The birds came the first Spring we moved in. They were small velvety black ones with tails that scissored. My wife and I took turns knocking their crude nest down from above the porch light with a broom. But the birds were persistent in their attempt to rebuild, returning after each eviction with a fresh glob of mud and straw.

“They’ll shit all over the porch,” I stated. “We can’t let them stay.”

“This is probably where they’ve come to nest every Spring.” My wife, Lisa, who had grown soft and fuller by then, appealed, “Maybe they just want to start a family here, too.” She rubbed her own belly when she said it. And we agreed to let them stay.

Their home, constructed of earth and multicolored fiber, held tight to the porch light. We watched as eggs were laid and eagerly waited for the upcoming arrival.

Bleeding and pain came before the chicks hatched. An emergency visit to the hospital emptied our own cradle. We cried and attempted to find comfort in the hollow echo of loved ones who uttered “it wasn’t meant to be.” It was not our first time to hear those words.

Lisa tiptoed through our kitchen in house shoes afterwards, peeking out the back window for signs of the arrival of the chicks. She phoned my office with glee at the first sighting of a tiny beak poking over the rim of the nest.

“There are three of them!” She laughed, “Wait till you see them; they’re tiny and bald and hardly look like birds.” It was the first time I’d heard her laugh since the miscarriage.

But the engineers of the nest had not planned for three babies. The too-small structure spat out the first chick in a flattened heap on the concrete patio. I put it in a plastic grocery bag and carried it to the trash, hoping Lisa would not notice its absence.

She took it well and said, “It’s nature’s way.”

The remaining two chicks clung to the edge of the nest with their mouths agape awaiting the next meal. They were growing fast, developing feathers and audible squawks. When their parents returned with a grub, the two chicks would clamor to devour it. Until one vanished. I assumed it had been trampled by the other stronger chick during a feeding. Lisa never mentioned it was gone.

One Sunday evening, I discovered the third dead on the patio, its body twisted and teeming with ants. The parents had flown away. Lisa cried fat, quiet tears for that last chick.

The next Spring, when the birds came again, Lisa took out the broom.

BIO: T. Guzman lives and writes in the flatlands of Texas.