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Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang


by Kate Wilhelm




PART ONE


Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang


Chapter 1


What David always hated most about the Sumner family dinners was the way everyone talked
about him as if he were not there.
тАЬHas he been eating enough meat lately? He looks peaked.тАЭ
тАЬYou spoil him, Carrie. If he wonтАЩt eat his dinner, donтАЩt let him go out and play. You were
like that, you know.тАЭ
тАЬWhen I was his age, I was husky enough to cut down a tree with a hatchet. He couldnтАЩt cut
his way out of a fog.тАЭ
David would imagine himself invisible, floating unseen over their heads as they discussed
him. Someone would ask if he had a girl friend yet, and they would tsk-tsk whether the answer was
yes or no. From his vantage point he would aim a ray gun at Uncle Clarence, whom he especially
disliked, because he was fat, bald, and very rich. Uncle Clarence dipped his biscuits in his
gravy, or in syrup, or more often in a mixture of sorghum and butter that he stirred together on
his plate until it looked like baby shit.
тАЬIs he still planning to be a biologist? He should go to med school and join Walt in his
practice.тАЭ
He would point his ray gun at Uncle Clarence and cut a neat plug out of his stomach and
carefully ease it out, and Uncle Clarence would ooze from the opening and flow all over them.
тАЬDavid.тАЭ He started with alarm, then relaxed again. тАЬDavid, why donтАЩt you go out and see
what the other kids are up to?тАЭ His fatherтАЩs quiet voice, saying actually, ThatтАЩs enough of that.
And they would turn their collective mind to one of the other offspring.
As David grew older, he learned the complex relationships that he merely accepted as a
child. Uncles, aunts, cousins, second cousins, third cousins. And the honorary membersтАФthe
brothers and sisters and parents of those who had married into the family. There were the Sumners
and Wistons and OтАЩGradys and Heinemans and the Meyers and Capeks and Rizzos, all part of the same
river that flowed through the fertile valley.
He remembered the holidays especially. The old Sumner house was rambling with many bedrooms
upstairs and an attic that was wall-to-wall mattresses, pallets for the children, with an enormous
fan in the west window. Someone was forever checking to make certain that they hadnтАЩt all
suffocated in the attic. The older children were supposed to keep an eye on the younger ones, but
what they did in fact was to frighten them night after night with ghost stories. Eventually the