Gracie Stella Cook

The Goodbye Station Gracie Stella Cook

We were always on the outer edge of existence...the last place to stop before moving on forever. They only came to us when there was nowhere else in this world to go. Sometimes they stayed a long time with us, but other times their visits were hardly any length at all. And all were only temporary. We always knew we would say goodbye. So begins an adopted nineteen-year-old daughter's story of her transplanted home on California farmland between the mountains and the ocean. She calls the farmer and his wife, Pa and Ma, and along with a young man from a neighboring farm and a female hired hand, she works in the crop fields and the farmhouse, and helps tend to the resident animals, many of them rescues. As she learns the meaning of safe haven from the rescued animals, her only connections with humans are with her adoptive parents, her two co-workers on the farm, and with the veterinarian who visits. One afternoon she inadvertently witnesses a truth she'd rather not know. How she handles what she sees may lead to discovery of who she is.