This fenceline marks the boundary between my few acres and my neighbor’s land. Penny is one of his horses. His field is all timothy grass and sweet clover and when I crouch down to the roots of my mint and lavender plants growing against the fence, all of his horses look like tiny freckles across the grass. His land seems so endless from down here, but I can still pick out Penny gleaming all golden in the sun. If I squint my eyes, I can even make out the blur of the pond on the east end where the horses get their water. There’s a scattering of oaks, and the lean-to barn right there on the edge of the field before everything disappears into the horizon, quivering in the heat of the sun.

       I’ve only ever seen my neighbor’s face a handful of times, and always from the window of his white truck as he slows down but never comes to a full stop on the one-lane. He leans out, idles by, checking that the horses he keeps here are still standing, and then he speeds past.

       All of the horses in his field are mares. All of them are pregnant, including Penny. There’s a woman he employs who drops the horses off and picks them back up once their babies have been born. Or maybe she’s his girlfriend, I don’t know. She’s got this short dark hair that curls under her baseball cap, and she always at least waves at me if she sees me watching from the porch. I haven’t felt brave enough to go talk to her yet, though it’s been years. Maybe I don’t want to know whatever it is she might tell me, maybe it’d ruin the story I write in my head. The day she dropped off Penny, she raised her hand to wave and then, for the first time ever, she started to walk towards the fenceline. Towards me. But then she must’ve changed her mind, I watched her turn around and walk back to the truck and trailer, shoving both hands in her pockets.

       Part of the story I have in my head is that my neighbor is a breeder. It might be true– my mama was a horse woman and taught me the same, so I suspect he’s got this extra land away from his other horses, to keep the pregnant ones safe.

~

Each morning and each night, I stand on this fenceline and shake a bucket full of grain at the mares, calling out to them. I always give each one a name. My man rolls his eyes when I tell him, saying that it’s stupid to get attached to a thing that ain’t yours to begin with. I don’t get to decide when they appear in the pasture but I know they’ll be gone within a day or two after their babies come. That usually gives them six months with me to get used to their names. When I feed them, I touch their noses and rub their necks and repeat their names to them so they don’t forget.

       Every time I stand on the fenceline shaking the bucket, breathing in the sun-soaked smell of mint and lavender and calling out to the horses, my man’s dogs start barking, joining in my call. Both girls are racoon dogs, trained to hunt and kill, but they’re gentle with the horses. They run up and down, barking, and when the horses reach the fenceline, the dogs reach their noses up and wag their tails. Good girls, I tell them, patting their heads, good girls.

       Something you should know about my man is that he named his dogs after twin sisters who lived down the street from him when he was a little kid. Holly and Delilah. They used to play together, all three of them. A secret that I’ll tell you if you promise not to tell anyone else is that both girls are dead now but I don’t know how, exactly, since the first time my man told me this I started to cry, and he had to stop before he got to say what happened. After I made myself calm down, he brushed my hair back and said he won’t ever tell me the rest of the story since it makes me so sad.

       Maybe you want to know the names of the mares. From the first one that showed up, to the four I’ve got now, in order: Pepper, Lily, Culprit, Phoenix, Sage, Athena, Pickle, Dove, Astrid, Eva, Zing, Shania Twain, Heineken, Cantaloupe, Cedar, Ocean, and Penny. Each of them swelled with a baby. None of the babies died.

~

Even though he thinks I’m being overly sensitive– spineless, he called it once, when he was in one of his moods– my man buys some of the grain for the mares. Hauls it home in the back of his truck after work. I’m an artist, pottery mostly, commission and stuff I sell at shops around town and on Etsy, so I work from home, in the basement room I turned into a studio because that’s where all the good morning light comes in. I can tell he’s a mile out from the house because the dogs start whining. We all three go upstairs and wait for him on the porch.

       He’s a good man. Other women have to lie to their boyfriends or get hit or don’t have access to the bank accounts, but mine never does that. He grins when he pulls up the driveway, puts his cigarette out, and climbs out the truck calling Hey my girls. He looks genuinely happy most of the time. He kisses me like he means it. He wrestles with the dogs in the grass. He’s a good man. 

       Sometimes the true things in life really are simple. Men are either good or they are not. My friend’s kid’s dad— addict, can’t call her on her birthday even when he’s reminded– is not. My coworker’s boyfriend who’s definitely cheating on her even though he’s uglier than a stoplight– not a good man. The man I was married to for years– this one I’ve got now would never walk out on me like that. How do you live your whole life thinking you know someone? They can lie to you, even if you love them. Even if you slip into bed with them every night. They lie.

~

I can always tell when the mares are about to give birth. I’ll wait up whole nights when I think the baby’s coming soon. The mothers will start to carry the weight lower in their belly, and the baby will start to favor one side of their mother’s womb. Looking at a mare from the front, she’ll look swollen on just her left side. She’ll let her head hang against my chest longer than usual. The other mares will give up their grain for her. So I know. And Penny, my– no, she isn’t mine, I forget that all the time– this copper-colored girl that’s been here since winter, I think she’ll have the baby tonight. I can feel it.

       As I’m pulling the roast from the oven, I tell my man that Penny’s giving birth tonight. The smell of braised meat and rosemary has slowly filled the kitchen all day, I can barely notice it anymore. The steam hits my face.

       He doesn’t look up from his book when he tells me that he’s never seen me be wrong before. In the backyard, the dogs start to bark. My man says Holly must’ve caught the scent of a raccoon. He puts the book down, crosses through the kitchen to the back, touching my shoulder a little when he passes. His eyes are on his dogs.

       I cut the meat and plate it. I line up little vegetables on the side. I pour us both glasses of sweet tea. The wildflowers I’d picked a few days ago are starting to wilt so I refill the vase and set it in the center of the table. I really do want to be good at this for him. The recipe I used for the roast was my mama’s.

       My man is pacing the backyard, arms crossed. Both Holly and Delilah have treed a raccoon and are barking insanely up at it. Through the back sliding door, I watch my man take a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and light it, then nod resolutely to himself.

       He moves quickly back through the house straight to the coat closet, grabs his rifle. I ask him what he’s doing. He tells me not to be stupid. I think about asking him to sit down for dinner or not to bring his smoke inside but then he’s gone again.

       I’m still at the table, my own plate untouched, taking a sip of my tea, when I hear the pop pop. Just two. The dogs go quiet. I can hear my man saying they’re good girls, good girls. If I go out there, I’ll see the dead raccoon and something you should know about me is that I can handle the blood of a horse’s birth and one time Deliliah sliced her leg open on a downed tree and it didn’t bother me, and once near the end of her life my mama fell in the tub and I was calm the whole drive to the hospital, holding a soaked rag to her head with my right hand and steering with my left– but I know that if I go out there my man will hold up the dead raccoon for me to see and he’ll be smiling, and I don’t want to look at its blood dripping into the grass. Because the dogs will lap at it, at the blood, and I don’t want to see that. It’s Deliliah and Holly I am protecting with my mind by choosing to stay inside.

       So I pack my dinner into a tupperware and place it in the fridge. I leave my man’s plate out, scrawl a note on a napkin, change into long pants and a t-shirt, and pack my bag. If you want to know what I bring: two bottles of water, empty bucket, towels, sweater, mason jar of tea, extra halter, rope.

       I’ve started keeping a folding chair out by the lean-to for birthing nights, because the mares seem to like to give birth under the shelter of the its flimsy roof. Once I climb the fence and hike out to it, I place my chair right outside, where I can watch Penny but I’m not close enough to scare her. I click off my flashlight. I chose to buy my house because of the stars out here. When I look up, I can see Saturn and Jupiter and sometimes even the Milky Way. My man moved in with me after we’d been dating about a year, which was two years after my divorce. From where I am now, all the way across the field in my camp chair, I can tell where my house is because I can see the kitchen light glowing like a tiny yellow fire, and I can see when my man goes to bed because the kitchen light is suddenly gone, flicked off, making the stars seem much brighter because the whole night suddenly gets darker. I picture my man with both dogs curled up on the side of the bed I usually sleep on.

       Penny’s labor must have started a few hours ago, because she’s pacing, uncomfortable, and her milk has started to drip. About an hour goes by before her water breaks. Then she lays down, and her contractions start. I count six eyes blinking under one of the oaks, where Cantalope, Cedar, and Ocean are bedding down for the night. They always do this– the other mares always sleep away from the birthing mother.

       Each time a mare goes into labor, I pass the time by telling them their own story. I say it aloud. Of course none of these horses have ever been mine so it’s the story I invent for them. It gives us both something, I think. If you want to hear the story I tell Penny: you were bought at an auction by a really nice father who wanted his little boy to grow up with a pony. They took you home and grazed you in the backyard. By the time winter hit, the boy and his father had built you a small barn, perfect for just one horse. The little boy was about to be ten years old and he really loved you and you really loved him. You lived for a few years with the boy, feeling him grow each time he rode you. One spring it rained hard for a week straight. Then a cold snap came through, and the road froze over. Little sheets of ice over the fencing and your barn. The moon rose up in the frozen sky, just a crescent. The little boy, in his pajamas and rubber boots, came outside to check on you. The father followed with his winter coat. The little boy was stroking you and his father was saying You need to put your jacket on or you’ll catch cold. Then there was an accident– a semi-truck hit a slick patch and slid into the ditch outside the house. No one was hurt but the noise scared you. You reared up in your little barn and the  boy was knocked down. He curled up instinctively in the hay, protecting his little head from your hooves. You didn’t hurt him but you couldn’t calm down. The father, still holding the jacket, saw the fear in his child’s eyes and it transferred into his own. You were sold to the breeder by the time the moon got full again.

       I don’t know why I didn’t give the boy a mother in the story. I almost always give the mares sad endings and happy beginnings like this. Often their stories involve a kind of accident. I don’t know why.

       It dawns on me that I don’t have to be out here at all. That every birth I’ve watched required me to trespass into a stranger’s land. With all the other mares, I’ve never needed to interfere. They’ve all birthed their foals just fine with me just watching, giving them a story that they never asked for while they birth their babies without ever needing my hands to help. I sip from my jar of tea. I look up at the stars. I hate that my mama would’ve said I should bring a pistol with me to the birth, in case anything bad happens and I have to keep someone from suffering. And I hate that she would’ve been wrong– I have no reason to fear for the mares or the babies, and I can’t end their suffering in either direction.

       I don’t even need to be feeding the mares. I do it because I like to name them, I like to feel like I know them. But the truth is that they live just fine without me and without names, eating grasses and not from a bucket in my hands.

~

Penny’s foal comes out headfirst, like all the others. Its amniotic sack is thick and milky, just like all the others. And just like the others, it uses its knees, and then its two front hooves, to work its way to standing. Penny nuzzles it. She’s a good mother, just like all the others.

       The night air feels like snow inside my chest, damp and cold. I put my sweater on and listen to the only thing I can hear: crickets and the suck suck of Penny’s baby as it nurses.

       I should tell you that I used to want to be a mother. But my first husband said we didn’t need babies to be happy, said he’d leave me if I poked holes in the condom or skipped a pill. I never even had a pregnancy scare and he left anyway. One day he drove off for work and just didn’t come back. I tried to call but I’m not one of those needy girls so I made myself stop after one exact week. He mailed divorce papers that I signed without letting myself think too hard. I told the mares– Lilly and Culprit were in the pasture then– that I was no longer a married woman. By then my mama had been gone a while so I didn’t have anyone else to tell.

       Penny’s baby is the kind of deep brown color that looks dark red. She’s got that coppery hue like her mother.

       I should also tell you that I don’t ever name the babies. I don’t know why. I don’t even try to touch them.

~

It’s starting to be morning when I put my folding chair back under the lean-to and repack my bag. I switch my flashlight on, scanning for the snakes that sometimes weave through the grass at early hours, before it gets hot. The hem of my pants dampen with dew. I climb back over the fence. I ease my boots off on the porch. When color pricks the sky, I’ll come back out and call the girls for morning grain. I don’t know if I’ll sleep today because I don’t want to miss the woman with the trailer if she comes to pick up Penny and her baby. Maybe today will be the day I talk to her.

       Both dogs get out of bed when I come back inside. I hear their toenails on the staircase, the tin of their tags on their collars. They wag their tails at me as I open and close the fridge, pulling my tupperware of roast out. My man left his plate on the table. He drew a Sharpie heart on my napkin note. I move his plate aside and sit in his chair.

       The roast is cold and I am eating with my hands, but it’s tender and seasoned well, I think to myself that maybe I’m good at this. Holly puts her head on my lap. Her eyes are large and liquid. You’re like a little kid, I say to her, you look so harmless. And because I don’t want her to feel left out, I reach over to pet Delilah with the hand I’m not using to feed myself. But Holly wants more from me. She stands up and paws at me, catching the edge of the tupperware, sending it tumbling off the table and onto the floor.

       Holly! I yelp. I don’t want to get mad at her for such a small accident so I suck my breath in fast and then ease it out slowly.

       Bad dog, I say halfheartedly, looking down at the food and the floor and the dogs eating my roast. My throat swells like maybe I’ll cry. The noise has woken up my man. He’s coming downstairs, rubbing his eyes. Holly, I say again, Holly knocked my food down. It’s supposed to sound like an explanation but it sounds accusatory and whiny. I feel like I need something for the first time in my whole life but I don’t know what it is and I don’t know who I need it from. My man pats his legs with both hands. Come here Holly. I’ll protect you, he says. And Holly goes.