My Gentle Barn (20 page)

“Um,” I said, and held my chalk-covered hands out in front of me as though they provided the evidence that I was in the middle of something. “Could we talk about this later?”

“Oh, I’ll just be quick,” she said. “See, this fence won’t look good with my remodel plans; I want to replace it with a brand-new one.”

I stood up and wiped my chalky hands on my jeans, glancing at the mothers who had started to look in our direction. “Well, I see what you’re saying, Paige. Um, but the thing is I just put in a brand-new fence seven years ago, and I’ve kept up the stain every year so it’s in really good shape.”

“But it’s not pretty,” Paige said.

All the mothers were staring at us now, and even the kids had stopped their chalk drawings.

I had never seen Paige this insistent. If I just agreed, maybe she’d
go away and let me continue with my group. What did I care if the fence had a different look—as long as it functioned to contain my yard and keep the animals safe? “Sure,” I said, “I guess that would be OK.”

“Great, so why don’t we just go halvsies on it.”

“Halvsies?”

“Yeah, since it’s between our two properties, I figure the fair thing to do is split the cost.”

I had spent over ten thousand dollars on that fence just seven years earlier. There was no way the Gentle Barn or I could pay thousands of dollars now for a superfluous new fence. “I get that you want to have a fence that you think looks nicer and that you’re excited about your remodel,” I said, treading carefully. “But I run a nonprofit. I don’t have that kind of money just lying around.”

“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “I’ll go ahead and put it in and you can just owe me the money.”

I could feel the heat rising into my cheeks. “Paige,” I said, “it looks like we need to have a longer conversation about this. Why don’t you come back in an hour, and we can sit down and talk about it.”

“No, I want to get this settled now.”

“Look,” I said, “I’m so sorry, but I’m sure you understand. This is a very young, struggling nonprofit and I just can’t go into that kind of debt right now. This is just not something I can do.” I glanced at the open gate, wishing she would leave, but she was nowhere near ready to go.

Her face was bright red and she started to scream, making the veins in her neck pop out. “You just don’t understand! I’ve had this ugly fence along my yard all this time, and I want a brand-new one. And it’s just right for you to pay half of that!” She stomped her feet and hollered and looked like a two-year-old having a temper tantrum. Spit was flying with her words and she hardly stopped to take a breath. I tried to say,
We’re neighbors. We’re friends. I’m sure there’s a win-win solution
. But I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. I glanced around at the horrified mothers and the cowering children and could see there was
no interrupting this woman. I realized that the only way to get her to stop screaming was to remove the target of her attack—me. I turned and quietly walked into the house and locked the door.

I stayed inside until she finally stopped yelling and left through the gate, at which point I returned to the backyard and apologized profusely to my guests.

“It was like she was possessed,” I told Jay later that evening. “I’ve never seen her act like that, not a hint of it.”

“And she just kept going?” he said. “In front of all the people?”

“She’s crazy, Jay. And I didn’t even see it.”

“Why don’t I just go talk to her,” he said. “I’ll smooth things out and we’ll start fresh. I’ll go over first thing in the morning.”

But the next morning, when Jay rang her bell, there was no answer. An hour later, after Jay had left for an appointment, there was a knock on our door. Thinking it was Paige, I took a deep breath and braced myself, but when I opened the door, there on our porch were two officers from Animal Control.

“Oh, hi,” I said. I’d seen these guys plenty in my line of work. They even asked me sometimes to take in abused animals they found.

The taller of the two spoke first, an odd look on his face. He was almost cringing. “Um, we got a complaint,” he said. He looked at the ground. “Someone filed a complaint that there are abused animals on your property.”

“On
my
property?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right.

The officer nodded, then the other one chimed in: “Also dead animals.”

“Abused and dead animals on
my
property?” Then I got it. I stepped out onto the porch and looked over at Paige’s house. “She’s the one who called, isn’t she?” But I knew they weren’t supposed to answer that.

The first officer gave a barely perceptible nod. Then he lowered his
voice. “Look,” he said, “we know you. We’re huge fans. I’m sure this is a bogus call, but we have to check it out. So, if you could just let us in, we’ll have a look and then we’ll be out of your hair.”

“Sure,” I said, “come on in.” I glanced again at Paige’s house but I didn’t see any sign of her lurking.

The officers took a look around the house and the barnyard. “Everything looks great,” the officer said. “I’m not at all surprised. We’re just really sorry to have bothered you.” The second officer tipped his hat, and they both left.

I decided it was time to fill the holes the rabbits had dug under the fence, so after the bunnies and chickens returned to our yard that evening for their dinner, Jay and I filled the holes and poured cement along the perimeter of the fence. “No more digging,” I said to the rabbits. “Next door is off limits now.” Then Jay went next door again to see if he could smooth things out with Paige, and this time she answered the door. I could hear her screaming at the top of her lungs about the ugly fence and how selfish she thought we were. She screamed for ten minutes without stopping. It sounded like she never even took a breath. Finally Jay abandoned ship and came back home. He stood there in front of me, just shaking his head.

“Oh my God,” he said finally.

“I know,” I said.

A few days later there was another knock on our door. It was the Health Department. “Oh, hi,” I said, and for a moment I thought I must have forgotten our appointment. We got an inspection every six months; we passed with flying colors every time and were on good terms with the inspector. But hadn’t they come just three months earlier?

The guy stood there and started apologizing. “I’m so sorry to bother you,” he said. “I’m sure you’re busy. I mean, the work you do is really amazing. We totally support you. In fact, you’re the cleanest facility we regulate.” He paused. “But we got this complaint … so we have to do an inspection.”

“Of course,” I said, “come on in.”
Wow
, I thought,
she’s just not going to let this go, is she?

The inspector took a look around, then said, “Oh my God, this is ridiculous. The place is spotless. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”

“You’re kidding,” Jay said that evening when I told him about the second surprise inspection. “We’ve got to stop her.”

“I don’t think there’s any way to stop her,” I said. “That’s the thing about crazy people.”

Jay was pacing the floor now, his fists balled up. “I’m going over there,” he said.

I was worried about him going next door when he was so angry. “Sweetheart, just wait a minute, OK? You know, there’s really no harm. We haven’t done anything wrong. The agencies came out and they saw that. Besides, there’s not really anyone else she could call.”

I was wrong about this last point. The next week Building and Safety showed up.

“I came to your grand opening,” the man said as he stood on our front porch. “I didn’t see any problems then, but a neighbor called …”

I ushered him inside and then out to the barn.

After he looked around the property, he said, “Everything still looks tip-top. I’m going to get this case closed out.” He walked out the front door, then turned around. “You know, I just want to personally thank you for the work you’re doing.”

All three agencies closed out the cases.

Although we heard Paige moving around her backyard now and again and saw her lights on in the evening, we had no further interaction with her and no more visits from the authorities. Jay and I crossed our fingers, hoping that was the end of that nonsense.

There are three kinds of animals who come to the Gentle Barn. The first are those we nurse back to health so they can live a full, vibrant life. The second are those who come to us in the final stage of their life to die a dignified death surrounded by love. And the third are the animals who find their way to us to learn a life lesson; once that lesson is truly attained, they can then transcend their body and move on.

Katie had arrived at the Gentle Barn furious at the world. She’d been used and abused for so many years as a pony-ride horse and had simply had enough and decided she hated humans. In her first weeks and months at the Gentle Barn she’d reminded me of a wrinkled old lady with a cigarette hanging from her mouth who screamed expletives at anyone who passed. (In Horse, this translated as biting or baring her
teeth.) What she didn’t know was that a life lesson awaited her; she was going to learn that not all humans were abusive and that there was love for her in this world.

Three years after her arrival, the transformation was complete. Katie had not just become a sweet, humble pony who approached
us
for love and attention, letting little girls braid her tail and tie bows in her mane, she’d also become an incredible assistant to me in the barnyard. Katie was kind of like the barnyard’s “hall monitor”; she never hurt any of the other animals, but I could call on her if somebody was being stubborn or interfering with my workday. Our big white farm pig, Duncan—who was not always the most cooperative member of the team—would often choose a nice spot for a nap right in front of the tack room or some other door to the barn. When I needed to open the blocked door I would plead with Duncan to move. But when a twelve-hundred-pound napping rock does not want to move, he simply does not. “Katie,” I would call, “I need your help.” And she’d trot right over and back up toward the napping pig. As her hind legs neared him, Duncan would whine, apparently not asleep after all. Then she’d cock one back leg, as though ready to kick, and Duncan would hop up and run. She never actually kicked him; just the prospect of it would stir him to action.

But at the beginning of the summer I had noticed a nodule on Katie’s neck. In the space of two weeks it had spread to both sides of her neck and up under her chin. When Dr. Geissen examined her, he said the tumor was entwined with Katie’s trachea and jugular veins and thus was inoperable. Besides, Katie was by this point so ancient she wouldn’t likely make it through a surgery.

“My recommendation,” he said, “is that you just love her as much as possible until the point where she starts having difficulty swallowing.”

Katie had become a crowd favorite; I knew I had to let people know, so that all who had been touched by this pony would have a
chance to spend some time with her before she left us. Throughout the summer people came by to hug and kiss Katie and tell her how much they loved her, and I stood back and watched them fuss over her.
Mission accomplished
, I thought. It wasn’t only
my
mission of rescuing and rehabilitating an old, angry horse. It was Katie’s mission here on Earth—as though she had come here to accomplish this transformation, and now that the transformation was complete, she was done and could move on.

By the end of the summer, Katie was starting to lose weight; it looked like she was having trouble swallowing. I did not want her to suffer at all; I knew it was time. My heart heavy, I let all of Katie’s fans know I would be calling the vet out to help her leave her body. People came and actually waited in line to say good-bye. If I hadn’t been so incredibly sad, I might have laughed with joy to see how much love surrounded her.

Before the vet arrived, Jay and I went to the peach tree in the front yard and chose the ripest, juiciest peach. I held it under Katie’s nose, and although she hadn’t been able to eat all day, I believe she knew this was a love offering. She closed her eyes and bit into the peach, and as she slowly chewed, with juice dripping from her mouth, we told her—yet again—how proud we were of her for her amazing transformation and for helping soften and transform countless teenagers. Jay stroked her face and I kissed her forehead, and we thanked her for all we’d been through together.