“But only if you dissect it with me first.” Father longed for one of his children to follow him into medicine someday. As far as bribes went, it was an easy one. Girl wasn’t afraid of entrails, especially if she would get a real stuffed squirrel afterward.
Father carefully took the squirrel out of the rattrap and carried it into the cabin.
“Brother? Do you want to help dissect a squirrel?” Father asked as he laid the carcass on the white Formica counter.
“No way!” Brother dropped the book he was reading and ran outside. Good. If he thought Girl was going to share the squirrel with him he could think again.
“Get my purse,” Father said, as he always referred to his camera bag, much to Girl’s embarrassment. The bag held everything he ever needed: wallet, camera, film, reading glasses, stethoscope, scalpels, bandages, and stitches—all sorts of medical tools and even packets of Betadine for cleaning wounds. He laid out a couple of sterile-packaged scalpels and his locking scissors with teeth that seemed to come in handy for a multitude of things.
“Come outside and wash your hands with me,” he said, walking out the door to the picnic table outside. He turned the knob on the big plastic jug of water and handed Girl a surgical scrub brush. It had a soft yellow sponge on one side, and white plastic teeth on the other.
“But the squirrel’s dead. It’s not going to catch germs.”
“It’s good practice,” he said in the voice that meant no arguing. They scrubbed their hands clean under the cold water and finally got to the good stuff.
“We can tan the skin with Betadine,” Father said. Girl stood close to his elbow and looked over his shoulder. The skin on Father’s neck was pebbly and red, and he smelled warm and comforting—that special Father smell that wasn’t cologne or sweat, but just the body warmth of hugs and infrequently washed wool shirts. Without running water, no one bathed that much at Loon Landing. His hairless, knobby hands cut smoothly through the squirrel’s belly in one neat motion.
“Hand me the hemostats.”
“The what?”
“Those curved scissors with teeth.”
“Okay.” Girl leaned her elbow on the table so she could see closer as he peeled back the skin and pointed out the various organs.
“This is the esophagus, and stomach.” Girl was surprised that there wasn’t a lot of loose blood. “Look, it was female—here is her uterus, and back here are the kidneys.” The organs were super tiny—smaller than she had anticipated. Father carefully dissected the carcass and removed the innards, setting them aside. “Look at the spine.” He named off each vertebra as he pointed with the tip of the blade: cervical, thoracic, lumbar. One of the eyeballs was on the counter. It was a cloudy blue-gray, like the lake outside. When he wasn’t looking Girl poked it with a pen, expecting it to roll like a marble. Instead it squished like a tiny fragile grape. She hadn’t meant to dishonor the squirrel by mutilating it and she didn’t want Father to know, but at the same time she craved absolution.
“I thought eyeballs were hard,” she said, “like marbles. But it squished when I poked it.”
“That’s right. They’re really bags of fluid.” He scraped the skin clean and reached for the Betadine. Girl watched him rub the orange disinfectant all over the inside of the squirrel pelt, then hang it up to dry by the wood stove. “We have to let it cure for a while.” He took the guts and threw them in the woods for an animal to find.
In the days it took the skin to cure, it smelled like rotting food and antiseptic inside the Taylor cabin, and Girl found excuses to be outside as much as possible. Father had lost the majority of his sense of smell in a high school chemistry accident when an experiment he was working on blew up, so it didn’t bother him as much as it bothered everyone else.
After a few weeks the skin was dry, and Father stuffed it with cotton balls and sutured it closed with his strong, deft fingers. Girl was surprised by how much it had shrunk. The pelt had half the girth of when it was alive—it was a good thing the squirrel had been so fat. They found blue buttons for eyes. Girl had hoped for buttons that actually looked like stuffed animal eyes, but it was the best they could do out in the woods and everything. She named the squirrel Pearl and slept with her every night, rubbing the soft body against her cheek. Pearl was Girl’s most prized possession.
On the plane trip home to New York, Girl and Brother got into a fight, as they always did. Brother was bigger and stronger, but Girl could generally wear him down enough to win by just letting the blows fall on her and not giving in. She wasn’t above cheating to win, either, and that day she took her home-taxidermied squirrel and used it like a scythe, slicing his arm with the crisp, dried claws of Pearl.
“You are so getting in trouble for this,” Brother gloated. “I’m calling the stewardess.” Bing went the call button, and Girl knew she was in for some serious shit.
“I probably need a rabies shot or something!” Bing. Bing. Bing.
“Yes?” The stewardess flashed a wide, fake smile but her eyes were squinched and she looked angry. The children always binged the call button too much.
“My sister scratched me with her squirrel,” he said, pausing dramatically and shooting Girl an exaggerated glare, “and I need a Band-Aid.” He held out his forearm, which was indeed bleeding.
“Squirrel?” She was confused, so Girl held it up to clarify. She might as well face the consequences. It wasn’t like she did it by accident, but she figured that she had good reason. He started it, after all. Girl finished it.
“Oooh! It’s so cute!” the stewardess exclaimed, taking the squirrel from Girl and
