Dear Crossing
My wife came home upset one night in the fall of 1989.
“What’s wrong, dear?” I asked her.
It seems it was the beginning of hunting season and she’d seen a slain deer on top of someone’s car for the first time. I have to admit it startled me, too, the first time I saw one, but I had the sense to keep my tender feelings to myself. We’d both grown up in New Orleans, where the wildlife is strictly human, and our move to the Wisconsin countryside that spring had introduced us to many new things.
A few weeks later, I came home one night visibly shaken.
“What’s wrong, dear?” Evann asked me.
I told her I’d seen a murdered tree on top of someone’s car.
“A Christmas tree?” she asked.
“Uh huh.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Uh huh.”
I’m lucky I didn’t wind up on top of her car.
