Page 21 of The False Flat

LIFE REALIZATION #6: CHICKENS ARE SURPRISINGLY RESILIENT

Two weeks later, officially in a long-distance relationship with Chad and inching my business forward like a turtle with no legs, I made good on my promise to Grant by going on that freaking group bike ride.

To avoid people watching me, I chose the back of the pack, where I could relax enough to enjoy the gently sloping landscapes of the Tennessee countryside. The green, everything was green. The hills. The trees. The stems on the wildflowers. All contrasting beautifully against the bright-blue sky. The air was filled with a symphony for the nostrils: cut grass, honeysuckle, and unpolluted air.

A short, stocky woman named Dani rode beside me, giving me the details of the group.

Frank was an accountant and full of himself but surprisingly knowledgeable. Sarah, his wife, was a quiet triathlete who crocheted. William was an electrical engineer, kind, but usually boring. Grant was a nonconformist architect whom Dani had a difficult time summing up in one sentence. It was funny getting these one-liners from a stranger, especially about the two I’d already met. There were others, but her rundown was interrupted by an incident ahead.

Everyone stopped, either straddling or standing beside their bikes on the road, next to a white wooden fence, a farmhouse in the distance. Someone was on the ground, in the middle of the empty street, yelling. Someone else was helping him to his feet.

“I gotta see what’s going on,” Dani said and then rode away from me.

Before I could figure out what had happened, the crew was once again riding in the direction of Marcy Jo’s, our midride lunch destination. Only one person stayed behind, hunched over something I couldn’t see in the patch of grass beside the road.

Grant.

I don’t know why I stopped, but I did.

“What is it, little gal?” I heard him say as I unlatched my kickstand and got closer. He bent forward; then a bird screeched, leaped up, and smacked him in the face. Grant’s arms shot out and grabbed the floundering mass of feathers.

“Is that a chicken?” I asked, wide eyed.

“Look in that pack right there, will you?” Grant nodded toward the folded leather pack in the dry dirt beside him.

I bent to pick it up.

“I’ll need an antiseptic pad, the small packet of styptic powder, and gauze.”

I dropped the pack, my vision blurring.

“Gauze? Why do you need gauze?” I backed away, holding one hand over my mouth.

“Superficial scratch on her leg. Amazing, since a man-child and his bike ran into her.” I didn’t move. “I’ll get the supplies then.” He shifted to the pack, keeping his eye on me.

“I don’t . . . I don’t do blood.” My voice was far away, as if it had left my body. It wasn’t blood exactly; it was anything medical. The gauze, the injury, the implication of a hospital, all of it triggered an internal storm. Okay, panic. I panicked at all that stuff.

“Why don’t you sit down?”

I didn’t want to need to, but I needed to. I sat and viciously plucked at the clover on either side of me.

“I have to ask,” he said to my back. “What did you expect to see here after witnessing that collision?”

“Collision?” My voice cracked on the word.

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

Why hadn’t I ridden on with everyone else instead of staying with this insane man, tending to a random chicken on the side of the road.

“You didn’t see William run right into this bird?”

“What? No! I would’ve never come over here if . . .” I trailed off, my stomach splashing acid onto the words. “I was in the back. I thought you said you were an architect. Shouldn’t a vet be doing this?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched his hands move as he spoke. “I came across a dog once, riding on the back roads. She’d had . . . a little accident.” He paused. “Now, I’m always prepared.”

That would never be me. I couldn’t do things like that, which was why I’d never had a pet or a plant and never wanted kids.

Grant did things like that.