Chap­ter 54 of If These Wings Could Fly begins with Leighton walk­ing into her home, feel­ing a heavy ten­sion in the air. Upon enter­ing, she finds her fam­i­ly gath­ered in the liv­ing room, all seem­ing­ly engaged in a casu­al movie night. Her par­ents, along with Camp­bell and Juniper, are togeth­er, and while the scene might appear nor­mal at first glance, Leighton is sharply aware of the strain between her par­ents. The sight of her moth­er and father cozy­ing up togeth­er trig­gers a deep sense of dis­com­fort, rein­forc­ing the emo­tion­al dis­tance that has been grow­ing in their rela­tion­ship. When her moth­er invites her to join them, Leighton is already filled with unease, and the con­ver­sa­tion quick­ly shifts to the news of the can­celed cable, which only exac­er­bates her father’s appar­ent guilt. This sub­tle exchange high­lights the emo­tion­al com­plex­i­ties in their home, where even sim­ple ges­tures car­ry lay­ers of unre­solved ten­sion.

Seek­ing to return some sem­blance of nor­mal­cy, Leighton offers to make pop­corn, a small but mean­ing­ful ges­ture of attempt­ing to recon­nect with her fam­i­ly. In the kitchen, she finds her father, and they briefly talk about an upcom­ing foot­ball game where Liam, her boyfriend, will be play­ing. How­ev­er, their con­ver­sa­tion remains stiff, with Leighton strug­gling to bridge the grow­ing emo­tion­al dis­tance between them. While her father acknowl­edges the pres­sures sur­round­ing the game, his response is dis­tant, reflect­ing a deep­er dis­sat­is­fac­tion with his life. His sub­dued tone speaks vol­umes about his inter­nal strug­gles and dis­ap­point­ments, par­tic­u­lar­ly about his work and the weight of his unre­solved feel­ings. The brief exchange high­lights the emo­tion­al iso­la­tion that Leighton feels, as she longs to con­nect with her father, but is met with emo­tion­al bar­ri­ers that seem increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to over­come. Their strained con­ver­sa­tion under­scores the chal­lenges of main­tain­ing fam­i­ly uni­ty in the face of unspo­ken pain.

After the con­ver­sa­tion, Leighton retreats to the qui­et of her room, seek­ing solace from the chaos and ten­sion of the evening. Her peace is inter­rupt­ed by Joe, a bird who has become a strange but con­stant pres­ence in her life. Rather than wait­ing for him to leave, Leighton opens her win­dow to invite him in, sig­nal­ing her will­ing­ness to engage with the world in what­ev­er small, com­fort­ing way she can. As she watch­es him, Joe drops a small, rust­ed key onto her floor, an object that adds to her grow­ing col­lec­tion of trin­kets from the bird. The act of receiv­ing this small gift, though odd, feels sig­nif­i­cant to Leighton. It is as if the bird, in his pecu­liar way, offers a form of con­nec­tion and mean­ing in a world that often feels cold and dis­con­nect­ed. This sim­ple inter­ac­tion with Joe becomes a way for Leighton to find some sem­blance of con­trol and ground­ing, even amidst the emo­tion­al chaos sur­round­ing her.

Leighton’s thoughts then turn to the crows that dom­i­nate the skies over Auburn, and she feels a deep, unex­pect­ed con­nec­tion to them. The sight of these birds, fill­ing the air and cast­ing their shad­ow over the town, becomes sym­bol­ic of the resilience she her­self longs to embody. Despite their over­whelm­ing num­bers, the crows are unyield­ing in their per­sis­tence, just as Leighton desires to be in the face of her own strug­gles. The crows, often seen as a nui­sance by oth­ers, rep­re­sent a qui­et defi­ance, con­tin­u­ing to thrive in an envi­ron­ment that might seem inhos­pitable. Leighton, in turn, sees in them a reflec­tion of herself—someone whose pain and strug­gles are over­looked or dis­missed by those around her. Yet, despite the chal­lenges she faces, she con­tin­ues to endure, much like the crows that have tak­en over the town. This real­iza­tion becomes a turn­ing point for Leighton, as she embraces the sym­bol­ism of the crows, under­stand­ing that there is strength in resilience and a qui­et pow­er in endur­ing despite the odds. This con­nec­tion with the crows, in their unwa­ver­ing per­sis­tence, pro­vides Leighton with a moment of clar­i­ty, help­ing her real­ize that, just as they per­sist, so too can she, even when it feels like every­thing else is falling apart.