A/N: The next chapter will be a bit longer, I swear. Thank you for reading (this is from Amy's POV from now on, by the way)

The earliest memory I have is of the time I saw my grandfather kill a living thing. And I don't mean he uprooted a plant or hit a squirrel on the road, but he shot a bear with the intent to kill.

My paternal grandparents lived on a farm in Idaho, about as far removed from what I considered civilization as possible. Regardless, I always had a good time when my family made the annual April trip up to see grandma and grandpa. Part of my happiness at being there may have been the pure relief I felt at finally being able to get out of the station wagon, where I'd been crammed between three suitcases and two of my brothers all the way from Utah County. My older siblings, Moriah and Cody, got to have the middle seat to themselves, while Peter, Dennis and I were shoved in the back with the luggage that didn't fit into the trunk. The older we got, the more uncomfortable this ride became, and by the time I was seven years old, I was already tired of the drive.

In my defense, my entertainment options riding up to Idaho were none too enticing: I could listen to Moriah ask Cody obsessive questions about boys and their behavior and why they were annoying; I could watch Peter read his science books; I could play with Dennis and his toy dinosaurs (which got tiresome after a while); or I could try to listen in on my parents' conversations in the front seat, which usually consisted of things I didn't understand like politics or deep religious doctrine. I could've brought a book, but reading in a car gets me carsick. I might've sung along to the radio, but dad always played church music or mom turned to a classical station. So by the time we reached grandma's and grandpa's, I could finally roam free, run around, play with the animals, or go exploring. My parents agreed that so long as none of us went anywhere alone, we could do anything we wanted.

At least once during these visits to the farm, grandpa and I would take a ride out on his truck, just the two of us. He'd tell me stories about his own childhood, and funny things that had happened to him. On this particular truck trip, he told me about the day he'd been baptized—I think my dad had probably asked him to talk to me on this subject, because the date of my own baptism was only a bit more than half a year away (in our church, you get baptized not at birth but when you turn eight years old, because that is supposed to be the age of accountability).

"We just went right into town, and my daddy baptized me in a river!" grandpa chuckled. I loved his laugh: it was vibrant and alive and came from deep within him, making the listener forget that he was an 80-year-old man who was hard of hearing. Dad said that grandpa was so wrinkled because he laughed a lot. I liked grandpa's wrinkles, but I remember worrying that someday I might end up as wrinkly as him if I laughed too much. He was always clean-shaven and his bright blue eyes (that I'd inherited) seemed to sparkle under the dark eyebrows that so heavily contrasted with his white hair. Though I never told it to my mother, I think I cared more for grandpa than I did for her father, who we called Pops, because Pops always had scratchy scruff on his face that made it uncomfortable to kiss him goodnight on the cheek, and he didn't tell jokes or talk to me like an adult the way grandpa did.

I sat next to grandpa on the truck, listening to him talk about how it felt to come out of the water all clean and with no more sin. "And then, about an hour afterwards, I tripped my brother down some steps because he'd taken the last cob of corn, so I guess I didn't really stay sinless for long!" He let out another round of laughter, but it died off when he noticed that I was still frowning. "Aw, what's the matter, little Sar-bear?" he asked. "Sar" was to rhyme with Bear, being short for my first name, Sarah. No one calls me Sarah, I go by my middle name Amy. Grandpa was the only person I allowed to give me a pet name.

"I don't want to get baptized, grandpa."

"What! Sure you do, why wouldn't you?" He could afford to take his eyes off the "road" and look at me while he spoke, because there was really nothing in front of us until we reached the forest, which was a bit of a ways away.

This was a concern I hadn't voiced to anyone else, but I knew grandpa would never make fun of me. So I told him: "Sister Bergen in church said that if little kids die before they're baptized, they go straight to heaven." Already I was embarrassed by what I'd said, and the wind outside my open window picked up a bit as I hurried the last part in: "So—so wouldn't it just be easier to die now, and not have to grow up and w-worry about sinning or doing things wrong or getting hurt?"

Grandpa took so long to answer me that at first I thought maybe he hadn't heard what I'd said. He was looking straight out in front of us at the far-off trees, but clearly he was in concentration. I was about to repeat what I'd said, but then decided against it, because maybe if he hadn't heard me, that was just as well. He'd probably think I was crazy or stupid for thinking something like that.

"Now you listen here, Sarah Amy," he said very steadily and kindly. It was like a more serious version of his storybook voice. When we were all settling down to bed, grandpa liked to read or tell us a story, and I recognized it now but also recognized a certain weight to it. I'd never really realized how low his voice was before, as if it too were weighed down with memories from his past. "Sometimes, yes, it'd be much easier to just lie down and die right now. Especially, you might think, at your age! You don't have to worry about doing right or wrong, because God says you're saved on the basis of your youth alone. But if you want to die before you get baptized just so you can go straight to heaven, you're missing the point."

"What point?"

"God's point, the point of life, of your existence. You—all of us—have been placed on this earth for the sole purpose of being tested and going through happy times and sad times."

"But I've already done that," I protested.

Returning a bit to his usual self, grandpa let out a loud laugh. "You've had sad times! Okay, Sar-bear, what sad times have you had?"

I didn't like that it sounded as if he were making fun of me. "Last year, Moriah blew out the candles on my birthday cake, and she shouldn't have done that. And then last month, Dennis took the arms off of all my dolls!"

Grandpa's frown returned, but it looked as if he were trying really hard not to laugh. "You're right, those are two mighty sad things," he said. "But just you remember, my little Sar-bear, if you go and leave us right now, you're going to miss all that the Lord wants you to experience. Someday you'll grow up and go to school, and get a job and meet new people, get married, have kids, all that. There will be hard times in your life and hard things that may make you think God's turned His back on you, but just you remember that He does everything for a reason. Okay?" But still I was not convinced, and so grandpa stopped the truck and said, "Sar-bear, you know what the best thing about growing up is?"

"What?" I asked breathlessly, hoping for perhaps some great secret key to life and eternal happiness.

He caught my chin between his thumb and index finger, leaning closer to me and saying, "You get cute little grandkids to spoil like crazy."

"I love you, grandpa," I said, hugging him around his lean middle. He put his arm around me and leaned his cheek down on my head. I didn't like things being so serious though, so I quickly untangled myself from his arms and leapt out of the truck, offering to race him to the edge of the trees.

"Amy, stop!" he shouted after me when I'd gone only a small ways.

Giggling, I turned back to look at him and automatically stopped in my tracks. He was holding the rifle that I'd barely noticed had been sitting between us during the whole drive. The rifle was always there, grandpa said, just in case he ever needed to use it, but he never had in my entire life. In fact the only time I'd known him to use it was once last year, when my older brother Cody swore grandpa had gotten it out to scare away a bear. I turned and looked at where grandpa's gaze was directed, and my breath escaped me. It was a little bear cub, wandering around by the edge of the trees.

Oh, but it was harmless, and so cute! I'd never seen something so cuddly looking in my life. So I took a step closer to the cub, but grandpa shouted again, this time louder, for me to come back to the truck. He had never used such a harsh tone, and though I'd finally caught the bear's eye and hated to have to back away, I slowly and wistfully started returning to the truck.

"Grandpa, it's just a baby bear!" I said. "It won't hurt me!"

"If the cub's here, the mother's near by, and she'll hurt you," grandpa explained, taking two steps towards me and grabbing me by the arm. Then he swore softly under his breath, his eyes narrowed, and I looked once again towards the forest. Just as grandpa had expected, a much larger bear had just appeared by the cub, and she didn't look too happy. Suddenly I was shivering; I'd never felt such a quick onset of fear. It felt as if she was staring right at me, right into my soul, asking me why I'd bothered her cub.

I'm sorry, I thought, as if she could read my mind. I didn't want to hurt your baby, I swear. I just wanted to pet him. I was jarred back to my senses when I heard a click behind me, and I turned to see grandpa raising the rifle. "Grandpa, no!" I shouted. Even though this animal was scaring me to pieces, I didn't want her to have to be shot just because I'd been so stupid to get near her cub.

"Don't worry," grandpa said, lifting the rifle higher so it pointed into the air. I calmed down for the moment. "I'm just going to shoot a couple of bullets to scare her away, I won't hurt her." He fired the rifle, and I almost fell to the ground—it was so much louder than I had expected, cracking through the wind and whistling out of sight, until I imagined it had pierced a cloud.

But the bear didn't budge. Grandpa fired a second bullet, and this time, the bear started lumbering towards us. "Get in the truck, Amy," grandpa said, pulling me back with him. His hands were shaking as he fired one more time into the air, but still the bear approached us, her speed increasing slightly and purposefully.

"No, grandpa, please—!" I cried, tears actually starting to come out of my eyes.

If I could have stopped him, I sincerely think I would have. But I was too late, and grandpa had lowered the gun and shot the creature, I don't even know where. Maybe her head or maybe her heart, but I had instinctively screwed my eyes shut at the sound of the rocket blast. I felt powerless to open them again, knowing only that the bear's growls and the sound of her impending footfalls had ceased immediately with the gunshot. I was trembling more than I ever had in my entire life, and was deaf to whatever grandpa was mumbling to me as he had to lift me into the truck and he started driving away. He told me that on no account was I to turn around and look back, but naturally, that's exactly what I did. I really should have listened to him.

I saw the body of the giant bear slumped on the ground, and even as the truck jostled and bumped on the unsmoothed road, I could tell she was completely lifeless. The bear cub stood near her head, pawing its mother's ear and making an odd sort of whinnying noise. It was by far the saddest sound I had ever heard, and my heart nearly stopped from guilt as I watched the cub walk around to different parts of its mother, continuing to pat her as if she was just asleep. This was when my crying became not only audible, but so dramatic that it actually startled my near-deaf grandfather into driving us towards a ditch.

"Amy, I'm sorry, but I had to do it," he said gruffly, taking the weathered brown hat off his head and trying to put it on mine.

I snatched the hat and threw it as hard as I could on the floor of the truck. "You lied to me!" I sobbed, feeling as if I might throw up soon. "You promised me you weren't going to hurt it, and you killed it!"

He merely repeated that he'd had to do it.

"Why?" I cried, miserably trying to wipe away my tears. "You said God had a reason for doing everything—how come He had to make that bear come out, and how come He had to make guns so people like you could shoot them?! How come?!"

In retrospect, grandpa had clearly been very stung by the way I'd said "people like you," as if he were this big heartless hunter who went around killing things for no reason. We didn't talk for the rest of the fifteen minutes that it took to get home. I was still crying and too upset to say anything to him, and I think grandpa sensed it would be useless to try and get me on his side any time soon. I turned all the way away from grandpa so that my back was to him, my arms folded bitterly as I gave up trying to stem the tear flow. The moment we had reached the farm again and grandpa eased the truck to a stop, I vaulted myself out of it and ran to the house.

Breathless, I opened the door to see mom and dad and grandma preparing dinner. "Oh, you two are just in time!" grandma said, pulling some milk out of the refrigerator. "We were just about to…" She had now closed the fridge door and saw the despair etched in every line of my face as I ran to my mother and held onto her so tightly, I might have snapped her in half.

"Amy, honey, what's the matter?" mom asked, gently attempting to pry my arms off her waist. She was clearly startled by the volume of my crying, as up to this point, it was very rare to ever see me shed a tear. "What happened?"

"It was a bear," I heard grandpa say. My face was still buried in the dirty apron that my mother was wearing, and it hurt to open my eyes, but I could hear grandpa's heavy footsteps approaching me. I turned myself and my mother away from him.

Mother got down on her knees, effectively forcing me to break what I had thought had been my vice grip. Usually her touch was enough to calm me down immediately, but this time, it took a bit longer. She wiped a flour-encrusted hand on her apron before putting her thumb to work, trying to clear away the tears on one side of my face while her other hand had my arm in a firm grip, trying to reduce my trembling. Finally my blurred vision cleared a bit, enough so that I could see the sincere concern on mother's face.

Even now, I still think my mother was the prettiest person I've ever seen. She had the sort of girls-next-door look that feels a bit dated to the 1950s, but meant that she grew up into a very elegant lady. Her sleek auburn hair (inherited only by my oldest and youngest brother) never looked matronly, and the warmth she had in her heart for every person she encountered manifested itself in her countenance. I was proud to be related to her, and I always remember thinking as a girl that I wanted to grow up to be just like her. That thought may have first planted itself in my mind on this night on the farm, when mom seemed to be the only adult who cared what had happened.

"A bear?" she said, her voice dripping with solicitous sympathy. "Oh, honey, you must've been so scared! But you're all right now, everything's all right."

"N-no it's not!" I sobbed, my tears starting anew.

I could now see grandpa out of the corner of my eye, and he was sitting very erect at the kitchen table, which was set beautifully for dinner. "I had to shoot it, Eleanor," he said to mom. "It got too close to her."

Mom stared at grandpa for a long time, and her hold on me began to lessen. I hugged her around the neck, feeling gratified when she put her arms around me again and patted me on the back. "Sean, did you have—"

"I had to."

Mom's sigh was so heavy that I could feel it, even as she pulled away slightly to look me in the face. "I'm really sorry you had to see that, Amy," she whispered. "That must have been so awful."

"There was a baby, too," I sputtered.

"I didn't shoot the cub," grandpa said uneasily.

"No, you just shot its mom!" I cried.

I hadn't noticed until that moment that my brother Peter was in the room. Peter always bugged me. He had a mean, pointed little face and always acted as if he was far older and wiser than me, which was annoying because we were only two years apart. At the sound of his voice, I turned, embarrassed, to the kitchen table, where Peter was sitting opposite grandpa with his nose in a book. "Don't be stupid, Amy," he said.

"Peter, how many times have I told you not to use that word?" mother said.

With a fake apologetic smile, Peter lowered his book and said, "Okay, don't be silly. That bear would've killed you without caring at all, it wouldn't care if you had a family that'd be sad or not. Bears are dangerous animals; you should be glad that grandpa knew how to get rid of it." Then he laughed, and I felt my sadness ebbing away to be replaced by anger at his attitude. "If you want to feel sorry for something, feel sorry for all the chickens and cows we kill so we can eat them! They all probably had kids, too, but you and I don't care. We kill 'em and we eat 'em, and I've never seen you cry over dinner before."

His words hit me like a sledgehammer; I actually stumbled a bit, feeling off balance. Much as I hated admitting it, even to myself, Peter was right. How stupid of me not to think that the chicken we so often ate came from actual chickens who'd lost their lives just because we liked the way they tasted! Or hamburgers from cows, or fish from creatures that once swam carefree in the water. Mother scolded Peter and told him to apologize to me, but I ran out of the kitchen before he could say anything (which I doubt he would have, anyway).

I ran to the room I shared with Moriah, where she was playing a card game of War with Cody, our older brother. Seeing my tear-stricken face, Moriah only rolled her eyes and left the room—she'd never had much patience for me. Fortunately, Cody was kind enough to sit and stay and listen to me explain what had just happened. Cody had always been a good listener, and was the most like our mother out of all us kids. But more than just being a good sounding board, Cody was best at giving me advice and easing my troubled mind. No doubt most of the time he thought I worried about trifles, but in this instance, he took me a bit more seriously. I ended by telling him what Peter had said to me, and Cody spent a long time looking me over before responding.

"Don't let Peter get to you," he said. "He's just a little weasel, trying to make trouble. And don't worry about the bear cub, bears are tough. He'll be okay."

"But grandpa shot his mom, all because I got too close to it…"

Cody's voice was a little stronger as he said, "You can't blame yourself for it, Amy. It's not your fault."

This was one time, though, that he couldn't relieve me entirely of my guilt. For years I thought of how that bear family would never have been broken up if I'd listened to my grandfather and backed away earlier. What Peter had taunted me about also struck such a deep and frightened cord in me that I didn't eat meat again until I was twenty-one years old. Though it seems cruel and stupid in retrospect, I had a really hard time forgiving my grandpa when I was seven. I was angry at him for what he'd done, and upset that my dad, grandpa's son, wasn't the slightest bit on my side. He told me I needed to grow up and not get so emotional over a stupid animal. By the end of the trip, I was still mad at grandpa and had even given him a couple of days of the silent treatment.

That was my loss. To my older siblings' great distress, three years after that summer, my family picked up and moved from Utah County to Providence, Rhode Island (at least, Moriah grudgingly admitted, it seemed a little less middle-of-nowhere than Utah). But since we were now separated from my dad's family by nearly the entire country, there were no more road trips up to grandma and grandpa's farm. Since they didn't like to travel and it cost a lot of money for all of us to fly out there, I only got to see grandpa three more times before he passed away. The last time I saw him was when I was fourteen years old, the month before he died in his sleep.

We took one last turn out in his old truck. Though I didn't verbally acknowledge it, I noticed that he had conveniently left his rifle at home. Now I worried, what if something were to happen, and grandpa didn't have his gun? It'd be my fault that he left it behind and we got into trouble. But nothing happened. It was fine. We just talked, and we didn't talk. We talked about how my school was going, we didn't talk about how he'd shot that bear that one time. We didn't talk about how I had forgiven him and he knew that I was sorry for having been mad at him for so long. We talked a bit about how Moriah had a boyfriend now. We didn't talk about the recurring nightmare I'd had since I was seven, where I saw a faceless stranger shoot my mother, who had only been trying to protect me…

Dad was hit hard when grandpa died. I guess that was to be expected. I was sad, too, but a part of my heart felt incredibly empty. I didn't know what the emptiness was, I only know that I could feel it. Was it a hole where my grandfather should have been all this time? Was it a reminder that I'd been wrong to be upset with him for shooting that bear? Was it just sadness that he was gone now, and I'd never hear him laugh or see him smile or drive in a truck with him again? His was the first death that really hit my family hard, and we reacted to it in different ways: dad started spending more time at work; mom fussed over us individually with greater attention than before; Cody wore one of grandpa's ties to church every Sunday; Moriah became a little more respectful of our parents; Peter started trying to fix an old radio grandpa had built as a teenager; and Dennis named every toy he got after grandpa.

I guess I responded to it with a dash of denial. Thinking about grandpa's death made the emptiness in my heart grow larger if I lingered on it for too long, so I lost myself in schoolwork. This was probably just as well, because school was killing me. Mom and dad (mostly dad) were worried that growing up in the east coast might lead us to hanging out with bad influences, so we all attended Catholic School. I attended one called Our Lady of Sorrows, and the Sisters there never cut us a break. Often times, my mother had to ask me to help Moriah with her studies, because my ever popular older sister was often more focused on her social life than school.

Don't get the wrong impression, though—I wasn't a total egghead, and I did have a very good group of friends. However, I was definitely not as sure of myself around boys as Moriah was, which she often said was a huge shame because I was so pretty. Being far too shy to believe her, I turned down her frequent offers to set me up with younger brothers of guys she knew—besides, mom and dad asked that we didn't start to date until we were sixteen years old. This seemed reasonable to me.

When I did get kissed for the first time, I couldn't bring myself to tell Moriah. The reason for that, I guess, is that I'd been kissed by someone she knew; someone I considered my best friend, and a classmate of mine. The thing was, though, that Moriah and I went to an all-girls' school.

A/N: reviews are love