I stood on the porch, wiping my hands on my apron, trying to think of what to say. Benji, my little boy, was in the driveway again—barefoot, still in his brown overalls, holding Henrietta like she was the most precious thing in the world. The old hen nestled into his chest without a single squawk, her feathers pressed under his tiny chin as he hummed some soft tune only he knew.
He looked up at me when he heard the screen door creak. His eyes were too big for his face, too bright for the truth I carried inside me like a stone.
“Mommy, look,” he said, his voice hushed with wonder. “She came back.”
I swallowed hard. Henrietta hadn’t “come back.” She’d been gone all day yesterday because I’d tried to do what my mother did, and her mother before that—make sure there was enough for the winter, enough for Sunday dinner, enough for the neighbors if they came by hungry. But when I’d gone to the shed with the hatchet, I couldn’t find her. Benji must have let her out when he did his chores, or maybe she slipped under the fence. Either way, she’d been spared by a twist of fate—and by the soft hands of a little boy who didn’t yet know what it meant to need.
“She missed me,” he said, pressing his cheek to her comb. “I know she did.”
I stepped down onto the gravel, feeling the cold bite my soles through my thin slippers. “She did, baby,” I said, forcing a smile. “She must’ve missed you very much.”
He nodded, satisfied, his tiny hands stroking her wings. I knew I should have told him—should have explained that Henrietta wasn’t just a pet but part of the life we chose out here, part of the way I kept him fed and warm. But standing there, watching the way he rocked her like a baby, I couldn’t do it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
“Let’s bring her inside,” I said gently. “It’s getting cold.”
He shook his head fiercely. “She likes it here. She wants to watch the trucks.”
Behind him, my old Ford sat in the gravel drive. It hadn’t run right in months, but Benji liked to pretend it could take us anywhere—into town, to the store, to the ocean he’d never seen except in picture books. He said Henrietta liked the truck, too. That she dreamed of riding in the front seat, her feathers blowing in the wind.
So I let him stand there, barefoot, talking to his chicken and telling her stories about the big wide world. I stood close enough to feel his warmth, but far enough that the lie between us didn’t crack open.
It hadn’t always been like this. There’d been a time when Joe was here—his boots in the mudroom, his laughter in the kitchen, his arms around my waist as I stirred the soup. Back then, we had more chickens than I could count, fresh eggs every morning, and enough feed to keep the coop full all year. Joe knew how to fix things—tractors, fences, even my restless heart when the nights got too long.
But then Joe left. Cancer doesn’t care about strong hands and warm laughter. It comes like a thief in the night, takes what it wants, leaves you staring at empty boots and cold coffee cups. Now it was just me and Benji and the last handful of hens that hadn’t been taken by foxes or the cold.
Henrietta was old, too old to lay much. She should have been Sunday stew by now, but she was Benji’s favorite. He’d named her after the first storybook I ever read him—Henrietta’s Big Adventure. I’d tried to hide my worry when the feed ran low, when the freezer stayed empty. But kids know. They feel it in the hush of grown-up voices, in the way the cupboards echo.
I leaned against the truck and watched my boy’s breath fog the feathers on Henrietta’s back.
“Mommy, can Henrietta sleep in my room tonight?” he asked suddenly.
“Oh, sweetheart,” I started, but his eyes widened—pleading, so full of hope it nearly broke me.
“She gets cold,” he said. “I can keep her warm.”
I could have said no. Should have said no. But what was the harm in one night? One more night pretending that things were easy, that the world wasn’t waiting to teach him how hard it could be.
“Alright,” I whispered. “Just tonight.”
He beamed. Pure joy, pure light. He pressed his face to Henrietta’s neck and whispered something only she could hear.
That night, I stood outside his room, listening to him talk to her in the dark. He told her stories about the ocean, about the truck that would one day roar back to life and carry us all the way to the beach. He promised her she’d see seagulls, taste salty wind, feel sand under her claws.
I leaned my forehead against the doorframe and let the tears come—silent, so he wouldn’t hear. I wondered what Joe would say if he saw us now—his son asleep with a chicken in his arms, his wife too soft-hearted to teach the boy the truth.
Tomorrow, I told myself. Tomorrow I’d find the words. Tomorrow I’d explain how life works out here—how everything has a purpose, and sometimes love and need are the same thing wearing different coats.
But tomorrow felt so far away. Tonight, there was only my boy’s soft breath, the gentle rustle of feathers, and a promise I wasn’t ready to break.
When I woke at dawn, the house was so quiet I thought for a moment that maybe they’d both slipped away into a dream so soft it couldn’t hold my worries. But then I heard it—Benji’s giggle, muffled behind his bedroom door. A soft cluck in reply. I sat up, pulling Joe’s old flannel shirt tighter around me, and pushed my bare feet into cold slippers.
I stood outside his door for a moment, hand on the knob, listening. He was telling Henrietta about the ocean again—about how when Daddy got back, he’d fix the truck, and we’d all go together. He didn’t say if. He still believed when.
I knocked lightly and pushed the door open. Sunlight spilled through the thin curtains, painting the worn floorboards in gold. There they were: Benji curled on his side, one arm flung over Henrietta like she was a favorite stuffed toy. She blinked at me, her beak resting on his shoulder, perfectly content.
“Mommy, shhh,” Benji whispered, lifting his head just enough to see me. “She’s sleeping.”
I nodded and sat down on the edge of his little bed. The quilt was half on the floor, the cold air seeping in through the drafty window. I pulled it up over them both.
“Are you hungry, baby?” I asked. My voice was too soft, but I couldn’t help it.
“Henrietta wants pancakes,” he said matter-of-factly. “With honey.”
I forced a laugh that stuck in my throat. “I bet she does.”
I didn’t have any honey left. The jar on the pantry shelf had been empty for weeks. The flour tin was down to the last handful. There were two eggs—yesterday’s gift from the other hens, a small miracle in the cold snap that had already claimed three of them.
But I’d make him pancakes anyway. I’d make them thin and stretch them with water if I had to. He’d never know.
While he dozed again, curled into Henrietta’s feathers, I slipped outside. The wind cut sharp through my flannel shirt. Frost still clung to the rusted fence. I counted the feed left in the tin by the coop—barely enough for a few more days. The hens clucked sleepily when I scattered it, scratching at the frozen ground with tired feet.
When I went back inside, I found Benji standing barefoot in the kitchen, Henrietta still pressed tight to his chest. He was humming to her again, that soft made-up tune that reminded me so much of Joe’s old guitar songs.
“Pancakes?” he asked hopefully.
I nodded. “Pancakes.”
He settled at the table, Henrietta on his lap, her feathers ruffling every time he giggled. I mixed the batter with trembling hands, praying he wouldn’t notice how thin it was. I cracked the last two eggs, added a splash of milk that had gone sour but would do once it hit the hot pan.
When I set the plate in front of him, he tore off pieces of pancake and held them out for Henrietta, who pecked at them obediently. His eyes shone. His world was whole—for now.
After breakfast, he ran outside in his sock feet, Henrietta tucked in his arms like a prince carrying a princess through a fairy tale. I watched him from the window, my breath fogging the glass. He set her down gently near the truck, pointed to the sky, and I knew he was telling her about the ocean again.
I turned away and grabbed Joe’s coat from the peg by the door. I needed to think. Needed to breathe. The truth sat like a stone in my pocket—what I had to do, what I’d been putting off.
I found him by the truck an hour later, sitting cross-legged in the dirt, Henrietta pressed against his side.
“Hey, love,” I said softly.
He looked up, eyes wide and wary. He knew my tone. He felt the truth coming.
“Benji, honey… we need to talk about Henrietta.”
He pulled her closer. “She wants to stay with me.”
“I know, baby. I know she does.” I knelt down, the cold soaking through my knees. “But Henrietta’s old. She’s tired. She’s not like a dog or a cat. She—”
He buried his face in her feathers. “No!”
The word broke from him like a crack of thunder. My heart split with it. I reached for him but he pulled back, clutching Henrietta so tight I feared he’d crush her little ribs.
“Why can’t she stay?” he sobbed.
How could I tell him? How could I explain that a chicken is warmth in the pot, that sometimes love means knowing when to let go? That sometimes a mother does what she has to so her child doesn’t go to bed hungry?
I didn’t. I couldn’t.
Instead, I wrapped my arms around them both—my boy and his bird—and I rocked him like he was still my baby, my whole world.
That night, I sat at the table long after he fell asleep, staring at the last few dollars in the mason jar, the empty shelves, the half-sack of feed. Henrietta clucked softly in the mudroom, where he’d begged me to let her sleep instead of the coop.
I picked up Joe’s old guitar, the strings rusty but still true. I strummed a soft chord, then another. I thought about the farmers’ market in town, the family who always asked if I had extra eggs, the neighbor who once said he’d pay good money for fresh chickens. Maybe I’d find a way. Maybe we’d keep her a little longer.
I went to bed without an answer, but with my boy’s soft breath drifting down the hallway, and Henrietta’s clucks like a lullaby in the dark.
Because sometimes, the heart is bigger than the hunger. And sometimes, that has to be enough.