“All right,” Shirelle snarled. “Fine. I get it. It’s too cold.”
“Well it is, Shirelle,” said Annie. “Can we practice inside? Like in the gym?”
The other girls nodded and said, “Yeah, what about the gym? Why not in the gym?”
“Because they won’t let us,” Shirelle said. “We are the poor orphan team of Craven High School. Nobody wants us. So we just have to be strong and try harder.”
It was meant to be a motivational speech, but Shirelle didn’t sound very enthusiastic. And once she said the thing about the “poor orphan team,” everybody looked at me. Or, rather, they looked at me and then quickly tried to make it look as if they weren’t looking at me, just sort of in my direction, over my head, at the ground, whatever.
I wanted to tell them that I didn’t care, that it was no big deal — anything to get past the awkward silence. Instead I said, “I have to go, anyway. I have to milk some goats.”
“Really?” said Annie. I couldn’t tell whether she thought that was interesting or just weird.
“Me, too,” said Shirelle. “I have to milk me some goats, too.”
We headed back up toward the school. “You’re lying, Shirelle,” Annie said. “You have basketball.”
Shirelle laughed. We all did.
We trudged up the hill from our crummy field, past the football field. The football team and all their coaches were out, running their drills. They had won their first play-off game, even without Book, and had another on Friday. Nobody had spit on my locker in the past week, or left me any more snakes, or vandalized the Tundra again. It seemed strange that nothing had happened. Maybe if they kept winning, everybody would just forget about me — even Drunk Dennis.
Shirelle cupped her hands. “Oh, my God!” she yelled at the football field, as loud as she could. “Is that a snake out there?” A couple of the players stopped their drill and looked over at us, then down at the grass. We couldn’t see their faces because of their helmets, but they looked nervous anyway.
We took off running. It felt good to be on a team again.
When I got to the farm that afternoon, I could tell Jo Dee was almost ready to kid. I checked the ligaments on either side of her spine near her tail, which was a trick I’d learned from Dad. They usually felt thin and hard, like two pencils, but they’d become so soft that I could barely feel them. That meant she was close to labor, maybe a day away. Her spine had sunk a little at the end as well, and the tailhead was raised — more signs I’d learned from Dad. Her teats were raw, and she kept twisting her head around and moaning, as if she was trying to talk to her baby. Her udder was shiny and tight and full of milk.
I washed her teats gently with warm, soapy water and rubbed on some Bag Balm that I found in the kitchen with the rest of Aunt Sue’s goat medical supplies.
Jo Dee stayed in her stall and pawed more straw into her birthing nest while I milked the other goats and then let them out into the field. She came, too, but drifted off from the others and soon returned to the barn on her own. The next day was Saturday, so I had to load everything into the truck for the farmers’ market, but it took forever because I kept going back to Jo Dee, petting her, fussing over her, hugging her, checking and rechecking all the signs. I thought she was going to cry when I had to leave.
I worried about her all night and decided to drive back out to the farm first thing the next morning. I told Mr. and Mrs. Tuten that I had to go to the library again to study and that I had softball practice after that, so I would probably be gone most of the day.
Mrs. Tuten insisted on making a bag lunch for me to take along.
“Goodness,” she said. “You have turned into the busiest girl.”
I threw everything into my backpack — the lunch, my softball glove, notebooks — and sprinted away on Mr. Tuten’s bike. Littleberry had already come for the truck, so I met him at the farmers’ market. I was out of breath when I got there. He was in the middle of unpacking.
“I need the truck keys,” I said. “Jo Dee is going into labor today, and I have to get out to the farm.”
Littleberry grabbed the table and carried it over to our spot next to the Gonzaleses’ produce stand. I followed him with one of the heavy coolers.
“You want me to come out when I’m done?” Littleberry asked. “I could ride out on my scooter. If you’re tied up with the goat, I could get the truck and come back and pick up everything.”
I thanked him and said that would be great. Then I took off.
Jo Dee was nearly crazy by the time I got to the farm. I heard her bleating and carrying on before I even got out of the truck, and when I opened the barn door, she was pacing frantically in her stall. She had a faraway look in her eyes, which were bloodshot. All the others goats seemed worked up, too, except for Patsy, who was her usual calm self.
I hugged Jo Dee and talked to her and sang to her, but that only settled her down a little. I felt for the ligaments again, but they were now so soft that I couldn’t find them. Her back was arched and her tailhead fully raised. A string of amber goob hung down between her legs. I’d seen it once before when I helped Dad deliver a calf. He’d said it was the amniotic fluid, and it meant labor had started. I was scared and excited — and hoped I was ready.
It was all I could do to get everybody fed and milked and let them complain in their various ways about how cold it was. I wished the sun would come out — even a cold sun, which it usually was at this time of year whenever we saw one in Maine. The morning stayed gray and overcast, though, threatening rain. I prayed that it wouldn’t. The goats hated rain and would do just about anything to get out of it, but I didn’t want them all in the barn while I was dealing with Jo Dee.
She started pushing an hour later, and I thought she wouldn’t take too long, given how big she was. I held her, paced with her, and slathered K-Y Jelly all over my hands and arms and reached deep inside her to check the position of the kids — or what I had assumed must be the kids. I quickly realized that there was only one, though, and it was a lot bigger than the triplets had been. I couldn’t imagine that Jo Dee was ever going to be able to push it out. My excitement vanished and my fear intensified.
I stayed with her in the stall, talking softly, sometimes singing, trying my best to sound calm and reassuring as she shuddered through her contractions. But the kid hardly budged.
She pushed and pushed until her knees buckled. She lay on her side and kept pushing, bleating, and panting — and getting weaker and weaker.
Then, after another hour of contractions, Jo Dee just seemed to give out. Her eyes glazed over, her bleating got fainter, and even the contractions seemed smaller. She still pushed but couldn’t make much of an effort.
The other goats started getting noisy outside. Gnarly barked. A couple of the goats — probably Huey and Louie — banged against the stall door.
I pumped more K-Y into my hands and went up inside Jo Dee again. She tried to scoot away. She was so raw and inflamed; everything hurt her. I felt the kid, but not any movement. I probed all around, trying to find evidence of something, anything — a heartbeat, kicking, whatever might be there — but got nothing. The kid wasn’t coming out. It had taken too long.
The same despair I’d felt after Dewey’s death welled up inside me, but I knew I couldn’t give in to it. Jo Dee’s breathing grew shallower, and I was afraid that if I didn’t do something soon, I might lose her, too.
I checked the kid’s legs to make sure they were both facing forward, then I got as strong a grip as I could around the kid’s neck and pulled.
Nothing happened.
“Please,” I whispered to Jo Dee. “Help me. You have to push a little more. Don’t give up.”
But Jo Dee closed her eyes. She was done. Desperate now, I found a rope and tied a generous loop on the end, then I spread Jo Dee open as wide as she would go. I slid the loop inside her, but it slipped off when I tried to get it over the kid’s legs and neck. It was five minutes more before I was finally
able to cinch the rope tight enough so it would hold. I eased out my arms, braced myself again, then pulled on the rope as hard as I could. I kept pulling, and cursing, and sweating, and crying, and wishing I could shut out Jo Dee’s screams. She struggled weakly to get away. The goats outside the barn all seemed to be banging against the door now to get in.
Finally the rope gave a little as the kid shifted inside Jo Dee and inched toward me. I strained harder, and the kid inched more until, at last, the legs came out. The head was jammed so tight into Jo Dee’s cervix that I thought she would tear. I pulled hard, one more time, and it finally popped free. In short order after that, the cervix gave way for the shoulders, the torso, and the rest.
I let go of the rope and sagged back against the wall. Jo Dee stopped crying. She turned around, and we both just sat and looked at the kid, another billy, as it turned out. It must have died hours ago, judging by how stiff it was. What would Aunt Sue have said? “Saved us the trouble.” I waited for the sadness to overtake me, but I was too tired and too numb.
Jo Dee sniffed the kid and nudged it. She seemed confused and kept nudging her baby and licking it. When the placenta came, fifteen minutes later, I wasn’t grossed out the way I’d been with Reba. I laid it in the straw, where Jo Dee could eat it if she wanted, and then we were done.
I wrapped the kid in an old towel and placed it in a black garbage bag. I didn’t bother removing the rope; I knew I’d never use it again. Jo Dee looked at me, moaned sadly, then looked away. I brought her water and grain. I wiped her off with another rag, cleaned her with warm, soapy water, milked her gently to ease the pressure of her swollen udder, then left her to rest.
The other goats and Gnarly looked surprised when they saw me. I guess it was all the blood on my arms and clothes. I found some rags that were relatively clean and wiped off as much of it as I could, then somehow managed to milk the nannies before dragging myself out of the barn and over to the house.
It was early in the afternoon and still cold, but I stripped off everything before going inside and stuffed all my clothes into the garbage bag with the dead kid.
Blood and viscera had already dried on my boots, and I started to throw them away, too. I’d had them since Maine, though; Dad had bought them for me. I set them on the floor just inside the back door, but shoved my socks and underwear into the bag. Then I went inside the house, got in the shower, and stayed there until the last drop of hot water gave out.
Littleberry came on his scooter while I was in the shower. He drove the truck back into town to pick up the table and chair and sign and boxes, and then drove back out again. He was very sweet to me. While he made coffee, I put on some clothes I’d left at Aunt Sue’s, and then he sat with me at the kitchen table while I drank it. I must have been shivering, because he found a blanket and tucked it around me.
We counted the money from the first three weeks’ worth of farmers’ markets, and it looked as if we might actually make it, or at least be close. All I needed was one more good Saturday. I should have been happy, and I was, but mostly I was just exhausted and numb from delivering Jo Dee’s stillborn kid.
Littleberry asked if I wanted more coffee. I shook my head. “No, thanks.”
He got up to pour himself some, then sat down again. “I’m sorry about the kid,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said. “Me, too.”
We didn’t talk much after that, but I was awfully glad he was there.
I was melancholy for a couple of days after losing the kid, feeling guilty for not calling a vet, wishing I’d known more and done more. Mrs. Tuten came into my room one night and sat on my bed. She asked if anything was the matter and if there was anything she could do to help. I couldn’t tell her, of course, so I just said I got sad like this sometimes but I was sure it would pass. Littleberry continued to be sweet, too. He must have figured out that I wasn’t eating lunch, because he brought an extra sandwich to school every day that week, and we ate together under the stairs, where I’d once hidden alone with my Fig Newtons and Snapples. I practiced with the softball team, and played with the goats, and milked them in the afternoons. I babied Jo Dee as much as I could, and all of that kept me from getting too depressed.
One night I called Beatrice. We’d let weeks slip by again without talking, or even e-mailing, which seemed to be our new pattern.
“Iris!” Beatrice exclaimed when she answered her phone. “Perfect timing. I just came in. Well, just came in from fifteen minutes of my mom yelling at me. I was out before that.”
“Out where?” I asked.
“With this boy,” she said. “We were just hanging out, but Mom got mad about it. These Portland guys are so much better than the ones back home. They’re a lot more mature. And a lot more fun.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I bet.” I knew she wanted me to ask about the boy, or all the boys, but I didn’t. I wanted to talk about what had happened out on the farm.
She didn’t give me the chance, though. “Hold on. Hold on. I have another call. I’ll be right back. It’s Jeremy. Another boy. I just gave him my number this afternoon.”
I waited for a few minutes, but Beatrice didn’t come back on, so I finally hung up. I still wanted to talk to Beatrice, just not this Beatrice.
A week later, the Craven Ravens lost in the play-offs. It was the Friday before Thanksgiving, an away game at Cartaret High. I heard kids talking about it the following Monday: if they hadn’t gotten beat in that one regular-season game, if they’d kept the home-field advantage, if Book Allen had been able to play instead of sitting in jail for some bullshit . . .
I was anxious all day, certain that people were staring at me, whispering things, planning something worse than a black snake in my locker. Nothing happened during school, though — not until that afternoon when I was walking down the sidewalk to my truck in the student parking lot.
Drunk Dennis and his flat-faced friend, Donny, from the field party pulled up alongside me in a black low-rider Chevy.
“You happy now, bitch?” Drunk Dennis yelled out the passenger-side window. Donny was driving.
I kept my head down and kept walking, my cap pulled low, shielding them from my view — and my face from theirs. A few other kids were around, but nobody said anything. Not that I expected them to.
“I asked you a direct question, bitch!” Drunk Dennis yelled. “Are you happy now?”
I still didn’t look up, so he kept shouting at me. He said that everybody knew the true story: That I made all that shit up about Book Allen. That I’d been out to get him and his mom from the start. That I was a Yankee whore.
Some boy I’d never seen before said, “Leave her alone already. God.”
I wanted to thank him, but I didn’t want to stop walking to do it.
Drunk Dennis yelled at his friend. “Stop the car, Donny! Stop the car! I will kick this kid’s ass!”
The boy took off running. Drunk Dennis and Donny laughed. They didn’t stop their car, just kept cruising next to me, practically up on the curb.
I heard a high engine sound on the sidewalk behind me, like a lawn mower, and I stepped aside to let it pass, but it stopped. It was Littleberry and his Vespa.
Littleberry looked over at the football players. “Hey, guys.”
“Yo, Dingleberry,” Drunk Dennis said back. “You know her?”
“Yeah, kind of,” he said. “I kind of have to talk to her.”
Drunk Dennis hesitated. Then he shrugged. “Sure. Whatever. We were done with her, anyway.”
Littleberry said, “OK, well, catch you later.”
Drunk Dennis and Donny drove off, tires squealing loudly. I waited until they were out of sight before letting out the breath I’d been holding.
“You OK?” Littleberry asked.
I nodded.
He asked if I wanted a ride, and even though the Tundra was just a hundred yards farther, I threw my leg over the seat behind him and climbed on.
A minute later I slid off the back of the Vespa and
leaned against the truck, not really sure I could stand up yet. I realized I’d been shaking and that I was worn out from working so hard not to show it.
“You sure you’re OK?” Littleberry asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “So you know those guys?”
“Unfortunately,” he said. “You sort of know everybody in Craven, I guess. We went to kindergarten together. Dennis’s family goes to our church.”
“You go to church?”
He grinned. “Yeah. I just sort of always went from when I was a little kid.”
“What were they going to do?” I asked.
“I don’t think they were going to hurt you or anything,” Littleberry said. “They’re just mad about their football game. People are pretty football crazy around here. I used to be, too. I was the third-string quarterback on the seventh-grade team.”
“Whoa,” I said. “Impressive.” Littleberry was full of surprises.
We hadn’t made plans for him to go out to the farm that afternoon, but after what had just happened, I was happy to have the company.
We bundled up when we got to Aunt Sue’s so we could take everybody out on a goat walk. None of the other goats would move until Patsy agreed to it, though, and she wasn’t interested. I had to bribe her with a handful of grain. Once she started walking, the others followed, bunching up with us and crowding so close to our legs that we had to keep nudging them back so we could move. Huey and Louie danced along on their own. Gnarly, too.
“Do they always bump you like this on your goat walks?” Littleberry asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “They just like to be close. Once Patsy decides to eat, they’ll all eat, though. She just needs to find something she likes.”
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