Baby Makes Three

I wanted her there, in this home with me, but she was gone.

Again.

I went up to her room and slowly began to pick up. I made up her bed while the scent of her conditioner flew at my nose and I cleaned down the bathroom while the smell of her bath bubbles penetrated the air. I couldn’t look at that tub without seeing her sunk down onto my dick in it, and I couldn’t look in the mirror without seeing her there. The house was screaming out at me. It was infuriated at the fact that she wasn’t here… that I hadn’t brought her back from the airport.

“She’s gone, alright? And she ain’t comin’ back.”

I didn’t even know who t

he fuck I was talking to. All I knew was that it felt empty like the house was suddenly too big. Her body wasn’t where it should be, and her laughter didn’t fill the corners like it had been and her smile wasn’t dimming the lights with its watts of electricity.

Fuck, this was gonna be hard.

I went out to tend to my animals, and she was there, too. Every horse I tended to brought tears to my eyes. Dear Jesus, I almost lost her. The girl I fell in love with in college. The girl that was the muse for my rodeo career. The girl I’d built this entire fucking business for, just in case she came back and didn’t have anything to come home to. I built it all for her, and every time I looked at those horses hooves, it made me angry. Angry at that damn horse ranch for letting her ride and angry at that fucking horse for trampling her body and angry at that damn snake for biting her neck. Had it not been for that damn rodeo she showed up at, then she wouldn’t of gone seekin’ out my number. And if she didn’t go seekin’ out my number she wouldn’t have gone to that ranch. If she hadn’t of gone to that ranch, she wouldn’t of rode.

She would’ve been safe, she would’ve been healthy, and none of this past month would’ve occurred. I could’ve gone on livin’ alone in that massive house with my massive farm that I distracted myself with, and never once been privy to the loneliness I truly felt.

That was the thing about loneliness. When you got used to it, it didn’t hurt. But, when you experienced its opposite, the loneliness finally has something to compare itself to.

And it fucking hurt.

“Shit!” I roared out. I spooked the horses, and I heard the heifers in the barn begin to toss themselves up against the metal stalls, so I made my way over there to check on them. I walked in and noticed one of them was laying down in her stall, and it didn’t take me but a second to figure out what was happening. I ripped my phone out of my pocket and called the vet, and I told him it was time for one of them.

My heifer was about to give birth.

I went over to her and put her head on my lap, and by the way she was panting, I realized she’d probably been in labor for the majority of the morning. I felt around on her stomach and sighed with relief when I felt the calf moving around inside, but I knew that calf wasn’t gonna be alive much longer if that vet didn’t get her. She mooed out in her pain and nuzzled into my chest, and for the first time in years, I started crying with one of my animals.

Chelsea would’ve loved to have been here in this moment. She was always so attentive to animal’s needs, and I knew if she were here she’d know exactly what to do. I could feed ‘em and train ‘em and keep ‘em healthy, but I didn’t know shit about my female animals giving birth.

It was my downfall, but it was one of Chelsea’s strengths.

That was the thing about Chelsea and I, what I was shit in she was great at. And, what she was shit at I was wonderful in. When put together, we were one well-rounded human being who actually knew how to function, but apart we were just floating and stumbling around, trying to make the best of things.

Was that what Paris was like for her? Lots of stumbling?

“Alright, alright. I’m here,” the vet said pulling me from my thoughts.

“Thanks for comin’,” I murmured.

“Alright, lemme take a look.”

The vet got down onto her level and didn’t seem happy that she was laying down.

“You know when she lied down?” he asked.

“She was lyin’ down when I came in here.”

“Shit, alright.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Lyin’ down means she’s tired, and if she’s tired it means she’s probably been in labor all night.”

“God, I think I would’ve heard her if she had been mooin’ all night.”

“You’d be surprised. If the contractions were really far apart, the mooin’ she would’ve been doing would’ve sounded completely normal because she wouldn’t have been tired yet.”

“Shit,” I breathed.