Lily rose and scrubbed her hands. She was squeamish as hell about getting so intimate with a hoofed creature, but as a vegetarian, she was supposedly devoted to protecting animal life.
Jack gestured toward the pig’s orifice. “Now if you can just wedge your hand in so you can get a good grip around the piglet’s middle, you can pull it right out.”
“Sorry, Minnie,” Lily mumbled as she shoved her hand into the sow’s vagina. “Usually I at least buy a girl dinner before we get to this part.”
As Lily groped around in the darkness, she suddenly felt the warmth and movement of a living creature. The piglet was wedged in tight, but she slowly worked her hand alongside it, and then painstakingly turned her wrist until she was gripping the animal just behind what felt like its back legs.
“Got it ... I think.”
“Okay,” Jack said. “Now pull, but go easy.”
Gripping the tiny animal firmly, Lily brought her arm back in a slow, steady pull. The piglet’s curly tail was visible first, then finally its wet pink ears and snout. “It’s breathing!” Lily cried, overcome with the emotion of the moment. “Is it a boy or a girl?”
Jack glanced under the pig’s tail. “Looks like a girl.”
Ed looked at Lily and laughed. He apparently wasn’t used to seeing someone get so worked up over livestock.
“Well, it sure is,” Jack said. “Ed, I reckon you’ll have to name this piglet Lily ... after her midwife.”
Ed grinned. “You’re plum crazy, Doc ... not changed a lick since you was a little girl.”
Jack grinned back. “Why don’t you get us some more hot water so we can wash up? I’ll stay till all the piglets are born, but my guess is the rest of the delivery will go normally.”
It did go normally. Minnie lay on her side and squeezed out piglet after piglet, until the litter totaled seven. Lily sketched the pigs while Jack kept the apple slices coming.
“How they doing?” Ed asked when he returned with fresh water.
“They look great,” Jack said.
“Well, Vina’s got some breakfast cooked, if y’all wanna eat before you go.”
“You know me,” Jack said, scrubbing her hands. “I wouldn’t miss one of Vina’s breakfasts.
They’re this job’s number-one fringe benefit.”
Lily sat with Jack at the table in Ed and Vina’s spotless kitchen, with the morning sun shining through the red-and-white gingham curtains. The table was spread with an artery-clogging breakfast buffet: hot biscuits, red-eye gravy, cooked apples, fried eggs, grits, ham, bacon, and sausage.
“Now you girls eat all the biscuits you want,” Vina, a smiling, plump woman said, filling their mugs with coffee. “I just put another pan in the oven.”
“Thanks, but I’m sure one pan will be plenty,” Lily said. But after she saw the way Jack
