I end up taking a man because this is what is expected of me. Levi is fine. He’s the butcher’s son, which my sisters find very impressive, though, for me, he is just a man who always has to wash the blood off his hands. I take this man who was raised to look at an animal in pieces. And, sure, we get our fair share of good meat, but what is life to a man who sees the world this way—as a living thing waiting to be disassembled, one that can be separated by nothing but a blade? Levi is sweet to me, and I do my best to be acceptable. I do my wifely duties; I make his bed and his children. I hum as
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