Casey’s Lost Sheep

Everyone has a breaking point. Casey knew this now

The ground was hard and white beneath Casey’s feet and as her breath misted on the cold air she thought she had never felt so glad to be alive.

A few months ago, she would not have dared doing this walk through the countryside.

She’d come a long way and not just today. Five miles probably didn’t sound a lot to some people, but Casey had learned to take small steps and to savour each one.

It wasn’t all she’d learned and some lessons had been harsher than others.

Her ear lobes were freezing. She pulled her woolly hat down harder to cover them. Even her fingers encased in thick woollen gloves tingled with the cold.

Feeling those sensations filled her with joy and when John crossed her mind, as he often did, she didn’t feel any lessening of that joy.

She’d read about men who supported their partners through the most terrible of illnesses and she’d read about men who ran a mile at the first sight of a hospital gown.

She would never have had any doubt that John belonged in the former category and at first he was a great support, going along to her hospital appointments, waiting for hours when she was having scans and tests.

He hadn’t run at the first sight of a hospital gown, nor even the tenth or twentieth, but everyone has their breaking point and John reached his.

‘I can’t do this any more, Casey. I’m not good around illness any more.’

‘You don’t have to be good,’ she said. ‘Just be there to hold my hand.’

‘I can’t,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry. I love you, but I can’t bear the thought of losing you.’

‘We don’t know for sure that’s what’s going to happen,’ she tried to console him.

‘But you think it is, Casey. You’re preparing for it.’

That was true. She didn’t think he’d noticed. She thought he’d been convinced by her enthusiasm about getting better. But he knew her better than she knew herself. So he’d gone and he’d lost her anyway.

She’d never liked winter, but this year was different. She saw something hopeful in the bare branches just quietly waiting for the new growth that spring would soon bring.

If John had waited a little longer, he would have known the fates weren’t ready for her to die and he wouldn’t have had to run away.

She moved on. The footpath curved round and she felt a sense of excitement about what might be waiting round the corner. She’d already seen a heron and a hare and there was the occasional plump pheasant too, looking like something straight off a Christmas card in the frosty landscape.

She walked round the bend and stopped in her tracks.

‘Maaah!’ said the sheep which was standing in the middle of the footpath.

‘What are you doing here?’ Casey asked as she walked slowly towards the ewe.

The sheep backed up a little, then looked at the fence beside the path. ‘Maaah-maaaah!’ it said. There was another sheep in the field beyond the fence. It looked balefully at Casey, but said nothing. Four more sheep stood a little way back. They looked just as baleful.

‘How did you get out here?’ she asked the one in the lane.

Not that she expected an answer. All the sheep did was bleat miserably while looking at Casey rather expectantly as if it thought she’d come to help.

Casey looked around, as you do when hoping to find someone else who might have half a clue as to what to do. She couldn’t just walk on and leave the sheep where it was, but she couldn’t stay here all day hoping someone else would show up.

True, she felt a certain empathy with the ewes on both sides of the fence. There was a time when she’d felt shut out and apart from everyone else, especially after John…

But people had rallied round, making sure she was not alone.

Perhaps there would be a gate further along and she could let the sheep back into the field.

‘I’ll be back,’ she said and pulled off her glove so she could ruffle the woolly and rather oily head. The sheep didn’t seem to mind and

You don’t have to be good. Just be there to hold my hand

nuzzled against her hand. ‘Aw, you’re really quite cute aren’t you? Don’t worry. I’m not going to abandon you.’

She’d never really blamed John for abandoning her. His abandonment belonged to the past and the future was hers to do as she liked with.

She walked on, more briskly now she had a purpose. There didn’t seem to be any sign of a gate or any gaps in the fence or hedgerow.

When she stopped to consider her options, she felt a gentle push in the back of her legs and turned to see the ewe standing behind her.

‘Alright, Miss Impatient,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for a solution, really I am.’

The sheep didn’t look quite so bereft now. The other five had followed on their side of the fence.

‘Maaaah,’ one of them bleated. The others joined in.

‘Keep your wool on,’

Casey laughed.

She knew one person who would know what to do. John. He was the sort of person you could rely on in a crisis and he wouldn’t crack.

Except he did crack. He hadn’t cracked when she lost the baby, nor when she was rushed into hospital for the emergency surgery that put an end to their hopes of becoming parents. He didn’t crack when his parents were killed in an accident, but shouldered it all on behalf of the whole family.

No cracks appeared when their business folded and they nearly lost their house. Not even the slimmest hairline crack when Casey was arrested for shoplifting.

She still went hot all over when she thought about the humiliation and shame. It had been part of her breakdown of course and the shop didn’t press charges, but asked that she didn’t shop there again.

Depression doesn’t go overnight and John had been there for her for the difficult months that followed.

Then when life had been good for a few years, she got ill again and thus began the barrage of tests and biopsies and scans that proved just too much for John to cope with.

It was as if all their past troubles came back to haunt him and her being ill was just one trouble too many.

‘Maaah!’

The sheep trotted along behind her until they reached the end of the field that the other sheep were in.

‘Hm,’ Casey said and looked back along the footpath. Perhaps she’d passed the gap where the sheep had got through before she saw her, but no, she was sure she would have noticed. Her senses were heightened today like never before.

She could see a farmhouse, tiny in the distance. A track led up to it, deeply rutted with tractor tyre tracks, shimmering with ice. A sign at the entrance said, ‘Strictly no admittance. Private road.’

‘Wait here,’ she told the sheep. ‘No need for us both to get into trouble.’

It was hard going, walking on the deep ruts. The sheep clearly didn’t understand English and walked with her, sometimes behind, sometimes in front. She could hear a chorus of dismayed bleating coming from the field behind them. The other sheep clearly thought she was sheep-napping their friend.

A collie barked at her as she approached and she saw a man striding about the yard carrying a bucket. He looked young and strong like John used to be.

‘This is private property,’ he called out.

‘I know, I’m sorry, but I found your sheep. She seemed so lost. I had to help her.’

He put the bucket down and walked over and a smile tugged at his mouth, but he seemed to be trying hard to resist.

Her shoulders slumped. Now she felt really stupid. ‘Oh, I see,’ she said. ‘She’s not a she and he wants to get in the field with the ewes. She… he probably isn’t even your sheep at all.’

‘No, no,’ he said, laughing. He reminded her so much of John when he was younger. No matter what life threw at them, he always had a smile. ‘She’s one of my ewes.’

The ewe ran up to him, tail wagging and kicked her back legs out behind her.

‘Hello, Hilts,’ he said, bending down to pat her. ‘Hilts?’

‘The Great Escape? Steve McQueen’s character? Always escaping? She hasn’t pinched a motorbike as yet though. I thought I’d found her escape route, but clearly I need to look harder.’

‘She’s lovely,’ Casey said, giving the sheep’s head one last ruffle. ‘They all are,’ he said. ‘Is she..? I mean are they..?’

‘None of my beasts are destined for the table. They’ll live here until they die. They’re all rescues.’

Just as Casey was going to tell him how wonderful that was, how wonderful he was, he cleared his throat noisily.

‘Mind how you go now. It’ll be dark soon. Thank you for bringing her back.’

It was a lingering twilight, but darkness was closing in as Casey turned the final bend in the footpath. She could see lights twinkling in the village ahead and the silhouette of a man against the deepening sky.

‘You weren’t supposed to come and meet me,’ she said. ‘I told you I’d be fine’

‘I was worried,’ he said. ‘You seemed to take ages and it was getting dark. I don’t want to lose you again, Casey.’

‘You won’t,’ she said and linked her arm through his.

‘Did you clear your mind and make a decision?’

‘Yes,’ she said. In the end it had been easy.

‘I love you, John,’ she said. ‘I never stopped loving you.’

‘I promise that no matter what happens, I will never leave you to face anything alone again,’ he replied.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘Come home, John.’

She heard his shuddering sigh and knew he was probably crying, so she put her arms around him and held him close. They’d been through too much and come too far to let it go now. She felt his arms tighten round her and leaned against him. It felt so good to have her lost

sheep back.

THE END

She heard his shuddering sigh and

knew he was probably crying