The man with the tools paused to observe.
“It’ll grow back,” he grunted.
“What, you’re leaving it like that?”
No response.
Back home she reflected on the situation through wisps of steamy tea.
What would the neighbours say when they’d see her? She loathed sloppiness. An expert in the cutting business would’ve presented satisfactory results.
Can it be? Her hearing perked. Beyond the trickling of melting snow, a familiar annual sound had returned— the singing of robins.
It made her forget the hatchet job her husband did on their maple tree.