Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

I made my brother cry today. He swore at me when I tried to walk with him to the tree. I was going to scare the deer away, he said, because I wasn’t in camo, and because my shoes were too heavy and they would crunch the leaves too loudly and scare away the deer. He hadn’t been hunting a ten-point-buck for 3 weeks just for me to ruin it now, he said.

It made me angry.

I’m not sure why, because he was right; I wasn’t in camo, and I was wearing heavy shoes that would crunch the leaves, and he had been hunting the buck for quite a while now.

But I was mad, nonetheless. I knew how happy Dad would be if Christian was the one to get the buck. Even if I came out to hunt twice as often as Christian, I’d never be as good of a shot in his eyes.  

So I yelled.

The effect was immediate.

His face contorted with the implications of his brother’s actions, terrified that my shout had driven away any deer within a mile radius. His dream of shooting the monster buck was shattered in an instant. It would break your heart to see his face like that: tentatively angry with me a minute before and in tears the next.

I watched him walk with bow in hand to the treeline. He looked back once, his face red and small, swathed in camo.

I glanced to the side for a moment, and when I looked back he had already melded with the browns and dull greens of the woods, invisible.

I just wanted to tell you what happened. It’s stupid, but I can’t talk to Christian about it right now. He’s still in the tree, and Dad is next door with Gretchen. Besides, you always knew how to handle these kinds of things the best.

Love,

Nick