Chapter 12
MAGGIE
Sloane is in the pig barn and she's doing it all wrong.
She's holding the pitchfork like it's a weapon — too high on the handle, too rigid in the arms, jabbing at the straw instead of scooping under it.
Every forkful she lifts is half the size it should be and she spills a third of it next to the wheelbarrow.
I'm watching her with my coffee. I watch her most mornings, not because I enjoy it — though there's a grim satisfaction in seeing someone learn the hard way — but because I need to make sure she's not doing anything that could harm the animals.
So far she hasn't. She's slow and she's clumsy but she hasn't been careless.
She's just bad at it. Spectacularly, impressively bad.
Normally I help with the pig barn. When Luis is here, or when one of the other volunteers shows up, I work alongside them. But with Sloane, I've made an exception. I've let her do it alone as it's the closest thing to real punishment.
But the problem is, she's so slow that we're falling behind.
The fence line needs repairing and Luis is coming this afternoon to start on it.
He'll need Sloane to help him with holding posts, passing tools, and stripping old wire.
If she's still in the pig barn at noon, scooping thimble-sized forkfuls of straw, that's not going to happen.
I put down my coffee and walk into the barn.
She doesn't hear me come in. Her T-shirt is dark with sweat and her ponytail is coming apart and she's got straw stuck to her arms. She's on her eighth wheelbarrow load. I'd normally be on my fourteenth and nearly done by now.
I pick up the spare pitchfork from the hook on the wall and start on the far end of the barn without saying anything. For a minute or two, neither of us speaks.
Sloane glances over and watches me — the way I angle the fork, the way I scoop low and lift in one motion — and then she goes back to her own section.
"I can't believe you do this every day," she says eventually.
"Every day," I say.
"For how long?"
"Started helping my mom when I was a teenager. Took over when I was twenty-two. So about eight years on my own now."
"Eight years." She stops shovelling and leans on the fork. "Of this." She looks around the barn and through the open door at the yard, at the pigs sprawled in the sun.
"And you like it," she says. "Here, in Duster."
"I love it."
It's the way she says "Duster" — like the word itself is an insult. Like living here is something that needs explaining. Like anyone who chooses this life must be missing something — ambition, imagination, options.
"Yeah," I say with an edge to my voice. "In Duster."
"I didn't mean —"
"Not everyone grows up with a silver spoon, Sloane.
Not everyone has a penthouse and a Porsche and a father who hands them a credit card.
Some people live in LA. And some people live in Duster.
And the people who live in Duster aren't here because they failed at something or because they couldn't make it somewhere better.
They're here because this is their home and that's enough. "
Sloane stops shovelling and looks at me. I know I should stop but I've been swallowing this and it's coming up now whether I want it to or not.
"You feel sorry for yourself after doing this for three days.
You act like you've been sent to a labor camp.
I've been doing this since I graduated college.
Every morning, every evening, every holiday, every birthday.
Rain, heat, doesn't matter. I muck out these pens and I fix these fences and I sit up all night with a sick animal and I drive an hour to the vet and I drive an hour back and then I start the morning feed even if I've only had two hours of sleep. "
I'm gripping the pitchfork handle so hard my knuckles turn white.
"You want to know why I do it? Look out there." I point through the barn door. "You see Barbara? She spent four years in a factory farm. She'd never seen the sun until she came here. The first time I let her outside she just stood there. She didn't know what to do with space."
Sloane turns and looks at Barbara, who is lying in a mud wallow, covered in mud, one ear twitching at a fly.
"And Gerald." I point at the old pig farther down.
"Gerald was found in a ditch by a highway.
Someone dumped him there. He was emaciated and covered in sores and he was so scared of people that he wouldn't eat if anyone was near.
" My voice cracks. "And Dolly. Half blind, eleven years old, spent most of her life in a crate.
She was on the highway after you crashed through the wall. "
Sloane flinches. She drops her gaze and stares at the straw on the floor. I know she's trying not to cry and I don't care.
"These animals had horrible lives," I continue. "Every single one of them came from a place where they were hurt or neglected. And now they're here and they're happy. And I did that. In Duster. Without a credit card or a single person from your world giving a damn."
Sloane doesn't say anything for a long time, and I don't know what she's thinking. I don't know her and I don't want to know her.
"I wasn't making fun of your life," she says quietly.
"Yes you were."
"I was just — I don't get it. That's all. I don't understand how someone does this every day and doesn't go insane."
"Because it matters. That's how."
She doesn't reply to that. She picks up her pitchfork and goes back to the straw and I can tell she wants to say more but she's smart enough to know this isn't the moment. Good. She's learning something, even if it's just when to shut up.