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Summary

There has been an accident. A girl sits inside a car, her behavior seemingly indifferent to the chaos outside. Karle has been there for hours. Her eyes will not focus on what is happening outside. Instead she remembers the hours before she came to be there. She and her mother had been in the airport waiting for her brother Benjamin to come home. Karle’s brother was a soldier who had just come home for shore leave. They had always been close. When they had been younger they would hunt for feathers in the backyard. When he came home from the service, he gave her the feather of a booted eagle. Written on the feather’s stem are the words: But to fly with the remembrance that I am by your side.