Page 3

We walked up to a field filled with black cows. “There are so many of them.”
“I need an employee to work on rounding them up for milking. And someone to collect eggs.” He patted my shoulder. “Now I have one.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be good at it.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not good at much.”
“You’re sixteen. Just starting out. You just need time.”
“But—”
“No talking down about yourself. Let’s just try it and see how it goes, yeah?”
“Y-yeah, okay.”
“Now, let’s go see some cows.”
We entered the fenced part of the yard. The cows were friendlier than I’d expected, some even brushing up against me as I walked through. I didn’t smile much, but when an animal liked me for no reason, I couldn’t resist.
While Bennie showed me how to milk them, I committedeach part to memory. I was used to letting people down, but I wanted this to be the one time that I didn’t.
The next day, he only monitored from a distance as I tried not to mess anything up.
But I didn’t expect one of the cows to waltz up to me with a newborn calf. She was only a cow, but I swore she looked at me expectantly.
“I don’t have any food. It’s all in the barn.”
She looked at her baby and then at me.
“What? What do you need?”
“She’s showing off her baby!” Bennie called.
I looked at it all with new eyes and smiled at both the massive cow and the tiny one.
“She’s cute. You have good genes.”
I didn’t know if that made me the biggest loser in the world, but there was no one around to hear, except maybe Bennie.
“You’re gonna do great,” he said when I walked up to him. “You’re just like my granddaughter.”
“Where is she?”
“Her mama keeps her in the Nashville, but I don’t think that’s where she belongs.”
“Why not?”
“Sometimes you just know. And when I see her on the holidays, all she can talk about is wanting to be here. Hopefully, she’ll get what she wants.”
“She sounds cool.”
“Right now, she’s busy finishing up school and doing all the things her mama wants.” He smiled, but it seemed a little sad. “But she’ll find her way here. I just know it.”
“And then I’ll get to meet her?” I didn’t make plans for the future, but for some reason, I wanted this to work.
“Somethin’ tells me you’lldefinitelyget to meet her, kid.” He ruffled my hair andwalked off.