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time to ponder it.
    “I’ll lose it in there. Please, just keep it for me—for a few minutes.”
    My words seemed to shake Jeremy out of his reverie. I never took off my wedding ring—ever.
    “I got the document from the lawyer. The devise.” Jeremy’s tone was hard. Like he’d practiced saying that in the mirror.
    When I didn’t respond, he added, not masking his anger , “I’m going to insist she sign it. If she won’t put the property in our name now, she’s going to have to make good her promise that this house, this property, will be left for us in her will.”
    I spun to face him. “Look, she already has it for us in her trust. You know this!”
    “And she can remove it anytime she damn well pleases. This way she has to put her money where her mouth is. Sign something to prove she means it.”
    “Jer, she’s my mother, for God’s sake! Family means everything to her. Please, let’s not do this. Not now.” I gestured at the distressed goat that stood panting hard and shaking from head to hoof. I exhaled hard , wanting to be done with this argument already—the argument that had gone on for hours the night before .
    “Fine!” I added . “Give her the paper and let her sign it. Then you’ll see. All this fuss over nothing. You know it has something to do with her taxes—”
    “A flimsy excuse. She owns your older brother too. Her name’s on his deed . And Neal—she made him sell his house so she could have more ready cash. Dammit, Lisa, why can’t you see this?”
    I pinched my lips together in frustration. “She’s my mother. Don’t I know her better than you? You’re just talking out of your paranoia.” I turned my back on Jeremy and concentrated on Sassy. I closed my ears to everything but her labored breathing.
    Time moved slowly , and I hated seeing Sassy in such distress. Her groans and grunts tore at my heart, so I worked as quickly as I could, getting my hand around the head again.
    “Why won’t she push it out?” Jeremy asked.
    ‘Because . . .” I grunted, “that leg goes to a different kid.” I closed my eyes and with my mind followed my hand along as I traced the front hoof up to the stifle in that confining space , feeling the first bend forward, the second, backward at the hock. Hind leg, not front. I pushed that leg back into the uterus as far as I could and fished around for a front leg. I only needed one front leg that corresponded with the appropriate head and I would be in the clear.
    Finally, I found one that connected to the neck of the goat sticking partway out of the birth canal.
    “Got it!”
    Sassy screamed as I pulled gently, foot and head, then waited until she got back to pushing. Along with her efforts, I cleared the shoulder over the cervix, the head and legs sliding out with the rest of the small wet body following. Jeremy handed me a towel , and I placed the small doe baby on it, under Sassy’s nose, so she could sniff and lick it. I heard Jeremy chuckle , and a warm feeling rose to my heart, followed by a pang of despair that I hid in my attending to the next new arrival plopping out onto straw.
    How simple it seemed to give birth to new life, and how very impossible. Something right here in my grasp was completely out of my grasp, denied me.
    I choked up over all the years of frustration, heartache, and disappointment and dried off the next kid, a little gray buck with a white blaze on his forehead. Both kids were already standing on wobbly legs and baaing in cute warbly voices. Sassy spoke back to her babies between frantic licks. I always found it humorous watching does attend to their newborns. A third kid came with one more Sassy squawk—another buck, this one a runt. He fit in the palm of my hand. While Jeremy petted the other two, I rubbed that tiny guy with a towel, but got little response. Once I iodined the umbilical areas and made sure Sassy was done, had food and water, and passed her placenta, I stood. My legs shook from squatting so