“Do you remember when we were eight?” My twin sister, graham irvin, asked me.

“Do I want to?”

“Eight, I think.”

“Do I have to?”

“Have to what?”

“Yes, I remember when I was eight. When we were eight.”

We sat on the front porch of my parents’ – our parents’ – home. The wind blew across our faces. The sun was setting to our left. The wind blowing across our faces was chasing the sun’s setting. It blew in quick gusts around us, as if it had to catch up with the star and we were just in the way. We sat in rocking chairs that had been painted over so many times you could see the slight differences in all the white paints used.

“Dad took me hunting. He always took you. But this time, he took me,” graham irvin said.

I didn’t reply. graham irvin can be touchy about someone interrupting her.

“We were sitting in the deer stand with the stairs. He said he picked that one for this hunt because it would be easiest. He knew I didn’t like climbing ladders,” graham irvin looked over at me and saw the squinty eyes face thing I was doing then. “What?”

“Nothing, nothing,” I said. “Go on.”

“We sat in the stand for no more than thirty minutes and dad got hungry so he took a banana out of his coat pocket. A banana!”

“He loved bananas.”

“He loved bananas indeed.”

Correction – graham irvin hates interruptions unless they serve a purpose to affirm the story graham irvin’s telling. Then graham irvin welcomes them.

“He peels the banana and starts eating it. Well, lo and behold, a deer steps out of the tree line immediately. I’m already holding the binoculars so I take a look. A huge rack on it.” graham irvin demonstrated this with her hands out wide. Wider than the truth, most definitely. “I say ‘dad, dad, dad’ like it’s the only word I know. I peel my eyes from the binoculars and turn to see him taking another bite out of the banana.”

“Deer, deer, deer.”

“What?”

“That’s what was said. Deer, deer, deer.”

graham irvin glared at me and started the story again.

“He hands me the banana and grabs the binoculars out of my hands. After a second or two he tells me to get the gun. ‘Get the gun,’ just like that.” graham irvin made my dad’s voice gravellier than it was at the time. “Everything’s a blur. I set the gun up, sight in, and fire. The deer wobbles and takes two or three steps before falling in the field.”

“You didn’t see it wobble. You blinked. At the shot.”

As I said this, there was a sound from inside the house. A clanging. Our mom, graham irvin, had started making dinner. We told her we could do takeout the whole week. graham irvin complained about the amount of salt restaurants use “these days.” graham irvin said, “but no one complains about the amount of butter you use.” And mom graham irvin looked at her like “of all the times?” And I agreed. That’s maybe a comment for week two. My sister graham irvin paused until the clanging subsided, ignoring my interruption altogether.

“The point of the story is, we get down to the dead deer. I stand there and look at it. Dad tells me to crouch down, touch it. ‘It ain’t going nowhere,’ he said. And then, I smell banana. I look over and he is eating the banana right there. The smell of blood and feces. And then banana.”

“He had one bite left,” I added. “I don’t even think he finishes it. He had two bites when he crouched down. He took one, didn’t take the other. Maybe just chucked it into the woods.”

“Yeah. So now every time I smell a banana-” graham irvin said.

“Every time I smell a dead animal-” I said.

“-I smell dead animal.”

“-I smell banana.”

“What are you doing?” graham irvin asked. I stared at her, and a gust of wind blew by me and around me and over me and under me. It blew through me too. I felt it.

“I did this.”

“What in the fuck are you talking about?”

“This memory is mine.”

“Right now? Really?”

“He had one bite left. The deer didn’t take two steps and fall. I blinked and it ran across the field and then hobbled in a circle and we sat there and watched it die. I was nine. We were both nine. You were home.”

“You know what, asshole. There’s some deer meat in the fridge. Do you want to test it?”

We stood in the kitchen, me holding the pack of venison tenderloin and a pack of steaks. graham irvin was blindfolded. Mom graham irvin, hearing a synopsis of the argument, practically begged us to leave it alone. graham irvin bent down and smelled both. graham irvin guessed and got it wrong. No bananas. graham irvin forced the meat into my hands and stormed off to her room. I leaned into it and sniffed. Bananas.

“Do you feel better now?” Mom graham irvin said, hands on her hips.

I didn’t feel better, so I decided to head back outside where I could be alone with this. But there was graham irvin standing there in the living room with a photo of her, our dad and a dead deer. By the site of the bullet hole, I knew this wasn’t the same deer as soon as I laid eyes on it. But graham irvin looked up at me and her eyes were red with tears, and I understood then that our father was dead regardless.

But when they’d both gone to bed that night, I snuck back to the fridge and pulled the meat out and I took a big whiff.