Chapter 10: Calving

The neighbor's barn was lit by a single work lamp and smelled of hay and warm animal.

Emmett was on his knees in the straw behind a heifer, a plastic sleeve up to his shoulder.

His canvas coat hung over a rail.

"Hold her head," he said, without turning around. "Talk to her. Anything."

I knelt at the heifer's face and put my hands on her hot, trembling cheek.

"Hi," I said. "I'm Diana. It's been a week."

Emmett made a sound that might have been a laugh.

The heifer lowed.

For forty minutes he worked, murmuring in a low voice.

I stroked her nose and told her about the engagement and the wall and the garage.

I said it all to a cow, and she held still and listened.

"Got it," Emmett said at last. "Got the hooves. Here she comes."

The calf slid out in a rush of fluid and straw.

It lay on the ground, wet and still.

"Come on," Emmett muttered. He cleared its nose with his fingers and rubbed its ribs hard with a handful of straw. "Come on, little girl."

It sneezed.

Then it lifted its head and bawled, and I started laughing and crying at once.

Emmett sat back on his heels with straw in his hair, and he looked at me, and the whole tired, careful face opened.

"Thank you," he said. "That was a good talk you gave her."

"You heard?"

"I hear everything. It's a character flaw."

We washed up at the trough.

He rolled off the sleeve, and the cold water ran over his arms.

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