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backdrop of trees. “Once the passenger pigeon was the most numerous bird in the world. When a flock of them flew past the sun, the sky darkened as if from an eclipse.” My mother paused and looked around the room. I wondered if she was going to tell about the great hunt that killed twenty thousand of them in one day. I was very little when she first told me about this, and afterwards I crawled under the back porch and hid there until it got dark. Just before the end of the story, when she got to the part about the birds burning in the trees, my father grabbed her wrist and said, “Can’t you see you’re scaring her, Anna?” but she told me the rest anyway.
    But this time my mother trailed off in the middle of the story. She turned off the display light and went into the back room. When she returned, she was carrying a tray of feathers. She pointed out the different markings on them and explained how quills were made of keratin, just like fingernails. Then she passed them around for everyone to see. Some of the kids put feathers in their hair and tomahawked each other. Mrs. Carr sighed and shooed them away. Afterwards, she called for everyone to line up for the bus. I was allowed to stay behind since school got out at noon that day.
    When everyone else was gone, my mother took out a handkerchief and wiped the case clean. On the wall beside the pigeons was a plaque that marked the date they’d gone extinct. Sept. 1, 1914. The last one’s name was Martha, it said, and she died of old age in the Cincinnati Zoo.

We went to the woods to pick out our Christmas tree. My father didn’t believe in Christmas, but still we celebrated it. It was like not believing in God but still you prayed. My mother said it was a shame to cut down a tree, so instead we chose one in the forest and tied a ribbon around it so we could find it again.
    On Christmas morning, we got dressed in our warmest clothes and went to see our tree. My father pulled a sled behind him with all our presents on it and we had a picnic breakfast in the snow. Pine needles fell on the coffee cake my mother had made. We opened our presents all at once because it was too cold to take turns. My mother gave my father a telescope, an old map of Africa, and a woodworking set. My father gave her a bathrobe, an electric toothbrush, and a collapsible iron. My mother folded and unfolded the iron; then she ran it across the snow. “How marvelous,” she said. “What do you suppose its purpose is?”
    I got the most presents of all, too many to count. The best one was a detective kit with fingerprinting powder and a potion that detected bloodstains. Also a magnifying glass and a roll of police-scene tape.
    That night, I searched our house for evidence of a crime. I fingerprinted my parents and looked for bloodstains on the rug. In the living room, I found a dark spot that looked suspicious, but when I ran the test it came out negative. Check in your father’s study, my mother said.
    On New Year’s Eve, Edgar came over to baby-sit. As soon as he arrived, I fingerprinted him. “Perhaps I should seek legal counsel,” he muttered. Then he went into the bathroom and washed his hands. Later my mother came downstairs wearing her mermaid dress and twirled around for him. “How do I look?” she asked. “As lovely as ever, Mrs. Davitt,” he said. The tips of his ears turned bright pink. He excused himself and went into the kitchen to get a glass of milk.
    My mother sat down on the couch and put on her shoes. New Year’s Eve was my parents’ wedding anniversary and they were going to a restaurant in the next town. “Nine years, Grace,” my mother said. “That’s a nothing sort of number, don’t you think?” But when my father came down in his new suit she went to him and got down on bended knee. He laughed and held a hand to her cheek. “Marry me, Anna,” he said, and she agreed.
    Edgar didn’t come out of the kitchen until after they’d left. Then he sat in my