Chapter Five #3
Yesterday, she stood in a detention room with her chin up and fury in her eyes because a little girl needed protecting. Today, she’s fussing over horse brushes and worrying about my circulation like she’s been running this sanctuary for years.
Sometimes, I worry I’ve made her grow up too fast.
Then she stops beside the goat pen and starts lecturing one of the workers about not letting Mr. Nibbles eat the donation flyers, and I decide maybe she was born ninety years old with pigtails.
“Mia?” Rory calls from near the front pasture. “Parking volunteers are set. The first vendors are ready, and the bakery lady wants to know if she can put the horse cookies on the main table or if they need to stay at her booth.”
“Main table,” I call back. “People donate better when sugar is nearby.”
“Solid strategy.”
“I went to college.”
“For animal science.”
“And yet here I am, using advanced cookie placement.”
Rory laughs and heads toward the vendor tents.
I glance down at my clipboard again.
Welcome table. Ready.
Donation jars. Ready.
QR code signs. Ready.
First aid kit. Ready.
Emergency vet contact. Ready.
Water stations. Ready.
Goat yoga area. Ready.
Bobcat Billie’s enclosure secured. Double-checked. Triple-checked. Plan to check multiple times again.
I squint toward Mr. Nibbles, who is chewing thoughtfully on something I sincerely hope is hay.
“Don’t embarrass me today,” I call to him.
He lifts his head, stares directly at me, and lets out one loud, judgmental bleat.
Wonderful.
The fundraiser is going to be run by a goat with criminal tendencies and a ten-year-old hydration officer.
Professionalism at its finest.
A warm breeze pushes across the property, carrying the scent of hay, dust, coffee, sunscreen, and cinnamon from the bakery booth.
White tents line the gravel drive, their edges fluttering gently.
Colorful signs point guests toward the auction table, the craft station, the grooming area, and the sanctuary tour starting point.
For one brief second, I let myself see it the way visitors might.
Not the bills.
Not the broken fence post we still need to replace…again.
Not the medical charts, feeding schedules, late nights, panic calls, and grief tucked behind every animal who didn’t make it.
Just the beauty.
The sanctuary looks alive.
Hopeful.
The calm horses stand in the shaded paddock, their manes freshly brushed and loosely braided. Sky, our gentlest mare, is already half asleep at the grooming station, apparently prepared to endure small children with sticky fingers as long as someone keeps sneaking her apple slices.
Near the education table, Dr. Keller’s display shows pictures of overgrown hooves, rain rot, proper feeding schedules, and the dangers of refeeding a starving animal too quickly. It’s not pretty, but it’s important.
People need to understand that rescue is not all sweet pictures and soft noses.
Sometimes it’s infection.
Sometimes it’s fear.
Sometimes it’s an animal shaking so badly you have to sit outside their stall for three hours before they believe you aren’t there to hurt them.
Sometimes it’s holding your daughter while a horse takes her last breath.
My gaze drifts toward the Wall of Second Chances.
It stands beneath the big shade canopy, framed by two potted desert flowers and a string of small white lights that don’t need to be on yet but look pretty anyway. Photos cover the boards. Some animals have bright green Adopted ribbons. Others have blue Still Healing tags.
A few have white cards that say Forever Loved.
Hope’s picture is near the center.
I didn’t put it there.
Livy did.
The photo shows Hope standing in the pasture, ears forward, sunlight touching the line of her back. She still looked thin. Still fragile. But her eyes were soft, and that was what mattered.
“Mia,” one of the volunteers calls from the welcome table, “do you want the sponsor cards in alphabetical order or by animal?”
“By animal,” I answer. “People connect with faces before names.”
“Got it.”
I start toward the table, then stop when I glance toward the small gate in front of our house.
The holes are still there where the horrid sign was.
Small. Ugly. Dark against the painted wood.
The sign is gone now, of course. I ripped it down the second I found it.
But I can still see it.
Every animal that dies here dies because of you.
My fingers tighten around the clipboard.
I hate that sign more today than I did when it was nailed there.
Because today, strangers are coming here. Donors. Families. People with cameras and opinions. Most of them kind, I hope. Some of them curious. Maybe a few looking for reasons to judge.
And I have to stand in front of all of them and smile like those words didn’t crawl under my skin and settle somewhere tender.
Like I don’t already blame myself enough for the ones I couldn’t save.
A hand touches my elbow.
I look down to find Livy beside me again.
Her eyes follow mine to the gate.
“I hope they don’t come today,” she says quietly.
My heart squeezes. She’s too freaking smart. Too intuitive.
“Me too, baby.”
“If they do, Rory said he’ll make them leave.”
I glance toward Rory, who is pretending not to listen from twenty feet away and doing a terrible job of it.
“Rory is not security.”
“He’s tall.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“He has boots.”
“Still not the same thing.”
“He once carried a goat under each arm…adult goats.”
I open my mouth.
Close it.
“That is surprisingly intimidating,” I admit.
Livy nods like I have finally caught up.
“Besides,” she adds, “Mr. Moretti said he was coming. He’s probably good at making people leave.”
My stomach dips at his name.
Absolutely ridiculous.
I am a grown woman. A mother. A business owner. I have wrestled frightened horses, bottle-fed baby goats at three in the morning, negotiated hay prices, and once chased Bobcat Billie with a laundry basket when she escaped her temporary pen.
Sort of.
It was more of a strategic retreat on my part, but still.
The point is, I do not get flustered because one dangerously handsome man with an accent and shoulders the size of a barn door says he’ll see me tomorrow.
Except apparently I do.
“Mama,” Livy says slowly, watching me far too closely.
“What?”
“You got quiet again.”
“I was thinking.”
“About Mr. Moretti?”
“No.”
She stares.
“Maybe.”
Her grin spreads slowly.
“Oh my goodness, stop looking like that,” I tell her.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re planning my wedding.”
“I’m not.”
“Good.”
“I’m just thinking he’d be a good husband.”
“Olivia.”
“And he could probably toss you over his shoulder when you get stubborn.”
“Olivia Marie.”
“What? That was on the list.”
“There is no list.”
“Of course there is.”
I point my pen at her. “Go do something.”
“Fine,” she says, but she walks away smiling.
Lord help me.
The radio crackles at my hip.
“Front gate volunteers are ready,” one of the teens says. “We’ve got people waiting.”
My pulse jumps.
This is it.
All the weeks of planning. The flyers. The social media posts. The begging local businesses for donations. The late nights making signs with Livy at the kitchen table. The worry that no one would come. The worry that too many people would come.
Everything comes down to this.
I lift the radio, but before I press the button, I turn slowly, taking in the sanctuary one more time.
Rory near the barn, steady and calm.
Volunteers at their stations.
Vendors smiling beneath their tents.
Sky’s dozing in the shade.
The goats plotting crimes.
The Wall of Second Chances waiting to tell the stories of animals who mattered.
And my daughter standing beside the hay bale station, bright-eyed and proud, waving at me like I’m the bravest person she knows.
I’m not.
But for her, I can pretend.
I take another sip of warm tea, flex my pale fingers around the radio, and breathe deep.
“Alright,” I say into the speaker. “Let’s do this.”