makena smiled and reached down to pat her head. Analise was a lovely little whiney girl. Makena adored her but felt sorry for the man who would someday marry her.

“Soon. When smiley-girl is ready.” Makena went back to stuffing three-year-old Amara’s arms into her itsy-bitsy jacket. She had heard that phrase on TV last night; it meant something small. She was trying to learn how to speak more American. Amara was not a talkative child, although Makena talked to her all the time, but she was always sweet and smiling. Probably because Analise always demanded all the attention and Amara had learned to be happy off to the side, amusing herself. Analise reminded Makena of Diallo and Jordan. Amara reminded her of her smiling cousins back in Tanzania drinking banana beer under the Baobab trees and laughing at life after a hard day’s work.

“Done. There you go, Amara.” Makena lifted her off the table, placed her feet on the floor, and took her hand. They were going to the zoo, and Makena would drive them. Jordan had paid for someone to come and give Makena lessons. It had been frightening at first, but she’d picked it up easily, and it was exhilarating to control such a big piece of equipment and be able to go where she wanted without depending on anyone. She had passed the test on the first try. Jordan was ecstatic that Makena could now run errands like going to the market and buying all the groceries by herself, or picking up the dry-cleaning. They gave her the car that had been Jordan’s before she got a new one. It was beautiful. Makena thought of it as almost like an animal, a sleek leopard of a car.

Today was their first fun outing. They were going to the Zoo. Makena wanted to see how the other living things plucked from their home in Tanzania were faring after being set down in America. They were going to see the flamingos.

Makena pulled into a spot at the empty end of the lot so she didn’t have to park near anyone, and after a brief struggle getting the stroller out of the trunk and unfolded, they were in the zoo and on their way. She rolled Amara down the wide wooden plankways of the zoo toward the spot where the map at the entrance showed the Flamingos would be. There were not many people at the zoo at 11:00 on a Monday.

Analise ran ten feet ahead, back and forth from one side of the wooden walkway to the other, stopping at each new habitat to yell over her shoulder “Come look, Auntie Kena! Come look!” Another hour of that and she would be sitting next to her sister in the stroller, worn out and fast asleep. Makena didn’t understand why children in America got rolled around for half their childhoods, but she appreciated that rolling was easier than carrying.

“I will, Analise, I will. As soon as I get there.” She was foraging in her bag for a juice box for Amara. When she looked up, Analise was in the middle of the walkway, enthralled by a four-foot-tall flamingo walking toward her on its gangly legs, its graceful neck held high. Next to the bird was a tall black-haired man with golden skin, wearing khaki trousers and a shirt with the name of the zoo stitched on the left side of his chest.

“Come look, Auntie Kena! Come look!” Analise glanced over her shoulder, and Makena saw the wonder in her eyes and the smile on her face. “It’s like the birds in the book!”

The black-haired man smiled at Makena. “He’s from Tanzania. He came a long way to be here with us last year, but he is doing fine. His name is Pink Floyd.” Makena must have looked puzzled because he added, “Pink Floyd is the name of a famous rock group. One day, one of their songs was playing on the sound system, and Floyd here was bobbing his head to it. Plus he’s pink, so that’s what we call him.

“Sometimes he likes to take a walk with me. But you shouldn’t get too close,” he said to Analise, who looked ready to reach out for the tall bird. “He needs his space, being a rock star and all.”

The flamingo almost seemed to know what the man was saying, because he skirted around Analise to stand on the other side of the man and look at the prairie dogs that were staring back at him through the glass fence of their habitat.

Analise stepped back to grab Makena’s hand. “My Auntie came from Tanzania with the birds on the plane. My papa went to get the flamingos, and he brought my auntie back to help take care of me and my sister.”

The man raised his eyebrows at Makena. “It’s a long way to come. Are you doing fine, too?

Makena was taken aback. No one in America had asked her how she was doing since she’d come here. Not her brother, or his wife, or the few people she had met. Bibi always asked Makena when she wrote to her, but Makena always wrote back and said she was fine, because sometimes a lie was kinder than the truth, and so allowed.

“I am well, thank you. And Floyd looks well.” She smiled.

“Why doesn’t Floyd fly away, like the birds in our yard?” Analise asked.

The man squatted down so he was closer to Analise. “First, we will have introductions. I am Santiago Alvarado. I’m a keeper here at the zoo.” Analise smiled, and he took her small hand and shook it gently up and down a few times. She giggled and pulled her hand away, and Santiago turned to Amara, making an elaborate show of shaking her tiny, chubby hand, too.

“This is Amara in the stroller. And Analise,” Makena said. It was so nice to meet someone. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken to anyone besides her brother’s family or a cashier at the market, or a brief hello to a neighbor or a passing stranger on a sidewalk. She hadn’t managed to make any real friends yet. Diallo and Jordan worked all the time; they weren’t the kind of people who spent time with neighbors. There was a nanny who worked across the street, whom she’d met in the park once or twice with the children. She was nice, but a giggly and frivolous girl who only wanted to talk about fashion magazines and her boyfriend. During Makena’s time away from taking care of the children, she would go to the coffee shop a few blocks away and read the books she took out of the library, take long walks around the city, or stay in her room and draw, or paint.

Pink Floyd had circled back to the group and was bobbing his head up and down as if he wanted to be introduced, too. Analise was being very well-behaved. Makena could tell wanted to reach out and touch his feathers, but she didn’t.

Santiago stood up and put out his hand to Makena. He had the nicest eyes. Warm and brown, and there were itsy-bitsy crinkles of laugh lines at the corners. His hand was large and rough, the hand of a man who spent his days doing physical labor. “It’s very nice to meet you…”

“Makena. My name is Makena Nkomo.” She smiled at the man, and she could feel her cheeks getting warm.

He released her hand and smiled back. “You have a lovely name.” He gestured to the flamingo. “I guess you and Floyd already know each other, having immigrated together.”

Analise reached over and pulled on Santiago’s pant leg, bringing attention to herself, as beautiful little girls who always get their way always do. “Why does Floyd walk around instead of flying like other birds, Santiago?”

“We gave his feathers a haircut. So now he walks like a haughty king among us peasants, who can only hope to ever be as handsome as he is.”

It made Makena sad to think of the flamingos with their wings clipped. Sometimes she felt that her wings had been clipped here in America and she, too, had been confined to a space of someone else’s choosing.

Analise giggled. “Floyd is handsome, but you are handsome, too.”

Makena laughed out loud. She could always count on Analise to make her laugh. It was amazing how much one could come to love a child in so little time. Her sweet, beautiful, smart niece was going to break men’s hearts.

Santiago bowed to Analise and made a flourish with his strong brown hand. “Why, thank you, Analise. Now,” he said, turning to Makena, “Perhaps you ladies would like to accompany me and Floyd as we complete our walk and head back to the flamingo lagoon? You could check on the rest of your flock.”

“Can we, Auntie Kena?”

Who could say no to that face? Or to the smiling man with the lovely brown eyes that were watching her so intently? “That would be lovely.”

Makena pushed the stroller, and Analise took Santiago’s hand, and they followed Floyd as he led the way.

…

Now Makena had company at the coffee shop and on her long walks around the city. Santiago took her to the neighborhood where he lived and showed her the sights of the city, and his friends became her friends. He told her about the town he was from in Texas, and how he’d come to work at a zoo far away from where he was born. Having him beside her made her feel strong and sunny again. She and the girls spent so much time at the zoo that Floyd and the other flamingos would honk when they heard Analise calling to them as Makena rolled Amara in her stroller down the wooden walkway toward the lagoon. The curator let Santiago put a red band on Floyd’s leg so that Makena and Analise could pick him out from the rest of the flamingos, who all had bright yellow tags for their identification numbers.

Santiago would honk to Floyd and Floyd would honk back.

Makena and Analise and Amara learned the flamingo’s mating dance, and Santiago would dance with them on the walkway in front of the enclosure, and sometimes the flamingos would join in from their man-made lagoon. First, the birds would extend their heads and wave them back and forth as if they were watching a tennis match. Then they’d stretch their necks and spread their wings to show their hot pink and black feathers on the underside, which could barely be seen when their wings were folded. Sometimes they’d put their heads down and their tails upward, allowing their black flight feathers to point to the sky, or they’d curl their long, graceful necks onto their bodies while they tucked their beaks into their feathers, like flirty flamenco dancers peeking out from behind lace fans.

Makena and Santiago had their own mating dance. She’d steal away to spend time with him whenever she could. He loved her and told her so. She loved him back but made him wait weeks longer to hear the words.

She brought him to her brother’s house for dinner. Diallo and Jordan were friendly to Santiago, but after he left, Diallo told her that it was not acceptable for her to marry anyone but a Black man — ideally one from Africa — so she should not get any ideas about a future with the good-looking Hispanic man who would probably take advantage and then desert her. She and Santiago could be no more than friends, Diallo told her, when Makena knew they were already so much more. Diallo would introduce her to the proper kind of man as soon as Amara was a little older, he said.

There was no more talk of sending her to the university, just the same amount of money counted out on the table every week, with a reminder from Jordan that she and Diallo paid for the car Makena drove and the food she ate, and the roof over her head.

She stopped telling them when she was with Santiago, or where she went when she was not at home. When the zoo decided to remodel the Africa house, Santiago got the head keeper to show the executive director some of Makena’s paintings: flamingos and tree-lounging lions and baobab trees she painted to remind herself of Tanzania, and the director offered her a commission to paint a mural of Africa. Diallo said it wasn’t enough money to take Makena away from her work taking care of the girls, but Analise was in school every day now, and Amara was in preschool three days a week. Makena had overheard Jordan telling Diallo that all well-to-do Americans put their children in preschool, and quiet, self-contained Amara needed the stimulation of other children to come out of her shell, or she would grow up to be like her Auntie Kena.

They had insisted Makena help raise their girls, but now Jordan was jealous that any part of Makena might have influenced the girls’ character and personalities.

Makena told Diallo she had already agreed to paint the mural, and that it would reflect badly on their family if she went back on her word.

Working on the mural was the most exciting thing she had ever done. Santiago helped her get the paint and the supplies, and showed her on his computer how to keep track of the bills so she could give them to the director of the zoo for reimbursement. She’d already learned from Santiago that the computer was not very hard at all for a girl that was just as bright as her brother, even if no one had ever noticed and sent her to a university.

She and Santiago had lunch together every day she worked on the mural. They would sit at the most secluded picnic table and talk about everything under the sun, and steal kisses from each other when they thought no one was looking. One day after lunch, as they stood on the walkway in front of the flamingos, he pointed to a flamingo in the flock that was a little different: shorter and brighter colored, with a slightly different beak.

“Do you see? We have a visitor.”

“It’s a different kind of flamingo?”

“A man called the zoo and said he had a Caribbean flamingo he wanted to get rid of.” He shrugged his shoulders. “And there she is. At least we think she’s a she. Bill was taking her out of the crate when the guy brought her in, and she escaped. We haven’t been able to recapture her to test her sex or see if her wings are clipped, but the guy who dropped her off said he’d never seen her fly. We’ll catch her next week when we round up the rest of the birds for their annual clip. We’re looking for a Caribbean flock in a different zoo to move her to. Floyd seems to have a crush; he’s been following her around for days.”

“Maybe they will fall in love and want to be together all the time. Look, is that Floyd chasing her?” She put her hands on the wooden railing and leaned toward the lagoon, to see if she could see a red band on the bird’s leg, thinking that it would be nice if even the birds were in love.

“Makena, I have to go home to San Antonio. My father had an accident, and my mother needs my help with their business until he recovers. My two little brothers are still in school. It’s my responsibility.” He reached out and put his hand over hers on the railing.

Up to that moment, she would have thought it impossible to actually feel one’s heart breaking. She tried to freeze the expression on her face. She couldn’t have Santiago worrying about her when he must be so worried about his family.

“I hope your father recovers quickly. When are you leaving?” She pulled her hand from under his and turned to face him.

“Tomorrow.”

“Of course. You have to go,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. She was about to blink and that would make them spill down her cheeks. “Your family needs you.” She felt a tear start to roll down her face, and she quickly wiped it away. “I’m sorry. I will miss you.” And then she couldn’t help from asking, even though she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer. “Are you coming back?”

“I don’t think so, Makena.”

“Never?”

“Come with me.”

“Come with you? To San Antonio?” She wiped her tears again, and a smile spread across her face, and she felt like she should be ashamed to be happy about the thought of leaving her brother’s house, but she wasn’t. “But the girls. And my brother.”

“Come with me, Makena. You’re a grown woman. You don’t owe it to your brother to give up the life you want just because he brought you here to take care of his children. We’ll get married, and I’ll be the girls’ uncle, and Diallo eventually will see that we’re happy. He’ll get over being mad that you didn’t let him run your life, and everything will be fine. I love you. Come with me.”

She wanted to. She wanted to go with him. She had four thousand, six hundred and seventy-two dollars saved in the box that Ibada had made for her in Tanzania. Was that enough money to start a new life?

“You know I love you, Santiago.” She looked out toward the lagoon, wanting just a minute or two before making a decision that would impact the rest of her life so greatly. She saw the Caribbean flamingo at the end of the lagoon, standing by herself and facing the high enclosure wall across the water, which separated the flamingos from the next exhibit and helped keep the birds contained. Floyd was stepping toward the flamingo, his spread wings flashing his flight feathers, when the pinker, smaller bird started running away across the lagoon on her long legs, flapping her wings. Run, run, run, flap, flap, flap, went the pinker flamingo, and Makena pictured herself running away from her brother’s house and toward her future. Then the Caribbean flamingo lifted off from the water and flew up and over the enclosure wall. Floyd made a honking noise that seemed to signal distress at his flamingo friend’s sudden departure. He started running toward the place she’d disappeared, his skinny legs pumping and his wings flapping hard and fast, and Makena knew how he must feel at the thought of his love slipping through his wingtips just when he’d found her.

Floyd rose up off the lagoon and headed toward the wall. Makena was afraid he was going to smash into the concrete and injure himself, but then he soared upward at the last moment and sailed over the wall — free and clear — and he, too, was gone.

Makena felt her heart swell in her chest. “Yes, Santiago,” She said. “Yes, I will go with you to San Antonio.”

“That’s wonderful, my love. But now I have to go tell Bill that Pink Floyd and his girlfriend have staged a prison break.

…

Santiago was being mysterious. He had called Amara to ask her to drive down from the university in Austin to keep an eye on Marcello and David for the weekend, and to keep Bibi company because Makena didn’t like to leave her alone. He had a big surprise for their anniversary, he told Makena. Seventeen years was a long time to be married. It seemed like a lifetime, and yet as though barely a day had passed since she’d first seen him walking down the wooden boardwalk of the zoo with a Flamingo from Tanzania.

They’d built a good life, the young woman who’d come to America from Tanzania, and the handsome young man from America who had given her the courage to fly away from her brother’s house and make her own life.

They were driving to the gulf. Santiago told her he’d rented a cabin for the weekend on the bay near Port Lavaca. A place for them to escape their rambunctious boys and her slightly senile grandmother and have some time alone. He’d winked when he said that part, and she laughed.

“Won’t a little time away be great? It’s not too fancy,” he said. “but there’s a big front porch overlooking the bay where we can sit and watch the sunset and drink margaritas. I arranged to rent the owner’s boat so we can run up the coast and find a deserted beach and make love on the sand.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her, and she laughed again. They’d had plenty of laughter in their seventeen years together.

She loved him so much, her Santiago. It would be nice to pretend they were young again, newly married, and only concerned with themselves and their own pleasure, instead of middle-aged parents with responsibilities always tugging at them.

“But that’s not the surprise,” he said. “The surprise is secret. I hope the surprise cooperates.”

She looked over at him as he drove. “Maybe you should tell me what the surprise is, so I’ll be prepared.”

He shook his head and smiled. “That would ruin the surprise.”

…

She packed a picnic for the beach, and they walked down the pier to the boat. Forty-five minutes later they anchored and took an inflatable dinghy to a wide sandy beach, deserted except for a lively cluster of birds at the far end, where the shallow water from adjoining marshland had formed long puddles across the sand.

She spread a blanket in the sunniest spot.

“Do you have your glasses, Makena my love?”

“They’re in my pocket.” She’d just gotten the glasses but didn’t like wearing them; they made her feel old. “I only need them when I drive. I don’t need them to make love to my husband on a deserted beach.” She gave him the look she knew he thought was sexy. “I already know where everything you have is located.” She smiled and kissed his cheek and then stripped off her t-shirt and shorts. She’d bought the two-piece bathing suit especially for this trip because she knew he would like it, but Santiago was looking off toward the distance instead of at her. She stretched out on the blanket. “Lay down with me and feel the sunshine. It reminds me of Tanzania.”

“First put on your glasses and come with me.” He was smiling broadly as he reached down his hand for her to take, and pulled her up off the blanket. “I think it’s time for the surprise. It’s either going to be spectacular or a complete failure.”

They held hands as they walked on the sand. The beach was beautiful — wide and sandy — and the bay protected them from the wind blowing in off the gulf. She put on her glasses so she could see the sea grass and the birds on the other end of the beach.

Wait, what was that?

She stopped walking. “Do you see them? Look how tall the one by the rock is.”

“Yes, I see.” He pulled her toward him so he could kiss her forehead.

She laughed. “Is that the surprise for our anniversary? I had no idea there were any in the wild here. Can we get any closer?”

“Let me see if I can get the birds to come closer.”

He dropped her hand and motioned for her to stay where she was, and he walked closer to the gawky birds dipping their heads and running their beaks through the shallow puddles. And then he stopped, and after turning back to Makena for a moment with a huge Santiago smile on his sweet, handsome face, he started to honk to the birds in the flamingo language he’d learned at the zoo, all those years ago.

The tall bird by the rock picked his head up from the water and looked in Santiago’s direction. The bird extended his neck up and turned his head back and forth, and then spread his wings, showing his pink and black feathers.

In response, Santiago spread his arms wide, bowed his head, and then brought his head and arms up toward the sky. The bird at the end of the beach mimicked Santiago’s movement, and then curled his long, graceful neck onto his body and tucked his beak into his feathers for a moment, before stretching his neck tall again to stare down the beach at Santiago and Makena.

Makena couldn’t believe it. She laughed out loud and jumped up and down, and ran to Santiago to join his flamingo dance. All the birds watched them until the tallest bird again joined in, waving his head back and forth, and then spreading his wings once more and showing his flight feathers. Makena thought about running to get her camera to take a picture to send to Analise and Amara, but she didn’t want to break the perfect spell of being with him again, but this time being with him when he was free. And so was she.

“It’s Floyd, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” He pulled her close, and she kissed him twice, then once again.

“That is an amazing surprise. Thank you. How did you find him?”

“There have been reports of flamingos in southern Texas for years, but it was always brushed off as people misidentifying pink spoonbills or sandhill cranes. Then someone from the park’s coastal fisheries division saw them on this beach and got close enough to get a picture that showed Floyd’s red I.D. tag, and called the zoo. Diallo told me about it the last time we talked; said he saw a story on the local news. I figured if Floyd wasn’t still here, at least we’d have a nice weekend getaway.” He shook his head in wonder. “Pink Floyd and his girlfriend flew away to Texas, just like we did.”

“I’m so glad. How many times have we talked about the flamingos over the years? It was Floyd taking off over that fence after the bird he loved that helped me decide to fly my own coop and come to Texas with you.”

“See the hot pink Caribbean mama?” Santiago pointed at the pinkest flamingo of the seven or eight birds. “And notice that the others besides Floyd are just a little bit different? The beaks, the color of the feathers. They’re hybrids. It doesn’t always happen. Greater flamingos and Caribbean flamingos are different species, but Floyd and his girlfriend made it work.”

She stood on the tips of her toes and kissed his cheek. “Let’s go back to the blanket and sit down, and watch the flamingos and realize how lucky we are to have found each other.” She liked that saying it that way applied both to her and Santiago having met, and the two of them finding the flamingos.

Santiago honked a few more times, and Floyd ran down the beach until he was strolling next to Santiago, just like he used to when they would go for jaunts around the zoo. Floyd walked with Santiago and Makena for a minute or two, and then he turned around and flew away, back to the other birds at the end of the beach.

This story was inspired by several news articles about a Greater Flamingo affectionately dubbed Pink Floyd, who was taken from Tanzania in East Africa along with 39 of his flamingo friends, and shipped to a zoo in Kansas in 2003. He escaped two years later and was spotted in Texas in 2022, free as a bird should be.