It’s the squirrel I preserve seeing behind my closed lids as we start to kiss, start to go beneath into that realm of I don’t care, not now, not whereas her palms are on me. The squirrel. And the squirrel’s eyes, black, shiny, rimmed in white. Its small white chest, its fluent tail. It’s making an attempt to run, however toppling, falling, rolling. One paw crushed—or severed—within the lure I set for the rat. You ought to kill it, Janet stated. Every marriage has its division of labor. But I wasn’t positive it couldn’t get well. You’ve seen three-legged canines that trot alongside fortunately. Is it higher to undergo a sluggish loss of life or a fast violent one? I known as our son. I may hear he was drained, simply residence from the farm and the newborn clingy. Break its neck with a pointy shovel, he stated. We’d slaughtered and skinned rabbits collectively. But I didn’t belief my pace on a frantic goal. This isn’t the one creature struggling tonight, I informed Janet. Russia bombed a hospital right now and within the Times a bloodied pregnant girl lay on a stretcher within the subfreezing air. Then, two paragraphs in, Neiman Marcus pops up promoting a handbag for $2,690. It is available in black and olive. Reviews say the olive is attractive. And my very own daughter’s physique is attacking itself. She’s shedding her imaginative and prescient. Humans are good at denial. There are nonetheless locations that don’t title a child till its first birthday. But tonight the squirrel is the soloist within the orchestra of struggling. Xanax, I say to Janet. If I crush some in peanut butter the squirrel will both die or decelerate sufficient that I can threat the shovel. I am going out looking out with a flashlight, however no squirrel. It’s doable it has risen up out of loss of life’s socket like that logger in rural Pennsylvania whose leg bought trapped beneath a tree. He lower it off on the knee with a pocketknife, crawled to his bulldozer, drove the bulldozer to his pickup and the pickup to the home of a farmer. I’ve a lot to stay for, he stated. We resolve to return to kissing. I board up my thoughts, pound within the nails. My eyes shut. My blood hammers.