The sky is an iron gray interspersed with wispy clouds. The field has been harvested, the wheat long gone, but the small golden stalks left behind poked out of the ground still, making an uneven walking surface. A girl stands close to the edge of the field toward a forest that extends back 40 acres into her grandparents’ property.
For it being fall, and maybe only 10 degrees above freezing, she is only wearing coveralls and a thick sweater with a thermal shirt underneath. She looks down at her boots, only to be reminded of the shotgun in her hand. She was supposed to be flushing out pheasants from the brush, but it was distracting to be out with the gun she never asked for, hunting with a father who only wanted a son that he could mold into a person he deemed acceptable. To realize that she was not what her father particularly wanted at the age of 11 was not conducive to focusing on the task at hand.
She made her way toward a small copse of poplar trees, stomping slowly and making large, sweeping gestures to see if any birds were about. None came, and she looked up to see her father across the field doing the same thing she was, but in a pile of tall, dead grass. It broke her heart to know that this would be the last time out pheasant hunting; the reason she wasn’t with her dad was because she had asked one too many questions, made too much noise. Just like when she went anywhere with him. She was a talker and he was not in the habit of listening.
When they got back home that afternoon, kicked off their boots, undressed from their hunting apparel, she locked her shotgun away in the gun safe. She knew she would never look at it again, she was glad she would never see that horrible reminder of her father’s resentment, but even still, it was hard to keep in a sigh when she turned the dial lock. She was losing common ground with her dad daily and she had no idea what it meant, but she was sure it wasn’t something good.