Acts of Love Read Online Free

through your neck. He stood up. “Once you get the hang of it, it won’t seem so strange. Well, kids, let’s hit the trail. Go get your daypacks.”
    He waited until they were absorbed with the stuffing, reorganizing, and zipping of the small nylon packs he had bought them for the weekend, their heads bent in concentration, granting him a brief cache of privacy, and he carefully slid a flat silver flask from his own pack, took a long swallow of whiskey, and stashed it as the heat rolled down his throat and into his gut.
    Julia, looking up, saw her father, his eyes closed, the flask at his mouth, and knew that this was, if not trouble, surely another sign of betrayal, and she inscribed it onto the tablet where she kept such careful score.
    â€œReady?” Ted called out happily.
    â€œReady,” Ali answered.
    The three of them set off on the narrow trail that encircled the mountain, rising gradually about its craggy girth, Ali close behind Ted, Julia a few feet back, as the sun continued to step up into the sky, softening the last shards of cold.
    â€œI’ll tell you what happened the very first time I went hunting,” Ted said, loudly enough for Julia to hear. “Would you like that?”
    â€œI don’t care,” Julia muttered. Nevertheless, because Ted rarely alluded to his own childhood, she leaned into it, into him, panning for evidence.
    â€œWell,” Ted went on, ignoring Julia’s sarcasm, as he had been attempting to ignore it all year, believing that it would eventually have to run its course, “it was on a mountain in Pennsylvania not unlike this one. And on that very first weekend, I tracked a bear.”
    â€œA real bear?” Ali asked, always his best, his easiest audience.
    â€œThere are no bears up here,” Julia countered. “Or in Pennsylvania, either. Why do you listen to him, Ali? You know he always lies.”
    â€œI’m not lying. I got up real early that morning, just as the sun was beginning to rise, and I wandered off by myself. Just me and this very Winchester. About a mile from our campsite, I saw these huge paw prints in the dirt. Big as your rear end, Ali.”
    â€œWhat did you do?” she asked.
    Ted felt Julia stepping up behind him, drawing closer despite herself.
    â€œThe very same thing you’d do. I followed them. Thought we’d have some bear meat for dinner.”
    â€œPeople don’t eat bears,” Julia stated firmly, lagging back a little, pleased that she had found Ted out once more.
    â€œYou’ve never heard of bear burgers? A little ketchup, there’s nothing like them. Anyway, I kept following the tracks, my hand on the trigger, until I came to a clearing, and do you know what I found? A whole goddamned bear family, having Sunday brunch.”
    â€œWhat were they eating?”
    â€œWell, Ali, they had red-and-white-checked napkins tucked under their chins, and they were eating little campers, just like you. Dunking them headfirst into a vat of honey and chomping merrily away.” Ted laughed, an acidy, victorious laugh that echoed down the path.
    â€œDad,” Ali moaned.
    â€œI told you, he always lies,” Julia reminded her sternly.
    â€œThat’s not lying, that’s telling tall tales. If you’re going to hunt, you’re going to have to tell tales. Now the next person is supposed to top that. Julia?”
    â€œWhoever said I wanted to hunt, anyway?”
    â€œSsshhh,” Ali warned. “Look.”
    Five feet away, a doe was poking its head out from behind a thick tree trunk, its chocolate eyes wide, cautious, curious, its large pointed ears quivering slightly so that they could see the short white hairs rippling within.
    â€œAre we going to shoot it?” Ali asked.
    â€œNo, Ali, look. It’s a doe. It’s against the law to shoot does.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause then there’d be no deer next year.”
    They stood still