Shadow Lines

I was elbow deep in cow udders when my cell phone rang. Hopefully, the caller was my veterinary friend returning the message I'd left. My face was pressed against warm quivering cowhide. I managed to say, "Dr. Eve St. Giles," into the voice-activated headset without getting a mouthful of hair. I ran a swab along the udder wall and placed it in a test tube. "Eve?" My sister's strident voice came through loud and clear, causing the cow to shift away from me. "Shhh," I whispered to the nervous animal. "Every-thing's going to be all right." Actually, the situation here in Yorkshire was anything but all right. Constables in yellow slickers and armed with rifles stood outside the barn, ready to slaughter this and every other cow on the farm if my verdict was mad cow disease. "Did you just tell me to shush?" Yvette demanded over the receiver. "Not unless you've developed hooves and are chewing your cud since I last saw you." Silence. So much for that admittedly poor attempt at lightness. My sister had never understood our physician father's need for humor in tense situations either. I swore Dad was a walking encyclopedia of every poor joke in the world. I capped the test tube and sighed. "I was kidding, Yvette. I'm checking out a cow at the moment and she's a little skittish." "Really, Eve. Your fascination with germs is bad enough when it pertains to people, but must you also muck about with animals?" Life in any form was precious as far as I was concerned. That belief was what kept me going. "Animals get sick, too." No point in explaining animal-borne diseases could easily mutate and become transmitted to people. Yvette always left the room whenever Dad and I engaged in medical shop talk at family gatherings. Because the barn was closed up tighter than a coffin, the air felt stuffy and heated. A bead of sweat ran by the corner of my eye. I nearly wiped my brow before recalling where my hand had just been. Occupational hazard of being an epidemiologist. I swiped my face against my shirtsleeve. "Yvette, what's up? I'm slightly busy." "So what else is new? You never have time for the family." Normally Yvette's discontented tone meant she was between men and needed a shoulder to cry on. I sought to sidetrack her with my favorite topic after microbes. "Where are Laurel and Phillipe?" I adored my niece and nephew and would gladly suffer through Yvette's gripe session if it meant I got to speak with them, remote as that possibility was. Yvette didn't exactly encourage my contact with her children. "I sent them back to their grandparents in France. Everyone seems to be sick here," Yvette complained with a slight cough. I tried to squelch the disappointment that welled up in me. When was the last time I had gotten to speak with them? One month, two months? I knew it had been way too long since I'd heard their voices. "Where's here?" I ran a soothing hand over the cow's haunch as I rose from the three-legged stool. To my left, the gaunt-faced farmer and his wife didn't move, didn't react to my movement. Resignation lay like a dark shroud over the barn. I had read the case study on my helicopter ride in. Following an urgent call from a friend with Great Britain's health department asking me as a favor to come, I had flown into London from Stockholm for a briefing before coming here. Like so many British farmers, the owner had almost lost his farm with the first devastating outbreak of mad cow disease. Over the years, he had rebuilt his herd only to have a dozen cows fall ill and die over the past few days. Stepping out of the stall, I nodded at the couple as I moved to the other side for privacy. In the quiet I realized for the first time that my sister's breathing sounded thin, wheezy. "Yvette, are you all right? Where are you?" Along with a sizable fortune, my sister had come into several estates when her husband, a FStephenson, Carol is the author of 'Shadow Lines', published 2006 under ISBN 9780373514243 and ISBN 0373514247.