In the morn­ing, as I hur­ried down the stairs, I tried to bypass the unset­tling sight of the repaired win­dow, focus­ing instead on my imme­di­ate sur­round­ings. How­ev­er, my gaze was drawn to the cof­fee table, where the vase had been placed back in the cen­ter, pro­vok­ing a mix of emo­tions. I grabbed the vase and head­ed out­side to dis­pose of it in the garbage bins, rain drench­ing me as I buried it deep with­in the bag hold­ing its shat­tered pieces from the night before.

A crow cawed in the tree in our front yard, prompt­ing me to look up. The tree was odd­ly full of black birds, rem­i­nis­cent of the first day of school when excite­ment thrived among the leaves that had since fall­en. Approach­ing the tree, I noticed Joe perched on a low branch, clutch­ing a slip of paper that bore Juniper’s hand­writ­ing. The mes­sage, “Dear Joe, please help us,” sent a chill down my spine, and I instinc­tive­ly backed away, tears welling in my eyes.

Joe flut­tered down beside me, but I was trans­fixed by Juniper’s note. He then hopped to the ground, nudg­ing some­thing in the grass. As I leaned clos­er, I saw him lift a shiny object with his beak and drop it at my feet. It was our dad’s wed­ding band, some­thing he typ­i­cal­ly tucked into his wal­let while work­ing. The mem­o­ry of his lost wal­let sur­faced, along with the real­iza­tion that Juniper hadn’t been search­ing the truck; she had been look­ing for gifts instead. She had returned with the wal­let.

Hold­ing the ring, I reflect­ed on my recent exchanges with the ornithol­o­gist I inter­viewed, learn­ing that crows are intel­li­gent crea­tures capa­ble of under­stand­ing reci­procity and ret­ri­bu­tion. They could engage in gift-giv­ing or hold grudges. This raised ques­tions about what the crows might com­pre­hend regard­ing our house­hold dynam­ics. Could they have found the wal­let where it was lost, or had they stolen it ini­tial­ly? The enig­ma of Joe and the oth­er crows lin­gered in my mind, leav­ing a sense of won­der about their con­nec­tion to our lives .