The animals are all I can think about. What would happen to my animals who have already experienced the worst this world has to offer?
“How much, Mona?” For a moment she looks so guilty that I feel bad pressing her.
“Give or take a few dollars… forty-seven thousand.”
I glance at Jessica. Wisely, she’s not gloating. She maintains an appropriately neutral expression as she waits patiently for me to do the math, to come to my own conclusion. I clear my throat, swallow the bile rising up. “On second thought…”
“I’ll get the contract ready.”
Chapter 2
“Who did this?”
The top of the slow feeder sits in the corner of the small paddock, broken in two pieces. Trampled, it seems, by tiny hooves.
It’s a contraption that forces the animals to pull the hay through slats which stops them from consuming their daily amount all at once. No binge eating allowed at Mother Goose Rescue. Many of my little and big friends are on a medical diet and need to be fed small meals to rehab from starvation or other health-related issues.
My sidekick, Billy, sidles up to me for moral support and I automatically rub his floppy ear in return.
Running an animal rescue wasn’t what I planned on doing with my life. And yet not a day goes by that I’m not grateful for it. I don’t know where I’d be without these animals to care for. In a way, they saved me.
After the assault, I was lost, suffering from PTSD or whatever you want to call it. Even though I did my best to deny it––mostly to myself––the trauma took a toll on every aspect of my life. None more directly than on my work.
I was a paramedic once. And a good one at that. It wasn’t merely a job I loved with all my heart––it was a calling. There was never a dull moment. It was full of adventure. And the best part was that I got to help people when they were most in need. In every way possible, it was a career tailor-made for me.
Nothing beat the feeling of coming home at the end of the day knowing I helped deliver a baby on the side of the 405 freeway. Or that we stopped a distraught teen from jumping off an overpass. Or that my team and I saved the career of a high school running back who caught a stray bullet in the leg. He eventually went on to be drafted first overall into the NFL. I made a tangible, immediate difference in people’s lives and loved every minute of it.
For years I did my job without any regard for my personal safety. It never even crossed my mind. After the incident, however, it was all I could do to not think about it. Which really messed with my head. The same confidence that had sent me running into the most crime-ridden parts of L.A. without hesitation had deserted me overnight and I had no idea how to reclaim it. My mojo literally went missing in action.
At first, I kept my head down and pushed through. Pretended I hadn’t lost my confidence. Pretended I wasn’t on the verge of a panic attack a few times a day when things got dicey as they often did. Running toward dicey situations is part of the job description after all.
Then the worst thing that could have happened, happened. I had an episode right in the middle of treating a gunshot victim. While we were stabilizing him, people living in the neighborhood loitered around out of natural curiosity. Nothing out of the ordinary; I’d been in that same exact situation thousands of times. But that day was different.
As more of them came out of their homes to see what was happening, congregating around the scene of the crime, my anxiety escalated. It paralyzed me. I locked up like a non-responding computer program. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think. I couldn’t help anyone, most of all myself. That was the day I became a liability to my team, and more importantly, to the victim.
That’s when I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. My issues getting in the way of someone’s personal welfare was where I drew the line. So, I quit.
No mojo. No job.
“Keep busy,” they said. “Don’t think about it too much.”
Sitting around has never been my thing, so I figured a temporary job, one far away from the one I loved and lost, was the next logical step. This was L.A.; there were six-dollar lattes waiting to be served somewhere. Frankly, I was ready to do any job short of the one I was trained in.
Then a ‘help wanted’ ad caught my attention:
Desperately seeking a live-in companion. Must love country living and animals. Medical training or experience preferred.
Getting as far away as possible from L.A. felt right at the time, and country living was just what I needed. The animals were an added bonus. I’d always loved animals. Living in a two-bedroom apartment with a single parent that was mostly absent made owning any impossible. I drove out to Ojai for the interview, met her three rescue horses, and a few days later I moved into her guesthouse.
That’s how I met Mona.
She taught me everything she knew about caring for large animals since she’d been doing it all her life, and together, we started Mother Goose Rescue.
“Well? Which one of you scoundrels broke the top of this?” I tap the plastic top of the feeder with the tip of my red cowboy boot.
Two mini donkeys and three mini horses innocently stare back at me, mouths full of hay, chewing slowly. Hazel avoids eye contact, a dead giveaway she’s the guilty party.
Hazel’s our youngest mini donkey, a teenager. She’s been going through a rebellious phase recently. Pepper, our senior rescue, is more cautious and respectful. We make allowances for Hazel’s behavior because she was an orphan and not in the best of health when she came to live with us, but it may be time for some tough love.
“Hazel?”
Her response is to scratch behind her floppy ear with her back hoof. It’s as close to an admission as I’m going to get.
Grabbing the electrical tape off my tool belt, I make quick work of fixing the feeder. Fixing things is a large percent of the work around here. I wake up at dawn. Start feeding grain to those who need it. Turn out the ones that sleep in the stable at night. Fill the hay nets, clean the stalls, check the perimeter for anything broken, fix things, fix more things, administer meds––and with a number of our rescues being elderly and infirm, that means a lot of meds––rinse and repeat. All of this and it’s still only the tip of the iceberg. A million things can go wrong on a farm, and they usually do.
“So, look… there’s gonna be lots of new people running around here tomorrow. I don’t want you to be scared…”
I checked out Aidan Hughes’ Instagram account last night and let’s just say the only way to survive the next few months with my mental health intact is with a solid strategy. However talented he may be, and he is, the man is a complete, attention-seeking narcissist.
As a matter of self-preservation, I’ve determined I can play it one of two ways: harpy man-hater or non-confrontational wallflower. Both strategies have merit, but the wallflower requires less energy, and the harpy man-hater inherently carries more risk. Plus, it’s more emotionally taxing, and I don’t do emotional these days. Being confrontational drains me.
The point is I need to keep a healthy amount of social distance from a person that will be living here for the next three months and it’s not going to be easy.
“…you guys feel free to do what you guys do.” I shovel some more hay into the feeder I taped together. “Fart, play fight, slobber. Just be yourselves, and if someone’s shoes get ruined in the process, then so be it.”