Long Way Home(64)

I continued soothing Persephone and stroking her. Then I waited until a contraction ended and quickly slipped my hand inside. I groped around, and once I figured out where the foal’s legs and head were, I could tell that it was lying sideways. I felt for the head again and made my way down its neck and shoulder, looking for a good place to grab and turn it into a better position. Each contraction squeezed my arm so tightly that I grimaced in pain.

“You can do it, girl. It’s going to be okay,” I murmured to the horse—and maybe to myself. Sweat poured into my eyes as I pushed and tugged. Then, just like that, everything fell into place. The foal’s head and front legs moved into a position to be born, and nature could take its course. I removed my arm and a moment later, Persephone lay down on her side in the straw, grunting softly. Before long, the foal’s head and front legs began to emerge. Within minutes, the new little filly was born. Tears filled my eyes, as they always did when I watched the miracle of birth. I stepped back to let Persephone tend her new baby.

“Great job, Peggy!” Paul breathed. I looked up in surprise. I had been so intent on my work that I’d forgotten anyone else was there. “You just saved two very expensive thoroughbreds,” he said. I looked around and saw that Joe had also been watching from the doorway. I washed in the bucket and dried off with the towel the stable boy handed me.

Mr. Barnett came in just then to check on the new arrival, and Paul praised my work. “She calmed Persephone right down and repositioned the foal.”

Mr. Barnett surprised me with a hug. “I couldn’t have done it better myself, Peggy. Thanks.”

I was amazed by what I’d done when I thought about it. I’d been so focused that I hadn’t had time to get nervous.

“You were amazing,” Joe said as we walked back to where he’d parked his motorcycle. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“It never gets old, you know? Watching babies being born.” I was still feeling emotional, and my adrenaline was soaring.

“Hey, you said you needed a job, so why don’t you do this for a living? You’re good at it. And you seem to like it. I don’t know very many people who’d want to stick their arm where you just did.”

“I’m not a licensed veterinarian. It takes years of study and a lot of money to become one. And how would I support Buster and myself in the meantime? It’s just not possible.”

“You didn’t seem to need a license to help that horse.”

“Jimmy’s father has taught me a lot in the years I’ve been working for him. He always explained what he was doing so I could learn.”

“Well, I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Joe went straight into the garage when we got back, bursting with excitement. He wouldn’t let me leave and go upstairs until he’d told Pop in great detail what he’d just witnessed. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said again. Pop looked at us as if Joe was making it all up. I couldn’t help smiling.

Then Donna, who’d been working in Pop’s office, joined us. “Oh, good. You’re back,” she said. “I have news. I just put in a good word for you with Mr. Edmonds down at the drugstore. His daughter is getting married and he’s hiring someone to replace her.”

I knew Joanie Edmonds. She was one of the girls who used to torment me in school and insist that I had cooties.

“It’s full-time, waiting on customers and things like that. And the pay is good. I told him all about you, and he said to come in right away. The job is as good as yours.”

I felt a rising panic. I’d learned to avoid the townspeople as much as possible after suffering years of ridicule as the “dog girl.” Even worse, I lived beneath a shadow of shame because Pop and Donna were living together without being married. Everyone in the village knew about their sin, which was probably why I was never invited to the other girls’ parties and sleepovers. The thought of facing my neighbors with a cheerful smile in the pharmacy every day made my stomach squeeze. Besides, I would have to quit working at the clinic, and after experiencing the rush of delivering a foal today, I didn’t want to quit. I had missed it terribly during the years I’d worked at the IBM plant.

“I’ll look into it,” I told Donna. I wanted to go upstairs but she was blocking the way.

She put her hands on her hips and lifted her chin. “Why that face? Don’t tell me you’re going to let this perfectly good job slip away!”

“I said I’d look into it.”

She held out the car keys. “Go today. Before he hires someone else.”

I ignored her outstretched hand and gestured to the work clothes I was still wearing. “I need to get cleaned up first. And I can walk there.”

I cried as I soaked in the bathtub and didn’t know why. Was it remembering Joanie Edmonds’s ridicule so soon after my success with Persephone? Was it the thought of giving up a job I loved? Or was it because Donna made me feel the same way that mean girls like Joanie always had—unwanted and rejected? Perhaps it was all of those things.

I went across the street to the Barnetts’ house after my bath, telling myself it was only to see if more letters had arrived from Jimmy’s friends. But in reality, it was because I craved the warmth and love that Mrs. Barnett always showed me. “Did everything go all right out at the horse farm?” she asked as she handed me two new letters. “I’m sorry we sprang it on you so suddenly.”