Then she walked off like she hadn’t just dropped a thesis statement on my entire personality.
I stood there holding wire, watching her go, and for the first time in years I wasn’t thinking about the fence.
That chicken came back. Twice more.
I “fixed” the fence higher both times. May watched from her side with her arms crossed like she was at a dinner theater. “I really admire your persistence,” she said. “Even when it doesn’t work,” I shot back. She laughed, and somehow twenty minutes disappeared — feed prices, weather, my tractor that’s been “almost fixed” since Obama’s first term.
That night I sat on my porch with cold coffee, staring at the light on in her kitchen across the field. Told myself it was nothing.
Left the porch light on anyway. Just in case.
A few days later, my heifer broke through a weak gate and demolished a row of May’s squash. I get there and May’s standing in the wreckage, hands on hips, staring my cow down like she’s about to read it its rights.
“Jack Callaway, your cow just ate a third of my squash crop.”
The cow kept chewing. Zero remorse.
“She’s got good taste,” I said.
