The swallows.

The tires of her car bounced gently as mom turned off the main street and into the driveway of our house. We were returning after having spent three glorious days at the coast. It had been an easy drive. It wasn't too hot and we both were in genial frames of mind. Our time at the ocean had left us contented. Maybe it had been the negative ions or the rhythm of the water or the majesty of it all, but we felt whole and gratified. The sun had shone, but it never had got too warm, thanks to the constant breezes over the ocean. Our trip had been filled with people whom we cared about. So even though it was coming to an end, our spirits were high.

That was before we saw the dead baby birds. Mom was first to see them after she stepped out of the car and began to walk toward the door. They lay on the ground, underneath their nest, several feet apart. The contrast between our peaceful enthusiasm of the past few days and the grief that overcame us, when the birds came into view, momentarily negated the strength that our time at the ocean had generated.

Mom didn't like the idea of moving the tiny creatures , but she knew it needed to be done. Getting some paper towels from the kitchen, she gently picked their limp bodies from the ground to dispose of them.

We wondered what had killed them. They were still quite small, only two weeks old. I had been at home when they had hatched and when they had begun to peep at the sign of a parent approaching the nest with food. They were so little and so dependent that we couldn't help but question what had taken their lives. The barn swallows and their young had offered my brother Chris and me so much joy that their deaths were difficult to accept. I found myself feeling as helpless as the baby birds.

The neighborhood is alive with crows and jays. Either breed would be capable of killing, but under the eaves the nest is hidden and, I had thought, safe. Unless the larger birds had plotted their attack, I doubted that the deaths could be attributed to them.

Mom suggested that they might have had something wrong with them and that their mother had thrown them out of the nest. Or that they had died spontaneously. "Like sudden infant death syndrome, except with baby birds?" I asked. Her reply was affirmative, and to me it was like no explanation at all, It made no sense.

What occurred to me next left me feeling as if I had been hit hard in the stomach. I remembered that I had sprayed two house plants ...