I wonder if she ever learned how to fly. But she probably didn’t have a mother to teach her. The bird’s nest was nowhere in sight, so she was probably dragged to the base of the blackberry bush by another animal, feathers and all. At least she wasn’t torn to shreds. Maybe her last moments weren’t completely miserable.

            “Anna-May, eat your dinner.”

            And maybe I could if she hadn’t called me to the table like a pig to a trough.

            Soo-wee! Soo-wee!

            “What were you prodding at out there, Amy?”

            I didn’t prod at anything, I just looked; I don’t prod anymore. I find it quite rude to interrupt the dead. What on earth would give me the right to disturb what’s resting?

            “Anna-May!” A fist rattles the dining room table. “Pay attention when your mother speaks to you.”

            Why does dad growl when he speaks? I wonder if anyone else ever hears his squealy inflection. Maybe that’s why mom’s always yelling at me like a pig, she married one, so she must have given birth to one.

            “There was a dead birdie, momma. I just kept thinking that maybe she never even got the chance to—”

            “Anna-May! What did we talk about yesterday?” I should have lied. “Ladies don’t concern themselves with such matters. Don’t let me catch you again.”

            She’s serious, so serious her eyebrows nearly meet each other in the middle of her forehead. At least it gives me something to look at while she showers me in disappointment, begging me to be the daughter she’d always hoped for. It’s too bad she raised a pig.

 

            Soo-wee! Soo-wee!