Cheating for the Chicken Man Read Free

hold for two.”
    This was all new to Kate. A panic attack? Breathing and counting? Kate had thought she knew her mother’s secrets. But apparently not.
    *
    It took Grandma two hours to drive from the cemetery to the Tylers’ home on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. By the time they arrived, it was late afternoon, and Kate’s exhausted mother went straight to bed. The two girls changed into jeans, while Kate’s grandmother fixed them grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner. Kerry was allowed to keep the cat on her lap whilethey ate, and no one spoke much. Even Tucker, J.T.’s border collie, seemed to pick up on the mood and lay quietly beneath the kitchen table, surrounded by their feet.
    A low rumble and the grating sound of a large truck shifting gears distracted them. Kate pushed back her chair and, flip-flops flapping, went to the living room picture window that faced the road. “Darn!” she muttered, disappointed to see a gray-colored school bus crunching over the long oyster-shell driveway.
    â€œWhat is it?” Grandma asked when Kate returned to the kitchen.
    â€œThe new chicks are here,” Kate told her.
    â€œOh, dear,” her grandmother sympathized. “They wouldn’t even give you the day off for your father’s funeral.”
    â€œIt’s fine, Grandma. No big deal,” Kate said, quickly putting her best face on it. “We knew they were coming; I just forgot. Uncle Ray already asked me to do it. He had to get home for that plumber, remember? Something happened to their well.”
    â€œWell, bless your heart,” Grandma said, reaching for a napkin. “Here, take the sandwich with you.”
    Kate waved her off. “It’s okay,” she said, sitting on the floor to pull on old sneakers. “I’d rather eat when it’s done.”
    When she was ready, Tucker scrambled through the back door before Kate and rushed across the yard, barking at the bus-turned-delivery truck as it beeped and backed up to a long, low building. V ALLEY SHORE CHICKEN FARMS was written in big black letters beneath the bus windows. This was the business that hatched the chicks and delivered them to the Tylers to raise. Every nine weeks, 54,400 chicks were brought to the farm. Funny, but after all these years, the company’s namesuddenly struck Kate as absurd. There were no mountains on the Eastern Shore of Maryland—it was flat as a pancake—so how could there be valleys? But it sounded nice, didn’t it? Valleys and shores. If people only knew, Kate thought.
    The bus stopped, and with it, the irritating
beep
,
b
eep
,
beep
.
    First things first.
    â€œTucker!” Kate called, clapping her hands. When the dog trotted to her side, she took hold of his collar and gently led him into a toolshed off the tractor garage. “Just for a little bit, okay?” The dog sat and looked up at her. “No bark. Stay!” she ordered, showing him the palm of her hand.
    After closing the shed door, she walked across the yard to where the bus had parked at one of the two chicken houses. She entered a number combination that unlocked the door and stepped aside so the deliverymen could begin unloading plastic trays full of newly hatched baby chicks. Each tray held about a hundred chicks, and both men carried about ten trays stacked one on top of the other, like a tall and very noisy bread delivery.
    â€œGood afternoon,” Kate said politely.
    â€œAfternoon there, young lady,” one of the men said. He was chewing tobacco—a wad of it made one cheek bulge—and after he greeted her, he turned his head to spit a dark stream of juice into the dust.
    Uncle Ray had spent almost a week getting ready for the baby chicks. Using a backhoe, he had scraped the floors clean of caked manure, then hosed everything off, stocked the feeders with smaller, starter feed, and freshened the water supply. Even though the early fall weather was still warm, the