look for the afterbirth. Do you see what I mean by the afterbirth? Is it all the way out of her? Trace the umbilical cord to find out. Put it into the newspaper and roll it up and set it by the door. Don’t move fast. Now go back to the pup. Pick it up. Use both hands. Remember to praise Iris when we’re done, she’s being very good about all this. Very gracious. Don’t be scared if she grabs your hand; it just means she’s not ready to let you touch her pup yet. While you’re holding it, she’s going to be watching you; try not to take it out of her reach, and never out of her sight. Look it over. Does it look normal? Look at its face. Is it okay? Good. Now set it down so its head is near a nipple. Good. Watch for a minute. Is it taking the nipple? Move the pup a little closer. How about now? Is it taking the nipple? Good.”
Iris lay with her neck flat on the bedding, eyes half shut. Breaths like sighs lifted her chest. Edgar discovered he could hear the faint suckling of the pup over the thunderous pounding in his ears. He scooted backward until he could lean against the wall. He took a long, quavering breath and looked over at his father.
“You forgot to praise her,” his father said, his voice so quiet Edgar barely heard it. He’d opened his eyes again and he was smiling. “But wait awhile now. She wants to rest.”
THE PUPS ARRIVED about a half an hour apart. When the third was nursing, Edgar’s father gathered up the newspapers piled by the door and walked out of the whelping room. He came back carrying a pan of warm milk. Edgar held it while Iris lapped, then ran his fingers into the bowl and let her lick the last drops, and then he held her water bowl. She turned to her pups, rolling them and licking them until they cried, and then, satisfied, lowered her muzzle to the bedding.
The fourth pup looked normal in every way, yet it sagged in Edgar’s hand when he lifted it. His father pressed the limp shape to his ear and held his breath. He swung the pup high into the air and quickly down to the floor, listened, and did it again. Then he shook his head and lay the stillborn pup aside.
Did I do something wrong? Edgar signed.
“No,” his father said. “Sometimes a pup just isn’t strong enough to survive whelping. It doesn’t mean you did anything wrong and it doesn’t mean that there’s any problem with the rest of the litter. But now would be a good time to walk her. She’ll relax for the rest of the whelping.” Edgar nodded and collected the short lead and gently slapped his thigh to coax Iris out of the whelping box. She bent her head to her pups and licked them away from her. They began to peep like chicks. She allowed Edgar to lead her into the yard. The night was cloudless and Almondine watched them from the porch, whining quietly.
Not yet, he signed. Soon.
Iris made for the top of the orchard, urinated, then pulled heavily toward the barn. As he closed the barn doors, and the swath of yellow light narrowed against the woods opposite, he saw a flash of eyeshine, two pale green disks that vanished and appeared again. Forte, he thought. He wished he could take the time to walk out and be sure but instead he turned and led Iris to the whelping room. The pen door stood open. His father was gone, along with the stillborn pup. Iris stood over her pups, methodically licking them, then lay and nudged them into the circle of her legs.
Four more pups came that night. Edgar washed and inspected each, offering Iris water and food when he thought she would take it. His father sat against the wall, elbows propped on his knees, watching. After the eighth pup, his father palpated Iris’s belly. There were probably no more, he said, but they should wait. Edgar cleaned the fur on Iris’s legs and all of her back parts, and he dried her with a fresh towel. He coaxed her into the warm night once again. When they returned, Iris went directly to the whelping box and urged her pups against her teats as she had before.
She’s a good mother, Edgar signed.
“She is indeed,” his father said. He guided Edgar out of the whelping room. The bright kennel lights cast circles under his father’s eyes and Edgar wondered if he himself looked equally weary.
“I want you to stay in the barn tonight, but keep out of her pen unless she’s having problems. First, though, I want you to come back into the house and clean up.”
They walked into the dark kitchen together. The kitchen clock read 2:25. Almondine lay near the porch door. She sauntered drowsily over and scented Edgar’s legs and hands, then leaned against his knee. Edgar’s mother appeared in the bedroom doorway wearing her bathrobe.
“Well?” she said.
Three females, four males, he signed. He made the sign for “beautiful,” a wide, sweeping gesture.
She smiled and walked around the table and hugged him.
“Edgar,” she murmured.
He fixed himself a ham sandwich and told her everything. Some of it was already jumbled in his mind; he could not remember whether the stillborn puppy was the fourth or fifth. Then, all at once, he could think of nothing else to say.
Can I go back out now?
“Yes,” she said. “Go.”
His father stood and laid a hand on Edgar’s shoulder and looked at him. After a time Edgar felt embarrassed and looked down.
Thank you, he signed.
His father raised his fingertips to his mouth and held them there. He drew a breath and tipped his hands outward.
You’re welcome.
Almondine squeezed through the porch door ahead of him and plunged down the steps. There were no clouds to obscure the stars overhead or the crescent moon reclined at the horizon. The longer he looked, the more stars he saw. No end to them. He thought of Claude and how he’d been overwhelmed by the sky his first night home.
Whoosh, he’d said. As if a person might fall into something that large.
In the barn, he stopped to collect a clean towel from the medicine room and The New Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language from its place atop the file cabinets and went into the nursery. Iris lay on her side in the whelping box, breaths tidal, her pups chirping and grunting as they nursed.
He would need names now, particularly good names. He stretched out along the passageway floor, using the towel for a pillow, and opened the dictionary. Almondine scented the air and peered into the pen, tail low. Iris opened her eyes and raised her head. Then Almondine stepped over Edgar and lay beside him. He pulled her onto her side and she pawed the air and gave out a little gasp and they looked through the pen wire together. The low barrier of the whelping box hid the pups, but when Edgar closed his eyes, he saw them anyway, shining black crescents tucked against the down of their mother’s belly.
Essence
OCTOBER. DRY LEAVES CHATTERED BENEATH THE APPLE TREES.
For three nights running, pearl flakes of snow materialized around Edgar and Almondine as they walked from the kennel to the house. Almondine poked her nose into the apparition of her own breath while Edgar watched a snowflake dissolve in midair, one and then another. Those that made it to the ground quivered atop blades of grass, then wilted into ink drops. At the porch, they turned to look at their footsteps, a pair of dark trails through the lawn.
The four of them played intricate games of canasta until late in the night. Edgar partnered with his mother—they both liked to freeze the deck, slow things down, let the tension rise with the height of the discard pile.
