Holy Cow

23 IT’S HARD TO LEAVE ANYWHERE

As the sun was going down, Mallory awoke from a long nap, her calf, Elsie, still sleeping beside her. She looked different to me. I couldn’t put my finger on it, mostly ’cause I don’t have any fingers, but also because it was mysterious. She looked like someone. And then it hit me-she looked like my mother. “Mallory,” I said.

ELSIE

I’m leaving tonight.

MALLORY

I know.

ELSIE

And I know you can’t come with me, but I’m gonna come back for you and Elsie, Jr., as soon as I figure out how.

MALLORY

No.

ELSIE

No what?

MALLORY

Don’t come back for me, I won’t go. I won’t leave this place.

ELSIE

How can you say that? You know what they’ll do to you? You know what they might do to little Elsie. You know about the V word.

MALLORY

I know, but this is the only life I’ve ever known, the only life any of the cows in my family have ever known. I’m not brave like you. You were made to explore, to discover new things. I wasn’t. I know I don’t have forever here on the farm before they kill me, and that they will kill my baby after that, but we all have to die sometime and I want what little time I have here to be peaceful, in the pasture, playing with my girl and her daddy. You may not think that’s a beautiful life, but I do. And just one day of that life is worth everything to me. Please don’t hate me. You can think I’m a coward, but please don’t hate me.

ELSIE

I don’t hate you, Mals, and I don’t think you’re a coward. In fact, you are the bravest woman I’ve ever known.

I meant it. Maybe I was the coward for running away. Or maybe we were just different, cut out for different lives, and each of us was doing what we had to. I leaned into Mallory with all my weight, which is how cows hug. Her eyes closed and she fell back asleep leaning on me. It was nighttime now. I heard a rustling at the back of the barn and I looked up to see a pig tottering upright on its hind legs and a turkey with a cell phone, waiting for me. It was time to go. I shuffled over to them.

Just as I was leaving the barn for the last time, I turned around and had this overwhelming urge to stay. Why is it that when we’re leaving something is the moment we most appreciate it? My heart was filled with love for all the animals, even the chickens, even the dogs, even the farmers, and I cast my mind back on all the lazy days we’d had-me and my mother in the pasture, Mallory and I talking through the night. So many memories.

But I had to go. When I turned, the pig was looking at me. And he said, “It’s hard to leave anywhere. Even if the place sucked. It’s hard to leave anywhere at all.”