Page 52 of All I Need

“NO WAY. ARE YOU SERIOUS?”

I don’t know whether she’s terrified or excited but her eyes are about as wide as a saucer, which makes me chuckle.

“Hell yeah I’m serious. I need your help. You’re my employee now,” I remind her.

Her voice wavers as she shakes her head back and forth rapidly. “Uh no. Linda went through her very extensive list of how she basically runs that place for you and helping cows give birth was nowhere on the list.”

“Eh, consider it one of those “other duties” that may be assigned to you.”

She worries her bottom lip, her hands wringing together. I move a step closer to her and reach out to hold one. “Hey, I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t feel comfortable doing but I really want you in there with me. It’s an amazing experience and I want you to have it.”

“Okay,” she says without hesitation.

“I want you to understand the entire process so I’m going to explain to you some of what you missed so you understand. Yesterday morning before I came to Miss Polly’s I dropped off medicine for Brett since he didn’t have any on hand. Then he had to give her a combination of two separate meds to help her labor along. Usually we see a calf within thirty-six hours of the medicine being given.”

“Which is why we’re here now.”

“Exactly.”

“So now what?”

“Now, we wait. She’s ready and mama knows what to do.”

“You don’t have to go in and get it?” she asks, relief evident in her voice.

“Not unless she’s breech. If she is, then I’ll have to help and go in and make sure calf and mama are safe.”

“Oh.”

We sit quietly as Stormy lays in her stall. She’s a beautiful cow, dark brown with large white spots all over her body. She’s restless and moves around quite a bit, lifting her head and mooing loudly before laying it back down on the hay.

My instincts tell me she’s in trouble so I reach into my bag and slide on a glove, handing one to Ellie.

“What the hell do you expect me to do with that?”

“Put it on. Unless, of course, you want to stick your hand up there without one.”

Without hesitation, she puts it on. Quicker than I’ve ever seen someone put on a glove before.

“Oh my gosh. Okay. I can do this. I can handle this. I’m a grown ass woman about to stick my arm up a cow’s hoo haw. This is totally normal.”

Her little pep talk makes me chuckle. I slide my hand up Stormy’s hoo haw, as she described it, and feel around, noticing that the calf’s back legs are about to come out first. I have done this enough that I can tell the difference between the way the front and back legs feel—combined with the fact that when I reach in, I don’t feel the calf’s head anywhere.

Stormy moos loudly again when I stick my hand in to get a better feel for what’s going on. “She’s breech.”

“I’m not an expert, but that doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s not. Can you grab those chains for me?”

“Chains?”

“Yup. I’ll need them to wrap around the calf’s legs. We’re going to have to pull her out.”

“Holy crap. Is this really happening?”

“Yup.”

I move my hand around a little more, gallons of light brown liquid coming out of her body in a gush.

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