Pickles and gang ask Mrs. Dunn where she was. (Photo courtesy Katherine Dunn)
“Did it hurt?” asked Pickles.
“No, I was asleep the entire time,” I said.
I had been gone for 10 days, in the hospital. Nobody was as surprised as I that I was bluntly told during a third stress test, “You’re going to the hospital now for triple bypass surgery.”
Earnest the pig had come to the gathering with some charts diagramming the heart and what the procedure meant.
“I thought our hearts looked like the paper valentines we just cut out,” said Puddles.
Hannah suddenly came bursting into the group, and was of course, crying.
She rushed to me and pressed herself into my knees.
“I tried to keep her out of ear shot, but she got away from me,” said old Poetry the goat.
“It’s okay. Hannah, I’m okay,” I said.
“Pickles looked it up on the internets and we saw the operation!” cried Hannah.
“Oh dear, well, try to forget that, and look at me right now, with you, I’m okay. In fact, I’m better than I was!” I said.
“What do you mean?” asked Hannah.
“Well, I had no idea my heart was hurt, but it was, but a good doctor made me do some tests. I was sort of mad about it because I felt fine, but I did them, and that’s when he saw my heart needed help. So you see, he caught it in time, before anything bad could happen to me. And my heart will be even stronger than it already was,” I said.
“Was it us? Did we break your heart?” asked Pickles.
“No, no, it was something that could not be helped, it’s part of my genetics,” I said.
Everyone squinted, looking perplexed.
Earnest the pig stepped in. “Genetics makes your eyes brown, Pickles, and Mrs. Dunn’s eyes blue,” he explained.
“You just disappeared. Nobody told us anything,” said Pickles.
“I’m sorry, it was sudden, and I had no choice, and I knew the people we had chosen to care for you would do a good job,’ I said.
“They were fine. But they didn’t let us watch TV,” said Puddles.
“I don’t let you watch TV,” I said. “I hope you all behaved.”
The crowd grew very quiet.
“What are you not telling me?” I asked. “Puddles?”
“Why does it always come back to me?” Puddles asked.
“Because it does,” I said.
“Puddles tried to tell them that on Friday’s we skip breakfast and drive into town to have lunch at Eider’s,” said Pickles.
“And Sundays we get pizza from Oysterhead,” said Ollie the goat.
“Their crust is exceptional,” said Earnest the pig.
“I think they were on to all of you,” I said, and I headed back to the house to rest.
The animals returned to their activities and I stood for a moment to relish the sun, and feel the air and know that I was home. Home. And alive.
Mr. Dunn opened the door for me as he was headed out to do chores.
“Why are there so many pizza boxes in the recycling room?” he asked.
I looked over at the goats, who stood nonchalantly in the barn door, looking at me, innocently.
“I have no idea,” I said, and Earnest the pig gave me a wink.
(Katherine Dunn, of Apifera Farm in Bremen, is an artist and writer. Apifera, a nonprofit, takes in elderly and special-needs animals and shares them with elder people. Learn more at katherinedunn.us.)
