Then she said, “Grackles.” Pause. Breath. “Up.” I watched her. She was looking right through me, but the force of effort from those two words was obvious. “Grackles go up,” I said. Her body seemed to loosen, unwind. “Up,” she said. “Yes.” “The loons…” I drifted off, thought about it, and then said, “Well, the loons descend. The loons dive down, don’t they?” “Down,” she said. “Up and down.” I studied her. Thought about the random, disassociated speech—what I had perceived as random and disassociated, at least. Wakefield and the Red Sox and the good day. Birds and sun. Traps under the porch.
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