Stars Go Blue by Laura Pritchett Page B

she felt as if time stopped, when the world made sense, when the love was soevident and pure that it contained all of time in it. They’d been working cattle, all of them, except Rachel, who had already died. Carolyn had been explaining to Jess, who was newly moved in with her, about prolapses and how the best thing to do was to shove the uterus back in and sew the cow up with thick string and give her a shot of penicillin. Jack had been trying to gross Jess out, in a teasing way, and was telling her how heavy and slick the uterus was, how it took two people, one to hold the uterus up, one to push it back inside the cow. Then Ben and Jack had gotten busy with running the cattle through, sometimes arguing about which bull’s semen to use next year. Leanne was taking notes and Billy was quietly sitting in a corner, and the cattle were bawling and banging around the corral and it seemed like a particular, wonderful moment.
    But inside this particular, wonderful moment were the specific details that made it so. How, for example, Ben was scratching a yearling heifer on the hump between her ears, and when the animal raised her head to sniff his shirt, she left a smudge of mucus on his sleeve, which Ben eyed in an offhand way and then he leaned over, during the height of the argument about bull semen, and rubbed it on Jack’s face. Which caused Jack to fling it off back onto Ben, and then Jack punched Ben and Ben punched Jack, in a good-natured fond way, which made Billy giggle—it was the first sound anyone had heard from Billy in a long while—and which made everyone smile.
    Inside this moment were the cattle, pressed against the railing to eye the two boxing men, watching with sleepy interest, flicking their tails against the flies.
    Inside this moment was Leanne, sitting on the cement rim of the stock tank, in shorts and sandals and with a clipboard on her lap, keeping records. Jess went to sit next to her, to learn the ropes, to become the family’s new record keeper.
    Inside this moment were the details, such as the words being thrown into the air: X-1-5-1. Polled. 595 pounds. Ninety days pregnant, I reckon. Details of the routine. How every year, the cycle started. Pregnancy-checking, then calving season, then moving the cattle to spring pastures, then haying, then weaning, then castrating, then pregnancy-checking again. Some of the cattle were sent to the sale barn or to slaughter. Some were kept. Some were sold. And in that moment were all the years that had layered up and woven together; all the turquoise skies and all the cottonwoods dropping golden leaves. All the calves being born, slipping from their mothers. All the times one of them had flapped their arms to move the cattle into the alleyway that led to the chute. All the shoulder-length latex gloves being put on, the hand being reached into the cows to feel unborn babies. All the times on the horses, rounding up the calves. All the sun and sky and smells. All the warm fall days and the summers and the winters. And how, on that one day, it was all enough, held together in one moment, and it was enough to hold her heart together.
    She shakes her head, like a horse, and comes out of her daze. “I guess I’ll try to think of that moment when I die, Satchmo. That and the first kiss and today at the cemetery.” When she says this, the dog picks up a slipper in her mouth and trots off into another room. Inviting her in. Indeed, when Ben is gone, after tonight, perhaps she can move back here. She’ll tell Carolyn and Del to leave her alone and she’ll leave them alone. The grandkids can visit, but she won’t insist. She’ll not worry about the state of Carolyn and Del’s finances or marriage; about whether or not Jack is gay, because he is and it’s time she loved that about him; about whether Leanne will become a silly language arts major and therefore never be able to support herself; whether Billy will ever do