Flight Behavior

The weather in January fluctuates between 30 and 40 degrees, and Dellarobia lies awake at night wondering if this is the day the temperatures will drop drastically and the butterflies will die. No one but Ovid and Pete seems to share her fears. She expresses her frustration when overhearing the scientists’ conversations about how global warming has already done irreversible damage. She worries both about scientists like Ovid, whom she sees as an example of “[p]eople [who] had to manage terrible truths” (341), and her son, who “love[s] nature so expectantly” (341).

One morning, as Cub is running late, Dellarobia goes outside to check the special thermometer that Ovid taught her to read, and she accidentally sees Ovid naked. The curtains to the camper he is staying in are wide open, and she is afraid that he will know that she saw him. If he does, she doesn’t think she can work for him anymore, prompting her to feel “loss […] like a death” (351). Dellarobia has developed a respect for and crush on her employer.

Cub and Dellarobia head to the field to repair the fences. Hester has decided to move the pregnant ewes to their property because it’s too wet to keep them in their usual area.