- - End of All Things, The (39 page)

She smiled at him and craned her neck as much as she could without disturbing Shadowfax’s head. “What can you see?”

“One little hoof sticking out, and here comes another.”

“Justin, run and get the horse book,” Carly urged, “so we’ll know if everything is going right.”

“No, Carly, I’m not leaving you alone in here with her. I know you trust her, and I do, too, but she could hurt you without meaning to if she starts to thrash around.” Justin kept his voice low, his tone as soothing as possible. “Try to keep her calm.”

“Do you think she’s in pain?” Carly gently stroked Shadowfax’s long jaw. The horse’s body heaved with the effort, and her tail was raised high.

“No, I don’t think so. At least, not as painful as human births. She seems a little uncomfortable, but nothing unbearable.” He gave Carly a delighted grin. “I can see the nose!”

Carly’s eyes sparkled. “What does it look like?”

“I—uh—I can’t really tell.” The foal was covered in a membrane. “Here it comes!” Half of a foal slid, bit by bit, from Shadowfax’s body, stopping at the hips. They waited, breathlessly, but nothing else happened. Shadowfax huffed and lifted her head. She arched her neck and rumbled as contraction after contraction rippled through her body, but the foal remained inside. She rolled over onto her belly, and her legs thrashed in the straw. Justin was very glad Carly wasn’t in the way of those hooves. The poor horse jerked with each contraction, but the foal didn’t move.

“It’s
stuck
!” Carly cried. “Pull it out! Pull it out!”

“Jesus, Carly, I can’t just yank on the thing.”

“She’s hurting!” Carly scrambled up from the floor and went down to the other end of the horse. She reached for the foal.

“No, Carly, don’t. She could kick—” 

“She won’t kick us. We’re trying to help.”

If he lived to be a hundred years old, he would never understand his wife’s way of thinking. Justin thought fast. “All right. I’ll try turning it a little.” He grasped the foal’s slippery body and twisted it to the side with gentle insistence. Shadowfax strained again, and the foal slid out to sprawl in a graceless heap onto Justin’s lap. He tore the membrane away from the foal’s face and it looked up at him, bewildered. It was smoky gray with a light tail and mane. Justin lifted one of the little legs and tore the rest of the membrane away from the foal’s body. “A girl.”

“Oh, Justin, she’s
beautiful
,” Carly whispered. Tears glittered on her cheeks.

“Carly, hand me that blanket.” Justin pointed to a blanket Carly had been draping over Shadowfax since the first snowfall. She thought the horse had to be cold and so she’d drape it over her back and used an oversized safety pin to hold it in place. Justin had made no comment about Shadowfax’s cape, though he was tempted to point out that wild horses seemed to fare just fine, and they didn’t have a cozy barn with straw bedding to go inside if they were cold. Carly handed him the blanket, and he used it to dry the foal’s coat. It was too cold in the barn for a wet baby, he thought.

Shadowfax surged to her feet and turned around to inspect the little horse still lying, dazed and wobbly, on Justin’s lap. She sniffed at the baby and then began to lick. Justin lifted the foal onto a patch of clean straw and backed away to give mother and baby a chance to bond.

“What do you want to name her?” Carly asked.

“Me?” Justin smiled at her. He would have hugged her, but he was soaked in horse goo. “You don’t have a name already picked out? You named Tigger about thirty seconds after meeting her. Are we staying with the
Winnie the Pooh
theme?”

“You brought her into this world. You get to name her.”

Justin looked out at the swirling snow under the dark, lowering clouds. “Storm.”

On a beautiful spring afternoon at the beginning of May, Carly stood at the pasture fence and watched Sam and Storm frolic in the field. Tigger sat on the fence post beside Carly, where Sam had left her. He had a habit of carrying the cat around and dropping her at a designated spot where he expected her to stay until he returned, like a bone he wanted to save. The cat wasn’t very happy with being hauled around by her scruff all the time, but she submitted to it with as much grace as a disgruntled cat could manage. 

Storm wasn’t entirely sure she was a horse. She had learned Sam’s body language early and currently spoke fluent “wolf.” She was even able to approximate a play bow by splaying her front legs and dipping her head as an invitation to a rousing game of chase. She would toss her head back and whinny when Sam howled.

They had kept Sam away from Storm for the first few weeks of the filly’s life. As much as Shadowfax liked Sam, Justin and Carly were concerned her instincts to protect her baby, and the ones that insisted in her equine mind the smell of wolf meant “danger,” might overwhelm her. They had cautiously introduced the two, and Shadowfax grazed as Storm and Sam chased each other around the fields. Sam knew he was not allowed to tackle Storm. The first time he had done it, Shadowfax had run over to them, screaming in alarm. Sam had retreated, his head bowed and his tail tucked between his legs, even as Storm hopped to her feet and pranced around her, tail held high, as though to say, “I’m fine, Mom!” Sam had never done it again.

Carly had been suffering from an aching back all day. She’d decided to go on a little walk down to the pasture beside the barn, hoping it would, perhaps, help loosen some of the sore muscles. She must have slept funny.

And then it hit her—a rippling cramp—and Carly winced.
What in the—?
It dawned on her what the pain meant, and Carly let out a little laugh of excitement. Her baby was coming!

“Sam!” she called, and he ran over to her obediently, followed by Storm. His tongue lolled out of the side of his mouth, and she remembered her dad once telling her the stupider a dog looked, the happier it was. The same, it seemed, applied to wolves. “Call for Justin.” Sam tossed his head back and let out a long howl.

That was something Justin had taught him over the winter. He’d said every wolf should know how to howl and teasingly chastised Carly for ignoring this part of Sam’s education. And since he would do it on command, it was an excellent way of calling Justin back to the house when he was outside working or scavenging the nearby farms.

“Thank you.” Carly gave him a scratch on the ruff and headed back toward the house. Sam stood, his forelegs against the post, and picked up his cat. Tigger gave a small snort, but allowed it, dangling limp from Sam’s jaws as he trotted along behind Carly.

Halfway to the house, Carly felt a gush of liquid leave her, and she thought for a moment her bladder must have let go, before she chuckled ruefully. You’d think with all of the books she’d read over the winter about babies and pregnancy she’d recognize the signs.

Her heart was hammering, and Carly took deep breaths to try to calm down. Fear warred with excitement. It was only natural to be scared, even though all the books she’d read had been reassuring. She was young and healthy; the odds were on her side. She told herself she had to have faith. She wouldn’t have been brought this far only to have something go wrong at that point.

She knew Justin was worried about her. All winter long, he had obsessively read the two obstetrical texts he had found at the used book store, squinting at the tiny print through the blue plastic filter. All they seemed to do was worry him further, and at one point, Carly had been tempted to hide them so Justin wouldn’t keep checking her for obscure symptoms and freaking out over every ache and pain. Carly tried to remain patient with him, difficult as it was sometimes with her hormones fluctuating, because she knew it came from love. He was terrified he was going to lose her. The closer her time came, the more worried he was.

She had time to change into one of Justin’s T-shirts and clean herself up before she heard him open the kitchen door. He shouted her name.

“Up here, Justin,” she called, and she heard him take the stairs two at a time. 

He came through the bedroom door so fast he skidded. His eyes were wide with panic. “What’s wrong?”

“I think I’m going into labor now,” Carly told him and was pleased by how steady and composed her voice sounded. Inside, she was a jangle of nerves. “My water broke.”

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” Justin ran his hands through his hair. “You need to lie down!” 

“Justin, I’m fine!” Carly protested, but he wasn’t listening to her as he began his preparations. He’d had the supplies in place for weeks, sterilized and stored in plastic containers under the bed.

Despite his protests that she should be lying down or at least sitting, Carly helped him get out all of the supplies and prepare the room. They covered the mattress with a tarp, then put a set of comfortable sheets over it, and moved the pillows so Carly would be lying on the bed horizontally, making it easier for him to reach her. He patted the bed, and Carly lay down, propped up against the pillows.

“I need to check you, honey, and see how far you’ve dilated.”

Having Justin look at her in a clinical manner was somehow a little uncomfortable. Carly propped her knees up as he requested and concentrated on the canopy above their bed.

Carly ran over the list of things they’d need one last time in her head. Justin had done really well on his scavenging mission to town and had gotten nearly everything on the first trip. She hadn’t said anything when she discovered the scalpel he had hidden at the bottom of the supply box. He had cleaned everything obsessively, first boiling the instruments in sterilized water and then soaking them in alcohol. He cleaned everything again before he used them. The smell of alcohol stung her nose, and she heard the snap of latex as he donned a pair of gloves.

“You’re doing just fine, just fine.” Justin’s voice was soft and lulling, though she could see how his hands shook. After he checked her, he laid down beside her, propped up on her pillows. “Only about four centimeters—early stages yet. Have you had any more contractions?”

Carly thought about it. “They’re more like cramps, so I don’t know if that’s a contraction or not.”

“How far apart?”

 “I . . . um . . . I forgot to time them.” Carly felt like smacking her forehead. Reading all of those baby books and then forgetting the most basic thing.

“Just tell me when you’re having them, and I’ll take care of it.” He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. “I love you, Carly.” 

“I love you, too, Justin. Please don’t worry. I’m fine. Healthy as a horse.” She snuggled against his side and tried to reassure him with a smile. “And speaking of horses, you already have experience with delivering babies, right?”

He gave a faint smile at her attempt at teasing, though his eyes were still worried. 

“There’s another one.”

He checked the mantle clock, which he’d brought up from the living room for the purpose of timing contractions.

If this was what having a baby was like, Carly thought, she was going to handle it well. She even dozed for a while between contractions. The contractions grew worse over the afternoon, but it wasn’t until early evening they actually became painful. She tried to be brave, tried to be tough so she wouldn’t worry Justin any worse than he already was, but by nightfall, she couldn’t help crying out when they seized her. Every time, he would wince like he felt it, too.

“Did you get any drugs?” she asked when the pain became more or less continuous. “An epidural, heroin, anything?”

“I’m sorry, Carly,” Justin’s eyes pleaded for understanding. “It could be dangerous. God, you don’t know how much I wish I could—”

It was a risk she was willing to take at that point. She’d been prepared for pain and intended to be as stoic as possible when enduring it, but it
hurt
. She panted and tried to force herself into the breathing pattern they’d practiced, but whenever a fresh wave of pain hit her, she’d forget to breathe entirely. And just when she thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did. A scream wrenched from her throat, and her head fell back against her pillows. “Justin, I can’t . . . I can’t do this!” she babbled, though she knew it was stupid, even as she said it. She didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.

Justin leaned up and kissed her. “Yes, you can. You’re tougher than I could ever hope to be, Carly. You can do this.”

“It
hurts
!”

“I know, honey. I know. We’re going to get through this, Carly. You’re doing great.” His hair stood up in all directions from the number of times he’d run his hands through it, and his eyes were wide in his haggard face, but he smiled at her, or at least he tried to. It looked more like a grimace, and she wasn’t sure if it was just his stress at seeing her in pain or if there was something wrong.

“I need to push,” she said as she panted.

“Not yet, honey.”

“I can’t . . . I
have
to . . .”

He locked his eyes on hers. “Soon, honey. Come on. Take my hand.”

She gripped it, hard. Her teeth were clenched so tightly, she worried she might break one. She tried to remind herself to remain calm for his sake, but the thought was blown away like a leaf on the wind when another wave of pain tore through her. “Justin . . . I . . .” She groaned and tossed her head.