The House Cow My Father Gave Me

By the fence

When the last car pulled out, I walked over to him. Matt came out of the house and stood on the porch with his coffee. He did not come down. He knew it was mine to do. But he stayed where I could see him, and that was Matt all over.

Dad was standing at the fence with Pearl.

She had her head over the wire, and he had his hand on her forehead, rubbing the flat place between her eyes with his thumb. She had her eyes half shut. She always did love that spot.

“She remembers me,” he said.

“She remembers everybody who was ever good to her,” I said.

He kept his hand on her. He did not look at me. For a while neither of us said anything, and I could hear the Jerseys in the barn shifting their feet and a crow somewhere off in the hedgerow.

“I was there the night she was born,” he said finally. “You don’t remember that. You were fifteen and you were asleep. It was February, and the house cow we had then was old, and I didn’t think she’d make it through the calving. I went out at two in the morning, and here was this little brown heifer, wet as a fish, already trying to stand.”

I did not know that. I had always thought I was the first one to see her.

“I carried her into the calf hutch myself,” he said. “Your mother came out with a towel in her nightgown and her barn coat. She said, ‘Jess is going to love this one.’ And you did.”

His thumb kept moving on Pearl’s forehead. Slow. Back and forth.

“Why’d you come, Dad?” I asked.

He took a long breath.

“My father gave the farm to me,” he said. “I had two sisters, your Aunt Jean and your Aunt Marie, and they both milked as much as I did. Dad gave it all to me and gave them each a set of dishes and a hope chest.”

He shook his head slowly.

“And I never thought one thing about it. That was just how it was done. When it came time, I did what he did. I didn’t think past it, Jess. I didn’t think at all.”

“I asked you,” I said. “At that table. I asked you once.”

“I know you did.” His voice went rough. “I’ve heard you ask it every day for sixteen years.”