The light from the barn illuminates the run-in shelter, and I can see the dark silhouette of Bowser and the llamas. They’re shuffling through the hay that I spread on the ground before I left.
Once I can figure out exactly what’s going on financially, I plan on investing in some night vision cameras so I can keep an eye on all of the animals in the dark. Not only will this give me peace of mind, but it’ll be really interesting to see what all the animals do after dark. I had just assumed everyone would lay down and sleep similarly to the way the horses settle down for the night.
The kettle whistles and I hurry back into the kitchen, mind automatically thinking that the noise is going to wake Everly up. This isn’t the first time she’s had a sleepover, but she’s been short on friends as of late. Back when we still lived close enough to my parents, she would have sleepovers with my mom, and she’s spent a few weekends with Louisa and Ruby before. Still, I miss her anytime she’s not with me.
I make myself a cup of chamomile tea and pull Aunt Kim’s phone out of the junk drawer as I wait for the teabag to steep. I haven’t yet brought myself to go through her phone. Everly still wants to look at the photos, and I really do want to just double-check everything before she does. Even though Aunt Kim is gone, it still feels like an invasion of her privacy. My plan is to just delete anything remotely questionable before I look into it too much. It wouldn’t matter anyway since she’s gone.
There are a handful of texts that I will get to later. I don’t have the emotional bandwidth right now to deal with seeing the amount of people who have no clue that Aunt Kim is dead. It’s actually starting to anger me that Kim specified not to announce her death in any way. At the time, I didn’t see an issue with it because I was in shock and grieving. But now, I see how unfair it is to keep people in the dark. Funerals are for the living after all. It’s the way we seek closure.
I’m surprised by the number of apps on Aunt Kim’s phone. She seems to really be a fan of playing games like Candy Crush. She has a Facebook and Instagram page as well, and along with following me and Louisa, the only other people she follows are horse or animal accounts.
I open up her photos and this time I’m pleasantly surprised to see she doesn’t have as many as I do. It won’t take me all that long to quickly filter through these. I stir my tea as I look through her photo albums. As expected, most of her pictures are of the horses. She very thoroughly documented each one that she’s rescued. I find Odin’s pictures from the first day she rescued him. He was in horrible shape, and Everly would love to see how far he came. It'll be good for her to see just how long it takes to bring a horse back into shape.
Taking the phone and the tea with me, I go back upstairs and continue to look through the photos until I fall asleep.
I slump into a rocking chair on the front porch, trying to catch my breath. It’s 10:30 in the morning and I just got done cleaning all of the stalls. It’s quite literally the only thing I have done so far this morning other than feed the animals. Everly texted me when she got to school so I would know she got there all right. I set my phone down only a few minutes after reading her text, and I haven’t picked it up since. I take another minute before I get up again, going back into the house. My phone is in the kitchen and my heart speeds up when I see that I have two missed calls and five missed texts.
It’s not from the school, however. It’s from my boss. I open up the texts and I’m instantly annoyed to see that my boss is asking if I can look over a report and get back to her by the evening. I’m technically still on bereavement leave and shouldn’t have to do anything work-wise until Monday. The last text she sent is a reminder that a full week of bereavement isn’t typically company policy; however, due to the unique circumstances, they gave me the full week off and I should be grateful.
“Gotta love the mentality of the American workforce,” I grump out loud to no one in particular. I remember something Aunt Kim said to me back when we first arrived here, thinking we would only be staying for the week. She asked me if I enjoyed my job, knowing I couldn’t answer her honestly without saying that I don’t.