Julia knelt beside me. “I’ll take care of it,” she told me. She brought the hen into the barn, then brought its lifeless body to my mother so that she could pluck its feathers. “You’re the housekeeper,” I heard her say. “This is your duty to perform. If we’re to have a chicken dinner, you wring its neck.” I quickly came to prefer Julia to my mother. I think she knew this, because whenever I came to her kitchen door to bring Billy Goat back from a day at the shore, she would give me a slice of pie. “If you have any difficulties,” she advised, “just come to me.” From then on, I was her
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