Wish You Well by David Baldacci Page B

luck.
    “You doing a good job. Real good. Better’n me when I your age. And I ain’t come from no big city. Make it harder, don’t it?”
    The door opened and the wind rushed in. Eugene looked worried. “Calf coming.”
    In the barn the cow called Purty lay on her side in a wide birthing stall, pitching and rolling in agony. Eugene knelt and held her down, while Louisa got in behind her and pried with her fingers, looking for the slicked package of a fresh calf emerging. It was a hard-fought battle, the calf seeming not to want to enter the world just yet. But Eugene and Louisa coaxed it out, a slippery mass of limbs, eyes scrunched tight. The event was bloody, and Lou’s and Oz’s stomach took another jolt when Purty ate the afterbirth, but Louisa told them that was natural. Purty started licking her baby and didn’t stop until its hair was sticking out all over. With Eugene’s help, the calf rose on tottering stick legs, while Louisa got Purty ready for the next step, which the calf took to as the most natural endeavor of all: suckling. Eugene stayed with the mother and her calf while Louisa and the children went back inside.
    Lou and Oz were both excited and exhausted, the grandmother clock showing it was nearing midnight.
    “I’ve never seen a cow born before,” said Oz.
    “You’ve never seen anything born before,” said his sister.
    Oz thought about this. “Yes, I did. I was there when
I
was born.”
    “That doesn’t count,” Lou shot back.
    “Well, it should,” countered Oz. “It was a lot of work. Mom told me so.”
    Louisa put another rock of coal on the fire, drove it into the flames with an iron poker, and then sat back down with her mending. The woman’s dark-veined and knotted hands moved slowly yet with precision.
    “You get on to bed, both of you,” she said.
    Oz said, “I’m going to see Mom first. Tell her about the cow.” He looked at Lou. “My
second
time.” He walked off.
    His sister made no move to leave the fire’s warmth.
    “Lou, g’on see your mother too,” said Louisa.
    Lou stared into the depths of the coal fire. “Oz is too young to understand, but I do.”
    Louisa put down her mending. “Unnerstand what?”
    “The doctors in New York said that each day there was less chance Mom would come back. It’s been too long now.”
    “But you can’t give up hope, honey.”
    Lou turned to look at her. “You don’t understand either, Louisa. Our dad’s gone. I saw him die. Maybe”— Lou swallowed with difficulty—“maybe I was partly the reason he did die.” She rubbed at her eyes and then Lou’s hands curled to fists. “And it’s not like she’s laying in there healing. I listened to the doctors. I heard everything all the grown-ups said about her, even though they tried to hide it from me. Like it wasn’t my business! They let us take her home, because there was nothing more they could do for her.” She paused, took a long breath, and slowly grew calm. “And you just don’t know Oz. He gets his hopes up so high, starts doing crazy things. And then . . .” Lou’s voice trailed off, and she looked down. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
    In the fade of lantern light and the flickering coal fire, Louisa could only stare after the young girl as she trudged off. When her footsteps faded away, Louisa once more picked up her sewing, but the needle did not move. When Eugene came in and went to bed, she was still there, the fire having died down low, as thoughts as humbling as the mountains outside consumed her.
    After a bit, though, Louisa rose and went into her bedroom, where she pulled out a short stack of letters from her dresser. She went up the stairs to Lou’s room and found the girl wide awake, staring out the window.
    Lou turned and saw the letters.
    “What are those?”
    “Letters your mother wrote to me. I want you to read ’em.”
    “What for?”
    “ ’Cause words say a lot about a person.”
    “Words won’t change anything. Oz can