One gray Tuesday morning, as my husband was taking our pet parrot home from a visit to the vet, Frankie escaped and disappeared above a chaotic street corner.

They were on their way down Second Avenue, and at 60th Street, Frankie chewed through a zipper on her carrying case and squirted out, heading for my husband’s shoulder, her favorite place to perch. Chris’s first instinct was to try to grab her, and the sudden move must have spooked her.

She took flight. Her tail came out in his hand. With the help of unfamiliar air currents, she went up, up, up. She was gone.

This was not the first time she had been a wild bird in the city.

A few years earlier she appeared on the roof of our East Village building one summer evening, a brilliantly colored bird happily chewing on a pizza crust given to her by our neighbors. We’d assumed that she was someone’s pet and tried to reunite her with whoever had lost her, but no one claimed her. So we kept her.