I feed her from a bowl on the floor, the way you feed a dog. She eats on all fours, her antlers dipping forward like buttresses framing the vessel, her mouth in the broth. Clinical. Pastoral. The farmer’s son tending an injured animal.
She spills. Her tongue traces the cracks between the flagstones, searching for the last of the warmth, and that is the reason I built the stand.
Twelve inches.
The height of her hands when she kneels. Not the height of a table. Not the height of a seated woman. The height of a kneeling creature whose feeding posture is maintained at the precise elevation.
Not kindness.
Maintenance.
