The Wilding by Benjamin Percy Page B

always dry and rubbery by the time he is done with it. Long ago she stopped asking for his help, and now she stands on the back patio, tending the three-burner, stainless steel Ducane grill with the steaks sputtering and hissing inside and the smoke rising off it to mingle with the smoke rising from their chimney. The evening is cool and Justin threw into the fireplace some split pine from the tall pile of firewood his father cut and dropped off earlier in the week.
    She uses a dry rub of garlic salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and cinnamon, a little sweet to balance out the spice. She tosses the steaks—big porterhouse cuts from a grass-fed Angus they had slaughtered to fill the freezer in their garage—on the grill for ten seconds, then flips them, sealing in the juice. She snaps off the flame for the central burner and closes the lid and the grill becomes a kind of convection oven. Waves of heat come off it, but she doesn’t step away, even as her skin goes tight and she feels as if she is going to split, as if her inside is bigger than her outside.
    When the steaks are done—she can tell just by pushing the tongs against them, the give of the meat—she drops them onto a plate and carries them inside, where at the kitchen table her husband is grading papers and her son is reading the latest issue of National Geographic.
    “Heads up, mouths open,” she says and sets down the steaming plate next to the wooden salad bowl full of spinach and romaine lettuce, the homemade multigrain bread wrapped in a cloth. Everything is organic. Beef hormones cause cancer and cause girls to have their periods at nine. Pesticides on lettuce cause cancer and autism. The preservatives in bread cause cancer. The preservatives in croutons cause cancer. The preservatives in mayonnaise-based dressing cause cancer and the transfat in it causes coronary heart disease. She subscribes to e-newsletters like the Daily Green and subscribes to RSS feeds from Safemama.com. She shops mainly at the Bend co-op. She belongs to a community-supported farm. She believes she is taking care of her family—she is keeping them from harm. For this, she receives no thanks. Her husband whines about the money she spends on food and her son whines about wanting a McDonald’s burger, a Mountain Dew.
    Now the two of them glance up at her. Without saying a word, they fill their plates and begin to eat. Justin neatly arranges his meal into three even sections. “I don’t like my food to trespass on other food,” he once said—her husband, who now holds a pen in one hand and a fork in the other, at once munching his salad and scribbling some marginal comment in green ink on a student’s essay. The table is quiet except for the sound of their chewing, their silverware clinking and sawing. In the fireplace a pitch pocket pops, and for a moment they all look there, where orange flames lick their tongues across the half-blackened wood, before returning their attention to their plates.
    When Karen cuts her steak, the center is as purple as a plum, just the way she likes it. A well-done steak is a steak charred through with carcinogens. Blood pools on her plate and she soaks it up with her bread. Before bringing it to her mouth, she says, “Doesn’t anybody want to talk? About something?”
    Justin slows his chewing, swallows, licks his lips. “What do you want to talk about?” Spinach clings to his teeth.
    “Surprise me.”
    Justin’s eyes go to the window, where shadows gather in the failing light. “I can’t think of a single thing to talk about.” He returns his attention to his salad. “Sorry.”
    Graham sets down his fork and wipes his face with his napkin. “Dave Jasper got busted at school.” Karen and Justin look at him and under their gaze he stutters out, “You know Dave. From soccer. From fifth grade—”
    “For what?” Justin says.
    “For killing coons.” His eyes dart between them. “His brother goes out in his truck, down dirt roads,