Close Work

The kitchen light was the only one on in the house, and Cole was already under it when Russ came down. Six birds on the counter, out of the plastic now, pale and sweating in the trays. Their mother had made this every year for the church supper and God knew how much of it for other people’s funerals, and someone at the visitation — one of the Kellner women, an aunt by marriage — had said of course they’d want her chicken tomorrow, everyone would expect it. As if expecting were a kindness. So here they were at two in the morning, because it had to be cold and portioned by the time people started coming, and neither of them had been sleeping anyway. “You could’ve woke me,” Russ said. “You were up.” Cole didn’t look over. He had a boning knife going along a thigh, the blade laid almost flat, riding the bone, and the meat was coming off in one piece, clean, the way their mother did it. Russ had watched her do it a hundred times and had never once been able to make it happen. He took the…