Killdeer

The chapter “Killdeer” does not mention killdeer until the very end. The author, her mother, and her grandmother all see them, then one begins to drag its wing. Williams and her grandmother know that this is because it is trying to distract them and lead them away from its nest and children. This short segment relates to the rest of the chapter because Williams had recently learned that her mother had cancer, and they had done their astrology charts and were sitting and talking about their lives. In a way, similar to the killdeer, they were distracting themselves to forget about reality and danger of cancer. Williams’s mother may have also been distracting her specifically to protect her from the thought of losing her mother. Her mother even says that they are not so different from the killdeer when Williams says the bird is trying to distract them as a protective device.