Panic(17)

“I’m glad you came.” Anne smiled, as though Heather had just dropped by for a social visit. “Let me show you around.”

Heather was relieved that Anne seemed to approve of her choice of outfit: clean jeans, sneakers, and a soft, nubby henley shirt, which had belonged to Bishop before he accidentally shrank it. She hadn’t wanted to look sloppy, but then again, Anne had told her to wear clothes she could muck up, and she hadn’t wanted to look like she hadn’t listened.

They started toward the house. The roosters were still running around like crazy, and Heather noticed a chicken pen on the other side of the yard, in which a dozen yellow-feathered chicks were strutting and pecking and preening in the sun. The dogs kept up their racket. There were three of them, including Muppet, pacing around a small enclosure, barking lustily.

“You have a lot of animals,” Heather pointed out, and then immediately felt like an idiot. She tucked her hands into her sleeves.

But Anne laughed. “It’s awful, isn’t it? I just can’t stop.”

“So is this, like, a farm?” Heather didn’t see any farming equipment, but she didn’t know anyone who kept chickens for fun.

Again, Anne laughed. “Hardly. I give the eggs away to the pantry sometimes. But I don’t pull up a damn thing besides bird poop, dog poop, poop of all kinds.” She held the door to the house open for Heather. Heather thought that she would probably spend the whole summer shoveling shit. “My husband, Larry, loved animals,” Anne continued as she followed Heather into the house.

They entered the prettiest kitchen Heather had ever seen. Even Nat’s kitchen didn’t compare. The walls were cream and yellow; the cupboards tawny wood, bleached nearly white from the sun, which poured through two large windows. The counters were spotless. No ants here. Against one wall were shelves arranged with blue-and-white pottery and small porcelain figurines: miniature horses, cats, donkeys, and pigs. Heather was almost afraid to move, like one step in the wrong direction might cause everything to shatter.

“Tea?” Anne asked. Heather shook her head. She didn’t know anyone who drank tea in real life—only British people in TV miniseries.

Anne filled a kettle and plunked it on the stove. “We moved here from Chicago.”

“Really?” Heather burst out. The farthest she had ever been from Carp was Albany. Once on a school trip, and once when her mom had a court date because she’d been driving with a suspended license. “What’s Chicago like?”

“Cold,” Anne said. “Freeze your balls off ten months out of the year. But the other two are pure joy.”

Heather didn’t respond. Anne didn’t seem like the type who would say balls, and Heather liked her a little better for it.

“Larry and I worked in ad sales. We swore we’d make a change someday.” Anne shrugged. “Then he died, and I did.”

Once again, Heather didn’t say anything. She wanted to ask how Larry had died, and when, but didn’t know if it was appropriate. She didn’t want Anne to think she was obsessed with death or something.

When the water had boiled, Anne filled her mug and then directed Heather back through the door they had come. It was funny, walking across the yard with Anne, while the steam rose from her tea and mingled with the soft mist of morning. Heather felt like she was in a movie about a farm somewhere far away.

They rounded the corner of the house, and the dogs began to bark again.

“Shut it!” Anne said, but good-naturedly. They didn’t listen. She kept up a nonstop stream of conversation as they walked. “This one’s the feed shed”—this, as she unlocked one of the small, whitewashed sheds, pushing it open with one hand—“I try to keep everything organized so I don’t end up throwing grain to the dogs and trying to force kibble on a chick. Remember to turn off the lights before you lock up. I don’t even want to tell you what my electricity bills are like.

“This is where the shovels and rakes go”—they were at another shed—“buckets, horseshoes, any kind of crap you find lying around that doesn’t seem to fit anywhere else. Got it? Am I going too fast?”

Heather shook her head, and then, realizing Anne wasn’t looking at her, said, “No.”

She realized she wasn’t nervous anymore. She liked the feel of the sun on her shoulders and the smell of dark, wet ground everywhere. Probably some of what she was smelling was animal shit, but it actually didn’t smell that bad—just like growth and newness.

Anne showed her the stables, where two horses stood quietly in the half dark, like sentinels guarding something precious. Heather had never been so close to a horse before, and she laughed out loud when Anne gave her a carrot and instructed her to feed it to the black one, Lady Belle, and Heather felt its soft, leathery muzzle and the gentle pressure of its teeth.

“They were race horses. Both injured. Saved ’em from being shot,” Anne said as they left the stables.

“Shot?” Heather repeated.

Anne nodded. For the first time, she looked angry. “That’s what happens when they’re no good for running anymore. Owner takes a shotgun to their head.”

Anne had saved all the animals from one gruesome fate or another: the dogs and horses from death, the chickens and roosters from various diseases, when no one else had cared enough to spend the money to nurse them. There were turkeys she had saved from slaughter, cats she had rescued from the street in Hudson, and even an enormous potbellied pig named Tinkerbell, which had once been an unwanted runt. Heather couldn’t imagine that it had ever been the runt of anything.