Chapter 17
MASON
Talking to Adrian Conrad was messy and emotional and draining and exactly what I needed, even if I hadn’t known it before now.
He listened patiently as I dumped my concerns over my career and my family and the threat to sue me onto him, and he didn’t try and tell me what to do or fix any of it, but he helped me see things from a different perspective, and just sharing my fears with another person was like opening the valve on a pressure cooker.
I cried more than once, and by the time we were done, my voice was hoarse, but I also felt lighter than I had for a long time.
I’d known vaguely that I was depressed, but it was only when I started talking that it really hit me how bad things had gotten.
“If you want, I can put you in touch with a colleague of mine in Hopewell who has a therapy practice,” he said, scribbling something on a piece of notepaper that advertised a tick and flea treatment and handing it to me, “but I’m also giving you my number in the meantime.”
I tucked the paper into the pocket of the jeans I’d pulled on before Cash had brought him upstairs. I might be a mess, but I wasn’t so much of a mess that I was willing to meet a stranger in my sleep pants.
“Thanks. But I’m not here for much longer.” I felt a pang of regret as I said it. The thought of going back to Cincinnati was like a punch in the gut.
“I’m sure there are plenty of therapists in Cincinnati. But you should think about your options,” Adrian said as he stood. “There’s no law saying you have to go back to your old job. And quitting isn’t your only choice either. Just think about what you want before you decide anything.”
“I will,” I said.
I could see why Cash liked Adrian. There was a calmness to him and a quiet confidence that made me feel like maybe, with his guidance, I could get my shit together.
He didn’t try to tell me what to do. He just let me talk until I figured out some stuff that should have been obvious, if I hadn’t been so deep in a funk of depression.
I wasn’t going to lie, part of me would have preferred it if he’d sat me down and handed me a list of What Mason Needs To Do To Sort His Shit Out, but I knew that wasn’t how this worked. The only one who could figure out what I needed to do was me.
Funnily enough, though, just talking about the fog I’d been under for the past months—past years, probably—helped me see it for the first time.
Like it had been invisible up until the moment I’d verbalized it, even though it had pressed down on every aspect of my life.
And seeing it didn’t make it magically roll back and let the sunlight in, but it let me understand that it was real, that it was tangible, and that there were things I could do—therapy, routines, meds—to manage it.
If I could see it, then I could also see a way through it.
And that would take time and work, but like Adrian Conrad had pointed out with a wry smile, I wasn’t allergic to either of those things, and didn’t I owe it to myself?
When he put it like that, it seemed obvious.
Not easy, but obvious.
A week ago I would have bowed under the pressure of one more shit thing, but today I’d broken instead, and maybe that was for the best. Because when Adrian had asked me if I’d meant what I’d told Cash about a car crash solving all my problems, I’d thought about it.
I probably could have passed it off as a throwaway comment, made when I was overtired and not thinking straight.
I could have said that I hadn’t really meant it and probably even believed it myself.
But in that moment I had meant it, and it frightened me that not only had I thought it but that it hadn’t even scared me at the time.
A thought like that should have been accompanied by flashing red lights and alarm bells, not just a sense of weary acceptance.
I hated that I’d scared Cash, but I was so glad that at least one of us had heard the alarms.
Cash was with Kayla in reception when I said goodbye to Adrian.
“Want to tell me what happened with the calving?” Kayla asked once she’d already informed me she’d cleared my calendar for the day.
“It died, and he’s threatening to sue me,” I said. The threat wasn’t any less dire now the sun was up, but after my talk with Adrian, I felt slightly better prepared to face it. Or at least talk about it.
Kayla grimaced. “Whose calf was it?”
“Trent Lee’s.”
She rolled her eyes. “Trent’s a dick and the whole county knows it. You should give Alan Springer a call. Pretty sure Trent’s threatened to sue him a bunch of times too.”
“Really?”
“I’ll give you his number,” she said. “Give him a call when you’re up for it.”
“Maybe,” I said, cautious hope welling in my chest. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of calling someone I’d never met and introducing myself as the man who’d killed one of their clients’ calves, but I trusted Kayla, and if she thought it would help, then she was probably right.
Cash edged closer, bumping his shoulder against me. He looked tired. The shadows under his eyes were as dark as bruises.
I put an arm around him. “Thanks for calling Adrian.”
His brow creased.
“Mr. Conrad,” I said.
“Oh, first name terms,” he whispered through the hint of a smile. He leaned into me. “So, what are we gonna do today?”
Today? What was I gonna do for the rest of my life? But it was a lot easier to think about breakfast first and worry about everything else much, much later.
I sent Kayla home for the rest of the day and set the clinic’s phone to send everything to the message bank.
Then Cash put Dog on his leash, and we set off on the walk to Main Street and Gobble de Goose.
Guilt stirred in my gut at taking the day off, but I was also sure I wouldn’t have been in the right headspace to work today.
I’d done enough damage last night with the calf.
Although, as the fresh air and sunlight worked their calm magic and my mind cleared, I remembered that I’d done everything I could, and I’d done it correctly, and sometimes things went sideways for no good reason at all.
That was the nature of the job. Hell, it was the nature of the universe.
All I could ever do was my best, and I’d done that last night.
My newly discovered quiet sense of self-belief turned out to be wobbly.
At Gobble de Goose, the sight of the line of people inside caused me to pull up short.
How fast did news travel in a place like Goose Run?
Would Trent Lee already have spread the word about how the useless city vet had killed his calf?
Small towns were full of people who were interconnected in hundreds of ways.
Just because the people inside the bakery didn’t look like they read every issue of Progressive Farmer, that didn’t mean they didn’t know Trent or his business.
Cash squeezed my hand and drew me over to the bench on the sidewalk. “Wait here,” he said. “I’ll get it.”
Dog and I sat obediently.
When Cash came back out with two coffees and a paper bag, we didn’t turn back toward the clinic like I’d thought.
Instead, we continued along Main Street in the direction of the large white church.
Before we reached it, we branched off into a park.
There was a children’s playground at one end of it, empty at this hour, but the rest of the block was dotted with trees and benches and crisscrossed with paved paths.
There was an old wrought-iron bandstand in the center of the park and even a duck pond.
I kept a tight grip on Dog’s leash as we passed the ducks, but he didn’t seem too interested.
We found a bench that overlooked the pond. A soft breeze ruffled my hair, fresh and cool. Dog lay at my feet with his head on his paws. Cash handed me my coffee and I took a sip, humming in satisfaction. “This is good.”
Cash grinned. “When Chase started there, he couldn’t even work the machine. Don’t tell him I told you, though.”
“My lips are sealed,” I said. My stomach growled. “What’s in the bag?”
I took the apple Danish he handed me and ate it in four bites. Cash reached out and ran his fingers gently over my chin, grinning as he held them up and showed me the powdered sugar there.
I shrugged. “That’s what the beard’s for.”
He huffed out a laugh and ate his own Danish.
We sat there for a while, soaking up the fresh air and sunshine and watching the ducks with Cash leaning against my shoulder, and a sense of peace stole over me.
I tried to remember the last time I’d spent any time unwinding like this, and I couldn’t.
Maybe those people who talked about touching grass were onto something.
Eventually, though, Dog got up and tugged on his leash, letting out a whine, and I knew I needed to go and face the real world.
But when Cash slipped his hand into mine as we walked back to the clinic, I reflected that maybe the real world wasn’t so bad.
When we got back, I found the Post-it note Kayla had left me with Alan Springer’s number on it sitting on top of the phone at the reception desk. My earlier anxiety ramped up to a thousand and my stomach churned, but I ignored it and pretended my hands weren’t shaking when I called.
Alan answered, and my heart was in my throat when I said, “I wanted you to know that I had a callout to Trent Lee’s last night. I lost the calf, and now he’s threatening to sue.”
Despite what Kayla had said, I braced myself for Alan to tell me I was a failure who had no business practicing, so it was a welcome surprise when he let out a groan and said, “Shit. I’m sorry, I forgot to warn you about him. What happened?”
I ran him through last night’s events, and he hummed a few times.
“He’s an asshole,” he said.
“I figured that out about the time he started telling me I was useless,” I said drily. “But he might have a case. I mean, the calf was alive when I got there.”
“How long had the cow been laboring before he called you?” Alan asked.