The Mighty Red

by Louise Erdrich

She loved Hugo with that superb kind of love a mother has for a male child, a love that is deeper and more pure for knowing that he’ll more than likely turn out a fool.

Just like it seems there is no end to us, in our billions. But everything on earth can be eliminated under the right conditions.

Practically everything she and the Geists did, and even her mother’s job, was destroying what she had just witnessed, the joinery of creation.

‘Suicide always leaves someone else holding your pain,’ said Ichor. ‘There’s no reasoning out what happened, Gary, why the ice was rotten right there. You’ll never get an answer.’