Chapter 14 River
RIVER
Early the next morning, River walked along the path to the big barn. He had been taking this route every morning since taking possession of the farm. But he hadn’t walked it with three companions before.
The children were warmly dressed, but still very sleepy. They followed after River, hand-in-hand, like two bundled-up ducklings. Nora brought up the rear, looking bright-eyed and excited to spend time with the horses.
Snow fell all around them, insulating them from the usual sounds of the outdoors. At this hour, River was used to hearing the morning birds and sometimes even the roosters on the neighboring farm.
This is nice.
He should have offered to do this with them sooner. He knew Nora would have an interest in the animals, and an early wakeup was probably worth it to the kids if it meant more time with the horses. If they ended up feeling tired from it, they could always just take a nap or go to bed earlier.
He’d ended up heading to bed a bit early himself last night when it became clear that Nora wasn’t coming back downstairs once she got into her phone call.
It’s good that she has a friend to talk to, he told himself.
And he firmly believed that. But he’d still been a little jealous last night when he passed the door to her room and heard her soft laughter.
I want to be the one who makes her laugh…
“Here we go,” he said, forcing himself out of his own head long enough to open up the barn.
“What’s that sound?” Pixie asked immediately.
He paused for a second and picked up a high-pitched mewling coming from the back corner of the barn.
“Sounds like kittens,” he realized out loud.
“Kittens?” Pixie echoed.
“I want to see them,” John-John said, the sleepy boy suddenly perking up at the idea of the baby animals.
“Why don’t we let River check on them first?” Nora suggested.
River nodded to her as he flipped on his phone flashlight and headed deeper into the barn.
The horses snuffled their greetings.
“Be right there, guys,” he told them, continuing on.
There was a hole in the back corner that he’d been meaning to patch up. Maybe someone’s cat had gotten in to have her babies.
Sure enough, when he reached that corner, there was a pile of little kittens curled up and crying. But there was no mother to be seen.
“Hey, guys,” he said, lowering the light immediately.
Their eyes were open, but their ears were still folded over.
“Where’s your mama?” he asked them softly.
It was cold in here, too cold for the babies. He headed over to where he kept the tack and grabbed a horse blanket.
They seemed almost too scared to move when he came close to spread the blanket on the floor. But they allowed him to lift them up one by one and place them gently on the warm blanket. Once they were all deposited, he curled it around them and went back to find his human companions.
Nora’s eyes held the same question that worried him.
“Five healthy kittens,” he told her. “But their mama isn’t around.”
“She could have gone to hunt,” Nora suggested.
“True enough,” he told her. “I put one of the horse blankets down for them for now, just to keep them a little warmer.”
“We can check on them again once the horses are taken care of,” she said. “Hopefully, their mama will be back by then.”
“I want to see,” John-John said again.
“I’d like that too,” Nora said to him, crouching down to his eye level like she sometimes did. “But for right now, we don’t want to frighten them. It will be better to see them once their mom is back. Okay?”
John-John nodded, but still looked a little sad about it.
“Good boy,” she told him, patting his head through his woolen hat. “Shall we say good morning to Peter and Tinkerbell now?”
That brought an instant smile to John-John as they headed off to visit with the horses and tend to them.
Two hours later, both horses had nice clean stalls, and were fed, groomed, and released in the pasture, to the cheers of the children.
River had been afraid the work would take forever with the kids along, but they had actually helped out a lot.
Pixie was a quick learner, John-John did his best to do exactly as he was told, and of course Nora was wonderful with the big animals.
It had turned out to be a very enjoyable early morning.
On the way back to the barn, he remembered the kittens. Hopefully, the mama cat was with them and all would be well. His heart tugged at the memory of the whisper-light little babies, crying as he snuggled them into the blanket.
“We can check on the kittens together now,” he told everyone. “But we have to stay back a little, so we don’t make the mama nervous, okay?”
The kids nodded solemnly.
Once again, River headed to the back corner of the barn with his phone flashlight on low. When he reached the kittens, he found them still on their own.
“Where’s their mama?” John-John asked worriedly.
“I guess she’s still not back yet,” River said.
“If she left when we first got here, then she’s been gone about two hours,” Nora reasoned, moving a little closer and crouching to get a better look at the babies. “I’d say they’re about four weeks old, so they can’t make it without her for more than a few more hours.”
“What do we do?” River asked.
“You’re thinking that hole is how she’s getting in and out?” Nora asked.
River nodded.
“Hang on,” Nora said. “Kids, stay with River.”
She headed back through the barn while they waited, eyes on the sweet babies who were curled around each other for warmth. A moment later, he heard her footsteps coming back toward them.
“There are no paw prints,” she said. “Which means she hasn’t been in or out in a while. I think we need to get them to a vet or a shelter.”
“She left them?” River asked, horrified.
“Maybe she was very young,” Nora said. “Or maybe she got sick or hurt. It happens sometimes.”
“They don’t have a mama?” John-John asked sadly.
Pixie wrapped an arm around her brother, looking too sad to speak. River realized suddenly that the kids already had their own experience with losing a mother, and his heart clenched at the thought.
“We’ll take them to the vet,” he decided. “And if they’re doing okay, we can bring them home with us.”
“We can?” Pixie’s sweet little voice was soft with hope.
River felt his eyes burning and he had to turn away from the three of them for a moment to pull himself together.
When he turned back, Nora was gazing up at him with tears in her own eyes.
“Of course we will, Pixie,” River told the girl, his voice a little husky with emotion. “We always take care of the ones who need us.”
Suddenly, her little arms wrapped around his waist as she began to sob.
They came home from the local veterinarian’s office an hour later with their laundry basket full of kittens, formula, kitten food, and a list of instructions.
You’re lucky to have your own personal vet tech, the doc had chuckled as he sent them on their way.
“Are you sure you don’t mind taking this on?” Nora asked quietly as the kids piled out of the truck and ran for the farmhouse.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” he said, feeling relieved.
She laughed softly and he could feel it in his heart, like rain on the desert.
“It’ll be a lot of work,” she told him. “But so rewarding. It’s nice that they’re already old enough to start weaning. And… well, I think you can imagine what this means to the kids.”
“They’ve been through so much,” River said quietly. “And they handle it with so much grace. But this reminded me what’s always going on in the background for them, even when they don’t let us see it.”
“It will be good for them to see these little guys growing up strong and healthy together,” Nora said, nodding.
But they won’t see anything that happens here once you all go back to the city, River thought but didn’t dare say. He didn’t want to spoil the happy moment.
“Come on,” John-John squeaked excitedly from the front porch. “Let’s show the kittens their new house.”
Nora smiled fondly at the little boy and River felt his heart aching again.
They headed inside, and River took charge of the basket of kittens while Nora chased the kids upstairs to wash up and get changed into something cozy.
When the three of them all filed down in their flannel jammies, River had to smile.
“I can take over kitten duty now,” Nora told him.
“I’ll start on lunch then,” he told her.
But Nora and the kids wound up in the kitchen with him anyway, along with the five kittens. It was the warmest room in the house, and there was a nice little spot near the table to tuck them.
The vet had even loaned them a nice crate and a heating pad. Nora got down on the floor to arrange it all with some towels and a soft blanket to keep the babies warm and clean.
Next, she set up a litter box for them, to John-John’s great interest.
“They’re going to poop in there,” he said, peering into it worriedly. “But it’s smaller than horse poop.”
“Much smaller,” Nora reassured him. “And we’ll clean it out a few times each day, so it won’t smell bad.”
“That’s how cats go to the bathroom,” Pixie said.
“Yes,” Nora agreed. “That’s just how housecats do it.”
By the time River had grilled cheese sandwiches ready to put in the pan and leftover soup warming up on the stove, Nora was helping Pixie feed formula to one of the kittens.
“Oh,” Pixie breathed as the little one latched on and really took her meal.
“Me next,” John-John said. “Me, me, me.”
“Okay,” Nora told him. “This might be the only meal they have to take from the bottle. Once they know this is their food, we can probably show them how to take it out of a little bowl.”
River watched as John-John got in her lap and held a kitten while she used the syringe bottle to slowly feed it. John-John seemed very content that he was part of the process.
The kittens all ate hungrily, and River felt a sense of relief. It went without saying that even though the kittens seemed healthy now, there were no guarantees.
Please let all of them make it, he prayed.
After the kittens had all eaten, they all curled around each other to sleep, giving everyone plenty of time to get washed up again and enjoy a hot lunch.
“So good,” Pixie moaned with her mouth full.
“We missed breakfast,” John-John said accusingly.
“Well, we had granola bars in the car on the way to see the vet,” Nora reminded him.
“A granola bar is not a meal,” Pixie said in a fancy grown-up voice and the three of them giggled.
“I say that to them sometimes,” Nora told River with a shy smile. “They like to have granola bars for breakfast, but I’m a big believer in eggs and oatmeal.”
“You really are a girl after my own heart,” River told her, and then cleared his throat, immediately wishing he hadn’t said it.
But she beamed at him, and he wanted nothing more than to just wrap her up in his arms like a kitten in a blanket, and never let her go.
After lunch, they decided to bring the crate of sleeping kittens into the living room so they could work on decorating the tree.
“Farmer Bear’s cookies are baking while he does his tree,” John-John said, frowning.
“Yes,” Nora said. “But Farmer Bear didn’t also rescue five baby kittens that day.”
John-John cheered right up at that.
Since River only had the lights and shiny balls he had picked up at the store, decorating the tree didn’t take too long.
“It’s beautiful,” Pixie sighed, looking at the colorful lights among the branches.
“Wait until it gets dark out,” Nora told her. “When Christmas lights are glowing in a dim room, it’s the prettiest sight in the whole world.”
From where he stood, River thought that was debatable. He felt like he was already looking at the prettiest sight in the world.
“Now, we have another hour or two before we have to start dinner,” River told the kids. “Should we watch a Christmas movie, or start some sugar cookies?”
“Cookies,” they both sang out.
Before long, the whole house smelled incredible, the rich vanilla aroma mixing with the scent of pine needles.
Nora checked on the kittens frequently. When they started waking up, she placed them in the litter box one by one, and fussed over them proudly when they did their business in the right spot.
The bravest little cat was all black with warm amber eyes. He stalked out a bit further into the kitchen to investigate, and was followed by a gray tabby girl, who stayed right in his shadow.
Within a minute or so, the kitchen was filled with exploring kittens.
“I’ll block off the doorways,” Nora said briskly. “But from now on, we all need to be really careful to look where we’re stepping. We’ve got so many kittens, and it’s our job to keep them safe.”
“So many kittens,” Pixie echoed ecstatically.
“So many kittens,” John-John yelled.
The joyful expression on all their faces was enough to tear River’s heart from his chest.
Careful, he tried to warn himself.
But it was already too late. Pain twisted his insides as he tried to picture himself alone in this empty house again.