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passed by. A tractor-trailer shook their car with its backdraft. The kitten in Lizzy’s lap woke and stretched. Yawned. Lizzy saw the skeleton of the kitten’s pink mouth.
    At the edge of the lake now, waiting for their father to wake, Everett was skipping rocks. William had two of the kittens, one in each hand. Mrs. Byrd was lying on her jacket, looking up at the sky. She was wearing sunglasses to fend off her headaches. A green skirt down to her knees. Lizzy had legs like her mother, long and tanned.
    Then their father appeared. He stood high above them at the top of the road. He was rubbing his neck and he carried a large gunnysack. He descended towards his family, his feet sliding on the shale. Fish squealed with delight as a small rock bounced down and landed beside him in the lake. “Boom,” he cried.
    “Careful, Lewis,” Mrs. Byrd called. “You’re going to kill your children.”
    Lewis came down towards his wife and laid out the sack on the rock and sat. He took her hand, and talked. Lizzy, from where she sat, couldn’t hear his words but she knew they were discussing the fate of the kittens. He talked and talked. Her mother sat up at one point and spoke, her long face turning towards Lizzy, and then away, quickly, as if what she had disagreed with should not be witnessed. Mrs. Byrd shook her head. Lewis took her hand and pressed it to his mouth. He kissed each finger. Then he stood and told his children to go up to the car. It was time.
    “Give the kittens over to your mother,” he said. “She’ll hold them.”
    William, at first, refused. He held the kittens to his cheeks and climbed towards the car. Lewis caught him and gently took Shadrach and Meshach. Patted him on the bum and sent him upwards. Lizzy descended towards her mother and handed her Bagger. Mrs. Byrd looked at her and said, “Your skirt is too short.”
    “What are you doing?” Lizzy asked.
    “Take up your brother,” Mrs. Byrd said.
    Lizzy went down to the lake and scooped up Fish, who placed a wet hand in the warm hollow of her neck. She talked to him as she climbed. She said that the lake had a monster and sometimes the monster came up to eat little boys and it was almost lunchtime and it wouldn’t be a good thing to offer Fish to the monster.
    “Does it eat fish really?” Fish asked.
    “Not little fish, just big ones, but if little fish are waiting at the shore, it sometimes eats them as a snack.” She had him on her back, and the way she was bent, facing the earth, stooped over, she imagined that she appeared as a figure both ancient and weighted down. William went up last, following Everett. Lizzy deposited Fish in the car and told Everett to watch him. She descended the hill and stood beside her mother. Her dad said, “Take the kittens, Lizzy. Your mother will go up to be with the children.”
    Lizzy held the kittens and watched her mother wind her way up the rocks towards the highway. Her father could ask anything of her and she would do it. “Please,” she said.
    Lewis stepped down towards the lake and bent to pick up a large rock. “Don’t make a fuss,” he said. “It won’t help.” He put the rock into the sack. “Here,” he said, and he held the sack open. She went to him and lowered the kittens into the gunnysack. The kittens clawed at her wrists and hands, and Bagger, believing this was a game, tried to climb up the inside of the sack. There was much mewling. Her father had a thin rope. He put the bag down and looped the rope around the top of the bag and tied it tight. He didn’t speak. Then he took the bagand threw it out over the lake and when it hit the surface it floated briefly, and then it filled with water, and it sank.
    Half an hour down the road, Everett cried out, “Where are they? Where are the fucking kittens?”
    “Your mouth,” Lewis said. Both of his hands were on the wheel. His eyes sought out the black strip of road.
    And then Fish’s voice joined in. “Where are they? Where went