Where he and Jill differed was that she clearly wasn’t used to other people doing things for her. Whereas Zeke not only had a lot of people doing things for him all the time, but he absolutely loved it.
He hadn’t made himself breakfast in he couldn’t remember how long. And while cold cereal was fine, why would he eat that when he could drive a mile up the road and have eggs Benedict and hash browns or French toast or just about any other breakfast food made by one of the best cooks in the state of Louisiana?
Half an hour later, they pulled up by the penguin habitat next to Griffin’s truck.
They found the other vet pacing in front of the habitat on the phone. It sounded as if someone was calling him about an animal that needed his attention. He was not just the veterinarian for the animals in the petting zoo but was the general vet for the local area as well. He and Tori saw cats, dogs, cows, horses, and everything in between.
“Hey, guys,” Griffin greeted, disconnecting his call. “I’ve got to head out soon. Going to have a new colt today.”
“No problem, everything here should be mostly done,” Zeke said looking at Jill. “You checked the place out this morning, what do you think?”
“It really looks great. I’m thrilled that it’s finished. I do want to do a little bit more with the rock formations,” she said. “Did you get my email about the man-made nesting areas they’re building in the Galápagos ?”
“You mean the article you attached and said, ‘read this’?”
“Yes.”
“I got the email.”
Jill narrowed her eyes. “Did you read the article?”
“I opened the article and skimmed it. Then I emailed you back some follow-up questions.”
“Which I responded to.”
“Yes, and you referred me to paragraph six on page two.”
Jill nodded. “Right.”
“That’s not really the same thing as just telling me what you wanted.”
“What I wanted was what they described in paragraph six on page two.”
“Well, I put the rocks in there, and figured you could tell me how you wanted them set up when you got here.”
“So you waited until I got here to hold your hand through finishing the project?”
“I guess that’s one way to put it.”
“Why couldn’t you just read the article and do what it said? The article gave you not only the instructions for it, but also the reason behind it.”
“I’m the contractor, Jill. I just need you to tell me how you want things built, not all the reasons why.”
“I want them built like it describes in paragraph six on page two,” Jill said, clearly growing exasperated. “You’re the guy who wanted me to tell you what kind of knobs to put on the drawers in my new bathroom. Clearly, you do care about details.”
“I care about the details you care about. When you didn’t email me back, even about the drawer pulls, I figured that where these rocks were set up was another tiny detail.”
“But I—”
“Do I need to be here for this?” Griffin interrupted.
Jill blew out a breath. “No. We just need the rock formations configured so that they mimic what they have on the islands. The penguins need to have very safe and secure areas to build their nests. The deeper and more enclosed these little caves are, the greater the chance they will use them and will produce viable eggs that will hatch.”
“There’s a chance they won’t lay eggs?” Zeke asked.
“We’re not really sure what kind of effect the different climates, and of course the huge move across the country, and all of the changes will have on them. A.J. was not successful breeding them within captivity. I’m concerned that there’s going to be some disruption because A.J. is no longer around.”
“The penguins were attached to him?” Zeke asked.
“Lots of animals grieve,” Jill said with a nod. “But all they will really know is that he’s no longer their caregiver and that their entire environment is different. They may be disrupted just having someone new in their environment. It was part of the program that he would be the only one interacting with them so that they didn’t attach to many humans. But truly, once he knew that he was sick, he probably should’ve brought me in so that the penguins could have gotten used to me too.”
Jill felt the rising bubble of panic climbing from her stomach up into her chest and to her throat. There were so many unknowns. The penguin population was so fragile and even these eight mattered a lot to the survival of the species. It wasn’t that these specific animals were fragile and vulnerable. They were healthy and demonstrated normal behaviors. Except breeding, of course. But she honestly didn’t know what all of these interventions and changes would have on them.
“So then making nests and laying eggs is the most important thing?” Zeke asked.
“Yes. Absolutely. We’re trying to increase the numbers of these penguins. We estimate there are fewer than six hundred breeding pairs alive today, so they are at risk for being totally lost.” Jill felt the anxiety swirling through her. “We’re hoping these independent captivity programs can help save them from extinction. But we have to know that they are able to thrive in these environments. We’re experimenting with what those environments look like now. We have way more questions than answers. We’re trying to mimic their natural environments as much as possible, of course, but captivity is different from the wild no matter what. And just as A.J. had everything set up, he got sick and now that he’s passed, packing them up and moving them several states away could end up being detrimental. But we really don’t know.”
Zeke stepped in front of her and met her eyes directly. “Simple. Straightforward. You need these rock formations to be a certain way so the penguins will lay their eggs and make more penguins.”
Jill took a shaky breath. “Yes. At this moment, the most important thing is getting those rock formations right.”
Zeke gave her nod. “All I needed to know.”
Jill took another breath. This one deeper, where she actually felt it expand her lungs. He’d just cut through all the B.S.
She liked that.
She felt that all of the humans around and interacting with the penguins should understand their part of the bigger picture. But he had a point. If, at this moment before the penguins got here, they needed to have the habitat constructed as close to perfectly as they could, then she needed to communicate clearly what that meant.
“You okay?” Griffin asked her.
It took her a moment to pull her eyes from Zeke’s. “Um…no. I’m freaking out a little bit. There’s so much pressure here. I need to keep these penguins alive. First of all. Then I need to make sure that they thrive. I have three breeding pairs and two juveniles who will hopefully breed eventually as well, and I need to get at least one of them, if not a couple of them, knocked up soon.”
Griffin chuckled. “There’s no reason to think that it won’t work here, though, right?”
“This project with private ownership is fairly new. We don’t have any reason to think it won’t work, but we actually don’t have any data to prove that it will. Will limiting their interactions with humans be better? Will having them in private, quiet spaces be better? Would they be better off if we could just have protected areas actually in the Galápagos? I mean, that seems obvious, right? But that’s not the best solution in some ways.”