“Did you eat rabbits and birds?” she asked, as if giving me the chance to answer yes. Rabbits and birds, things a human can eat even in normal circumstances. She hadn’t even said insects or lizards, or other basically repulsive creatures. It would have been easy to reassure her, to tell her yes, and leave the truth of the matter for later. But I felt that the intensity of our reunion would not permit those delays, and so I answered her: “No, Mom, there are no rabbits or birds at that altitude. We ate the dead.”
