The Unforgettable Gift by Hayley Nelson Page A

and he would kill for her, which, sadly enough,
was what he was planning to do in that very barn, to his favourite cow.
    For a long time, Ryan’s father told him that
he needed to man up and learn how to slaughter and gut the animals. So when he
came to his father about getting some cattle shanks, the deal was that he had
to get it himself; he had to kill Rachel.
    “I don’t think I’m ready yet, Dad,” Ryan
pleaded, “I mean, don’t you have extra shanks lying around?”
    “No, I don’t,” Papa Ray replied as his
cleaver landed into the huge chunk of meat lying on the counter, “And even if I
did, I wouldn’t give them to you. It’s about time you learned how to slaughter
a cow and turn it into a steak. I’m not going to be around forever, you know?
This business is the only thing that’s making money for our family. One day
you’ll have to take over, and you can’t sell live meat to city folk. They
wouldn’t know how to kill an animal and put it on a plate if their lives
depended on it.”
    “Yeah, dad, but I really love the animals we
raise,” Ryan said.
    Ray let his cleaver sit on the large chunk
of meat and looked up at his son, “Son, I know you do. I love them, too. But
they were raised for a purpose. Everything will have its time. So theirs is a
little soon. You have to accept that, whether you kill Rachel or not she will
die eventually. Now, would you rather she die at your hands, where her meat can
feed other people and the money earned from that meat helps us survive? Or that
she dies of natural causes, and her meat can’t be used for anything anymore? We
raise them well, and we raise them comfortable. We don’t spend hundreds of
dollars feeding them just so they can live off our land. They’re not our pets.
They’re our livelihood. The sooner you learn that, the better.”
    “Yes, sir,” Ryan looked down. He knew his
father was right, and he knew his father was growing older. Ryan was growing
older, too, and soon his father would become unable, and he would be expected
to be able. But he still didn’t really like the idea of killing very much, and
worried that, should he begin to, that he would not meet his father’s
expectations.
    “Don’t worry about it, son,” Ray comforted,
“She’s not going to hurt or feel any pain. You knock her out, then you take a knife
right into her heart. She won’t feel a thing. I promise. She’s lived a
comfortable life. You’ve taken really good care of her. Now it’s time for you
to… take care of her.”
     

Page 2
     
    So, there Ryan was, standing in a barn,
petting the animal with one hand and holding his father’s stun gun with the
other. His father explained the entire process. Rachel wasn’t going to suffer.
But Ryan still felt guilty; a dark abyss in place of his stomach left him
feeling anxious and empty.
    “I’m so sorry, Rachel,” Ryan sighed. He
closed the barn’s door, trying to hide his shame.
    *          *        *         *          *
    Ryan could vaguely remember a story his grandfather told him when he
was still alive.
                    Grandpa Russell had been head over heels over Granma
Alice, and when he was still in the process of courting her, he also
experienced similar dilemmas; not knowing what was the appropriate gift for her
birthday. So Grandpa Russell came up with a way to use what he had at his
disposal to come up with something beautiful; something worthy of Granma Alice.
                    Grandpa Russell discovered a way to create synthetic
ivory; something that looked and felt like ivory, but wasn’t it, and wasn’t far
from it.
                    But no matter how hard Ryan tried to remember the
process his grandfather had explained to him several times over the course of
his childhood, the details kept slipping right from his fingers. All he could
remember was something about boiling and grinding – that the process involved