I had given birth two weeks before and my mother was still staying with us in our house and in that emotional space that exists after you birth a brand new person for the first time. Irina, our precious progeny, has having difficulty breastfeeding and most nights we were up together, dozing but connected, both tired and thirsty. On a clear, hot July Tuesday, B pulled into our driveway. My mother and I walked out to greet him, well them, I guess. He pulled two cages out of our 1997 Green Toyota Camry and inside were two roosters flapping about furiously.

“What are you planning on doing with those?” she suspiciously inquired. I held my breath as I waited for his answer. 

“We’re going to eat them!” he beamed.

Then we laughed a collective, nervous laugh. There were so many questions: How? Why? When? Must we? Really?

They had come from the nice little woman we buy our eggs from weekly. These roosters were getting rowdy and she didn’t want them. I suppose upon hearing B’s thick, Eastern-European accent she figured that he would have the particular knowledge to handle the situation for her; she was right.

After a quick trip to our local Wal-Mart he set up his “rooster-killing station”. I had my reservations. What if the neighbors see us? Can’t we just keep them as pets?

Troubled, that night I tried to put it out of my mind. I rocked Irina in my arms as she suckled on my breast. I was relived to see her facial muscles relax, her eyelashes rested on her pink, round cheeks and her milky breath steamed on my chest. Blissfully, deeply and hard, we both slept.             Sometime around 4 am I jumped out of my sleep and the pair of them crowed loudly, “Cocka doodle do!” again and again in an ear-pinching cry. I tried to understand what was going on.

“Where are they?” I fought to make out the syllables in my startled and confused state.

“In the basement,” B replied.

“Kill them. Now.”