Dillie the Deer by Melanie Butera Diane Reverand

Author:Melanie Butera, Diane Reverand
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-02-19T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 2

* * *

And Baby Makes Seven

S teve and I made the short trip from the clinic to our home with our new child, 60. Swaddled in a soft, pink blanket, the fawn traveled on my lap as Steve drove. Though still weak, the infant was able to hold up her head and peer out the window, licking it curiously. Her neck was still wrapped in the smiley-face bandage to keep her jugular catheter secure. She would complete her convalescence at our house.

It was only a fifteen-minute trip from the city of Canton, where the emergency clinic was located, to our home in the village of Canal Fulton. Settled in the early 1800s, Canal Fulton had kept much of its vintage charm. Named for the Ohio and Erie Canals, where nearly a century ago mules had pulled canal boats through town, the village had barely changed. Downtown was three blocks long, on the edge of a canal dug by hand in 1827. The brick buildings were no greater than three stories. Though there was not a large Amish population in Canal Fulton, a horse and buggy would not look out of place clopping down the main street.

Nestled among thick woods of maple, oak, and flowering apple trees, our house sits on a hill on the outskirts of town, completely isolated from others in the summer. When the trees were bare, the neighborhood was just visible behind the back fence. The view from the front porch included a lake shimmering through the trees. As we brought the fawn up the drive, I noticed the woods had already blossomed enough to hide the world beyond the property. A red barn sat about one hundred feet from the house in a fenced corral. Steve and some of his friends had built the barn a few years earlier so that Catherine, an employee of mine who had worked for me since high school, could house her two horses while she attended veterinary school in Columbus.

As Steve’s white Dodge pickup chugged up the hill, the horses trotted out of the barn to the edge of the fence to greet us, as they always did. Kibbles, an older Thoroughbred gelding, and Cammie, a young, feisty quarter horse mare, always whinnied until Steve came to see them at the fence. Usually, he rubbed their noses and slipped them a peppermint or two, but today he was on a mission. Steve waved to the horses as he got out of the truck and ran around to take the fawn from my lap.

“I will be out later, guys!” Steve shouted to them.

Disappointed, they sauntered back to the barn.

With the blind fawn in his arms, Steve opened the back door of the house. Lady, our black standard poodle, who wore pink bows on her coifed ears, came running to greet us with one of her toys in her mouth, tail wagging wildly. When anyone arrived at our home, Lady always brought the visitor a gift. She searched the house for one of her toys.

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