Prefer that I read this story aloud for you? Happy to oblige! You can listen to the podcast version from The Hearth of Sap Bush Hollow here:

An unattended border collie is a scourge.  Mom read those words aloud from one of her sheep dog training books thirty years ago, when we first started using border collies on the farm.  I never forgot that sentence.  It admonishes me as Bob and I get ready to go down to the cafe to meet the contractor.  I tell myself that Kit is only half border collie, so those words are only half true.  This is supposed to be our contractor’s last day, and I need to talk to him about a number of things: the broken cooktop, the gaping hole in my roof that he was supposed to fix last week, which I’d already paid him to do, per our revised contract; or the fact that when the new hood vent turns on, it pulls insulation from the attic and blows it all around the cafe kitchen, a detail that wasn’t mentioned in contract one or two.  I’ve paid for the project in full now, per the terms of both contracts, but there appears to be much undone, and a fair amount of collateral damage. 

Kit wants to ride in the car with us. 

“You stay,” I command her as I pull on my coat.  Her triangle ears flatten in shame. 

I’ve failed you and you no longer love me, she telepathically transmits to my brain.

“The girls need you here,” I answer out loud.  “Keep an eye on Kit,” I call as we head out the door.  Saoirse looks up from the essay she’s writing on Frankenstein from the chair beside the fire.  

“Got it, Mom,” she nods.  

Ula runs in from the sewing project she’s spread across the kitchen table and throws her arms around me in a goodbye hug.  “Ula and I will enjoy ourselves today,” Ula channels Kit’s raspy voice for our benefit.  “I will keep her safe.”  Making Kit’s voice is a great source of amusement around here. 

I’m thankful for this stage of home-schooling, when the kids are so self-directed, they need me more as a guide than a teacher.  A morning run down to the cafe no longer presents an interruption in their studies. 

We arrive at the cafe at 9am, but the contractor isn’t there.  By 10am, he still hasn’t showed.  I start to get a sick feeling in my stomach.  Mom comes down to wait with us.  She sees me start to pace, bracing for yet another conflict with this man, while simultaneously dreading that he won’t show up.

Sandy, one of our customers, comes by to pick up his order.  “How’s it going?” He casually asks.

I sigh and give him the short version of the hood vent construction story, summed up with my assessment that I’ve hired a dishonest person to get the work done, and that I’m unsure what will be completed at all.  “Time to hire Clemens,” he reminds me.

Clemens is a local architect I used to work with when I had a job in low-income housing rehabilitation. He knows building codes like the back of his hand, he’ll contort his body to crawl through any hole in any ceiling, wall or basement to fetter out a problem, and when he smells shoddy work from a contractor, he’s the scariest man I’ve ever known.  He doesn’t back down to anyone.  I never thought to call him before, as he’s always in demand for project oversight with big jobs.  Plus, I didn’t think I could afford him.  But grew up inWest Fulton, and he doesn’t take lightly to charlatans working in his home town.

Mom doesn’t give me an opportunity to question the ensuing fees.  “We’re losing money already,” she calls from table one.  “Get him on the phone!”

He answers on the first ring.

“Clemens — I need help,” I start.  I try to keep my cool, but it’s gone.  The next words taste bitter in my mouth as I finally say them out loud.  “I screwed up.  Bad. And I need you to get me out of trouble.”

We review through my tears all the things I failed to do: I signed a contract without stipulating a completion date.  I permitted a stranger to work in my cafe kitchen on a highly specialized project without getting a set of specs for the job to make sure it was done properly.  I agreed to a project where I had to pay in advance for each subsequent phase.  

“You should never…” Clemens starts his lecture.  Then he has the decency to cut himself off.  “That’s not exactly helpful at this point, is it?” He asks himself more than me.  I’m only sobbing.   He jumps on the job fast, but not without a major warning:  He will get the contractor to complete the job he’s contracted to do, but then I’ll need to hire again to get someone to fix the shoddy workmanship.  But this time, Clemens will do the hiring and oversight. I hang up the phone and look at my mother.  Then the tears really start.

Here’s the thing about a family business.  Each generation spends the first half of their life wondering if they could ever be as smart as Mom and Dad.  Then we launch into the next half of our lives, hell-bent on proving how much better we can do it than they ever did.  

And then a moment like this happens, when I realize how much I’ve screwed up — How much of my family’s money I’ve wasted getting us into this mess, how much stress I’ve caused, and how it’s all playing out in a place that is sacred to me: my cafe kitchen.  Why did I ever think I could handle this business?  

I deserve a lot of admonition.  Mom doesn’t say a word, only “we’ll find the money to pay Clemens.  Then we’ll get this fixed.”  She picks up her things to go home, then turns back to look at me one more time.  “Don’t let this get to you, Shannon.”  But it does get to me.  

I turn and look at Bob, his big brown eyes wide with sympathy.  “The only thing you did wrong was trust that someone would do the job they told you they’d do,” he says.  “That’s not wrong.”

I take a deep breath and try to comfort myself with the fact that at least now, I have someone hired who understands the job and can see it through.  We head home for lunch with the girls.

There’s a truck pulled in front of our house when we get there.  One of our neighbors jumps out when he sees us.  “I hit your dog!”  He exclaims!  “I’m so sorry!  She jumped up over the snowbank by your woodpile and landed right in the road in front of me!  I didn’t roll over her, but she rolled when I hit her.  She took off into the woods.  I just told your girls!”

We tear into the house to pull on snow gear.  The girls are already deep into the 5000 acre state forest, trying to find a hurt white and black dog who is invisible against dark tree trunks and fresh snow.  I don’t know how we will ever find Kit out here.  But I can find my daughters easily enough.  They are calling to their beloved pup, sobbing all the while.  We tramp up and down the stream banks, out over the old stone walls, calling her name.  We make a straight line and spread out, walking straight back toward Mallet pond, scanning every fallen log in an effort to identify her.  Would she be laying down?  Was it just adrenaline that let her run away?  Is she lying someplace dying, alone and afraid?  Will she even come out of hiding if she hears us?  Will she run several miles until she finds the next house on the other side of the forest?  Will we ever see her again?

We search over an hour until I begin to worry about the kids.  They left the house in a panic to find her, and they’re not dressed for warmth.  I worry that if I don’t stop them now and make them come inside, the problems of the day will only get worse.  They’re so distraught, I have to order them indoors.

“It’s my fault,” Saoirse wails as I shuttle her over to the wood stove.  “I saw that she’d gotten outside, and I told myself I should call her in, but then I just kept working on my paper!”

“I just kept sewing,” Ula laments.  “She’s my best friend!  How could I have ignored her?”

And that’s when the real terror of the situation dawns on me.  I’ve seen a lot of animals come and go in 45 years on the farm.  That’s just life around here.  But to see my daughters living with guilt and self-blame for losing something so dear to them, that’s more than I can bear.  Mom and Dad drive up from the farm to sit with us while we cry.

A few minutes later Bob returns to the house with Kit.  He found her in the place where we took our morning walk.  There’s a cut on her head and her foot is bleeding, but she’s able to wriggle and lick our faces.  Bob and Ula load her into the car (at last — she’s getting that car ride she wanted) and head for the vet to make sure she’s okay.  Mom sits in a rocking chair and looks up at me.  There’ve been so many tears shed this day, and now more come.  Tears of relief.  Tears of despair.  They all taste salty. 

She holds her arms out to me.  I can’t fit in her lap anymore, but I fall on the floor at her feet in a heap.  She hugs my back and Saoirse curls in front of me and I hug her. Mom sits quietly as Saoirse and I just sob it out for a while.  And that’s when I see it all.  Saoirse is lying in my arms, unable to forgive herself for what happened to Kit.  I am far from angry.  I only want her to have her dog back, and I want her to forgive herself.  At the same time,  I am lying there in my own mother’s arms, unable to forgive myself for making a bad business decision.  And I see then what she most wants for me. 

Can I forgive myself?  What does that look like?

Two hours later my contractor is screaming insults at me over the phone, claiming he doesn’t have to answer to any architect named Clemens McGiver, who is now emailing him.  In his rage I recognize insecurity.  I hear the lies I’ve heard before, and draw a deep breath, thankful that I can hand the job off to someone who is skilled at addressing them.  “I think you’ll really enjoy working with Clemens,” I assure the man brightly.  “He’s very knowledgeable, and I’m confident you’ll learn a lot.”

I have made a big mistake.  There is a way to fix it.  The dog was hit by a car.  She is going to be fine.  For today, that has to be enough.  Maybe tomorrow I can forgive myself. 

Podcast update:  We’re learning the new technology, working on the artwork & music and lining up the first few programs, hoping for a February launch.  Do you have questions you’d like me to answer on the air?  Topics you’d like me to cover? Help me out by letting me know! Write to me at shannon@sapbush.com.