Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
MILLER
Well, shit.
I’ve been so up in my head about everything that I’d totally lost track of the days and not registered that today is the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so it’s the open day that Frankie’s been working so hard on.
Stopped by the side of the road, a little way back from the gates, all I can see is a line of cars being directed to park in the field across the street from the sanctuary.
All the people wearing safety vests must be over seventy and are clearly taking no crap. One of them is violently waving his flag at a vehicle that’s parked about three inches out of line.
I could not be happier for Frankie that there’s such an enthusiastic turnout and that it’s such a beautiful day for the event.
Every face I can see is smiling—apart from the flag-waving parking guy—and everyone in every car that drives by me is looking out of the windows with eager anticipation, adults as well as kids.
The sound of a brass band playing “It’s a Lovely Day Today” leaks through my closed windows. I can just about see the four or five people playing trumpets and trombones standing inside the sanctuary entrance, providing a cheery greeting for the visitors.
The whole area is wrapped in an atmosphere of joy and the impending success of Frankie’s big fundraising campaign.
So I should probably leave.
This is bad timing. Very bad.
The last thing I want is to ruin the big day that she’s worked so hard on. And I am excruciatingly aware that the sight of me could very easily do that.
But part of me desperately wants to take a closer look. To tug my hat low, mingle with the visitors, donate an exorbitant amount in return for a pumpkin spiced coffee, and maybe get to pet Petunia one more time.
Actually, you know what? Fuck it. Maybe this isn’t terrible timing. Maybe this is the best fucking timing I could ever have hoped for.
I might look like the super-confident business owner who can posture his way through the toughest of negotiations, but most of the time I feel like the scared kid who’s afraid of making an undignified dick of himself.
But no one ever got anything life-changingly good by being afraid to make an undignified dick of themselves.
And I’m sure as hell never going to get Frankie without risking making an undignified dick of myself.
“Here we go,” I say out loud as my stomach does a shaky somersault and I rejoin the line of traffic inching toward the parking field. “Time to choose my own adventure.”
And I must make sure to follow the instructions of the flag-waving seniors to the letter.
By the time I walk up to the brass band, they’ve moved on to “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’.” Mingling with the crowd, I drop a twenty in the band’s bucket and take in the whole scene.
The place is buzzing—humming with music, excited chatter, and laughter.
The driveway is lined with little huts decorated with pumpkin lights.
One serving hot drinks, staffed by the guy from the coffee shop who greeted Frankie like a long-lost friend that first day I arrived in Warm Springs.
One is selling delicious-looking baked goods, including Danish pastries shaped like donkey ears and cookies shaped like entire donkeys.
Another has a woman cheerfully click-clacking away with her knitting needles behind a display of wool hats, gloves, and scarves—with donkeys on them, of course.
And there’s a lot of whooping and hollering around a game that seems to involve using a Super Soaker to blast as many furry donkey tails as possible from a board of hooks.
Maybe that’s the adaptation of the Christmas pig tail game that Frankie mentioned.
Every one of the dozen or so huts has a line of eager customers.
There’s also a snaking line off to the left with kids waiting to ride the bigger donkeys, and another off to the right for people waiting to pet and hand-feed treats to the miniatures.
One voice seems to carry above even the brass band, and it’s coming from the feisty lady in a sparkly pink hat who’s sitting at a table under a tent with a banner reading Volunteer Recruitment hanging across the back.
But the biggest crowd is under a canopy bearing a sign that says, “Photos with NHL Star Gabe Woods! Also Signed Shirts and Pucks!” I can’t see the man himself through all the people, but I can hear the squeals and sense the energy coming from the throng.
And then my eyes land on her …
Frankie.
My breath hitches and I immediately step sideways behind two tall men, each holding a hand of the small boy standing between them.
I can’t let her see me.
I’ve ruined enough for her already without taking the shine off this undoubted roaring success of a day too, and one glimpse of me is guaranteed to do that.
The sight of her talking to a couple with two small kids and admiring the little girl’s knitted donkey hat makes my chest constrict with regret for how I fucked up.
But at the same time it also expands with love for the caring, generous, hardworking creative soul that she is who has nailed an event that might warm even Leo Johanssen’s heart.
The contradictory push and pull brings a deep ache to my diaphragm.
Everyone around me is all smiles, as if nothing matters outside the donkey universe they’re immersed in right now. As if there’s no badness in the world. As if, as long as everyone exists in just the here and now, all there can possibly be is joy.
There’s no crisis over matching toilets, no panic over static load testing, no counting of the next million in the bank. And there’s definitely no need for revenge on anyone.
In a matter of weeks this woman has changed how every part of me is wired.
Something slams into the back of my leg, jolting me back to reality. “Whoa!”
“Oh, sorry,” a woman says, putting her arm around a kid and drawing him closer to her side. “He was too busy staring at the donkeys to watch where he’s going.”
“I get it.” I give the boy a knowing wink. “They are all way more worthy of attention than me.”
Up ahead of us, there’s a ringing sound.
All around me, heads turn toward Frankie, who’s now swinging an old brass bell.
“Time for the first talk,” she calls out at the top of her voice. “Anyone interested in the history of the sanctuary, come gather in the big barn.”
I gaze up ahead at the building that less than a week ago was my temporary home. A building that my dad and brothers repaired so Skinner couldn’t blackmail Frankie over code violations. A building that means more to me than any one of the multimillion-dollar structures I’ve built.
I let the crowd flow past me, using them as cover before I bring up the rear.
The inside of the barn has been cleaned and swept out.
Rows of folding chairs are set in neat rows before an older man who’s sitting facing them—Frankie’s grandpa, I assume.
There’s an easel on either side of him holding large boards covered in photos.
Behind him the old tractor has been uncovered and polished up to provide an authentic, shiny backdrop.
As people fill the seats, I glance up the stairs and wonder what it’s like up there now.
Down here, there’s not enough space for everyone to sit, so thankfully there are enough people standing at the back to shield me from view.
I shuffle behind a woman wearing a freshly autographed Gabe Woods jersey as Frankie appears at the front next to her grandpa and stoops to whisper something in his ear.
He looks up at her with an affection in his eyes so deep that it makes my blood run warmer.
She squeezes his shoulder, straightens to look at the crowd and coughs to get their attention.
Everyone falls silent, apart from a child near the front who’s dramatically resisting sitting on his father’s knee.
“Thanks for coming, everyone.” Hearing Frankie’s voice again gives me a full-body tingle. One that makes me want to close my eyes and sink into the sound of it.
“I hope you’re enjoying the day, walking off your turkey dinners and breathing some fresh air as a break from the Black Friday sales,” she says. “I’m Frankie, granddaughter of the incredible Sam Channing.”
“That’s me.” Sam raises his hand and gets a laugh.
“He started the sanctuary with my grandma, Donna, before I was born. And I’m going to hand you over to him to tell you the story of how all this came to be.”
Sam eases himself out of his chair. “I’ve just gotten two new knees, and my physical therapist tells me I have to keep using them. So here we go. Just please forgive me if I’m a bit wobbly up here.”
There’s an appreciative smattering of claps.
“When Donna and I bought this land, there was nothing here.” He points to one of the photographs.
I peer over Hockey Jersey Woman’s shoulder, but can’t make out the picture from this distance.
“It was just seventy-five acres of pastureland with a house on it,” he adds.
My attention instinctively reverts to Frankie.
Love pours from her eyes as she watches Sam run through the history of how they inherited the first four donkeys and thought they were the only ones they’d ever have.
But, not long after, someone asked if they could temporarily take in two more whose owner had passed away while a new home was found for them.
It was supposed to be a one-off. But word soon got out and a shelter in New Jersey that was at capacity asked if they could take their overflow.
Before Sam and Donna knew it, they’d fallen in love with the gentle and loving animals and were setting up a nonprofit and recruiting a host of dedicated volunteers.
He has some great stories that amuse everyone.
There was the time one donkey escaped and the search for him became a local TV news story, but the mystery was solved when the animal strolled into shot while the reporter was standing in front of the camera.
The time they took in a new donkey and woke up at two a.m. because she’d given birth overnight and no one had any clue she was pregnant.
And how Frankie learned to bottle-feed orphans and muck out the stables before she was a teenager, and how it helped shape her into the incredible human she is today.
It’s all I can do to keep from applauding and yelling, “Hell, yes.”
Sam sits back in his chair as he wraps up the stories.
“There’ve been some tough times here,” he says. “We had no clue what we were doing and learned on the job, guided by the animals themselves a lot of the time. And of course there are times when it’s heartbreaking too.”
There are knowing, silent nods from the audience.
“But you know what?” A warm, broad beam spreads across his face. “Donna and I had never had more fun or done anything more rewarding in our lives.” His voice wobbles on the final words.
Frankie turns slightly away from the audience and brushes away a tear. It’s a tiny, subtle action that most people wouldn’t notice. But I do. And it makes me want to push my way through the crowd, scoop her into my arms and tell her I’ll love her forever.
Sam clears his throat before launching into how to sign up to volunteer or donate. And once he’s wrapped up, Frankie takes center stage again.
“This place gets into your heart and your soul,” she tells everyone. “It was a vital part of my upbringing. And it’s taken a few hard lessons to learn it, but I’ve come to realize that still, to this very moment, it’s the most important part of me.”
Her grandpa takes her hand and pats it between both of his.
Frankie looks down at him before turning back to the crowd. “I hope you take away at least a little bit of it in your hearts when you leave today. Along with maybe a hoodie, or a mug, or even just a pen from our little gift shop over there.”
She points to two tables over to the left where a smiling woman stands behind a display of neatly folded clothing, drinkware and stationery, with a display of tote bags and donkey-centric holiday ornaments hanging on the wall behind her, and waves to everyone.
That stuff must have been what was in the boxes stacked up inside the front door next to the shoes and coats just a few days ago.
Frankie’s merch game is clearly strong. And she’s obviously fired up to make this whole thing work with the same life force, the same survival instinct, that I had when I had to step up and be the family breadwinner.
Seeing that in her gives me a surge of energy. A rush. A high.
Not only do I want to hang out with her, laugh with her, sleep with her, I also want to respect the everloving shit out of her.
If I don’t give begging for forgiveness one last shot, the biggest shot of my life, I will regret it for the rest of my existence. Even if she says no, which she has every reason to, at least I’ll know I tried.
My pulse races and my heart pounds with desperation for everyone to get the hell out of this barn so I can get on with the trying.
No one has opened my eyes to my own life the way she has—made me see that it’s not wrong to pause to smell the roses or the donkey dung, made me realize that the sky doesn’t fall in if I’m away from the office, that I can solve a toilet shortage crisis and a soccer player-selling dilemma from anywhere, and shown me that it’s more satisfying to achieve things with love than with revenge.
“Thank you so much for spending your Thanksgiving Saturday with us,” Frankie says.
“Please enjoy the rest of your time here, getting to know the animals, playing some games, grabbing a hot drink and a pastry, knowing that every creature who comes here is protected, appreciated, and loved.” She clasps her hands over her heart.
“This is a place where every animal can come into its own, live its best life, and be itself.”
“And it’s not only animals this place does that for.” I’m as surprised I said that out loud as Hockey Jersey Woman is.
She turns to look at me. As do the people around her. And some of those sitting in the back rows of the seats.
Fuck.
Okay.
I hadn’t planned to do this publicly.
But I guess I…am.