Agnes watched her mother stand over Glen, peering hard at his back, at the worn deerskin that covered it, the pelt worn through in places because no one had ever given him a new skin to wear nor a raw skin to fashion into something. He wasn’t a good hunter, and whenever he did catch something, he never kept anything good like the hide for himself. Agnes thought of the many pants he’d made her from the skins of deer he hunted. Everyone gave her little garments or scraps to make clothes from. They all did that for the children. So she had barely noticed that Glen did so with his meager amounts, even as it meant he went without.

“You should have done more,” Bea accused, choking on the words, part anger, part despair. She put her foot against that worn skin and shoved his limp body.

“Please don’t kick me anymore.” He curled tighter, his head hiding in his hands as though he expected a beating. “You may have noticed I’m not doing well.”

Bea pushed him with her foot again.

Agnes hauled her little leg back and kicked her mother’s leg.

“Hey,” both Glen and Bea cried.

Glen snapped, surprisingly harsh, “Don’t kick your mother.”

Agnes’s tears sprouted. “But she’s kicking you.”

“She’s allowed to kick me. But you’re not allowed to kick her. Do you hear me?”

Agnes did not remember Glen ever raising his voice at her. Her mind spun. She felt hot and short of breath. She squeezed her eyes shut. Count to ten, she thought. Then it will all make sense. She counted to ten, opened her eyes.

Glen’s hand was on Agnes’s foot, his somber smile, his welling eyes looking at her. “Hey, I love you.” Agnes knew her eyes were wet now, but she didn’t feel the tears.

Bea whimpered and shrugged off her coat, made just before these last snows had ended, warm, fluffy, still smelling of smoke and the animal, and laid it over him.

“Thank you,” he said, pulling the arm of the coat closer and feeding the edge into his mouth. He bit down and groaned. It was a dark, violent noise.

After, he looked at Agnes. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, his voice a bit muffled by the coat. “Maybe you should be in school?”

Bea felt his forehead. “Are you delirious?”

“I’m serious.”

“You rhymed,” said Agnes, and smiled her best crooked smile at him.

Glen coughed, shivered. Hugged the coat again.

Agnes’s throat tightened, and she felt ashamed for saying something so lighthearted. Her heart sank like a boulder.

But then Glen said, “Ha-ha-ha,” in this new shrugging voice, almost droll, and they all, incredibly, laughed. Her mother and Glen laughed uproariously, till more tears came out of their eyes.

The laughter trailed off, and Agnes watched Glen’s smile slowly remove itself from his face. She watched every twitch as it disappeared because it would be the last one she saw. She felt him leaving. She looked at her mother. Did she feel it too?

“Shhh,” Bea said, even though no one was making any noise. As if to discourage any more talking, or maybe she was trying to soothe them. Still cupping Glen’s cheek, she said, “Agnes, I think it’s time for you to go back now.”

“Why?” Her voice was shrill, out of control.

“Because.”

“Are you going back?”

“No, I’m going to stay here a bit longer.”

“I don’t want to leave.” Agnes dropped to her knees next to Glen. He was still smiling at her, sad, in agony, but steady. She balled her hands in her lap.

“Agnes,” her mother said, “I want you to go back and let everyone know we’re here. I want you to stay there until I return. Tell them not to leave. Tell Carl not to leave.”

“No. Please.”

“Agnes, go back to the camp.”

Glen touched her foot. “It’s okay,” he said. “We can say goodbye now.”

Agnes couldn’t move. She knew she would never see Glen again, and that was bad enough. But she didn’t trust she would see her mother again either.

“Agnes,” her mother said again, firmly.

Agnes put her fingers to her mouth and chewed their tips.

Glen gently took her fingers out of her mouth and squeezed her hand. “She’ll come back, I promise.”

Her mother’s face went bloodless while Agnes blushed, exposed and raw. Known.

What would they do without Glen to translate?

Agnes leaned to kiss Glen on the forehead.

“My darling daughter,” he said. His lips were dry and his smile disappeared into his skin, but his eyes were wet and beaming up at her. “I couldn’t be prouder of you,” he said.

Her mother put her hand on Agnes’s shoulder and drew her back to her feet, turned her around, and with an outstretched arm firmly directed her toward camp.

Agnes walked away slowly. Then she stopped.

“Agnes,” her mother warned.

She started walking again, stopping every few steps to wait until her mother ordered her forward again. When she stopped receiving orders, perhaps because she was obscured from view, or simply because they were done with her, she stopped and just listened.

Their voices were soft, unintelligible except for a few words here and there. Please. Never. Soon. It was just like when she was a small girl in her small bedroom in her small pink bed, listening to them be the adults in the kitchen, making a meal they didn’t share with her, a much more special meal than she had been given. The clink of glasses and the thunk of a wine bottle. Some music playing lightly, their laughter happy, or their voices concerned if they were talking about something important. Piecing it all together without seeing it, just staring into the darkness of her room, the City outside dark after curfew. She always felt safe.

Now it wasn’t so much what they were saying. In fact, like then, she couldn’t decipher the content. It was more the feeling, what lay in the bottom tones of their voices. A kind of comfort, ease. It was the same tone as back then. It was familiar. How people felt about one another was always in the voice. In the way they talked to one another when they thought they were alone.

Agnes returned to camp and, without waiting for dark, slid into the bed of skins she had shared with her parents at one time in the past. Jake arrived and slipped under the covers. He tried to hold her, but she pushed him away. This was her family’s bed. He tried to crawl back in, as though he knew what Agnes needed better than she did, and so she kicked him. He yelped in surprise and scooted away. Agnes shivered half awake until the sun set and rose again. In the morning, Jake brought her food she didn’t eat. She watched the ants overtake the bowl and thought of all the food Glen had passed along to her. Food he hadn’t eaten himself, that had led him to get weak and die. And how she had happily accepted that food, thoughtlessly, because she was the child and that is just what people did for children. She thought she could carry more weight during their treks and that was all she had needed to do to help him, to protect him. There were so many more things he had needed.

The next day, just as they were lining up for dinner, her mother walked out of the darkness and back into camp. She was wearing her coat again. A streak of Glen’s blood was painted across its left arm.

She did not walk up to Agnes first. Instead she went to Carl. He put his hand on her shoulder and she shrugged it off. They exchanged some words, serious at first, angry even, in low voices. Then less so. Then just quiet. And then they laughed. Bea tossed her head back as she laughed, as though she was carefree. Agnes saw furious stars.

After dinner, Bea finally approached Agnes by the fire. She put her arms around her and kissed her forehead.

“Glen loved you so much,” she said.

Agnes stood rigid and still as though her mother were a predator and she were prey. She wanted to run away. She wanted to fling her arms around her mother’s neck and sob. She didn’t move a muscle.

Bea squeezed her harder. “Agnes, it’s okay if you want to cry.”

Agnes mumbled, “Okay.”

Her mother took her by the shoulders and peered at her face, but Agnes averted her eyes. Looked at the brown bugs crawling from the wood, trying to escape the fire that was probably ravaging their home. Seeing her mother laughing with Carl. Seeing her mother running for that truck. Remembering holding Glen’s hand on all the walks they had to do without her mother.

Her mother said, “I’ll move my bedding and we’ll share again. I think that would be nice. Would you like that?”

“No,” said Agnes. “I’m fine by myself.”

“Are you sure?” her mother said.

She sounded disappointed, so Agnes’s heart leapt, then plummeted. “Yes,” Agnes said.

“Okay,” her mother said, and tried to hug her again.

“Is he dead?” Agnes asked, her eyes still peering hard at the ground. Of course he was. But she wanted her mother to say it.

“Yes, he is.”

“Did you have to kill him, or did he die on his own?” Agnes’s mouth was taut, bitter; her stomach churned. Her voice was steady.

Her mother’s knees wobbled at Agnes’s question. She looked like she might stumble into the fire. “Agnes,” she gasped. But then she choked out, “He died.”

“Did you do the ritual? Did you stay for the buzzards? And the coyotes?” She wanted to barrage her like a gale would. She wanted to be relentless.