“It was some kind of turbulence, a shiver in the air. A disturbance, like a heat wave rising off of blacktop on a scorching day, except it was cold then, brutally cold. Bird was wearing his little green parka over his requisite fleecy dinosaur jammies, and a thick red wool cap over his long wisps of white-blonde hair. Blue mittens. Winter could not be allowed to disrupt his routine. His pajamas, his buttered penne pasta for lunch, his time in the sandbox after, pushing his feet through the sand for twenty minutes. And then his hide time. He ducked into the wardrobe side of the dresser, and Becca watched him shut the door behind him, as she had a hundred times before. But then the tremor, and her heart dropped…”

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Bird Was Gone