Her oldest child
Amanda Schmidt She spends the rest of her life trying to think of ways to keep them safe. She could turn them into a hummingbird and put them in her pocket. But would a pocket be too small? Would they suffocate? Would the friction from the wingbeats be too much, would they catch fire, would they burn themself up and then her coat and then her? So she’d keep them on a leash, maybe, just the thinnest thread, knotted loose around their throat—their throat would be blue, she thinks, sapphire blue—and held close but not too close, because they would need space to fly. But what if the string were too thin? Would it get tangled in the branches, would it snag, would they choke in their effort to fly away? Would their neck snap against a string that was too strong? She’s heard that the bones of birds are fragile. Hummingbirds especially, probably. So she does what she can. She gathers all the sharp things up and puts them in a cardboard box labeled “Scissors and Knives”— although it is also pinking shears and razors and one unusually large sewing needle—and puts it in a locked room in the garage. The room holds lighters, too, and a three-quarters-full bottle of gin. She thinks about putting all of the medication in the house in the locked room, too, but eventually decides no, that would be too much. To travel into a damp locked room every morning? For every headache, every cough, every period cramp? But then, isn’t