The Bird market of Paris

Nikki Moustaki grew up in 1980s Miami, the only child of parents who worked, played, and traveled for luxury sports car dealerships. At home, her doting grandmother cooked for and fed her, but it was her grandfather--an evening-gown designer, riveting storyteller, and bird expert--who was her mentor and dearest companion. Like her grandfather, Nikki fell hard for birds. 'Birds filled my childhood,' she writes, 'as blue filled the sky.' Her grandfather showed her how to hypnotize chickens, sneak up on pigeons, and handle baby birds. He gave her a white dove to release for luck on each birthday. And he urged her to visit the bird market of Paris someday. But by the time Nikki graduated from college and moved to New York City, she was succumbing to alcohol and increasingly unable to care for her flock. When her grandfather died, guilt-ridden Nikki drank even more. In a last-ditch effort to honor her grandfather, she flew to France hoping to visit the bird market of Paris to release a white dove. Instead, something astonishing happened there that saved Nikki's life.