Reread lines 82–94. The narrator describes the year as “difficult.” In the margin, explain in your own words what happened. The year that the park officials brought the bird to Modder River had been a difficult one. My mother was killed in a car accident just before my eighth birthday. Numbly, I watched my father make funeral arrangements with the help of his sister, Annette, who drove up from Johannesburg. She was adamant: There was no way I could stay at Modder River. It was too remote, and there was my schooling to consider; my mother had been my tutor. As for my father, it made no sense for him to remain, grieving, in a place so closely associated with his wife. My father was on the verge of resigning as warden of the small sanctuary when park officials telephoned about the bird. The red-crested night heron had been captured at the vlei3 on Nie Te Ver, the farm abutting the sanctuary’s eastern border, and the National Parks Board wanted the heron kept at Modder River on the slim chance that they might find a mate for it.