Page 52 of Living Hell

SEVENTEEN

Tyler

“OH GOD. YOU ARE COMPLETELYup her butt,” Olivia said before she gagged.

“This will take less than a minute. You said you wanted to come to the farm,” I said, watching the color disappear from her face.

“This is worse than sheep shearing with Carter. So much worse,” she mumbled as she moved her hand to cover her eyes.

I heard a chuckle from Dirk Connor. This was his cow who he hoped was pregnant. Based on the ultrasound, it seemed Berta had been thoroughly knocked up.

“Congrats, Dirk. Looks like Berta will have a calf in early spring.”

“That’s good news, doc.”

I slowly pulled my arm out of the cow’s rectal canal and lowered her tail.

“I’m going to be sick,” Olivia mumbled before racing out of the barn.

Dirk shook his head. “Do you think she’s got what it takes to do this?”

I rolled off the protective poly shoulder-length gloves. I shook my head as I disposed of the items. “No. I don’t think her specialty will be large animals. But she still will need to learn; and since she’s taking a large animal seminar at the university next week, I thought I’d expose her to a variety. Tomorrow we are heading up to the alpaca farm.”

“Delila’s?”

“Yeah. Just a check-up.”

He nodded and glanced toward the barn door. I studied him as I washed my hands and arm with soap and a bucket of fresh water he supplied. Color was creeping up his neck and I knew the usually quiet farmer was getting ready to talk about something other than animals.

“Um, tell Delila . . . I got her pie. It was appreciated.”

My eyes widened, but I turned in time so he wouldn’t see. The man never complimented anything, and his social skills were best described as cow-like. He knew about cows and not much else. I got the impression there was a little more to that relationship between the two farmers than just pie.

“Will do. I’ll be back next week to follow up. Have a good day.” I grabbed my bag and headed toward the door to find Olivia. She was leaning against the barn, gasping for breath.

She saw me and her head rolled back and forth against the light blue barn. “I tried. Maybe this vet thing isn’t for me. I don’t think my stomach can get past all the poop-related stuff . . . And the smell.”

“You live next to a sheep barn.” I reached a hand out to her but she waved me off.

“If I can’t make it to the truck on my own, then I’m not fit to be your assistant.”

She made it but had to lean on me at one point to dry heave. She sighed once she was inside my silver Ford pickup. We sat for a minute, lost in our thoughts. Hers most likely were about things that wouldn’t make her barf, and I wondered where Iona was right now.

I turned toward Olivia. “You know I almost gave up being a veterinarian.”

“What? You? But you’re the best vet out there. Not that I’ve known many. Actually, I’ve only known one vet . . . you. But still, you’re great.”

“I was in school. Working on my degree to become a vet like you, and we had to get an internship during the summer. I got one in the city of Bangor at a clinic that did free spay and neutering on Mondays. Basically, we worked on strays. Anyway, the very first spay I did, the animal died.”

“Oh no!” she said, putting her hand over her mouth.

“Yeah, it was hard when the very first surgery I did, something that vets’ consider the easiest procedure to do, and I killed the cat. I was going to give up that day. I went home distraught but then I realized that this was the bottom. I was barely scraping by trying to put myself through school, I was alone, and my parents didn’t care if I failed or succeeded. They probably didn’t realize I was even in school.” I shrugged.

Olivia placed her hand on mine and squeezed.

“Since it was the bottom, there was nowhere to go but up. There will always be vets that know things that you don’t or do things better than you do, but then there will be vets who struggle with what you can easily do. Don’t give up because shoving an arm up a cow’s backside makes you puke. You’re so good at getting scared animals to relax and explaining the hard stuff to the owners. I’m not good at those things, but you are.”

She smiled and nodded. “Thank you. Iona’s lucky to be marrying a guy like you.”

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