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2011-03-31 - 11:54 p.m.

At the Cresaptown house, we had a garden as big as a basketball court. Jake was thirteen. I was eight, and Ryan was seven. In the fall, we tossed a baseball until our palms throbbed and in the winter, we rode sleds down the big hill, past the crabapple tree and through the yard, but in the spring, Dad planted. We watched as tomato seedlings came up like little maples, as the cucumbers and zucchini spread, as the banana peppers finally came in as tiny and hard as Christmas lights.

But before all that, it was the lettuce that came up first. Dad put it in along the edges. I watched it. We all watched it. The lettuce was the first green we�d seen in months, since the snows, and it came up like little explosions, like translucent, green hair. For weeks, we watched the leaves widening, thickening, the green deepening.

At first, the rabbits nibbled just the white-green strawberries, but they were still too bitter. The lettuce was next. We shouted at them from the garage, waved our arms at them from the big picture window, threw baseballs and clumps of brown that I thought were dirt but which turned out to be petrified dog turds. Every time, the rabbits shot off like erratic, brown rockets, darting this way and that, and it felt good to see them run. But there were many of them, and the rabbits were skinny, and the green of the lettuce was very green. In the mornings, before school, I�d check on the garden. Some leaves were nibbled, some were chewed down to the tough stalks, some were gone altogether.

�Might have to make a trip to the A&P after all,� Mom said.

We watched the rabbits from the breakfast table, us eating our cereal, the rabbits eating our lettuce. One morning, dressed for work, Dad finished his coffee, went downstairs, and came back up with his bow and a single arrow. We followed him onto the porch. A rabbit, a young one we�d seen many times, nibbled at the lettuce, chewed, nibbled and chewed. We grew quiet but we were smiling. We were holding our breaths. Dad drew on the bow, held it like that for five, six seconds, and let fly. The arrow flew straight but fell, harmlessly, in among the tomatoes. The rabbit froze, darted toward the Orndorfs� back yard, and was gone.

�Bastard,� Dad said.

For a week, every morning, he shot off a single arrow.

�Bastard,� Dad said, every time.

The sun was high and strong on the seventh day, the kind of April day that finally fills the trees with blossoms, that fills your bones with warm liquid. Dad got home from work and found us in the living room, watching cartoons. He was still wearing his corduroys and striped button-down, but he held the bow in one hand and an arrow in the other. We shot up from the couch and followed him to the porch. The sun was low in the sky, the warm afternoon light turning the garden green-golden-brown. A skinny rabbit sat just on the edge of the garden, chewing. Dad drew back, said, �Hold it, you bastard,� and let go.

That night, there was no lettuce for a salad. But we had Caporale�s white bread with butter and some rice, which I liked. And we had rabbit, which was chewy, and of which there was just enough.

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