Linda had left early for work again, but Denis didn’t bother sighing this time. He set to making his breakfast. Or was it supper? He was never sure what to call that meal that he had when he got home in the morning from a long night of work at the police station. He reheated some leftovers, poked a fork into it, wondering exactly what kind of casserole it was. Chicken? He glanced over at Jacques, as if the bird might offer him a clue. Jacques just squawked and raised his wings.

Denis tried reading the newspaper, but he was too tired, that eyes-wide, bright-sunlight sort of tired. He was still trying to clear his head of all the things he’d seen in the morgue during the night, the gruesome yet clinical images that flashed in his mind like raw evidence photos. He kept thinking of the crime scene from earlier in the week, that disembodied head with the tongue cut out. Telling himself not to think of it only made it worse. At least there was one good thing about Linda being gone. When she was there, he always felt tempted to tell her all of the horrible things he’d seen at work, though he knew she didn’t like hearing it. Now, the only person he could tell his tales of murder clues was poor, uncomprehending Jacques.

But then again, when Linda was there, he had something to get his mind off work. He tried a similar trick now, imagining Linda in his mind’s eye to see if she would supplant the gory images that kept cycling through his brain. It worked for a moment. For some reason, the first image of Linda that appeared in his mind was the bare nape of her neck, the way it looked when her hair was up, with the light reflecting off the barely visible golden fuzz that grew along the curve of her slender neck.

Denis realized he’d been staring at the same paragraph in the newspaper for several minutes, as if the words were in another language. He sensed that Jacques was staring at him as he tried to read. Denis pulled up a chair next to the bird cage. "Is something wrong, Jacques? Cat got your tongue? ... Won’t you say something?"

Keeping his eyes trained on Denis, Jacques let out an inarticulate "Aakk," then paused with his beak open.

"Would you do me a favor, Jacques?" Denis almost thought he saw the bird nod his head, but he wondered if a nod meant the same thing to a parrot as it did to a person. "Give a message to Linda for me. Can you do that?" The bird appeared apprehensive about whether it was up to the job.

"Let’s see," Denis said, self-consciously scratching his chin in thought.

Jacques broke the silence, loudly proclaiming, "Let’s see! Let’s see!"

"No, no," Denis shushed the bird. "Just hold on a second..." He feared this might be an impossible task. He wasn’t sure whether to give the bird a line in the first or third person. If Jacques told Linda "I love you" or something like that, she might take it the wrong way, attributing it to the bird rather than her husband.

Denis played out the words he wanted to say in his mind, fearful to speak them aloud lest the parrot pick up on a phrase best not repeated. ("Linda, I miss you so much. Why is it we can’t see each other more often? I know our schedules are making things difficult, but even a minute here or a minute there... Why doesn’t it ever happen? How can I know if you’re the same person you were the last time I saw you? When was that? Monday? A lot can change in three days.")

Denis shook his head. Much too complicated for little Jacques here. Keep it simple. Besides, if he had said all that to Linda, who knows what she’d say? He might not like the answer. She might blame him for their scheduling difficulties. He was the one working the long night shift hours, wasn’t he? And those were the hours when they would... "Well, you know what I mean," Denis suddenly said aloud to Jacques. But Jacques was oblivious, busily cleaning his feathers.

Denis finally decided on a simpler phrase and began saying it to Jacques over and over, until at last the parrot had learned his line. Sheer repetition was the only way to get Jacques to learn.

Before Denis went to sleep for the day, Jacques proudly repeated his new phrase one more time. He cocked his head, looking off in some indeterminate direction, as if he didn’t want to meet Denis in the eye. "Aakk! Denis loves Linda." Denis smiled and went into the bedroom. The bed was made, but Linda’s pillow was still dented where her head had been.

The flesh on both his head and his body snaps back into place, leaving two smooth new surfaces. First, he feels himself inside the body as the head floats around, anxiously waiting for the errant head to return so that he can see, hear, smell and talk again. ("But somehow I am breathing.") Now all is reversed and he is inside the head, looking down at the helplessly twitching headless body next to Linda, who sleeps soundly, more beautiful than she has ever looked, even in his previous dreams. But he can’t control the movement of the head. It rises as if filled with helium, bruising his scalp as he bumps against the ceiling. Then the head twirls around, searching for a center of gravity, his ears and nose hitting the rough paint swirls on the ceiling. Now the head crashes against the windows like a bird trapped inside a house. The thud of his forehead striking the glass awakens Linda. "Oh, Denis, what are you doing up there again?" she says, showing signs of exasperation such as holding her arms akimbo or making a tssking sound with her tongue. "I told you to stop doing that. Now come down at once!"

"But, honey," he says, bobbing against the ceiling. "I... I’m trying to come down. I seem to be stuck here."

"Oh, very well," Linda says, getting out of bed, grabbing her large butterfly net from behind the nightstand and standing on a chair. The soft white cloth of the net surrounds the head and she brings Denis back to bed. She removes the head from the net. Denis likes the way it feels when she cradles his head in her arms. He wants to burrow into her breasts, to do nothing evermore but kiss and suckle and sleep. Forget the rest of his body -- what would he ever need it for? But Linda lowers his head back toward the body and begins massaging it back into place.

"Can’t you hold me just a little longer?" he pleads.

"No. I’m trying to get some sleep. Can’t your silly tricks wait until some other time?"

She had been right. The apartment was empty, except for Jacques. She looked on the kitchen table and the shelf by the telephone for Denis’ nightly note. There was nothing. She nervously tapped her fingers on the table, unaware that she was doing it, telling herself that the absence of the note probably didn’t mean anything.

Linda realized Jacques was staring at her -- he seemed to be looking at her fingers. She realized what her fingers were doing and stopped tapping. The parrot was looking at her face now. Jacques did not speak often, but to Linda it appeared to be always on the verge of saying something, with some word were constantly perched on tongue’s tip. Now he opened his beak, as if to speak, but no sound emerged.