Grief is the Thing with Feathers

Fourteen months until the publishing deadline for his book, Dad is still haunted by Crow every time he tries to write. He and his publisher mutually agree that the book should ignore Hughes’s relationship with Sylvia Plath. While babysitting the boys, Crow challenges them to each build a model of their mother; he promises the boys that he will bring the most accurate model back to life. When Crow doesn’t keep this promise, the boys bake him in an oven. Dad continues to receive help with managing the boys and the house from Mum’s family.

The boys’ grandmother becomes gravely ill, and they go to visit her on her deathbed. Dad sees a dead fox on the side of the road and becomes fixated on it. Over and over again in his head, he replays a memory of telling his wife that he had submitted his book proposal. 

The boys play a game called Sonic Boom, in which each of them runs at a tree as quickly as possible before pivoting at the last possible moment. One of the brothers imagines the other one dying while playing this game.