“Barely even fought,” Sherman says as he gets on his feet too, wiping his brow.
A woman on the other side of the pen opens a gate and the calf canters out in search of its mother.
“No stitches?” the kid asks.
“A dry, clean field is all they need now. Wound will heal on its own.”
Al stands and stretches his legs, readying himself for the next calf.
“You available again in a few weeks’ time?” the other hired hand asks. Al was introduced to him earlier but doesn’t remember his name.
“You got cattle?”
“A friend of mine two hours from here has a herd about half this size.”
“How old?”
“A month older than these, maybe two.”
“Weaned?”
“Not sure.”
“I don’t do weaned calves.”
“Why’s that?”
Sherman answers for him, “Greater weight loss and chance of infection if they’ve been weaned.”
The woman at the gate leans against the fence, arms folded across the top bar, one foot resting on the lower. Her coppery hair a scratchy cloud around her head. No cowboy hat or baseball cap, and wearing a pair of high-tops. An odd sight for work like this. She nods at Al like they know each other but he’s never seen her before. Sherman’s wife, maybe? He nods back, then dips his hands and the knife back in the bucket to disinfect for the next.
They break just before eleven and gather in the shade of the barn. Sherman hands out pre-wrapped homemade sandwiches. On a fold-out table there’s a box of fruit and a cooler filled with pop cans and juice boxes. The men help themselves. There’s small talk in between mouthfuls of food, but the barn falls silent when the copper-haired woman walks in. She grabs a sandwich and a cream soda, then heads back outside and sits in the sun by herself.
No one says anything until the kid pipes up. “Isn’t that the mother of that fucked-up boy?”
Sherman smacks him on the arm.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” A piece of roast beef falls from the kid’s bun and he catches it, shoves it in his mouth. “What’s she doing here?” he asks while chewing it.
“Returning a favour,” Sherman says. “Her brother-in-law owns a cartage company in Brandon and shipped some equipment for me for cheap.” More silence. Then someone brings up the weather and the conversation doesn’t stop. Al listens, nods his head a few times, tsk-tsks when it’s required.
At the end of the day, on his way to the house to use the john, he crosses paths with the woman on her way to her car.
“That was not at all what I expected,” she says, stopping in front of him. “Didn’t know what to expect, honestly. I’m a townie. Rarely been on a farm, much less worked on one. But that,” she says, pointing to the pen, “how’d you learn to do that?”
“Grew up watching my father do it.” It’s both true and not true. It’s true he watched his father do it, but what he learned was not to do it the way his father did. He was rough and forceful. The calves would buck and scream, and Al would race to the house to hide. But as he grew older and understood that the procedure was necessary for the safety of the cattle themselves, he was determined to find a method that was less traumatic. He studied others, and developed his own technique over time, mastering a style that was swift and smooth.
“Is this all you do, hire yourself out? Or do you have your own farm?”
“Retired now. Just help others out here and there.”
She watches him, as if sizing him up.
“You came all the way from where in Saskatchewan?” she asks.
“Saltus.”
“Down in the valley there?”
Al nods. Something about her seems jittery. Thoughts whir in her eyes, but then she just ups and walks away. As he heads to his own truck, she drives by him in a rust bucket about fifteen years old and slows, rolls down her window.
“Nice to meet you, Al,” she says and sticks her arm out toward him so he’s forced to step forward. “Name’s Nadine.” She waves as she moves off and he tips his hat. She’s not hitting on him—he’ll be seventy in less than a year, and she’s got to be thirty-some years his junior—but there is something there. Something he can’t pick up on. But then he’s only ever been good with animals.
September 1992
Winnipeg and Beauville, Manitoba
“So, what exactly are you saying?” Nadine adjusts her denim purse from her right leg to her left and its long, fraying tassels stretch across her thighs like hair. Behind a hefty oak desk, Dr. Goertzen reads through Aaron’s file and avoids eye contact. Beside Nadine, Aaron sits hunched, his back so curved that his dress’s Peter Pan collar is tight against his throat. The dress is a pale yellow with white flowers and short petal sleeves. His taste in clothes is so feminine and pretty. Different from all the black jeans and band T-shirts that fill Nadine’s dresser drawers.
“We’d like Aaron to have a few more sessions with his therapist first, and then we’ll reconvene.”
“A few more sessions? We’ve had six months of sessions already, and another four with a therapist before that who, it turned out, thought Aaron was doing all this just for attention.”
“That was not a therapist we referred you to.”
“No, but it was the only one I could find in Brandon who would take us. It’s two hours to Brandon, and another two to get here to Winnipeg. I can barely afford one trip a month, never mind once a week.”
“If you want, I can see if there’s another therapist in Brandon, an appropriate one, and refer you there. Though I think Ms. Webster is a good fit. What do you think, Aaron?”
He’s unresponsive.
“Another referral means another six to eight weeks’ wait.” Nadine’s aware her voice is rising.
“Aaron,” says the doctor, “can you answer me?”
“I’ll stay with Ms. Webster.” His voice is just a whisper.
Nadine reaches out and touches Aaron’s forearm. “It’s been two years of this now. Appointment after appointment, and all you guys do is refer us to someone else.”
“I’m not referring you to anyone else in this instance. Aaron will continue his sessions with Ms. Webster, and we will reassess in a little while.”
“How long is a little while? And what more do you need to assess?”
“According to Ms. Webster’s notes, there have been a number of events in Aaron’s life recently that she considers to be major stressors. She recommends taking the time to work through these events and stabilize things first. I agree with her. After things are stabilized, then we can look at the best course of action for hormone therapy.”
“Events?”
“I understand that Aaron has been going through some stages of puberty in the last while that have been…” He pauses. “Impactful.” The doctor is unsure or unwilling to explain further.
Nadine knows full well what he means, though. When other kids Aaron’s age started to show signs, Nadine wondered if Aaron was caught in some strange limbo, which was only further proof that he wasn’t like everyone else. But just over a year ago, his voice started