Flying Changes

  "Where should I put him?" she shouts over the sound of our combined engines. "The quarantine barn?"

  "No, Pregzilla's in there."

  "Who?"

  "Maisie. The pregnant mare. Put him in the paddock on the far northeast side, the one with a shelter. I don't want him anywhere near the other horses till we've had him checked out. Think I should call Walter tonight?"

  "No. He'll be fine until morning. You go on back to the house." She runs up her window and wends her way behind the quarantine barn.

  By the time Mutti joins me in Dan's trailer, I've found the larger clicker and am watching a bluish gray image of Maisie sleeping.

  "Well," says Mutti, coming to a stop and putting her hands on her waist. "At least everything there looks okay. How's your hip?"

  "Pretty sore."

  "Have you iced it yet?"

  "No. I'm not sure Dan even has ice."

  Mutti goes into the kitchen and opens the freezer. I hear her wrestling with something--particles and shards of ice ping and tinkle as they hit the interior walls of the freezer, and then she appears with a frost-covered bag. She bashes it against the side of the sink a few times, and then brings it to the couch.

  "Someone needs to defrost that thing." She hands me a bag of peas. "There is nothing in it but snow."

  "Maybe I'll do it tomorrow," I say, leaning to one side and pulling open the waistband of Dan's pants. I insert the bag of peas and press it against my hip. "Ooh! Aah!" I say, sucking air in through clenched teeth.

  "Mmmm," says Mutti, looking dubious. "Be careful you don't flood his kitchen."

  "Mutti!"

  "I'm just saying..." she says, casting her eyes around the room. She points at my beer, which is looking sad and flat. "Is that new?"

  "No. Alas."

  She whisks it away, washes the glass, and puts it back in the cupboard.

  "Is the ice helping?"

  "Not really. Now it feels like a toothache."

  "Try heat. Take a bath."

  "Are you kidding?" I snort.

  Mutti shoots me a glance.

  "I would have cleaned it, but with my hip and all..." I look sheepishly into my lap, letting the sentence trail off.

  Mutti disappears down the orange carpeted hallway. She returns immediately, rummages under the kitchen sink, and goes back with a sponge and canister of Comet. The sounds of vicious scrubbing, sloshing, swishing, and slooshing emanate from the bathroom, punctuated by water running full blast.

  Sometime later, I'm relaxing in a deep bath with my eyes closed and a wet washcloth over them.

  "Here," says Mutti.

  I yank the washcloth from my eyes, prepared to be outraged that my mother has entered the bathroom and is standing beside my perfectly naked self. But when I see that my mother is handing my perfectly naked self a freshly poured beer, I sit forward, feeling effusively thankful instead.

  "Oh, Mutti," I say. "Whatever would I do without you?"

  "Indeed," she sniffs. "I'm leaving now. There's spaghetti on the counter. It was all I could find. Call if you need help with that mare."

  After my bath, I return to the kitchen on a considerably loosened hip and snarf the spaghetti. Then I bring Dan's pillow and comforter from the bedroom to the couch--after first covering said couch with two layers of sheets to protect myself against potential dust mites. It's not Dan's fault--the thing's just old.

  The incident with Eugenie has left me feeling a little ill. Even if the authorities are now aware of her little girl, whose name I never found out, what can they really do? How much harm has already been done? And will they send her back to one or both of her parents? The thought makes me weepy for Eva.

  My daughter has never gone sockless, has never had hair matted from neglect, but neither has her life been idyllic. I suppose it probably looked that way until last year when Roger and I divorced, but even before then I'd racked up fifteen years of parental faults. Roger racked up a few of his own, to be sure, but in a way he's lucky: he'll get to use the benefit of our combined experience raising his second family, an option that's closed to me.

  But as unfortunate as that is, it's largely beside the point because I'm nowhere near finished with Eva. She's not just the concentrated point of all my hope--the one and only repository of my DNA--she's a good kid, a smart kid, who just happens to act out in all the currently fashionable ways when frustrated. And what frustrates her is me.

  Hell, I frustrate myself. I'm starting to feel stolid, lumpish, and definitely in the way.

  So what's wrong with me? Am I so fearful that she'll be injured riding that I'm willing to let her skid off the rails in every other aspect of her life? Because that's completely ridiculous. I might as well keep her from riding in cars.

  Maybe it is time to see a therapist. Not because I'm crazy, but because maybe it's time to get the opinion of someone who can objectively weigh the statistical chances of a crippling accident against the advantages of structure, goal, and harmony. Certainly I--with my reconstructed face--am not that person.

  I consider calling Eva tonight, but some deep inner switch warns me against it. This train of thought is too new. I don't want to make a proclamation I'm going to regret.

  I turn on the foal-cam and watch Maisie snooze for a while. Then I switch to the eleven o'clock news and help myself to the other beer. For medicinal purposes, of course. Then I lie back against the pillow, which smells like beautiful, beautiful Dan, and pull the covers up to my chin.

  Birds are singing. A male voice blares in the background. I blink a few times. A predawn glow suffuses the room.

  "--we're expecting a beautiful day, Louisa, with almost no chance of precipitation and highs of almost fifty-six degrees--"

  Springing upright, I seek the large clicker. I snatch it from the floor and stab the Input button. The screen switches to black and white.

  Maisie is on her side on the ground. Her uppermost hind leg is stiff, quivering.

  "Oh shit!" I scream, leaping off the couch.

  I stuff my feet into my mud-encrusted boots, snatch Dan's lumberjack coat from the coat tree, and bolt across the thickening mud, too full of adrenaline to take anything other than vague notice of my screaming hip.

  Please let her be okay, please let her be okay, please oh please Lord, please don't let anything be wrong--

  I stagger into the barn, flick on the light, and approach Maisie's stall as quietly as I can, although I'm breathing heavily from my sprint. I peer through the bars of her stall with trepidation.

  She grunts as a contraction hits and her hind leg stiffens almost like in rigor mortis. A white bubble appears at her vulva, and disappears when the contraction ends.

  It's the amniotic sac--the birth is imminent.

  "Okay, okay, okay," I chant, sliding the door open. "Everything's going to be okay." Despite my protestations, my heart is pounding.

  Maisie jerks her head up and looks at me. I freeze, worried that she'll try to get up. I'm about to back away when she groans and drops her head into the straw.

  "Good girl, good girl," I say, leaning over and dragging the foaling kit in behind me.

  I kneel behind Maisie and tuck the sheet from the top of the kit, still folded, beneath her haunch as a landing strip for the foal. Then I fumble through the kit, seeking the flashlight.

  Maisie lifts her head and grunts, rolling slightly onto her back.

  "Oh, I know, Maisie. Believe me, I know," I croon, although in fact my own labor went terribly wrong before it ever progressed this far. Her grunt turns into a groan, and her body seizes. The bubble reappears.

  I crouch behind her with the flashlight, urging her on. "Come on, Maisie! Come on!"

  This time, when the contraction ends, the bubble stays. The clear membrane is veined and filled with swirling opalescent liquid. In the center is a small dark thing.

  I scootch closer, aiming the flashlight at it from various angles. It's a tiny hoof.

  "Oh!" I say, clapping my hand to my mouth in
delight when I realize that the patch of white above it is a sock.

  Another contraction, and a gush of liquid. The leg comes further out, and another appears, slightly behind the first. This one is sockless. I have to remember to breathe, gazing in wonder as the foal reveals itself by inches.

  Another contraction, but this time the legs don't move. When this happens again, it suddenly occurs to me that I haven't seen the head. I shuffle forward to get a better look at the legs.

  I gasp, horrified. They're hind legs, and with the foal this far descended, the umbilical cord is almost certainly compressed. In a normal presentation, the head would already be out and the foal could start breathing. But in this case, the foal's head is buried deep in Maisie's abdomen. I have approximately two minutes to get it out.

  Whimpering, I scrabble through the kit for the Purell. I squirt generous amounts onto my hands, rubbing them furiously. Then I tear open one of the packets of sterilized gloves.

  I make the sign of the cross and glance at the ceiling. Then I take a deep breath and grasp a tiny foot in each hand. They're too slick for me to get a good grip, so I reach behind me for a towel. I rub them hard--so hard one of the feet objects, and I cry out with relief because it means the foal is alive.

  "Okay, okay," I say as much to comfort myself as Maisie.

  I climb to my feet and stand with my knees bent, grasping the foal's feet and waiting for another contraction.

  When it starts, I pull with all my might. The foal descends by almost a foot, but then lodges, remaining in the birth canal.

  "Oh no," I say, my face contorting. "Oh no. Come on, Maisie," I urge. "Just one more. Come on, Maisie!"

  It feels like an eternity. I'm watching her so closely that I forget to blink. I sniff and wipe my nose on my shoulder, holding the feet, waiting.

  When I see her abdomen tighten, I heave with all my might. The body moves, sliding toward me, but once again stops. I keep pulling, clenching my teeth and growling with the effort even as my feet slide out from under me. Since it's now or never time, I stick my left leg out and brace it against the wall--still grasping the tiny hooves, still pulling with everything I've got.

  The foal slips out and lies there, a black mass, completely limp. I crawl to its head on my hands and knees, desperately swiping the amnion away from its nose and face.

  "Come on, baby," I plead. "Come on!"

  I reach for the towel, rubbing the foal's head and body roughly.

  "Come on, baby. Don't do this to me! Breathe! Breathe, dammit!"

  The foal suddenly comes to life, lifting its head and sucking a great lungful of air.

  "Yes!" I shout. "Oops, sorry Maisie," I continue, addressing the concerned mare, who has lifted her head and is looking behind her to see what's going on. "Here," I say, grasping the foal by the rib cage. I hold its wet fuzzy self close to my chest and turn it around, being careful not to pull or step on the umbilical cord.

  "Here's your baby, Maisie. Look--"

  Maisie snorts and rumbles in recognition, nuzzling and licking her baby. The foal--a black filly with one rear sock and a perfect diamond of a star--squeals a high-pitched greeting.

  I watch long enough to realize that not only are they both just fine, but any further involvement on my part would be interference. And then I retreat to a corner of the stall and sit on a feed sack, crying like a baby and watching one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

  Chapter 4

  "Eva!" I burst through the back door of our house already shouting her name. "Eva! Are you up yet?"

  She and Mutti appear in the doorway of the kitchen at the same moment, a study in contrast. Mutti is dressed and neat, her hair pulled into its usual bun of solid steel. Not a strand is out of place. Eva is wearing baggy pink pajama bottoms and a cropped T-shirt that displays plenty of belly. Her eyes are puffy and she's barefoot.

  "What?" she says, rubbing her eyes. She squints at me, looking me up and down. "Geez, Mom, did you even brush your hair? You look like a sea--"

  "Get dressed! There's something I want to show you!" I say, too excited to be offended. Besides, I probably do look like a sea hag.

  "What?" says Eva, still suspicious, still scowling.

  "Just get dressed!"

  "I wanna know why!"

  "Maisie had her baby. It's a perfect, beautiful filly!"

  Eva squeals and stamps her feet. Then she turns and disappears into the hallway.

  "So, everything went fine then," says Mutti, passing me on her way to the coffee machine, which is full and steaming.

  "Actually it was a breech birth," I say.

  Mutti's head jerks around. "What happened? Is everybody okay?"

  "They're fine. Fortunately both legs presented, so when I realized that the foal was backward--not headless--I got to work and pulled her out. It took me a second to get her going, but she was up and nursing in half an hour."

  Mutti keeps looking at me. Then she turns back to her coffee. "Well, good for you," she says, nodding proudly.

  A blur of denim and pink fleece streaks through the kitchen, thumping on thick Nike soles. It stops by the door.

  "Mom! Come on! What's keeping you?" says my daughter, pulling the back door open. Her expression is of pure excitement.

  "Wait, Eva," says Mutti. "Annemarie, do you want a cup of coffee to take with you?" she says, opening the cupboard and reaching for my stainless steel travel mug.

  "No, she doesn't!" squeaks Eva. She dances with desperation, like a child who needs to use the washroom. "There's no time for that!"

  I burst out laughing, shrug at Mutti, and limp to the door, through which my daughter has already disappeared. By the time I'm stepping out onto the back porch, her car door is slamming shut.

  "Oh my God!" Eva whispers as she stares through the bars of Maisie's stall. "Look at her! She's gorgeous! And so fuzzy!"

  The filly is lying in the straw behind Maisie. She gazes back at us, her chocolate eyes shining. Then she unfolds her impossibly long legs and clambers to her feet, peering at us from under the safety of her mother's belly.

  "Isn't she just?" I say. Prompted by who-knows-what, I put my arm around Eva's shoulder. She reaches up and squeezes my fingers.

  Maisie observes us, her eyes cheerful and inquisitive. With her ordeal behind her, she is bemused, calm, and pleased as punch with what she's done. And the baby is perfection itself, in a fuzzy daddy-long-legs kind of way. Her mane and forelock are cashmere fluff, her tail a fat pipe cleaner that alternates between standing on end and twirling furiously. Her muzzle is tiny, her face angular, her eyes fringed with long lashes.

  Eva suddenly looks strange. "Are you sure it's a girl? Because, uh, isn't that a..." she says, pointing.

  "That's the umbilical cord, honey."

  "Oh."

  From outside the barn, there's the crunching of tires on gravel. A moment later a car door slams shut.

  "And I'll bet that's the vet," I say.

  A man wearing a cowboy hat appears in the doorway of the barn, carrying a kit. "Good morning, ladies," he says. "I hear there's been a blessed event."

  "Indeed there has," I say.

  He comes up beside us and sets his kit on the floor. "Annemarie, I presume?"

  "Yes."

  "I've heard all about you," he says, winking. "Walter Pennington."

  "How do you do," I say, blushing and taking his hand.

  "Don't worry, it's all good," he says, noting my discomfort. "And congratulations, you handled this situation like a pro."

  "Well, you know," I say, feeling suddenly bashful. "I did what I needed to."

  "You saved her life is what you did," he says. "Possibly the mare's, too. If you'd called me instead, it would have taken me at least half an hour to get out here."

  I call the Hutchisons--Maisie's adoptive family--on my cell phone while Walter checks the new baby. He allows Eva to act as maternity nurse--tying off the filly's long umbilical cord with dental floss, dipping the stump in iodine, and fit
ting her with a tiny pink halter. He listens to her heart and lungs, and then lets Eva do the same, telling her what to listen for. However, when Walter kicks through the straw and locates the placenta, Eva allows as to how he can have the honor of disposing of it.

  Not long after, the patter of feet on concrete announces the arrival of the Hutchisons, whose three daughters race into the barn amid excited squeals.

  "Everything looks perfect with these two," Walter says, coming into the aisle as the girls barrel past. He reaches out and grabs an arm. "Whoa there. Slow down. You don't want to make the mother anxious."

  The girls collect themselves with obvious effort.

  Walter turns to me. "You said there was another horse you wanted me to look at?"

  "Yeah, he's a real mess. I got him last night. He's out back, because I wanted to keep him as far as possible from the other horses until you'd run a Coggins and so on," I say.

  I turn to tell Eva that we're leaving, but she's otherwise occupied, kneeling in the straw and introducing the Hutchison girls to the filly. She's also regaling the entire family with vivid details of the birth and how brilliantly I handled it. I can tell how this is going to go down in our family's mythology: it's already taking on the proportions of a full-fledged fish tale.

  I hurry from the barn, leading Walter to the northeast pasture.

  He stops and whistles as Squire comes into sight. "Oh my-my-my-my-my-my-my," he says. He sets his kit on the ground and ducks between the boards of the fence.

  "Should I have called last night?"

  He shakes his head. "No. A few hours either way won't have made a difference. Fact is, someone should have called me a year ago. It never ceases to amaze me what people are capable of."

  Mutti was right, of course. Squire's distended belly is due to parasites, and despite how large it is he's seriously undernourished. He also has one of the worst cases of thrush Walter has ever seen, along with ulcers on all four legs.

  He's fast with his feet, and more than willing to use them. Walter is clearly an expert at dodging hooves, but Squire eventually makes contact with an audible crack.

  "Shoot!" Walter leaps backward, clutching his arm.

  "You okay?" I ask, tightening my grip on Squire's halter.

  He flexes his fingers, bends his elbow. "Seem to be," he says, grimacing.