Jack cleared his throat to get her attention, startled by what he stumbled upon. He hadn't caught much, but definitely the last bit of Amy throwing the phone – his phone – and smashing it to pieces.
Amy jerked her head up to see who was there, quickly looking away and wiping her eyes.
"Sorry." She pushed herself off the couch and went to retrieve the pieces of phone, kneeling on the floor to reach for the batteries that rolled under one of the chairs. Her face burned with shame, wondering how much he'd overheard and what new round of questions were about to come her way.
Jack pulled his hat off and set it on the dining table as he went to help Amy fit the phone back together. He didn't near her, but stopped and held out his hand for her to give him the cordless. "Don't worry about it."
Amy sat back on her heels with all the pieces, ignoring Jack's outstretched hand, arranging the batteries and sticking them back in. "I got it," she sniffed, "I'm sure it still works fine."
Jack lowered his hand. "It wouldn't be the first time that thing was blown to bits." He recalled several other occasions, one which included a busted window. They didn't have a good track record with happy phone calls at Heartland.
He stood back and let Amy distract herself putting the phone together, which took all of ten seconds. His gaze followed her as she then stood up and walked back to the kitchen to join it to the base. "I don't suppose you want to talk about it."
Amy took great effort in finding ways not to meet Jack's eye. She took her time walking to the kitchen where she could have her back to him as she replaced the phone back on the roll-top desk that was littered with bills and paperwork. "No," was her simple expected reply.
She felt him behind her, waiting, but she steeled herself against the urge to turn and look at him by skimming over the loose papers in front of her. It was nothing interesting, mostly bills and budget sheets. Her eyes watered thinking of how obsessive Lou was over budget sheets to the point of moving her entire life away from her family to formulate them for a living.
"Well, if you don't want to talk, I have something to keep you busy for a while." Jack said after a moment of silence.
"God, can't I ever get just a second to breathe around here?!" Amy exclaimed, running her hand through her hair. Her life was crumbling in her hands and all Jack wanted from her was free labor.
Jack ignored her tone. "It might do you some good to have your hands occupied. And it takes no thought at all, so you can think about anything else you want."
Amy swallowed, glancing out the window in front of her. "Is Ty still around?"
"Not at the moment. Probably won't see him until near supper." Jack returned his hat to his head and moved passed Amy to the door, holding it open. "Shall we?"
Sighing, Amy glanced at Jack, unable to decide if she was grateful or irritated that he just ignored her obvious distress. Wiping her face, she nodded and followed after him back outside and across the driveway to the chicken coop.
Amy stopped abruptly as Jack went around to the gate. He looked up at her, dropping the latch back into place. "Something wrong?"
Amy watched the colorful creatures strutting around the pen, pecking at the ground and clucking at each other occasionally flapping their wings to jump onto a low branch positioned in a corner of the coop. She never dealt with chickens before, or any animals really outside the usual cat or dog. At Jack's voice her gaze drifted up to him. "Do they bite?"
Jack smiled, amused by Amy's countryside naiveté. "Not unless you give them a reason to. They may peck at your feet a little, but they won't hurt you."
After another moment of hesitation, Amy followed Jack into the coop, at least glad he didn't stick her with some task involving the horses. So far she was able to admire them from afar, but wasn't so certain about getting up close and personal yet.
The little creatures scattered when they stepped inside, but then began clucking in earnest as they crowded around the two humans, flapping their wings excitedly and sometimes attacking each other. Not in a vicious way, but from more of a hierarchal assertion. Amy gasped and nearly jumped on Jack's back when one managed to propel itself off the ground onto the limb by her head. "I didn't think they could fly." She lifted her hands in a protective position around her head.
"Not like a regular bird. With enough momentum they can get themselves aloft a few feet but only for a few seconds. Here." Amy followed him through the door to the interior shelter where all of the nests were lined in little cubbies. The chickens had their own little flap they were able to go through and a few were settled in to roost.
"I'm going to leave you with the daily task of caring for them," Jack explained, holding up his hand as Amy's mouth opened to argue. "It's simple enough. Their seed is over there in the bin. They don't need a lot, just a few handfuls. Sprinkle it over the ground outside. Check their water. Rake the poop. And check the nests for eggs." He reached beneath a hen and pulled out a fresh brown egg, offering it to Amy who took it, unsure what to think. She was used to the ivory eggs from the supermarket, the fact that the one she held was a funny brown color was off putting.
"There aren't…"
"They aren't fertilized, no. Need a rooster for that, which we don't currently have. Coyote got him a few months ago." He said it like it was a totally normal occurrence, coyotes coming onto the property to pilfer chickens. But for them, it was. "That's why you need to check the enclosure as well, coyotes will dig underneath so check for holes in the ground as well as any warped wire. "
Amy was listening to Jack, but her eyes were still examining the egg in her hand. A ringing erupted in her ears and she suddenly felt lightheaded, falling back against the wall. Jack was quick to reach out to steady her and for once she didn't withdrawal, but clung to his arm as he eased her into a sitting position, squatting in front of her. "Are you alright?" The alarm in his voice was obvious as he let go of Amy once she was safely on the ground.
With her eyes pressed shut, Amy nodded, taking deep gulps of air as her heart raced in her chest. She was having a panic attack, seemingly out of nowhere. Something squeezed against her ribcage, making it difficult to breath. Folding her knees, she wrapped her arms around her legs and dropped her head between them, sucking in ragged breaths of air.
"Talk to me, Amy." Jack remained in a crouch before her, a hand cautiously extended in her direction while remaining a careful distance away, afraid to touch her any more than necessary, Ty's revelation still at the front of his mind.
Amy shook her head, lifting a shaking hand in answer, gesturing him to just give her a minute. She would power through this one just as she did all the rest. In. One, two, three. Out. One, two three. She concentrated on her counting and felt herself gradually relax. Her whole body went visibly limp until her hands released her knees and dropped to the straw-covered floor. Her closed eyes opened on the brown egg that had dropped between her feet, still intact. She took in a handful of normal breaths, still feeling a flutter in her chest that made her limbs limp and heavy.
"This is it," she finally said at the egg, her voice cracking. "This is what my life is now. Rejection, and chickens."
Jack nearly had a heart attack watching Amy struggle to remain in control of her body, unsure if it was the baby causing her pain and if they would need to make an emergency trip to the hospital. In their part of the world it was a real flip of a coin whether they'd make it there in time. They were on their own out on the ranch. Minor things could be stitched or patched well enough to make it to the clinic in town but they were not equipped for medical emergencies. In that moment, Jack wondered if he maybe had made a mistake in bringing Amy to Heartland. Any sort of complications with her pregnancy could leave them in dire straits.
He was relieved when she finally spoke, even if her words left a hollow feeling in his chest.
"It doesn't have to be," he answered softly, shifting to sit against the opposite wall. The coop was small enough that if he stretched his legs out he could touch hers, but rather curled them to keep the space. "I won't pretend to understand what you're going through. I can only imagine the struggle you've endured trying to find a path through this mess that seems to be diverted at every corner or blocked altogether. I'm just trying to help you cut a new one through the prickers." And every time he got a few feet looked back only to find her trying to wade her way back to a more defined path, causing herself worse injury.
Amy lifted her gaze, looking at him through her lashes. Again with the metaphors of wisdom. She bit back a snappy comment, understanding his meaning in spite of the irritating way he delivered it. He was giving her a less conventional option – one that couldn't be walked alone and offered the guidance to survive. He was offering her a place to stay and a purpose to prevent her idle hands from making deals with the devil. It wasn't perfect or even ideal, nor was it home, but it was there when nothing else was and she was given the chance to make of it what she wanted. She knew Jack would take her to the bus stop come Monday if she asked, but sitting on that floor of straw, eyes lowering to the egg at her feet, she knew she wouldn't ask.
"It was my sister," she confessed, slowly moving to reach for the egg, still warm from the nest. "I thought maybe she'd care enough to let me come to New York. I should have known better. She couldn't even be bothered to come home while our mother was sick until it was already too late. I would have been too much of a nuisance. What would her friends and colleagues think?" Amy snorted, shaking her head imagining how appalled they would all be as Lou tried to justify Amy's existence. Honestly, their phone call was the slap in the face Amy needed to wake up and realize she was better off in the company of strangers.
Jack couldn't even bring himself to come up with some kind of explanation for Amy's sister, finding her rejection as appalling as Amy did. "I'm sorry," was all he could muster with a sad shake of his head. He felt terrible for Amy and her situation, which was why he was offering her as much as he was. If she truly didn't want to stay, that was her choice, but at least the choice was there for her to make.
"No. I'm sorry." Amy took a breath, as if mustering up all that was left of her pride. "You've been nothing but kind and accommodating since I've been here." Minus a few stern talking-tos. "You've treated me better than my own family and I've been…" She shook her head, unable to even describe her wretched behavior.
Jack sat up straighter, surprised by Amy's apology. Was this her way of telling him she'd decided to stay? Either way, he'd take it. "Your anger is understandable. It was never my intention to make you feel trapped here, or like you had no choices. I just thought, perhaps mistakenly, that I could help. Call it a character flaw, Ty certainly does. Bleeding Heart Syndrome, I believe, was the term he used once."
Amy scoffed, finding it easy to believe Ty held contempt for his grandfather's compassion. Aside from the moment they pulled into Heartland on that first day when he described the kind of work they did with the horses on the ranch, Amy couldn't recall seeing an ounce of compassion slip through his rough exterior. Had he bothered to show her any she might have warmed up to the place a bit sooner, or at the very least not shown as much hostility. There was no taking it back now, especially since her unspoken agreement to stay at Heartland didn't mean the animosity would end. It was still a transition that needed to take time, but now that Amy was willing to stop digging in her heels and fighting it, just maybe the rough road would smooth out a bit.
"Well, if it weren't for your bleeding heart, I don't know where I'd be so…" Amy found Jack's gaze, giving him a glimpse behind her steel curtain. "Thank you."
Jack could see the caution Amy still held in her eyes, and he was certain that wouldn't fade any time soon, not only because of her relationship with Ty but also because of the secrets she still kept locked inside, but this moment here was a very good start.