I never understood them. Not one of them. Not once, not really.

  I tried, I think. I watched them from under the big roots, where the grass grew thick and the ground stayed cool even when the sun was heavy. I watched from low. That was where I lived, close to where things grew, where the shade pooled and stayed. I knew every root and every crack in the stone there. I knew which part of the grass was softest in the morning and which part the rain avoided. I knew all of that. But I never knew them.

  There was only one I understood, and that was Sister.

  Sister was older. She was bigger and she always knew where things were. She went out every day to look for food and she always came back. Sometimes she came back with very little, barely enough for one of us, and she would put it all in front of me and go sit somewhere else and look away. I didn't understand that either but it didn't make me afraid the way they did. Sister made sense even when she didn't say anything. Sister never said much. She just whispered.

  On the rainy days she let me have the dry spot under the big roots while she went back out again. The rain made loud sounds on the leaves above and sometimes the cold of it got inside anyway, but I was always drier than I would have been. I don't know where she went when it rained. I don't know how she found food those nights. But she always brought back more during rainy season than any other time. I stopped wondering about it. That was just Sister.

  I didn't know the ones with hard feet yet. Not that first time.

  They were big. Loud. They moved fast and they found me near the road and they used their feet on me and I ran, I ran until my legs were just doing it on their own and the sounds behind me got smaller and then there was nothing. Just me and the quiet street.

  I sat there for a long time.

  I thought about Sister. If Sister had been there they would not have stayed. I don't know how to say it better than that. The ones with hard feet always went away when Sister was close. She had something in her that made them go. I didn't have it. I was small and alone and they knew.

  I went home and didn't say anything. Sister looked at me and I think she knew anyway. She didn't say anything either.

  Then one night she came back with her eyes almost all the way shut and there was dark wet on her arms and she walked slow like the ground kept moving under her. I went to her and stayed close. But she had brought meat. A big piece, more than I had seen in a long time, and we ate all of it, all night, until I fell asleep next to her, full and warm.

  I told myself it was the rain. Rainy season. She always got more during the rain. I told myself she was fine.

  The night after, the ones with hard feet found me again.

  I don't know how they always found me. I was near the road, too far from the roots, and then they were just there and it started again. The sounds of them. The hard things coming. And then Sister was there.

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  I don't know where she came from. She was just suddenly between me and them. She looked back at me once. She whispered. And then she was loud in a way she never was with me. She went at them and they stumbled back and I thought, I thought maybe this time.

  But there were many of them.

  They grabbed her. They carried her out and threw her into the road. One of the big metal boxes was going fast, so fast, and it hit her, and then she was just lying there in the road, not moving.

  The ones with hard feet ran.

  I went to her. I called to her. She didn't answer, but Sister never answered much anyway. I thought maybe she was sleeping. She looked like sleeping. I pulled and pulled at her until we were back in the grass by the roots, our spot, and I lay down beside her and waited.

  I waited.

  I waited longer.

  She stayed the same.

  I didn't understand it. I have never been good at understanding things. But I understood Sister and Sister was supposed to move. She was supposed to go out and come back. She was supposed to let me have the dry spot. She was supposed to bring back meat in the rain and fall asleep next to me after.

  She was not supposed to be this still.

  I was still there when the new one came.

  I heard them coming and I thought, hard feet. I thought, again. I put my head down and I closed my eyes and I waited for it.

  It didn't come.

  There was a sound instead. Soft and low just like Sister's whispers. Not the sounds they usually made. More like the sound of the wind through the long grass when it comes slow and means nothing bad. And then something touched my back and it was gentle and it moved careful so I always knew it was coming and it didn't stop being gentle.

  I opened my eyes.

  This one was different. I knew it the way I knew which patch of grass was softest without having to touch it first. They looked at me and at Sister and made the soft sound again and then they lifted us both and I let them because I didn't know what else to do and because I could not leave Sister.

  The place they brought us to was so white it hurt at first. White everywhere, and the smell was nothing like anything I had known. They put Sister somewhere and took me somewhere else and I cried about that for a long time. I didn't want to be away from her.

  They put me in water. Warm water. I didn't know what it was and I fought it because I thought they meant to drown me, but they held on and kept making the soft sound and the water stayed warm and after a long time I was only tired. Then the warm air came rushing at me and I thought they were burning me and then I thought I was only just warm. Just dry and warm and held.

  They brought me somewhere after. I don't have good words for what it was. There was so much food. There were so many soft things to sleep on, piled up, softer than the thick grass under the roots, softer than anything I had known. And shade everywhere, not just one spot, shade in every corner, and I understood then that the sun would never sit heavy on me again. That the rain would never find me again. I knew it like a thing that is just simply true and has always been.

  They kept whispering something to me. One word, said soft, always the same. They said it when they gave me food. They said it when they rubbed my back slow. They said it in the dark when I was almost asleep and it was always the last thing before I was gone. I didn't know what it was. I still don't. But I knew what it meant. It meant something like: you are here now. It meant something like: this is yours.

  I ate a lot. I slept a lot. I was warm.

  But I kept thinking about Sister.

  I kept thinking about how she would look away when I ate all of it. How she let me have the dry spot. How she came home with dark wet on her arms and her eyes almost shut and still, still she had brought back meat for both of us.

  I hoped the soft-sounding ones would find her too. I hoped they would bring her somewhere with so many soft things and so much shade and say the word to her, the way they said it to me, soft and again and again. I hoped she was somewhere warm.

  I hoped she was eating. I hoped she was eating so much.

  I never understood the ones with hard feet. I have thought about it and I don't think I ever will.

  But I think I was starting to understand these ones.