Excommunication

When my girls beheaded our chickens, the warm blood melted holes in the snow so that we could see the dead fall grass. I hadn’t anticipated the mess or the girls’ reactions. Chrissy swore off meat. Nina carried feathers around like they were toys. I promised I would no longer compare them to the Amish children. No more splitting wood. We’d turn the heating on. We’d buy our meat from stores—the sliced, sandwich-shaped kind. I’d get them each a Barbie and toss out the chubby knock-offs I found at Goodwill.

I thought they’d forget the way the dead chickens had kept running, my hands too slick with black blood to grip them, and the way the other animals had been drawn to the spot of execution. The sheep dogs sniffed the snow and then hid from us in the barn. The goats lay down in the middle of the ring, their tongues hanging from their mouths.