“Do you want the serious answer or the sarcastic one?” I reply, leaning on the pitchfork to catch my breath.
“As much as I’d love a dose of your sharp wit, I’ll take the serious answer.”
“I’m preparing Dolly’s stall,” I explain.
“That can’t wait?”
“No,” I shoot back. “Important as you think you are, Dolly is about to give birth, so I have to get her stall ready now. Unless you want to do it.”
“Perfect,” he says, surprising me to the point that the pitchfork handle slips from my grip and falls to the ground with a loud clang.
He rolls up the sleeves of his denim shirt, bends down to pick it up, scoops up a much more generous load of hay than I ever could, and looks at me defiantly. “Where should I put it?”
“In the box at the back.”
Michael nods, satisfied. “Sure thing.” He goes back and forth, giving me smug looks like:See? You think I couldn’t do it?
“It’s just hay, Michael, not lead,” I scoff.
“Can I ever do anything right in your eyes?” he asks, planting the pitchfork in the haystack.
“Not yet,” I reply dryly, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Shall I keep going, or is that enough?”
“It’s enough,” I reply through clenched teeth. I bring Dolly to the foaling box where I untie her, with Michael still at my heels. I retreat to the sidelines, out of the mare’s field of vision so as not to make her nervous, and sit on the ground, my back against the wall. “Well, now all we have to do is wait. I have all the time you want to talk.”
“Is the vet here?”
“The vet doesn’t come for births. We only call him when there’s a complication, and let’s hope there aren’t any, given that the closest one is in Gaiole.”
“So you’re saying . . . ?”
“I’ll take care of it,” I say.
Michael looks at Dolly and then at me. “Very good. Since you’re not going anywhere, I guess now’s my chance,” he says, sitting next to me. “I’ll stay too.”
“To witness the birth?” I ask in disbelief.
“In case you need a hand. And since you can’t escape, we can talk like adults.”
“Fine, but we need to be quiet,” I say to silence him. “We can’t distract Dolly.”
“Are you sure she’s okay?” he asks, nodding toward the mare, who is stirring restlessly. “She collapsed.”
“Yeah, the contractions have started. She’ll alternate between calm and agitated for a couple of hours before entering the second phase.”
“Okay.”
“So? What do you have to say that I don’t already know?”
“I feel bad about how you found out about the sale of the estate.”
“Considering I’m the one who manages it and a parrot still found out before I did, I’d say I have every reason to feel offended.”
“It wasn’t my intention to leave you in the dark about everything and then have you evicted in two months. I was waiting for the right time to talk to you.”
God, I wish I had that pitchfork handy now. “How about the moment you arrived, for example?”
