“We have to, Rose. We can’t just leave her like that. Can you imagine? It could take her hours to die. She needs our help.”
“The hunter will find it.”
“But what if he doesn’t? She’s been walking around like that for a long time.” Mary Ellen wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She was shaking. “She asked me to help her.”
“The deer.”
“Seriously, Rose, she cried out; she was begging. I wish you could’ve heard it. It was—” Mary Ellen shook her head, the memory of the sound as deep and painful as a bullet hole. “It was awful.”
“And you want to kill it how?”
Mary Ellen looked around.
“There’s no gun in the house,” Rose said.
“I know that.”
“Well, whatever you have in mind, I can’t.” Rose swiped the air with her hand.
Mary Ellen yanked open a drawer and pulled out a chef’s knife. Then she thought better of it and chose a boning knife instead. She turned to Rose, who took a step back, her eyes wide. “I’ll just have to cut her throat,” Mary Ellen said, tears rising in her eyes. “It’ll be quick. Quicker than what she’s going through now.” Her breath caught up in her throat. “Will you at least come with me? I don’t want to do it alone.”
The girl watched as Mary Ellen pulled on her gloves; then, she sighed heavily and retrieved the rain boots from beside the front door, and pulled on her jean jacket. She followed Mary Ellen outside and into the woods.
Mary Ellen traced her own footprints back to the blood trail, feeling bolstered by Rose’s presence. “She’s a little ways on from here,” she said over her shoulder. “She walked pretty far, considering how bad she was hurt. She’s not a big deer, but strong. Animals are amazing. They have that, I don’t know, life force. Survival instinct. They don’t sit around feeling sorry for themselves; they just get on with it.”
“Yeah.”
“There.” Mary Ellen stopped and pointed at the brown heap a few yards away. “See her?” She took a deep breath. She couldn’t back out now; Rose was watching.
Mary Ellen drew closer to the deer, calling softly, “I’m here. Everything’s going to be all right.” The deer didn’t move. “I came back to help you.” Mary Ellen crouched next to the deer and gently placed a hand on her flank.
“Oh,” she said.
“What?” Rose asked.
Mary Ellen set the knife down on the snow and put a hand over her mouth. She leaned forward and looked more closely at the deer’s face. “She’s gone,” she said. “We were too late.”
“Oh, thank Jesus.”
Mary Ellen shook her head, suddenly overwhelmed. She couldn’t speak.
“That’s good, right?” the girl asked. “You don’t have to kill it.”
Mary Ellen tried to swallow whatever was crowding her throat, but she couldn’t. She closed her eyes, trying to remove herself from the moment, but the images couldn’t be stopped. They came barreling straight out of her imagination—not her memory, because she’d never looked at the police report, she’d never seen the photos. She had to assemble the image herself: her father’s naked body lying in the bathtub. The bluish tint of his skin. “He was all alone,” she said through the swell of tears.
“It’s just a deer.” The girl patted Mary Ellen’s shoulder. Mary Ellen opened her eyes and stood up quickly, wiping the wetness from her cheeks.
“I know.” She sniffed, the cold air clearing her head. “Sorry. I don’t know…” She swallowed. “I guess this is nature, right? Predator, prey. Although in this case…” She shook her head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with people. Wounding an animal like that and letting her wander off.”
“Well, if the hunter doesn’t come get it, something else will,” Rose said, looking around. “Like, a bear or something.”
“Oh, I don’t think there are bears around here,” Mary Ellen said. “Are you scared?”
“No.”
Mary Ellen watched Rose’s pale face take on a look she was coming to recognize: bravado laid like a thin sheet over uncertainty.
“It’s getting dark,” Mary Ellen said. “I know you don’t like that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, nobody likes being in the woods after dark. It’s…creepy.”
“Yeah.” Rose looked embarrassed. “I’m not a big fan of the dark. I know it’s dumb, but it’s just how I am.”
She was so young. Mary Ellen felt herself being drawn in by her youthfulness, by the beauty and mystery of it, by the hazy memories it provoked and the ugliness it outshone. She’d made so many mistakes. Was she being offered something now? A chance to do better?
“Come on,” she said, starting to reach for a strand of hair hanging in Rose’s face, then stopping herself. “I know a place with lots of lights. And food. Do you like chicken?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you’re in luck. Let’s go.”
13
Mary Ellen started the dinner routine as soon as they got back, pouring herself a glass of booze and spreading a bunch of groceries out on the counter, getting out all of her bowls and pans, arranging them just so. The whole time she had a kind of pinched look on her face, a look that reminded Ivy of people back home. The look that meant someone was hurting and not talking about it.
“Need some help?” Ivy asked.
“Do you like to cook?”
“I don’t really know how. I should probably learn sometime, huh.”
The lady seemed to like that—she liked anything that gave her a chance to talk about stuff she knew. She showed Ivy how to cook the chicken in a pan, using the brown bits stuck on the bottom to make a sauce. She taught her how to cook mushrooms with garlic and butter, which smelled like Christmas. And she explained how to make salad dressing, which Ivy had never heard of before. She thought everyone just got it out of a bottle.
Ivy was playing up her interest, but the cooking lesson actually turned out to be kind of useful. She
