Belle’s soft, low moans travel underneath the barn door into the cold mysterious night where nocturnal creatures scout for food, where stars sparkle in the icy sky, and God watches over every living thing. The air hangs still and light as a lace curtain, and Belle’s moans penetrate its lightness, piercing, intruding into the atmosphere. In the distance, a dog barks, a twig snaps—simple sounds echoing through empty March pastures. The crunch of boots on the cold, snow-packed road betray the presence of a traveler—friend or foe, trusted neighbor or tramp—as he trudges on his way. The river flows silently underneath the blanket of ice, too cold to break up, to soft to skate upon.
At midnight the barn is warm. Heat from the Herefords repels frosty air seeping through chinks in the mortar. Thomas and Eva sit on a bale of hay, an Army blanket tossed across them. Granny, wrapped deep within the folds of a worn patch-work quilt, dozes nearby in a wooden chair. Prince, the tomcat, sleeps in her lap. The light burns dim from the overhead bulb casting shadows on those who wait. The silence is broken only by the occasional howl of a coyote or the hoot of an owl reminding them that they are not alone. Sometimes a mouse scurries from its hiding place, looking for food in the cats’ dish, unafraid of the sleeping felines. Moonlight pours through Dorothy’s window, casting its pale glow on her peaceful form. The sweet smell of hay—clover, alfalfa, timothy, wildflowers—surrounds them. The musky odor of living animals mingles with the crisp night air stealing beneath the barn door. A faint whitewash smell comes from the log walls as a reminder of last summer’s painting. Spiders build webs in hidden corners of the barn. Dry dead flies serve as testimony to the artistry of the spider and the innocence of the unsuspecting fly.
The waiting is hard. Earlier in the evening Thomas called the vet, but there wasn’t much he could do. He pushed his arm as far as he could into Belle, reaching for the calf, trying to coax it out, but he had no luck. He tried and tried until he wearied and gave up. He sat with Thomas and Eva for awhile but when Thomas asked him to cut Belle open and take the calf, he said he was afraid he might kill one or the other or both. He’s an old vet. His job exceeds his knowledge. Better to let nature take its course, he said. Better to wait. He waited for an hour with them, talking about another cow he watched die earlier in the day as she tried to birth a breech calf. The calf died, too, he told them. Such a shame. After delivering his news, he drew his heavy coat closer around him, pulled his cap over his ears, and went out to start his truck. As he waited for it to warm up, he returned to the barn and watched the three midwives, marveling at their patience, their faith in a God he no longer believed in.
“You might as well shoot her,” he tells Thomas. “That might be the kindest thing to do. I’ll do it for you, if you want. Where’s your rifle?” Thomas throws him a long, hard look and tells him to go home to his wife and warm bed. The vet shrugs and leaves.
Eventually, a restless, exhaustive sleep drifts over them, and Thomas, Eva, and Granny unwillingly give in to its call, each wrestling with private thoughts that pass like clouds through their drowsy minds. Thomas remembers the year Belle delivered a healthy calf that refused to nurse or bottle feed. It didn’t take long for it to die. Then there was the year she delivered a two-headed calf which he quickly shot before news of the freak could travel throughout the countryside and the gawkers, with cameras in hand, would crowd into his barn hoping to get a glimpse. There were stillborn calves and aborted ones. If this one dies, Thomas muses, half-awake, half-asleep, it will be the last time he breeds Belle. There’s enough sorrow on this farm without adding to it. He can’t take much more of Eva’s tears and accusations, as if it’s his fault when things go wrong. He stirs, fully awake now, takes the flask from his pocket, and feels the sting of whiskey as it runs from his mouth to his stomach.
He gets up, checks Belle. “C’mon girl,” he says. “You can do it. Show us what you’re made of. Don’t give up now.” His rough hands prod Belle’s sides as he wills her to drop her calf, but she only lowers her head and moans louder. He reaches for the pack of Camels in his jacket pocket, opens the barn door, and steps into the cold, clear night. The smell of lighter fluid and cigarette smoke fill his nostrils, and he breathes deeply, inhaling both scents. The stars sparkle above him. He knows the Big Dipper but the names of other constellations are lost to him. His schooling ended in the third grade when winter came and his feet could no longer bear the cold ground as he walked to school. He had no shoes let alone boots. He was nine years old. He helped his Pa on the farm, wearing Ma’s old boots when she didn’t need them. When his Pa died a year later, Thomas inherited the only thing of value—a prized pair of black boots with no patches. They lost the farm that spring and moved from place to place, living as vagabonds. They were poor Irish, and worse yet, Catholics living in a Protestant town. A shudder runs through Thomas as he remembers his tough youth. He throws the cigarette to the ground, grinds it into the snow, takes a drink from his flask, and returns to the barn.
Eva awakens when she smells whiskey as Thomas takes his place next to her. She’s tired, a fatigue so deep it burrows into the marrow of her bones, so rich it covers her like her skin, so much a part of her she wouldn’t know how to live without it. It would be like living without breathing. She feels sorry for Thomas. He tries so hard to do everything right, but he fails at everything he tries. He wants to farm, but the soil is no good. He wants to sell milk, but the cows are a mixed breed, not Holsteins, and they give little milk. He wants to build Eva a new house, but he lacks carpenter skills and there’s no money to hire an experienced crew. She listens as he talks to Belle, his voice soft, low, and tender. She hears the fear in it, the panic, something Thomas would never admit and Eva must pretend she does not hear so as not to embarrass him. If the calf dies, Eva knows she will cry hot and bitter tears for it breaks her heart to see anything die, and although there is always death on the farm, she cannot come to terms with it. Her tears will be for Thomas, too, for he will have failed again, and she wonders how a man can maintain his pride when there’s not much to show for it.
Eva smells whiskey. It’s always the same old answer to the same old problems. Liquor is always there, always willing to sooth the hurt inflicted upon the living. Eva longs for a time when Thomas hid his drinking, thus fooling her about his need for Seagram’s. She reaches back in her memory to days that exist only in her imagination, to a time when she and Thomas were courting and the world around her was fresh and new and filled with promise. Of course, there never was such a time, but if some vague shadow of the truth makes Eva feel better, well then, does it matter if the memory is real or only a fragment remembered from the pages of a book? It’s something to cling to when reality is too harsh to endure. And Eva’s reality is simple—she is the wife of a poor Irish farmer who will never amount to anything more than he is today. Therein lies her joy as well as her heartache, for she loves her husband and is comfortable with their life, but silently outraged at its poverty and monotony. She loves her girls, but Thomas wants a son, so there is disharmony in the Clark home.
Eva listens to Belle’s moans. Thoughts run through her mind. If only she had held her desire in check, she might have married a rich man, maybe one from town who would have given her a nice home surrounded by roses and a picket fence. But, no, she gave herself to Thomas, the poor, Irish neighbor, not necessarily because she loved him, but simply because he was handy, and she was ready for a man’s physical love. There was no one else—no fancy man from town to pluck her from farm life. She is the wife of a farmer because she was the daughter of a farmer, neither of whom could make anything more than a meager living from the farm. Eva inhales scents she has always known, scents bringing memories of her youth—hay mixed with the smell of winter cattle confined to the barn. Not unpleasant, just familiar and in a strange way, comforting. It is an awful thing to cherish memories that bring so much pain.
Thomas takes his place beside her on the hay bale. “Are you awake?” he asks, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. “Are you okay”? Eva shakes everything from her mind except her response, the one he wants to hear, the one causing the least trouble. “Yes,” she says. “I’m awake and I’m okay. Do you think it will be much longer?”
“No,” Thomas replies and silence falls between them. Eva rests her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes. If love could be measured by touch or glance or motion, it would still remain measureless in this barn. Although a love of necessity exists between Eva and Thomas, a transient love exists between Eva and Granny. It has not come easy between the two, and often, too often, there are angry words or glances, as each woman struggles to be ruler of the same house. Eleven years ago on a cold February morning, Eva gained a husband and a new mother whose Irish ways she did not understand being used to a strict German household. It has taken eleven years to weave their lives together, not into a seamless whole, but like the jagged pieces of a puzzle, imperfect and sometimes ill-fitting. The women know the price of surrender is high, sometimes too high, and sometimes the old animosity creeps in and weaves its ugly head around them forcing Thomas in the middle, forcing him to surrender his loyalty to the one or the other, thus becoming enemies of both.
Belle makes a quiet noise. Thomas walks to her and kneels behind her, reaches inside her. He can feel the calf’s head. Not a breech birth, no need for the rope. “C’mon, girl,” he coaxes. “You can do it. You have to do it now, you can’t wait any longer. Push.” He maneuvers his hand. It’s so close. “Push,” he says again. Belle groans from the weight of her burden. “Push,” he repeats. He knows the calf wants to come out, but Belle is reluctant to cooperate. She fights him. “Push,” he yells again. “Push Belle or you’ll both die. Eva, Ma, I need you.”
“I sink into myself, becoming one with the pain. We rock together, each wrapped into the other until there is no difference between us. My calf within me kicks—life within life—but for how long? Many times before this day I have felt the same steady kicks. This one is hardy. It will not let life escape easily from its body. If I do not release, the Man cannot kill that which comes from me. While the unborn kicks within my body, there is hope for it, but once it passes through, again I will be empty and that which I have birthed may not live long enough to suckle and grow strong, even if imperfect. When will Man understand what I already know—I cannot give him what he wants any more than I can change what he does to me.
There comes a time when light disappears from the sky and settles itself elsewhere, leaving space for the night which is always there, only hidden by the sun. We know more than Man thinks we do, for the Maker created us before him. Our powers are greater than words—we know the hidden secrets of time, concealed from Man—revealed to us. To Man, we know only obedience and reward or punishment. Our will is not our own—we bend our will to the lesser being. But the Maker knows we are entrusted with riches beyond Man’s comprehension. We know our purpose in being alive is to provide nourishment for Man. Without us he could not survive. He drinks our milk, eats our flesh. He grows strong upon our death. We have no say in the matter. We go mutely to our deaths so Man may live, but when our blood drips from our bodies, we live again. With each drop, our essence strengthens those who have destroyed us. The molecules of our blood transcend death and time and place, revealing a beautiful gift beyond words or thoughts, a beautiful gift as pure as the blood of our Maker. The beautiful gift of life passes from us to Man, for that is our purpose and we know it. Man, although endowed with many gifts, has no such comprehension of his purpose. I strain—harder and harder as waves pass through me. I hear the sounds of Man and the other, softer voices that come from the gentler Beings waiting with him. They force me against my will. They invade my world. It is time to surrender.”
Thomas is frantic. The calf will suffocate if it isn’t born soon. He needs help. Eva and Granny are by his side, reassuring him, encouraging him to have faith. Yet, he continues to call for them as if they were miles and miles away and unable to hear him or heed his voice. He calls to them as men have been calling to women since the beginning of time for help and sustenance and comfort and life. “Eva, Ma, get up! Get over here and help me. The calf’s right here.” Now he feels their presence. He feels safe. “That’s right, Ma, bear down on her. If she won’t push, we’ll do it for her. Eva, don’t be afraid. Put your hands in her. She’ll stretch or I’ll cut her open to save her. Push, Belle. Push. C’mon, girl. Push.”
“I feel my little one slipping from me—I feel its life separating from mine. A final wave covers me, and that which Man forced upon me is delivered. I have done all required of me. Now it must exist on its own, survive to run through the spring meadow, to feel the summer sun warming its body, to listen to the cool autumn breezes as they whisper winter is on its way or it must forfeit life. I have done my duty before Man.”
The heifer slides out. The healthy little heifer that has all the parts she needs and none she doesn’t, slides out and lies still for a moment, then wobbles to Belle. The cow licks her. There won’t be a seventh cross in the animal cemetery behind the barn. Not this year. Not from Belle. They give one last look around the barn, satisfied all is well, then Thomas turns off the light, and they step into the cold. The walk towards the house is joyful.
The fire has burned low in the kitchen stove, and although the chill runs throughout the house, there is warmth among the three. For this night and this hour, the puzzle is complete, whole. Thomas opens the stove, stirs a few embers to life, adds kindling, gets a small flame burning, and adds dry wood. It won’t take long for the fire to jump to life and warm the kitchen, a corner of which serves as Granny’s bedroom. Thomas puts his jacket and boots in the shed, washes his arms, hands, and face in cold water from the wash dish. Eva does the same. They bid Granny good-night and head for their upstairs bedroom. A mumble from Katie tells them she is sleeping on the couch in the front room.
“Is that you, Papa?” The child feels strong, tender arms around her. “How’s Belle?”
“She’s fine, honey. She has a healthy little heifer. You’ll see them in the morning.” Thomas picks her up and heads for the stairs.
“Where’s Mama? Where’s Granny?”
“I’m right here, Katie, right behind you. Granny’s already in bed. Belle and her baby are fine. You and MayBeth will see her in the morning.”
“Can I name her?”
“What do you want to call her?”
Katie rubs her eyes. Thinks for a minute. How about ‘Apple?’”
“‘Apple’ sounds like a good name,” Eva says. “A fine name.” She leans down and places Katie next to her sister and kisses her daughters.
Moonlight spreads across the sleeping children. Thomas folds his arms around Eva
Apple in summer
