Page 33 of The Gallagher Place
THE BIRTH
Sunday, March 31, 1996
Marlowe, Nora, and Henry sat around the dining table in the Gray House with their textbooks propped open. Homework: a dull but necessary activity on Sunday afternoons. Marlowe was holding her yellow highlighter poised over a slim copy ofRomeo and Julietwhen Glory appeared in the wide archway to the kitchen, jacket in hand.
“Girls, there’s something to see over mountain. Marlowe, you can finish reading on the train back to the city,” Glory said as she slipped into her coat and began to button it up the front. “Let’s go.”
“Thank God.” Nora flipped her history textbook closed. “I can’t read any more dates and names.”
Henry started to rise, but Glory shook her head.
“You have a math test tomorrow, Henry,” Glory said. “You need all the studying time you can get.”
Nora tittered at Henry’s indignant face, and Marlowe shot him a smug look. Henry was awful at math, and Glory had his syllabus and test dates memorized. No son of hers was going to fail pre-algebra. That very weekend, Nate had stayed behind in the city for an SAT prep course. Marlowe received weekly reminders from Glory that next year, when she started high school, her grades couldn’t slip.
“Over mountain” was Glory’s home turf, a few towns over. The girls didn’t know exactly where they were going or what they were about to see, but they didn’t care. No one ever asked Glory too many questions. Marlowe and Nora were happy to chat away in the back seat of the car, their schoolwork already long forgotten. They paid little attention to the scenery as they drove through town and turned onto a tree-lined road that twisted through the countryside. At the top of the pass, the landscape opened up to reveal a patchwork of fields and pastures dotted with horses and cows. Every now and then Glory nodded at a run-down farm and recited the family’s name with bits of old gossip.
“The Smiths,” she said as they passed a small house at the bottom of a hill. “Oldest son was an addict.”
“That way takes you to the Taylor place,” she said at a fork in the road. “My brother dated a Taylor way back when. He broke hearts before he gained all that weight.”
“Bob Martin had a heart attack decades ago,” Glory said, as they passed an abandoned pole barn. “Son was away in the army when it happened.”
Marlowe and Nora nodded but did not respond. They were accustomed to Glory’s cynical catalog of life’s disappointments.
At last, the car rumbled over a graded gravel lane toward a simple whitewashed farmhouse with a gray barn behind it. Marlowe and Nora, their interest now growing, spied a couple of girls wandering in and out of the house, tending to various chores. They wore long dresses and bonnets.
“I think they must be Mennonites,” Nora whispered. “You know, those religious people who don’t believe women should wear pants. They’re probably not even allowed to watch TV.” Glory brought the car to a halt alongside a wooden fence and got out just as an overalled farmer with a bright red beard approached.
“Hello, Ernie. What’s the status?” Glory asked the farmer. Marlowe was confused. She’d never met or seen this man before, but her mother’s connections to people in the valley never failed to surprise her. Glory was an encyclopedia of old gossip, but she never seemed to talk to anyone local. It was sometimes easy to forget she was from the area.
Ernie scratched his head. “Just got her out of the barn. I’m about to use the truck.” He gestured for them to follow him through the muddy field. Marlowe stepped forward, wading through a puddle of spring rain, and tugged gently on Glory’s sleeve.
“What’s this about, Mom?” she asked.
“You’ll see.”
She and Nora walked next to each other, their arms grazing. They could hear moaning sounds as they rounded the corner of the barn and craned their necks to see a large brown heifer. Marlowe took another step closer. It was then that she noticed the tiny delicate hoof, black as onyx, sticking out of the heifer’s hindquarters and the blood staining the cow’s back legs.
“It’s giving birth,” Nora said, with sudden understanding. Marlowe scrunched up her nose. She and her brothers had learned about how children were made at a young age. They had asked, and Glory had answered, with all the clinical forthrightness of a girl who grew up on a farm. Still, Marlowe hadn’t known that cows gave birth standing up. She had never witnessed any of the Gallagher cows giving birth.
Glory turned to look at them. “The calf is breach.”
Ernie tied a piece of rope to the calf’s foot. Then he tied the other end to the back of a faded green truck. He got behind the wheel and turned on the engine. He moved slowly, so very slowly. Too slow, Marlowe thought, at first. He needed to accelerate forward faster and just yank the baby out, as quick as he could. Themother let out a moan, low and agonizing, and Marlowe realized Ernie was trying to be gentle for the heifer’s sake. He was giving the mother’s body the time to open up a little more, if she could.
Marlowe clutched Nora’s hand and fixed her eyes on the calf’s little hoof. Strangely, she itched to sketch the distinct cloven shape.
They all watched as the baby’s second hoof slipped out and then its body dropped in a wet bundle. Nora let out a small gasp, equal parts shock and delight, but Marlowe stood silent and still.
He was tiny and precious and damp.
The heifer cried out in pain, and only then did she slump over, her knees and the heft of her stomach hitting the muddy ground with a damp thwacking sound.
On the drive back to the Gray House, Glory surveyed the girls in the rearview mirror as she kept both hands firmly on the wheel.
“That’s the type of thing girls need to see,” Glory said.
Marlowe turned to see Nora raise one brow. Of course Glory would believe in scare tactics as birth control. She needn’t have bothered, Marlowe thought, rolling her eyes; neither she nor Nora were interested in dating.
