Guns in the Attic

• Main Author: Dickinson, Rachel
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Cornell University Press 2022
• Subjects: peregrine falcon
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.7591/cornell/9781501766091.003.0008

This chapter tries to make sense of the presence of guns in the house even four years after Jack's death. It explores how the suicide had been premeditated, walking through the steps of Jack's final moments. There is also an extended passage about deer hunting and the deer hunting culture in rural central New York, in the neighborhood where the author lives. The author's husband, the chapter notes, is a hunter as well—one who used to hunt with a peregrine falcon named Macduff. Guns, of course, featured prominently in such activities, which the chapter surmises is how, in a moment of weakness, Jack had seized upon the opportunity to get back at his parents permanently. Overall, the chapter is an exploration of guilt and the presence of guns in one's life as it is a way for the author to make sense of the latter and the tragedy it had led to.