“No,” Meitner says quietly, but with force. “I did not. I am very sorry if John thinks so, and sorry that you even need to ask, but I understand why. It’s actually very complicated. It goes to the heart of what I want to say.”
As I struggle to respond, her voice, almost a whisper, with an edge of happiness that is her, not my mother, comes through my phone, piercing the dark space of my listening, of my thinking, of my deep sorrow.
She says, “You are my sister, as truly as any sister could be. You are the only sister I will ever have. You shared your childhood with me. I am so grateful to Jean for giving me that. Your mother gave me my life, just as she gave you your life. When I was a child with you, the horror of the lab was fresh. You were my salvation. Leilani, I was not much older than you, confused, a child, but I stayed away from you out of what I can only call love. And that love propelled me through the horrible years that followed.”
My world whirls back around. I know Meitner. I know her through ten shared years of the deepest life I will ever know, through quarrels, pranks, laughter, and play, and I believe that what she says is true.
I feel a rush of regret for lost years, pain at our human creations. And strange joy because the word sister completes me, like hearing music I never knew existed. Sister. Yes. My only sister.
“Meitie, I—”
“Ms. Kalani? Meitner?” The man’s voice is crisp; official.
“Yes,” we both say, Meitner, I can tell, as irritated as I am.
“Psittacus and Company has agreed to allow Meitner to resume talking.”
Suddenly, that means nothing to me. I want to hold onto this moment. Perhaps what she has to say will destroy this fragile restoration of a part of my life that has long been dead, dead without me even realizing what was gone.
“It can wait a minute,” says Meitner.
“This is valuable time,” the man warns.
“Go away,” she says, and the man is silent.
“Leilani,” she says, “What I am going to say is troubling and painful. It will be difficult for me to say, and difficult for you to hear. But it touches on issues that all of us are going to have to think about, to confront. I hope to make that task easier by facilitating more communication—a special kind of communication—among us all. I am so happy—so deeply glad—that I have finally been able to talk to you. I am happier than you will ever know. I believe that your legal expertise will be invaluable in the effort I will outline.”
“I hope so,” I say.
“Meitner?” the man’s voice breaks in.
“I love you, sister,” I say.
“I love you,” she replies.
Video is restored. I watch Meitner’s big yellow eye, her hooked beak, and think, What Are We? Evolution fast-forwards right before my eyes and rings in my ears and in my brain as she tells the story of her life.
And mine.
“This is my story. I appreciate the opportunity to tell it. I think that it will be instructive.
“I mourn my companion, Dr. Jean Woodward. When she died, I went mad with grief. I left the human world; I returned to the wild in Kauai.
“As some of you might know, the vehicle through which human DNA was inserted into me was a virus. Because of the viral vehicle, human DNA was transmitted to the parrots in Kauai with whom I flocked.
“Some of those parrots attacked Jean as she was driving to town. Her Jeep went off the road and she died. I have always blamed myself. I had told them how humans behaved, and had lately told them that humans sometimes committed murder. Perhaps they were angry at her for changing them, even though it was not really her who did so.
“I left my flock. They were not like me; they did not have my intense human socialization. I hated them. I realized that I was alone—not like anyone or anything else in the world. New. It was a frightening realization. I didn’t know where I was going.
“It’s easy to fly into the baggage compartment of a plane. I went to other islands. I spent years studying humans. I watched them through their windows; perched on trees overlooking their lanais. I listened. I never spoke. There are plenty of tropical birds in Hawaii, so I did not stand out. I therefore had the opportunity of eavesdropping on hundreds of families. I studied five or six families at a time, moving between their homes. I particularly sought out card players, for I could see all of their hands and understand their distinct strategies, and observe how they expressed themselves by showing and by not showing. I watched their televisions. I heard their arguments. I watched them make love. I saw them express love and generosity to one another. I heard them lie. Many living creatures lie, but I saw intricate, painful lies, with hurtful consequences that might ring through generations.
“I never spoke. If I had never spoken, Jean would not have died. Something about knowing that kept me from being able to speak, even when I wanted to.
“During that time I was learning about myself, about what this human part of me was. My parrot companions acted in a monstrous way, a way that was human, with hatred and revenge, but they had no moral imperative not to do so. They had a parrot culture, not a human culture developed and modified through eons. They were angry. They had emotions they did not know how to control. I realized that the entire time I lived with my human family I had been extremely isolated. I had known few other people, and learned that my family was unusual—deeply respectful, kind, adventurous, and loving. But not like most human families.
“Finally, I was able to make peace with myself. I understood that who and what I was, although unique, and a mystery, was not my fault. I was created without a context. I returned to my flock on Kauai again and again over the years—the plane ride from Honolulu takes about an hour, and I stayed for months at a time or more—and tried to help them with their humanity, as they tried to help me in being a parrot. Over those twenty years or so we became settled; we grew; we learned to appreciate our human side, as diverse and wild as any other animal’s deep being.
“The other side of my life took place in a different context, but each side of me promoted growth of the other in a seesaw pattern. The day I finally spoke again it was a surprise to me and to the mathematician at the University of Hawaii I had chosen to live with. I did so after watching many of her lectures, which sang to me. She thought about many of the things I thought about, and it was with relief that I learned the language of mathematics. I felt that I was truly home at last. She promised to keep our relationship a secret. I did not desire to become famous. I did not want to be studied ever again. Eventually, I became a ghost faculty member—a name that only a few humans could connect with a visage. Together, and separately, she and I wrote papers about emergence. My name is on those papers; I am L. Meitner. My work became more influential, and because I was never seen, there was a mystique about me. Some thought I might be an AI, or impaired in some unsightly way, or physically challenged. They wondered about my gender. Now that mystery is laid to rest—I am a female parrot with human DNA. “I have always wanted to do Jean justice. She had a vision, and without her, I would have none. I saw the indignities visited upon the beings on the planet without human speech. I saw the casual violence, the lack of respect for our homes, for our food sources, for our offspring. I began to experience a sense of mission. Most non-humans have specific missions having to do with survival but I realized that, having the gift of speech, I had a wider responsibility. I understand other species, probably, as little as you do, but I do know that they have interior lives and that they deserve rights as living beings.