Megan Bergman - Birds of a Lesser Paradise - Stories

Lila had a stethoscope around her neck and a canvas bag slung over her shoulder. It was filled with calipers, vaccines, palpation sleeves, dewormers, euthanasia solution, lube. She kept a penlight clipped to her pants pocket.

Twenty-two hundred and fifty gallons of milk a week, an inmate in the entrance of the barn said, loosening the twine around a bale of hay.

This is Rom, the administrator said, holding his hand out as if he were showing her through a door. Been with us for years.

Romulus Candle, the inmate said, sticking out his hand. His skin was calloused and he had a long, white beard, which he’d braided down to his sternum. His eyebrows were wild and curled. Lila could see the pores in his nose when she shook his hand.

Seven hundred and fifty gallons of yogurt, he continued, pointing at a pressurized silver vat.

Then he opened a stall door and pressed his face to the cheek of a chestnut-colored horse.

Ah, Debra, he said, breathing her in.

Rom took his pointer finger and ran it underneath the horse’s lip and across the gum line.

She likes this, he said, and Lila could tell that he was right. The mare flared her lips, then nosed Rom’s shoulder.

Rom will show you the place, the warden said. Take as long as you need — I’ll go over the results with you later.

He disappeared. Lila could see dust falling in the strips of light that shone between the barn siding. She could smell the slightly sweet aroma of hay.

We gotta get this place making money, Rom said, turning to Lila, his voice suddenly desperate. We can’t shut it down. We can’t sell.

Ever think of suggesting an in-house butchering operation? Lila asked.

What kind of people do you think we are? Romulus said, raising his eyebrows.

Lila ignored him and began making notes; later she’d have to calculate average milk production ratios, average age of livestock, levels of concentrate in the feed.

Let’s have a look at the jerseys, she said, striking out of the barn and walking toward the cattle grazing in a small pasture.

When I get out of here, Romulus said, I’m going to start a business. You see, Raeford’s just crawling with kudzu. Every place that’s not a place, as far as I’m concerned, is crawling with kudzu.

Pick it up, Lila said, waving at Romulus to keep pace with her. The ground was dry and hard under her work boots. They approached a series of old outbuildings next to the pasture.

What I’m going to do is this, Romulus said, as he jogged to catch up with her. I’m going to start a kudzu clearing service. Cows’ll eat kudzu faster than anything. And I’ll have a pack of border collies that’ll keep ’em in line and off the road.

Crazy, she thought.

Lila could see the sweet, empty eyes of the jerseys huddling near the trough. Hair curled over their foreheads like small toupees. Their ears hung to the side, clipped with yellow plastic tags. She would kick their teats, test for mastitis and infection, examine the piles of feces on the ground, but she had a feeling none of this data would matter in the end. Soon they’d be three hundred pounds of boneless meat apiece.

Suddenly Romulus grabbed her arm. His fingernails were long and pinched her skin. Her pulse quickened and she felt for the pocketknife she kept in her pants pocket.

I need to show you something, he said, shoving her into a shed.

Lila’s darkest moments had occurred when she was alone after the accident. She lay in bed, her apartment quiet, the street below vacant after business hours. Her face throbbed, the healing skin itched, and the suture site burned. When she wanted to punish herself, she didn’t take her pain medication. She wanted to feel the mistake, get to know it.

I’m ugly, she thought, and stupid.

She split into two those nights, looking upon herself with someone else’s cruel eyes.

She pictured her failure, the important one: the wolf-hybrid’s large body draped across the metal table, his pink tongue riddled with porcupine needles, the bright surgical light shining onto his thick coat. She thought she had time, that she’d administered enough anesthetic. But maybe she hadn’t reached the dog’s anesthetic plane, or maybe he’d metabolized the sedative differently than expected.

Damn the extra time I took, she thought. She regretted the care with which she’d tugged the quills from the dog’s lips — the same lips that opened to reveal brutal teeth, the teeth that had torn into her face with an almost feral abandon as the dog unexpectedly came to.

I was so casual, she thought. I didn’t protect myself.

She’d treated the dog with tenderness. What did I expect in return? she wondered. Gratitude?

There were no promises, no obligations between living things, she thought. Not even humans. Just raw need hidden by a game of make-believe.

Treat yourself with compassion, her therapist had said as she packed to leave the hospital.

But the most tangible feeling for Lila was anger, anger at herself for misjudging an animal, anger at Clay for making it hard, for constantly prodding her from the solitude in which she found safety.

Lila’s eyes adjusted to the dark shed. Small patches of light fell on the hay. If she’d had hackles, they would have been up. Adrenaline shot from one end of her body to the other.

Let go, she said, shaking off Romulus’s grip.

Look, he said, gesturing to the corner of the shed.

Lila saw a calf on the ground, a few weeks old at most. Its back end was atrophied.

What’s this about? Lila said. She tried to convince herself she was in control. Still, she was cautious and backed farther away from Romulus.

Rom took a handkerchief from his jumpsuit pocket and blew his nose.

I kept her a secret, he said, nodding at the calf. I been bottle-feeding her all along.

He got down on the ground. The calf nuzzled him.

I need you to take this one with you when you leave today, he said, turning to Lila with pleading eyes. Please.

In bed at night, Lila often thought of the times she’d broken someone’s heart. She’d kissed Paul Devaney in high school but didn’t let him go up her dress. She refused to dance with Rahul Kanwar at prom. In college she had given men wrong numbers when they asked her out. She’d cheated on her boyfriend in veterinary school with a swine professor.

Until the accident, she’d always been good to Clay. He was strong and honest and they had fun together.

She missed falling asleep on his slick chest on humid nights with the bedroom windows open. She missed canoeing the Tar River, visiting his family, eating his mother’s deep-fried cooking and receiving her handmade birthday cards in the mail. She missed hitching rides in the fire truck, sanding cabinets at two a.m. before a big order was due, drinking wine and laughing at one of Clay’s stories.

One night he’d been telling Lila about visiting his grandmother in the trailer park and going to Myrtle Beach with his brother. Then he paused and walked across the shop floor, picked her up, and placed her on top of the cabinets they were working on. She felt the sawdust on the side of her face and in her hair as he pulled her legs open and slid her to the edge of the cabinets.

What if we break them? she’d said, laughing.

I trust my craftsmanship, he said. Plus, it’s worth it.

The first night in the hospital after the accident, Lila had pictured herself lying across those cabinets again, Clay hovering over her and coming up to kiss her mangled mouth. It made her sick.

I work hard, Romulus said. I been here years mending fences, planting soybeans. I get up and milk at five in the morning.

Romulus pressed his forehead to the space between the calf’s eyes.

I have to do my job, Lila said, looking away.