8:16 a.m.
“You’ve reached Taylor. Leave a message at the beep.” Voicemail?
I’m not devastated—far from it. But when the beep comes, I don’t even say that.
Instead, I say, “Hi, I understand. I’ll wait for the papers. Jess comes home Wednesday night; text me if you’re coming over for Thanksgiving.”
We’d rolled away from each other to the edges of our mattress last night as if it were any other night. Usually, I’d wake up to the smell and sound of fat sizzling in my grandmother’s cast iron skillet, which I’d never use if I were alone. Instead, I woke late to a note on Taylor’s side of the bed: “I want a divorce.”
It’s sooner than I’d expected. After the evening before, it seemed we would have another day of ‘fine’ ahead of us. It’s a little sad; I looked forward to bacon and pancakes with over-easy eggs, all smothered in syrup with a side of freshly squeezed orange juice.
Without Taylor’s breakfast, I pour instant oatmeal from a paper package into a mug and splash water in it. Two minutes seems long enough to cook dried grain and dehydrated cranberries, so I hit a button on the microwave and head back to the bedroom.
I’ve got to focus on the more important task of the day: I’m going hunting.
When I was nine, my father took me deep into the woods with a rifle, or shotgun, or some other long barreled gun, he described in detail when I was not paying attention. It was his attempt to bond after the matriarch of our house had been taken away two years earlier in handcuffs, spitting and spouting her usual lunacies. With my mother gone, I realized my father was a kind and decent man; he realized I had tendencies most children did not. Hunting was his way of trying to refocus my impulses.
While he cautioned me about gun safety and the importance of silence, I watched a small baby bird fall out of a tree and splatter onto a crooked root below. Its mother bird did not come to its rescue; the blue and black feathered female just continued to vomit in the surviving babies’ mouths. As I mentally compared the bits of bloody brain matter to my existence, my father placed a gun in my hands.
The heft of it brought me back to the moment. We would watch for a deer, he said. We would hide and wait to murder a living thing. “If you kill it, you eat it.”
A small doe with three tiny white spots on its forehead and another splash of light fur on its back wandered into view. My father shook his head, and I shifted the gun into a more comfortable position. A strong arm flew out in front of my chest, and his head shook with more vigor. I aimed.
My kind and decent father said, “No”; my tendencies pulled the trigger.
The bullet tore into the doe’s hind leg. I barely heard the thud of its falling body for the violent ringing in my ears. The gun weighed more as I handed it to my shaking father. Angry footsteps fell in step with the clanging in my head. He had to shoot the baby deer again. Its face both imploded and exploded into a gaping hole. I’d seen a photo like that once; the coroner’s kid—eight when everyone else was seven—stole it from his father’s office to scare everyone. A suicide victim who’d rigged some device up to kill himself with the tug of a string had been in full color; though the details of the person’s death were fuzzy, the image hadn’t been. Following the reactions around me, I’d recoiled. In reality, I’d wanted a closer look.
My father’s disappointment was palpable, but it was his fear that suffocated me. He sidestepped me as he stomped to the car without the doe. I asked him why we weren’t taking it home; he’d always said we had to eat what we kill.
And in one of my most vivid memories that doesn’t involve my sweethearts, my father turned to me, and said, “It wasn’t an honorable kill. We don’t kill young things.” My father had an odd way of talking. “So, we’ll leave it for the animals. They can do what they will. You and I will go without meat for a while.”
And we did. He didn’t buy meat for months after. We also never hunted together again; I’m not sure if he ever went alone either.
I’ve hunted only once since; I was twenty-three, alone, and apprehensive. Tracey was nearly as messy as the doe. At least I was able to bring a piece of her home for my box; I wish I’d thought to do that with the doe—a chunk of the white fur patch on its back would look nice wrapped in Jessica’s ribbon.
Last week, I began a new hunt. It’s been nearly twenty-two years since I followed Tracey home from school. Collecting is usually enough; Silynn is close to so many rest-stops and gas stations, I haven’t needed to try, to watch, to wait. But I need a break from the ease of opportunity. So, I’m taking extra care with my chosen sweetheart. My father isn’t here to shake his head or put his arm out, and I don’t want to miss or blow off a leg.
It’s been three years since I’ve collected at all, and the need is growing.
A thrill runs up my spine as I picture red hair, green eyes, the way her older sister says her name, “Luh-orrrr-ee.”