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  “What are you trying to make, a robot?” Marian had meant it as a joke, but seeing the look on Briella’s face, she sobered. “Is that it?”

  “It wasn’t going to be a robot,” Briella said disdainfully.

  Not for the first time, Marian was reminded of how little she could relate to her own daughter. So instead, she fell back on something she did understand. She put her hands on her hips and gave Briella a stern look.

  “Did you do the rest of your homework before you started on your project?”

  Briella sighed and kicked a small foot against the leg of the rickety desk so that the entire setup shook. “Yeah. It was all stupid. The teacher is stupid, too.”

  “I’ve told you about calling people stupid. And I thought you liked Mrs. Jackson,” Marian said, feeling like she was losing this battle before it had even begun.

  Again, she was reminded of Tommy and how single-mindedly obnoxious he could be. But Briella was still a kid, Marian’s kid as a matter of fact, and there was still plenty of time to make sure Briella didn’t end up like her father as an adult. Marian tried again.

  “Tell you what. Why don’t you bring your snack into the kitchen with me while I cook dinner, and you can tell me about your bird project. Then, when you’re finished, you can get back to it. Sometimes, taking a break on something that’s frustrating you can help you get a fresh perspective.”

  Dean would be up in about an hour, hungry for what would be his breakfast. Marian had a package of chicken thighs thawing in the sink. She was going to use up the last of the boxed potato flakes and do an oven bake. She wouldn’t be able to get to the store until next week, after payday.… With her mind stuck on dinner and the chores and a thousand other things, she didn’t notice at first that the kid hadn’t budged.

  “Briella. Let’s go.”

  At first it looked as though Briella was going to protest, but then she nodded and hopped off the chair. Marian took the plate with its smears of peanut butter all around the rim – how had she managed to make such a mess in so short a time? Both of them went into the kitchen. Marian set the plate on the table.

  “Briella,” she said again, this time to turn the girl’s attention from the window next to the back door, overlooking the yard.

  Her daughter turned with a gap-toothed grin. “He’s out there, Mama. I saw him on the way home from school today, but now he’s in the backyard!”

  “Who?” For a second, Marian’s heart froze with visions of a white van and a man offering ice cream to little girls.

  “The raven from near my school. His wife raven got killed. She was dead by the garbage cans. I gave him a treat from my backpack, and he followed me home,” Briella said in that tone she’d taken on lately. As though Marian was dumber than a dog’s foot.

  If that was in fact how Briella talked to the other kids at school, no wonder they didn’t like her anymore, Marian thought, then immediately felt guilty. Childhood was hard enough without even your mother not being on your side. She looked out the window, tweaking aside the faded yellow curtains that had belonged to her mom’s Scandinavian grandmother. Her fingers skated on the soft material, tugging at the hem. The backyard, little more than patchy grass and a fire pit ringed with battered metal lawn chairs, edged up to the pine forest and the mountain beyond. She didn’t see any birds, much less a raven.

  Briella didn’t seem to notice that the bird, if one had been there at all, was gone. She turned, beaming, to the table and slid into her seat. “I’m going to name him Onyx.”

  Chapter Two

  This was that sweet, brief stretch of the morning between the time Briella left for school and Dean arrived home from work that was all Marian’s. She’d never been an early riser by nature, but that had all changed after having her daughter. Briella hadn’t slept through the night until she was almost three, and even now would get up on her own around five thirty in the morning, no matter what time she’d gone to bed. And that could be late. With Dean leaving for work by ten p.m., sometimes a little earlier if he had to stop along the way, Marian had fallen into the habit of letting her daughter stay up long past what most parents would consider a proper bedtime, rather than fighting with her to stay in bed when she clearly wasn’t ready to sleep.

  This particular morning had dawned with the fresh, sweet hint of autumn in the coolness. Sure, in September it could still be eighty degrees by the afternoon, and Marian would be sweating and cursing the fact they didn’t have central air, but for now she could sit on the back stoop with the single cigarette she allowed herself every morning, her mug of coffee, and nothing else but the silence.

  She drank, wincing at the bitterness of the black coffee. She’d run out of creamer a couple days ago and thought it might be a good time to wean herself off it. Flavored creamers were full of junk and chemicals, and they cost a fortune. It was hard to justify that indulgence when she was also trying to save for a laptop.

  Briella’s comments about being poor still stung. Maybe it was time Marian talked to Dean about going back to work. Briella was in school all day. Dean was usually still asleep when she got off the bus, but at ten, wasn’t she old enough to manage herself until Marian got home?

  Marian had quit her job at the dentist’s office when she and Dean got married. Briella had been two, and it made sense to stay home rather than keep paying for daycare. They’d talked about having another baby, so staying home made even more sense, but two more losses had ended those conversations.

  Dean had said he wanted to take care of them both. He always had and still did. Marian had no complaints about that. The past couple of years had been leaner than they both liked, but their bills were always paid, and they never went hungry. Still, Marian could surely pick up some hours here or there, no more than part-time. It would ease the pinch, give them some money toward a new computer and other things Briella was going to need. College. It would be here before they knew it.

  A job would also get her out of the house. Dean used a white noise machine and a floor fan to block out sounds so that he could sleep, but even so, she still tiptoed around while he was sleeping to make sure she didn’t wake him. There were days, stuck in the silence all day, when Marian thought she was going to lose her mind.

  Marian drew deep on the smoke, letting it sear the back of her throat. Her eyes stung. Moments later, the head rush tickled the spot between her eyes. She’d been a heavy smoker before Briella but had quit the minute she found out she was pregnant. She hadn’t taken it up again until a couple years ago, and now restricted herself to that single cigarette per day so she could keep her tolerance low and still get the buzz. She’d promised herself the first time it took more than one to get her there—

  “Holy shit,” Marian yelped as a black shape dive-bombed past her and flew toward the wild tangle of tall green pokeweed and the deer feeder on the edge of the woods.

  Her hair, which had been pulled into a messy topknot, now had several curls tickling her cheek from the force of the bird nearly clipping her ear. Marian pushed it away from her face and stood, shading her eyes to watch the black-winged shape strut around the edges of the wooden trough. It squawked loudly as though it were scolding her, then dove into the pokeweed to strip the purple berries off the stems and gobble them down.

  Marian put a hand to her heart, which was thumpa-thumping, and stubbed out her cigarette in the glass ashtray she kept on the back porch railing. There wasn’t any food in the feeder. Dean would fill it later in the fall to bring the deer in so he could make noises like he planned to shoot them for venison, not that he ever did. The bird flapped. It looked like it had the wingspan of a turkey buzzard, but that was impossible, wasn’t it? Ravens didn’t get that big. Did they? Marian tried to remember some of the facts Briella had been spouting about birds, but couldn’t think of any.

  “Hey, babe.”

  Marian shrieked, twisting and grabbing the wrought iron