Читать книгу Quick Kills - Lynn Lurie - Страница 16

Father was a hunter. He turned into our driveway after having been away all weekend. Strapped to the roof of his gold-colored Buick were two dead deer. A trail of blood had hardened on the back windshield. I stared at the carcasses because at first I didn’t know what they were. At the same time Helen realized it, so did I. She screamed so loudly Mother rushed outside wearing her apron with the pine trees, her hands covered in ground meat. Daddy, Helen cried in the direction of the house, killed Bambi and her little sister.

He didn’t mount the heads or preserve the skins but he did gut them on our drive, the same drive where we rode our bicycles and played hopscotch after drawing the outline of the board with chalk. And even though he washed the pavement when he was finished, I was sure little pieces of bone or skin had caught in the rutted surfaces or settled in a shallow corner. I avoided all the corners, sure there was something remaining, a tuft of fur, a tooth. He scrubbed the car windows clean, the metal door handles, too.

Mother froze the deer meat in plastic but never made us eat it. She didn’t touch it either, except to fry it in the pan. Father was the only one.