Free The Hunger Moon by Suzanne Matson

adjustment for her; she was accustomed to the role thatservants played in a house: they were to be treated fairly and kindly, and as long as they were competent and honest, they were entitled to every consideration an employer might extend to make the working conditions pleasant. This included inquiring in a general way after their welfare and that of their families, but, in Eleanor’s mind, stopped short of forming a genuine friendship.
    This was the very relationship Eleanor intended to create with her new helper, June. The girl certainly was eager to be useful to her, and had impressed Eleanor with her willingness to work. But the fact was that at this time in her life, Eleanor found it difficult to have a stranger coming and going in her house, although it did turn out to be a relief to have help—even light amounts of shopping and housework had been wearing her out lately. Eleanor would rather have avoided a lot of small talk with June, and simply wished to hand her lists of things to do, but June tended to chatter on. All the talking unnerved Eleanor in the beginning, accustomed as she was to the silence of living alone. But as June’s visits passed, she began to grow used to it, letting it flow over her like music.
    June’s voice was musical; it had the lilt and optimism of youth as she told Eleanor about a new piece of choreography she was learning, the grade she had received on her statistics exam, or the bugs that she waged war against in her studio apartment. Little by little, and unasked by Eleanor, she began revealing things about her background: her parents’ divorce and father’s remarriage, how she wished she had not been an only child, and that she wished she had the courage to quit school and be a dancer in New York. Eleanor surprised herself by beginning to look forward to these visits, to be kept current in the life of June. She was not prepared, however, for June’s curiosity about her own life, the questions about the boxes in the spare room, the need to know the names of all the characters whose photos were on her refrigerator, the wish to hear about what Eleanor had done over the weekend.
    She was certainly not prepared when June asked for her assistanceon a school project for some class fantastically called Dying and Grief.
    “I just can’t seem to begin the paper,” June said. “It’s about mourning. Do you think you could tell me some things about how you felt when your husband died? I mean, not really personal things, but did you go through some stages of grief? There are supposed to be four stages, you know—or maybe it’s five—at least that’s what the books say.”
    Eleanor was so taken aback by the question that she could only murmur something noncommittal and change the subject. She was sure June felt embarrassed, and she regretted that. But what in the devil did the girl expect her to tell her? June didn’t bring it up again and Eleanor had no idea if she had begun writing her paper. Lately though, when Eleanor was sitting in her armchair having her morning coffee, watching the birds at her feeders, her thoughts kept turning to Robert, and their marriage, and his death. The feeder was now attracting several kinds of birds, and Eleanor kept meaning to get a book from the library to identify them. June had brought over a bag of mixed seed that her mother in Worcester concocted. “My mother makes the mix every year for Christmas presents,” June announced. “She didn’t mind me taking some early to give you when I told her you weren’t having any luck with your feeders.” Eleanor had been startled by the girl’s observation, and even more by the fact that she had been right: it wasn’t just a poor year for birds, as Eleanor had assumed; it was that the birds didn’t want what she had been offering. They came now for June’s seed.
    Some sort of brown bird was now perched on the rim of the feeder; another, which might have been its mate, was grooming itself on the deck