“She yanked my plate away and took it to the sink. She rinsed some bones that looked like pork shoulder, which was weird since we'd had chicken tonight.”

“My mother had been slicing up the chicken. She took a drumstick and dropped it on the floor. She kicked it around a little, picked it up and put it on the edge of the plate."There," she said, "we'll give him this drumstick.""Deal.”

“There was still chicken on the bone but sometimes you just have to push the plate away.”

“Across from her, Hunter devoured her meal even more completely than she had. Sinclair watched her sink sharp teeth into the chicken bone, heard it snap, then the soft grunt of satisfaction. She made soft sucking sounds then emptied her mouth of the tiny ground up remains on a corner of her dish. Hunter ate with rabbit-like intensity, biting and sucking and spitting in an even rhythm until all that was left on the plate was a small brown and beige pile of ground bones. She finally looked up and caught Sinclair staring.”

“The Man went to sleep in front of the fire ever so happy; but the Woman sat up, combing her hair. She took the bone of the shoulder of mutton – the big fat blade bone – and she looked at the wonderful marks on it, and she threw more wood on the fire, and she made a Magic. She made the first Singing Magic in the world.”

“Here, eat this. The chicken gives it protein and I got them to hold the bacon bits."We'd watched Charlotte's Web on cable last week, so I knew it'd be at least a month before she would eat pork again.”