Zali lay in her tinker bell sheets as the sun streamed through her bedroom window. The birds sang as they did first thing in the morning, leaving her wondering what their chirping meant.

          They probably sing to their babies to wake them up she thought to herself, or maybe

they’re taking roll… yeah that might be it.

          As her mind wondered on, she stared at the popcorn ceiling adorned with glued stars that glowed in the dark and made out shapes among the textures.

          Wish I could join you in your tree, reaching her small palm in a dramatic gesture toward

the window she sighed; I would sleep on a branch if you didn’t want me in your nest.

          She would lay there until her stomach growled then she’d kick the sheets off with her feet and roll out of bed. Being the first one up on Saturdays meant she could watch the looney toons in the living room with a big bowl of Zucaritas until her amá and apá got up. When she finished her bowl of cereal, Zali put her dish in the sink, slid on her white sneakers and sprinted to the backyard.

          Outside the clouds slowly gathered but the sun still warmed the top of Zali’s head as she swung back and forth in her dusty juegitos. The creak of the swing and the singing birds was all that filled the morning air. Sometimes Zali would gather all of her strength as she swung and pointed her feet toward sky then launched herself off. Being in the air made her feel like she was flying, like the birds that lived in the pine tree.

          With sweat streaming down her temples and rosy cheeks she’d spend her morning swinging, gathering rocks and squinting her eyes at the sun until she had to look away, until thirst overtook her.

“Did you see me fly?” she’d ask amá in between chugs of water.

“Si mi pajarita,” amá would answer back.

          But this morning her amá did not say anything back, all she did was smile and nod at her. Without giving much mind to her amá’s response, Zali walked back to her room while still recovering her breath, kicking off her white sneakers and threw her body onto bed.

          That day she heard the phone ring more than the usual two times on Saturdays when amá spoke to her friends.

          In her room Zali worked on the bird drawing she had promised tia Luna, because tonight after diner she would give it to her. She wanted to get the borders right and make it the most beautiful drawing her tia had ever seen. Tia Luna always spoke to Zali like she was her friend, she also played along with Zali’s imaginary plots, and they would act them out with their whole hearts.

          By afternoon Zali finished coloring the wings.

“Zali—come say hi to tio Paco,” apá called out.

          As she reached the living room, amá was wiping something from her face while speaking to someone on the phone. Tio Paco leaned down and gripped Zali’s nose with his hand and said,

“Como as crecido!”

          Putting a flat hand on top of Zali’s head he measured it up to his ribcage. She hadn’t seen Tio Paco since she was maybe 3, and now, she was 8, but she always heard stories about him from her amá and tia.

          Back in her room Zali drew the finishing touches on her drawing, raised an eyebrow and eyed the glitter container in her coloring box. The birds outside still sang, and she whistled along as she addressed the drawing to her tia, drawing a moon instead of her name.

“Noooo no noooo!” loud cries came from the living room.

          In that moment Zali’s heart dropped into her stomach, the birds stopped singing and the silence that proceeded was filled with the thumping of her pulse. She opened her bedroom door and with curious ears and weary eyes, she approached the living room where the group of adults sat. Her apá blocked her view,

“there’s some pizza on the table,” he said.

“Apá, I heard someone—”

“You love pizza, don’t you?”

Zali clasped her hands tight. “Is amá—”

“Tio Paco got it just for you,” he caressed her hair, his hand almost the size of her whole head.

She glanced at him with knitted brows but all he did was smile softly and nod towards the pizza boxes. Her small fingers trembled as she opened the box, she fought every urge to lean her head past her dad’s wide figure.

“Apá it has pineapple.”

“There’s pepperoni in the other box,” apá replied.

Zali opened the other box, “apá it has mushrooms.”

 Apá took a deep breath and said, “míja take off the mushrooms.”

“Okay...” Zali replied as she began to take off the mushrooms with a scrunched-up nose.

          She poured herself some mango flavored Jumex and sat herself at the kitchen table. The conversations grew quiet as the adults in the living room whispered now. Zali looked at them, the faces of her amà and apà, and wondered why they weren’t laughing like they usually did. All Zali could make out from their conversation was tia Luna’s name being said, over and over. As she could not understand what they all spoke of, Zali’s mind began to wander off to the last time she had seen tia Luna.

          It was last weekend that tia Luna had come over, as she usually did, to have diner with them. Amá drizzled canola oil into a pan until smoke came up, crushed a garlic clove and dropped it into the pan, as it sizzled, she poured a cup of rice and moved the kernels around with a steel spatula. Meanwhile, tia Luna mashed pinto beans in another pan. They all sang along to Juan Gabriel playing on the portable radio on the counter next to the microwave.

          “Suvele Zali!” her tia half sang.

          Zali left her seat by the kitchen window, put the volume up and slowly made her way between amá and tia Luna.

          Zali loved when tia Luna came over because she would join her in the backyard after diner every time. As Zali pushed and pulled her legs in the swing, tia Luna climbed up through the slide and laid at the top of the juegitos. As the sun began to set and the birds went to sleep, tia Luna would tell Zali stories about a valiant green bird. Her stories always ended in moralejas about life that sometimes Zali did not fully understand but still enjoyed hearing.

 “Did you know that this valiant green bird is real?” tia Luna asked Zali.

 “Really, tia?”

          “Yes, it used to come visit me and talk to me all the time after your Tita passed” tia Luna said in a half daze.

          “Not anymore?” Zali glanced at the sky, the moon was full and bright.

          “No, one day it said, Luna you’re a valiant bird like me now, so I have to tell these stories to someone else, and it never came back” tia Luna smiled when she said this.

          “Do you miss it?” Her little hand reached out to the sky and covered the moon with it.

          “Sometimes, but I carry all of these stories in my heart, so it’s okay.”

          That night when her tio left, a storm descended upon the house. The rain tittered on the windows and the wind whistled. Among the sounds of the storm, suddenly, Zali heard the singing of a bird. This singing did not come from the pine tree next to her window though, it came from further into the backyard of the house.

          Zali wrapped her tinker bell comforter around herself as she walked down the pitch-black house to look out the kitchen window,

          What if it’s injured — or lost?

          She moved the lace curtains and peeked out. Her juegitos were in view, at the top, a green bird flapped its wings and sang louder than the thunder.

          I think it’s stuck.

Zali opened the back door, and as she was about to step out into the wet ground.

          “Quetzal what are you doing up?” Her dad rubbed his face and yawned.

          “There’s a bird up there apá I heard it, I think it’s stuck, we have to—”

She looked at her apá’s face,

          “Apá why is your face wet?” she asked.

          “Come on let's watch a movie,” apá said.

Zali glanced outside and the bird was gone.

          Apá cracked open the CD case, took out the disk and placed it in the DVD player.  Zali laid her head on her apá’s lap, and together they watched Peter Pan for the third time that week. Her eyes began to feel heavy, but she fought the sleepiness. She felt a cold drip on her cheek,

          Is that rain? she looked around the room then came upon her apá’s face, “apá — are you crying?”

Apá wiped his tears with the sleeve of his shirt and cleared his throat.

          “Why didn’t tia Luna come see us today?” Zali’s eyebrows arched, “I think amá missed her, that’s why she didn’t laugh today—is that why you are crying?”

Apá took a deep breath, smiled and said, “tia Luna went away, mija.”

          “Where did she go?”

          “With some family, míja,” apá’s voice trembled.

          “How long will she be gone?” she wiped her palms on her sparkly sweats.

          Apá’s eyes began to water again and Zali panicked at the sight of him crying. He finally embraced her in his arms, shaking her whole body as he wept and all she could do was hug him back.

          The days that proceeded were cloudy and gray and many family member visited Zali’s home, some of them stayed and slept on the couches and took over her bedroom. She slept in her parent's room where her amá cried almost every night while apá hugged her and kissed her forehead.

          When everyone was asleep and the whole house was silent, Zali would hear the bird singing outside. She’d tiptoe out of the room and out the backdoor, there that green bird would be flapping its wings on top of her juegitos, almost as a greeting.

          “How do you do Quetzal?” It would always ask.

           Sometimes Zali didn’t know how to answer because she didn’t know what was wrong, all that she knew was that she was lonely and confused because anytime she would ask anybody about tia Luna they would start to cry or ask her about school.

          “Bird?” Zali started.

          “Yes?” The green bird replied.

          “Why do people go away?”

          “Sometimes their path changes, and they have to leave, but they will always be with you in your mind and heart.”

          “Will tia Luna ever come back?”

          “Maybe not in the same way you remember her, she may be a song, or a tree or a bird

flying across the sky.”

          Zali would gaze at this green bird, its long tail flowing in the air and its red chest where its heart was and she’d think,

            if tia Luna were ever a bird she’d be as pretty as this one.

          Then, one day they brought a great shiny box into the house, amá said this was tia’s casket, where she would lay to sleep. Tio Paco and amá adorned with gardenias around tia Luna’s casket and underneath it, they placed a picture of tia Luna. At the thought of seeing tia Luna again, even if she was asleep, Zali’s heart fluttered clenching the drawing she had made her, what seemed forever ago.

          “Amá, when can I see her?” Zali’s eyes sparkled as she gripped amá’s hand.

          “We have to wait for the priest and everybody else to arrive,” amá wiped tears from her face, “go play outside, míja.”

          That afternoon, so many people showed up that not everybody could stand inside the house. Some of them stood by the front door while others gathered around tia Luna’s casket. Zali could glimpse at her between the frames of people blocking the view. Tia Luna lay there in her favorite green dress with painted red lips.

          Somebody grabbed Zali’s hand, not sure if that hand belonged to her amá or tio Paco, she followed as they led her down to tia Luna’s casket. Zali grabbed the folded drawing from her pocket and placed it on tia Luna’s chest. Tears began to stream down Zali’s rosy cheeks, and she reached to touch tia Luna’s hand.

          “She’s cold amá,” Zali stumbled away and glanced around in search of a familiar face until her apá lifted her into his arms.

          “Tia—,” Zali’s stifled sobs filled the room and her apá rubbed her back.

          That night Zali woke up in her bed and wondered if she had dreamt tia Luna in that big shiny box, when she heard the bird singing. Wrapping her tinker bell sheets around her, Zali stepped out of her room. The casket still stood in the living-room with gardenia’s all around, it was closed, and the green bird rested on top of it.

          “How do you do Quetzal?”

          “Amá said that tia Luna was asleep,” Zali rubbed her eyes,” will she ever wake up?”

          “Tia Luna is dreaming a different dream from you and I, but one day we may join her in

the same dream.”

          The green bird flew around the room now and Zali watched its green wings shine underneath the moonlight.

          “In the meantime, you have to make new memories to tell her about when you meet her

again.”

            “But I miss her,” her bottom lip quivered, and tears welled up in her eyes.

The green bird perched itself on top of the casket again.

          “It’s okay to miss her but remember that you can always find her wherever you may look

for her.”— “You will be okay Quetzal, one day that missing will turn into laughter as you remember her.”

          The green bird floated in front of Zali now, the gentle breeze its wings produced tickled her face.

          “How do you know that?”

          “Because Quetzal, tu y yo, somos iguales—somos valientes.”