My aunt took aim, pointed the BB gun at the squirrel perched on her favorite feeder, and pulled the trigger. The squirrel looked up as if to say, WTF, and then fell straight down, landing on the mossy bed of pine needles and dried leaves.

“Jenny, help,” she shouted, waving the gun in the air.

“Shit,” I whispered.

“You hit him,” I said, peering out the screen door.

“I know. I know, I didn’t know.”

Lucy had been taking aim at squirrels stealing her bird food for 40 years. At most, she’d zinged the end of a feeder. One day she notched the pine tree by the bird bath.

But she’d never hit one before.