Charlie shakes his head. “Nah. But work with the contractions if you can. Easier on everyone that way.”
Gretchen thinks back to the episode where James Herriot delivered a horse, how each of the intense contractions crushed his arm. “Is it going to hurtme?”
“I promise you, any discomfort you might experience pales in comparison to what Beulah is going through,” Charlie says, impatient.
“Right. Okay. Right.” She hesitates, staring at—okay, yes, Beulah—Beulah’s angry backside. It has a... bubble sort ofthing sticking out of it. Gretchen chokes back a combined sob-gag. “Shouldn’t we call Lori? Or a... a... vet?”
Charlie shakes his head. “It would take too long to get someone else out here, and they’d just do the exact same thing I’m telling you to do. Get in there, Acorn, before things get dire.”
It’s only been a handful of days since she arrived at Gilded Creek, and to go from hesitantly feeding a goat for the first time on Friday to helping one give birth on... well, she assumes it’s currently the early hours of the morning on Tuesday... feels like too speedy a progression.
I can’t do this. I can’t do this. Her feet move her backward, away from Beulah, in response to her rising panic. But Charlie catches her, his hands taking her by the shoulders.
“Youcando this,” he says, as if reading her mind. “I know you can. I believe in you, Acorn.”
It’s easy to tell herself he’s just saying this so she’ll do what he needs her to do. Yet she thinks back over the last few days, and how working on the farm with Charlie has shown her that he cares about the goats the way he cares about the people he loves—with all of himself. And she knows he wouldn’t let her do this if he didn’t trust her on some level. He does believe in her. Perhaps she can do it after all.
Still.I don’twantto do this. I don’t want to do this.Her brain continues repeating the sentiment as Charlie gently guides her forward, releasing her when they reach Beulah’s backside again. He nods encouragingly. Gretchen takes a deep breath, trying to ignore the way her stomach roils as her fingers, then hand, then wrist meet all sorts of new and alarming textures through the paltry barrier of her gloves. Her eyes squeeze shut, as if that might help. It doesn’t. It only heightens all of the sensations.
But then her fingertips find something that feels like... a nose, maybe? Inside a balloon sort of thing. She follows the curve downward, understanding what Charlie meant by the positioning. The kid’s head is bent back like it’s been looking up this whole time, and the resistance to her initial gentle probing seems to indicate it isn’t thrilled about looking elsewhere.
“I think I feel its face,” she says, swallowing to avoid the increasing nausea creeping up her throat as the bubble beside her wrist shifts around.
Charlie is beside her, and he bends, bracing his hands on his knees as if trying to match her position. Whether it’s a sympathetic unconscious gesture meant to communicate that he would help if he could, or a frustrated one that she isn’t doing this right, Gretchen isn’t sure. She decides to take it as the former.
“See if you can get your hand behind the head and bring it down,” Charlie says, talking quietly and in a singsong sort of voice as he strokes Beulah’s gigantic, heaving side.
A contraction squeezes around Gretchen’s hand, and it’s tight but not finger-breakingly so. She takes Charlie’s advice and tries to use it to work her hand to the right place to bring the kid’s head forward. When the tension releases, she feels movement like closing the lid on a box, though it’s hard to tell, considering it’s still within the balloon thing, which she assumes must be a different part of the bubble sticking out of Beulah.Gross.
“I think... I think I got it?” she says, feeling around again and finding the nose pointing toward the opening instead of up now. Gretchen removes her hand, and the nose immediately shifts into the part of the bubble sticking out. “Is that... good?”
“Yeah,” Charlie says with a little chuckle, and he pats her on the back in a way that isn’t at all erotic but still makes Gretchen’sface heat. “That’s good. You did it, Acorn. Great job. Beulah can take it from here.”
Gretchen would be lying if she said what comes next isn’t one of the most disgusting things she’s ever seen. But it’s also somehow one of the most magical.Life is freaking magical. And Charlie puts his hands back on her shoulders, less to keep her from bolting and more as if he can’t help but want to connect in this moment, releasing only when the kid is mostly out and needs some help clearing its mouth of... whatever that is. Gretchen doesn’t—nor does she want to—know. Magical or not, she isn’t particularly hungry for details.
With one last push, Beulah’s kid drops to the straw-covered barn floor in an awkward heap, and Gretchen is surprised to find herself gasp and take a step forward to help it up. But Charlie gives her a peaceful, crooked smile and the slightest shake of his head.It’s all right, he seems to say. So she stays where she is and watches as the slick, shiny black-and-white kid rights itself.
“A girl,” Charlie says, doing a quick inspection so as not to interrupt Beulah’s efforts to clean her baby of blood and other gunk that Gretchen still doesn’t want to think too hard about.
“What’s her name?” she asks, realizing too late that it’s a ridiculous question.Goats aren’t born with names, you nincompoop.
Charlie’s smile is still intact, and he points it in her direction, making her heart thump harder. “I think that’s up to you. You were the one who helped get her out, you get to name her.”
“Really?” Gretchen’s never named anything in her life (well, except herself a few times).
Watching Beulah with her kid makes her think of her own mother, who disappeared from her life when Gretchen was two. She doesn’t remember her much, which she supposes is why she’snever felt the loss all that keenly or cared to try to find her. Except at this moment, when she thinks about the circle of life and mothers and daughters and all sorts of things that probably belong in the lyrics to an old folk song. This gush of emotion isn’t something she’s eager to welcome, but there doesn’t seem to be any fighting it. Tears well behind her eyes at the one memory she does have—one she isn’t sure is real, even; her mind could have made it up somewhere along the way—a woman’s sweet voice singing “Daydream Believer” softly as Gretchen drifted to sleep, warm and safe in her arms.
“Sleepy Jean,” Gretchen says. “I want to name her Sleepy Jean.”
“All right. Welcome to the world, Sleepy Jean,” Charlie says, wrapping the kid’s now-fuzzy body in a towel. And then he scoops the kid up and hands her over to Gretchen, who isn’t sure if she wants to hold her, but takes her nonetheless. Sleepy Jean lets out the most pathetic little bleat—almost like a meow—and Gretchen responds with a stunned, incredulous laugh.I helped bring something into the world. That’s so weird. That’s... amazing.
“Glad you’re here,” Charlie says.
Gretchen’s head snaps up, surprised at the compliment, only to find him staring at Sleepy Jean.Oh. Right.“Ha, I thought you were talking to me,” she says, unsure why she’s even admitting it aloud.
“I wasn’t not,” Charlie responds, his cheeks pinker than they were a moment ago, and their eyes meet for a split second before another distressed bleat from the stall next door catches his attention. “Sounds like Clotilda might have a second one on its way out.”
And Gretchen assists while the miracle of life is repeated. Again. And again. And, it turns out, again before dawn.
