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and doing the same with cracked corn for the water fowl.   The air was crisp and clear, but snow was predicted before midnight. I carried a five-pound sack of corn under one arm, and Emma did the same. At twenty-eight years of age, she shared my concern for critters, both wild and tame, as did her slightly older brother Joey.
    Emma was a real estate paralegal. She and her lawyer boss had their offices on the second floor of the Law Barn on Old Main Street in Wethersfield’s historic district, where Mack Realty occupied the lower level. In warmer weather Em and I did a brisk lap around the Broad Street Green for our morning exercise, but during the winter we changed our route to incorporate a couple of food drops for the birds and water fowl that didn’t fly south.
    “How are Droopy and Fray?” she asked me now, referring to two geese I was keeping a special eye on. Droopy had broken a wing at some point, and it hung slackly at his side. Fray’s right wing was all but shredded, probably by some predator. Their injuries had healed, but neither of them could fly, so when the rest of the summer flock took off for warmer climes, the two had to make do with each other and the ever-present ducks for company.
    “They seem okay so far,” I told Emma. “The ducks don’t seem to pick on them like the other geese do sometimes, and as long as the brook doesn’t freeze over, they should be able to find some food. This will help, though.” I hoisted my cracked corn.
    We nipped down a short lane to the Spring Street Pond, now solidly frozen, and took the few extra steps across the road to where the brook still flowed freely into the marsh beyond. “Quack quack,” Emma called in her best mallard imitation, and what looked like mounds of feathers piled along the brook’s banks morphed sleepily into heads and necks and eyes and wings. Recognizing the providers of a decent meal, they gabbled among themselves for a few seconds before gliding toward us.
    Quickly, we slit open our sacks with the box cutter I kept in my pocket for these occasions and poured two long rows of corn on the bank so the hungry fowl wouldn’t have to compete for the few bites each would get.
    “Oh, yuck,” Emma said in disgust, pointing to a pile of Cheerios and crumbled crackers someone had dumped on the bank in a misguided attempt to provide food. “Why do people insist on making them sick with that stuff?”
    “They don’t know any better, Em . Luckily, the ducks seem to have better sense, as long as they have healthier options available.” I peered into the marsh. “Do you see Droopy and Fray?”
    “Not from here. Let’s go back toward Spring Street and see if we can spot them.” She headed back the way we had come. I put the plastic sack in my pocket for the recycling bin and followed her, pulling on my gloves. We stood for a moment, wrapping our scarves more warmly around our ears and scanning the length of the brook as it meandered between tufts of marsh grasses.
    “There!” I pointed excitedly to two goosey profiles at the edge of the brook about a hundred yards into the marsh.
    “We can’t feed them unless they come to us, and I don’t get the feeling they’re going to do that,” Emma fretted.
    “They’ll be all right, Dearie . Remember, they’re Canada geese. This is relatively mild weather for them, and as long as the water stays open, they can find food.”
    “What if it freezes?”
    “Then they have us.”
    We stood quietly, watching the ducks feed and the geese enjoy the morning sun, before starting back to the car.
    “What’s on for tonight? Big plans for New Year’s Eve?” I asked Emma.
    “ Mmmm , yeah, big doings. I’m driving up to Ware to spend the evening playing peek-a-boo with my niece,” she laughed. “Justine and Joey invited me to spend the night there. Wild enough for you?”
    I was glad enough not to have to worry about Emma driving home from Ware, Massachusetts, with the holiday drunks, but I