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Show She stared down from their bedroom at the open entrymouths of their garage. "Why won't you just let me take you back to bed?" She just shook her head. Leah cried while making breakfast for the children before school. Hunt watched then held her. "Isn't Mommy feeling well?" one of the children asked. "She'll be all right," Hunt said. "Look for animal tracks in the snow." The children looked out of the windows. The sun was out, brokenly. One of them saw a plow moving slowly along the highway just across the lake. "Jays are frightening all the other birds away!" the other said. Leah cried harder, bore against Hunt's shoulder. Hunt could feel her small fists beating against his back. Was it him or herself that she was beating? Hunt wondered. And what would she do if she had a knife? He had the vague dark sense of pins at his shoulder caves. Hunt and the children ate. Leah stood at the sink, refusing to turn off the water, staring at the jays. "The radio said that last year, in the state, they shot over six thousand deer," she remarked. "That's a lot. That's an awful lot." "People are butchers," Hunt said. Then he regretted it. "People are," she said. "Yes, butchers." "O.K.," he said. "O.K. - what?" She turned to him. |