Page 77 of Carry Me Home

I don’t argue. There isn’t time, and besides – she’s good. I’ve seen her work. If this goes sideways, I’ll want her hands.

We take the Land Rover up the coast road, hedgerows blurring past. Cara’s already asking the right questions – how long in labour, first-time mother, any previous complications – and her voice has shifted into the clinical register I remember from third year, when she’d walk into a practical and everything else fell away. This is the Cara I knew first. The vet. The colleague. The person I understood before things got complicated.

‘First-time mother,’ I tell her. ‘Three years old. Jack says he’s never seen her this distressed.’

‘Malpresentation?’

‘That’s my guess.’

Penrose Farm sits in a valley two miles from the village, surrounded by fields that slope to the sea. Jack meets us at the gate, face ashen, and leads us to the stable without a word, just shaking his head.

The mare is down. Flanks heaving, eyes rolling white, her body trembling with an exhaustion I can measure by the intervals between contractions – too far apart, too weak. She’s been fighting this for hours. The sweat has darkened her coat to the colour of wet earth and her legs scrabble against the straw in movements that are becoming less coordinated. She’s running out of time. They both are.

‘Easy, girl.’ I crouch beside her, running my hands along her belly, feeling for position. My voice is low, steady, the frequency that large animals respond to, the one I learned from Dad. ‘Easy. We’re going to help you.’

Cara’s already gloved, already setting up. We work in the shorthand of shared training – a nod, a gesture, with the economy of two people who learned the same language in the same rooms.

‘Leg’s back,’ I say, once I’ve examined her. ‘Foal’s stuck at the shoulder. I need to reposition.’

‘Tell me what you need.’

‘Keep her calm. Talk to her. Don’t let her thrash.’

The next twenty minutes are the hardest kind. The mare screams – a sound I’ve heard a hundred times and never learned to separate from – and Cara holds her head, murmuring steadily, her hands firm and gentle, keeping the animal still while I work blind. My arms are burning. Sweat drips into my eyes. The foal is wedged tight, and every second that passes is another second of oxygen deprivation, another second closer to losing them both, and the part of my brain that stays clinical is shrinking while the part that just feels it is getting louder.

Come on. Move. Turn. Let go of whatever you’re holding on to and come towards me.

The leg shifts. I feel the foal turn with the slow, grinding rotation of a body finally giving way. My relief is so immediate it’s almost nauseous.

‘Now. She needs to push now.’

The mare heaves. Cara presses her hands against the belly, adding pressure, and with a rush of fluid and a sound like the world exhaling, the foal slides free.

It’s not breathing.

I clear its airways. Rub its sides, hard, rhythmic. Cara is beside me, doing the same. The straw is wet and warm and the stable is silent except for our breathing and the mare’s ragged panting and the absence of the sound we need to hear.

Then the foal shudders. Gasps. Its legs kick; weak, uncoordinated, entirely alive.

‘There you go.’ My voice is wrecked. ‘There you go. Good girl.’

The mare lifts her head, nickering, and the foal turns towards the sound. Alive. Both of them alive. The foal’s legs are folding and unfolding. newly assembled mechanics, testing the joints, and the mare is already nuzzling it with the blind devotion of a mother who has never done this before and knows exactly what to do.

Jack Penrose is crying. He doesn’t try to hide it. I don’t judge him for it. My own hands are shaking.

‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘Christ. Thank you both.’

The drive back is quiet, but it’s a good quiet. My brain is humming.

Cara’s looking out the window, her profile lit by the low evening sun.

‘That was good work,’ she says. ‘The repositioning. I’ve seen senior vets lose it with less.’

‘I’ve had practice.’

‘You were calm. Even when it looked like we’d lose them.’ She turns to me. ‘You’re really good at this, Tom.’

‘So are you. Wouldn’t have managed alone.’