Pigeon in the Canaries: Escape Hatch Series, #1

By K. A. Keener

"Perfect escapism as the main character turns loss into chance offerings." Five Star Review, Tails32x
"A great, quick escape!" Five Star Review, MD

...
When COVID stalls one young woman's launch into adulthood, she must gather her courage to turn her losses into a silver lining.

Does she have what it takes to bounce back from losing her job, her apartment and even her close family? Can she heal from the childhood loss of her mother by finding a mentor halfway across the world?

Follow along as Thalia transforms into a digital nomad and finds herself even as she becomes untethered from her birthplace.

Volume One of the Escape Hatch Series. Follow her journey on instagram @nomadthalia & read the prequel, Ya-ya's Return, to learn the backstory that incited it all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K. A. Keener
• Release date: Mar 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9798479099632

Book preview

Chapter One

Three months had passed since Thalia’s grandmother died from the coronavirus while visiting Galaxidi, in her homeland of Greece. Thalia spent those months isolated in the rooms that she and her grandmother, her Ya-ya, had once shared. The day started at the wobbly table in the breakfast nook; Thalia rested her gaze on the curve of the silver legs bowing out, the shiny metal dimmed with grease and spots of rust. She had stopped even bothering to make toast and simply smeared peanut butter and strawberry jam on neat, soft, chemically bleached squares of bread. She always made one pot of coffee and put it straight into the fridge to reheat and drink for a few days before making a new pot.

Every few weeks, she had food delivered from a local store in Astoria. Most of the neighborhood grocery stores in New York had begun making deliveries during the lockdown. That afternoon, a bicyclist pulled a trailer loaded with grocery sacks to her porch, dropped the sacks at her door, rang the doorbell and slipped away; she clicked a button on her phone app to give him a tip, waited until he was well up the block, and then cautiously ventured out to carry them in.

She hadn’t spoken to anyone directly in six weeks.

After putting away the groceries, she heard the doorbell ring again and let out a long sigh as she placed her paperback thriller upside down, open on the table. The water-warped pages of the crime fiction series popped it up into a small tent, and she placed a heavier book against the spine. She thought that perhaps the store had forgotten one of her bags and was bringing it to her now. She dragged herself to the door, not so much afraid of catching the virus as simply exhausted, since Ya-ya’s death, by even the most simple of interactions: the apologies, the explanations, the expectations of her response. It was the reason she had stopped leaving the house entirely. Everyone had known her Ya-ya, had loved her. For a month after her death, Thalia had nurtured the thought that Ya-ya’s ghost was tending the front bushes, clearing falling leaves from the stones. Then, at 6 a.m. one morning, she caught one of Ya-ya’s church lady friends out there in a large sunhat, trimming the hydrangeas, dusting the little concrete statue of the Virgin Mary.

At the door, instead of the delivery boy speaking to her in broken English, she found Mr. Drakos, her grandmother’s lawyer. She had last seen him soon after Ya-ya’s death. His wiry, gray-and-black hair was barely contained by a heavy application of gel. As if in defiance of this attempt at control, nose hairs spread liberally out of each nostril, reaching for the lower half of his face, which was masked in the strongest of papery filters, N95 embossed on the side. He wore a dark suit, as he always did, but his shirt had been opened at the collar to reveal more wiry hairs and a crisp white undershirt.

Thalia, I’m sorry for dropping in like this. I tried to call first, Mr. Drakos began. She apologized, saying her phone was broken, but really, she had just stopped charging it entirely. I need to speak with you about some paperwork for the house. I can come back at another time. He looked down, his eye catching on her light green shirt; she dabbed at the smeared peanut butter stain with her fingers.

No, it’s okay. We should meet out here, in the open air. Let me just get my mask. She gestured towards the chairs squeezed together on the closet-sized porch. Can I get you some … water or … coffee? She thought of the dark rings encrusted on her coffee pot in the fridge. Luckily, he refused the offer. She met him outside after donning a fresh shirt and a cotton mask printed with a flower pattern.

I’m coming by because I took care of your ya-ya’s taxes each year. This year, because of the virus, there was no need to talk about it in April. The government gave everyone an extension. But now we need to file her taxes, and I thought I could also do yours, since they will be closely linked. He took out a light-brown, paper accordion file from his bag. Ya-ya had left Thalia the house and a large emergency fund, which Thalia hadn’t known she possessed.

Apparently, the survivor’s pension she received from the city after the death of her husband—he had been a train operator—had been enough for her to live on and put aside some money each month. Mr. Drakos passed Thalia some papers with figures on them that she didn’t really understand.

I know it is a bit of a foreign language, Mr. Drakos continued, but, the gist is that the taxes on the house can easily be paid from the emergency fund for last year. But the year after may be a problem.

Thalia looked at the numbers with Mr. Drakos. She quickly calculated in her head how much money she was making working part-time online as a travel agent, booking excursions and packages, living off little incentives and commission from previous clients of Horizon Destinations. Horizon Destinations collapsed during COVID; the agency had shut the doors to its storefront operation in Manhattan’s financial district after thirty years. She knew the money she was bringing in wasn’t enough.

I don’t make enough to pay this much. Are you telling me I have to sell the house? Thalia asked, her eyes stinging.

There are several options. I could help you. It is a big house, he said as he gestured at the two-floor, semi-detached brick house behind them. Three bedrooms, right? One and a half baths?

She nodded, her eyes downcast.

What about roommates?

During COVID?

I know it’s complicated, but people are figuring out ways to do this. At the church, there is a woman who is a broker. She could help you arrange it … He slipped his papers back into the accordion file. You don’t have to decide now. For now, let’s just file the taxes. I just need your W2s.

Once Mr. Drakos left and Thalia was back in the parlor, she sank into the indented couch cushions and let herself cry a bit. The room was just as Ya-ya had left it—aging sweets in individual plastic wrappers in an etched-crystal candy bowl, a print of the blues and stark white walls of the Greek coast inside a cheap plastic gold frame.

The next day, she mustered the energy to shower and pull back the curtains of each room in the house. Dust motes fell in the sunlight streaming in, their soft, invisible rain of neglect gathering on each surface. The walls of Ya-ya’s bedroom reflected back a light daffodil yellow. The dust was visible on the shiny wood veneer of the dresser, on the matching headboard and the nightstand. Thalia opened the accordion door to Ya-ya’s closet, the squeaking of the door’s track reverberating in the empty space. The smell registered first: a sort of gardenia and rose blend that escaped as the metal hangers scraped across their rod. Inside hung Ya-ya’s dresses, zipped and buttoned, the embellishments tied into bows at the neck, as if the clothes themselves had caught the same magical thinking Thalia had fallen victim to in the first few days after Ya-ya’s death. For a week after Thalia had received the news, she kept the house tidy. As she made the bed, washed the dishes, took out the trash, she considered how Ya-ya would find everything once she returned. How it would please her.

When COVID hit their neighborhood in Queens, after Ya-ya lost her best friend, Despina, she had wanted to see her birthplace again. She had not visited since she emigrated in her early twenties. Thalia felt guilty now for not trying more fiercely to talk her out of the trip, but as it turned out, Ya-ya had already launched the plan before telling Thalia about it. Ya-ya enjoyed just one week in her homeland before she was admitted to the hospital, and then only one more week before her death. For a while, it was easy to believe that she was simply on a trip, because that was exactly the truth. But the date of her return passed, and then there was the paperwork, the will, a