The boys in our family have a tradition: when you turn thirteen, Dad will take you in the truck up to Larch Mountain. He will let you shoot his gun, split a beer with him, and then you will bring a deer home.
We lived in the suburbs. Dad worked at some tech company doing a job I had no idea about, and Mom was a teacher at a school Caleb and I didn't go to. Despite the cookie-cutter starter home just outside the main city, my parents thought it was important that their kids get acquainted with American culture, that is, how to use a gun, to get comfortable with blood, and to be God-fearing men and women.
With three older brothers, I was familiar with the process, but I assumed I would be involved in it to the same extent as well. Caleb was the one closest in age to me. When he turned thirteen, he could hardly contain his excitement. In the few days leading up to it, Caleb would lie on the worn-out railroad rug in the center of our shared room and sight through an imaginary rifle. When Caleb wasn’t spouting a series of onomatopoeias and armspan-wide hand gestures, he would chatter about everything he’d do on the hunt. I would join him on the rug, kicking up hair and dust as we made gun sounds at each other, and speculate with him how large the deer he’d bring back would be.
He waved at me from the passenger seat on the morning of his birthday. Three days later, he came back with rust-brown dried on the front of his rain jacket and streaked up the sleeves, teeth bared in a grin, his eyes wide and bright.
I shoved the screen door open and stepped out in my socks. Caleb went to the back to help Dad unload the truck.
“Go back inside, Abigail,” Dad said sternly. All I could see was a blue tarp covering most of the bed of the truck, oddly lumpy.
I ventured further out into the driveway. I met the solid resistance of my dad’s front.
“I mean it,” he said. “Don’t you disobey me now.”
“I wanna see,” I said. It sounded petulant, childish. The tarp fluttered in a papery-sounding racket in the light wind.
“Go back inside,” Dad said, his voice heavy and hard. It was turning acidic at the end of his words. “This is the last time I’m telling you.”
I swallowed and it didn’t feel right going down. The pavement was slightly damp and my feet were getting wet through my socks. I watched from the living room window as Dad and Caleb struggled under the weight of the tarp, moving it just out of view. I went to my room and listened to the one CD I had that wasn’t worship music, angrily scribbling in my notebook. An hour or two later, the door squeaked and Caleb’s light footsteps sounded down the hallway, and the shower went on in the bathroom.
I jumped onto the couch and sprawled over it belly-down, chin resting on the back ledge. The sun had come out and the garden hose, flowing with water, vibrated through the wall. Dad stood in the driveway in his rubber boots, hosing the pavement down. Streams of red flowed down the driveway, draining into the street.
Back in our room, lying on the top bunk and staring down at him, I asked Caleb what it was like. He was oddly quiet as he toweled his hair.
“What was your favorite part?” I tried.
He shrugged, and opened the closet. “I dunno.”
“Did Dad let you have a whole beer? He let Robby have a whole beer when he went.”
Caleb pulled out a plastic bin of sheets and dumped it out on the floor.
I sat up, crouched a little to avoid the ceiling, kicking my legs where they dangled off the bed. We’d been in anticipation for the hunt forever, years, even. It was the highlight of his life and he was going to tell me everything about it.
Caleb grabbed one of the Lego sets on our dresser that an uncle years ago got for us. It was a train engine and we’d built it together. He put it in the bin.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re getting the room to yourself, Abi,” he said. “I’m gonna be sharing with Robby and Mike now.”
No one had told me about this. I swung off the top bunk and landed in the center of the rug, and reached for the Lego set. I managed to get a hand over part of it just as he attempted to move it away. Lego bricks shattered around the room. I shrieked.
“You’re such a baby,” Caleb said, “you broke it.”
“I did not. And I’m not—”
Caleb left the room.
—
That night, at dinner, I was sullen, and Mom could tell. I went to bed in a room that felt oddly empty, a different world, with the bunk bed swapped out for a metal-frame twin.
The door creaked open while I lay on my side, the pillow hot and damp under my cheek.
“You okay, sweet pea?” The bed creaked and settled as she sat down on it, and put a hand on my head.
“Not sick,” I muttered.
“You don’t have a fever,” she said. She didn’t say anything else, but she didn’t leave either.
“It’s not fair,” I said, and sniffled. It was loud and it betrayed me. I curled into myself tighter.
“You don’t want to go hunting, Abigail, you wouldn’t like it.”
“You don’t know that,” I shot back, a little worried at how angry I sounded. I could feel Mom tense up at the outburst. “Maybe I would like it,” I whispered.
“You’ll understand when you’re a grown up girl.”
I didn’t say anything. She kissed my cheek and gently brushed a thumb over my wet temple.