The Taxidermist's Daughter

The hat had belonged to her father—pearl gray,felt,with a band of velvet the color of dried blood.Miriam had worn it to the gallery opening despite the June heat,some absurd need to carry a piece of him into the room where the fox would be displayed.

The creature was magnificent even in death—a red fox caught mid-stride,glass eyes too intelligent for taxidermy,its mouth slightly open as if about to speak.Miriam had spent three months preparing it for the wealthy collector who'd commissioned the restoration,sewing hidden tears,mixing paints to match the russet of living fur.Her father had taught her the craft:before his death,they'd worked side by side in the shop that smelled of formaldehyde and cedar.

"You've got his gift,"the collector said now,approaching where she stood alone by the pedestal.He was perhaps fifty,silver-haired,with teeth too white to be entirely trustworthy."The fox looks as if it might walk away any moment."

"Taxidermy is about preserving the moment of death,"she said,echoing her father's words."Not pretending it didn't happen."

His smile faltered.He looked then at the hat on her head,as if truly seeing her for the first time."May I?"He reached toward it,and she didn't pull away.

Later,in his hotel room,she understood the pyramid he'd built:collection upon collection,each acquisition more rare than the last,all of it beautiful and dead.The fox watched from its perch across the room as she let him remove the hat,as she let him believe he was the first to see her clearly.

In the morning,she took the fox back.The paperwork was already falsified—a different collector's name,a higher price.The old man wouldn't fight it;men like him rarely did when faced with the possibility of scandal.

She wore her father's hat home.Outside the train window,a living fox darted across a field,rust and wildfire,alive and gone so quickly she might have imagined it.Some moments,you preserved.Some moments,you simply let die.

Either way,you kept moving forward.