“I can’t!” I cry, throwing up my arms.
The burning frustration in my chest is forcing my eyes to leak embarrassing tears. I won’t cry. I’ll get angry instead. Whenever my mother tries to teach me how to do something—how to read, to write, to draw—it’s the same. We’ve been through this scene over and over.
“Yes, you can!” Her voice is high and frustrated. “I’ve decided,” she tells me. “From now on, you are forbidden to utter the words ‘I can’t.’ What does the Bible say? ‘I can . . . ,’” she prompts.
I sniffle. “‘I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me,’” I quote dutifully.
“Right, so this ‘I can’t’ attitude is against the Bible. It’s a dirty word. Any time you say ‘can’t,’ I’m going to wash out your mouth with soap. And you are going to memorize every verse and poem about ‘I can’ that I find, so we can turn around this bad attitude you have.”
There is nothing I can do but nod. It’s hard at first. Really hard. I didn’t realize how many times I say “I can’t” in a day. Every time I do, I have to quote a verse from the Bible or a famous quote or a poem about persistence from The Good Thots. The Good Thots is a compilation the Family made of System short historical stories, parables, poems, and quotes that Grandpa and Mama Maria approve of as teaching good lessons in line with our Family beliefs.
I memorize two dozen. I like reciting part of Winston Churchill’s “Never Give In” speech. I make my voice low and gravelly and quote, “Never give in . . . Never, never, never, never . . . except to convictions of honor and good sense.”
But my favorite poem is about a tiny cork that pops right back up no matter how many times an angry whale lashes it with his big tail, taunting, “You never, never can keep me down, because I’m made of the stuff that is buoyant enough to float instead of drown.”
Over time even I notice the difference. The familiar sinking suck of failure is replaced by an “I can” attitude. I begin to believe that with enough stick-to-it-tiveness I can overcome any challenge. (I can even beat my brothers at pull-ups.) My mother praises my new determination.
“Faithy, wake up.” I’m woken abruptly from a deep sleep to my father shaking my shoulder.
“Faithy. Come on, get up now!” It’s dark, but suddenly a bright light blinds me. I spring up, scared. It’s just a flashlight. “We need your help. You’re going to have to be very brave. Can you be brave?”
I nod, getting more nervous by the minute.
“We need you to help Sheba have her puppies. Do you think you can do that?”
We have had a lot of dogs over the years, but Sheba is our favorite. Sleek black and brown with intelligent, patient eyes, she has watched over us kids since before I can remember. Sheba’s had six puppy litters over the years, which we sold or gave away. Her puppies are always well-fed, licked clean, and cared for.
I knew Sheba had been in labor since yesterday and only one puppy had been born. “There’s no way to get a vet to come out until morning,” my father whispers.
“Yes. I’ll help,” I say, proud to be called on to help at such an important time. I crawl out of bed and follow my father in the darkness to the barn stall, where Sheba lays panting on bloody newspapers. The metallic smell of blood, newspaper, dog, and dirt assaults my nose. Illuminated by the light of a single naked bulb dangling from a ceiling wire, poor Sheba looks at me with such pleading in her soft brown eyes. Nehi and Hobo are standing next to her, clearly worried. My father gently helps her up onto her feet and holds her upright, as she can barely stand.
He points at a red plastic bucket filled with water and a soap bar on the floor next to it. “Scrub your hands to your elbows. One of the puppies is stuck in the birth canal. I’ve tried and your brothers have tried, but our hands are too big to reach in and get it out. We need you to do it. Your hands are the only ones small enough to fit.”
I look at Sheba’s swollen vulva with bloody mucus dangling from it and want to back out the door. But my father and the boys are looking at me expectantly, even Sheba with her sad brown eyes. She’s in pain. I breathe deep, past the shallow tightness in my chest. I set my face. I won’t let them down.
My fingers reach into her sticky, hot vulva, feeling for the puppy inside. She doesn’t move, just hangs her head lower. She knows I’m trying to help. “Daddy, I can’t get my hand in any further.” I’m afraid to push too hard; I don’t want to hurt her.
“Just keep going, you’re doing great.”
I feel her muscles clamp down and squeeze my hand painfully. “Daddy?” I whimper.
“It’s just a contraction. As soon as it lets up, push your hand in further.”
I wait for a minute, gritting my teeth against the pain in my hand, I say silently in my head, I can. I can. I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me. Then I inch my fingers forward.
“Okay. Can you feel the puppy?”
The tips of my fingers brush fur. I feel a tiny nose, a head. I nod.
“Good! Now try to get a hold of the head and slowly pull it out.” Easier said than done, as another contraction squeezes my arm ’til I think it will go numb. As it lets up, I inch my fingers over the puppy’s head and gently pull him forward. It seems to take forever. I pause and breathe with Sheba through the pain of each contraction, my hand stuck inside her. At last, I pull him out.
He’s soft, warm, and slick. His black body is no bigger than my hand. He’s dead.
My father takes him from me. “He has been trapped in the birth canal too long. The others should be alive,” he says soberly.
I look at my arm in the orange light of a 20-watt bulb barely flickering. It is covered in blood and mucus. Ick, gross.
“Can you do it again?”
My whole body shivers. But, of course, I nod. Again, and again. I try to ignore what I’m doing.
“Don’t think about it,” my father coaxes me. “Just do it.” It’s a useful technique when I need to do something gross or painful.
I look over Sheba’s head into the darkness beyond as all my focus is on finding the next puppy. I painfully and slowly pull three more pups into the dim light. They are alive.
“That’s enough for now, Faithy. Let’s hope Sheba can birth the rest on her own now that the ones that were stuck are out of the way.”
Shaking, I walk back to the bucket and dip my red, sore arm into the icy water. I scrub and scrub at my arms and under my nails, but the smell of blood won’t go away.
I want to stay and hold vigil with her. I sway on my feet, and my father catches me.
“Go back to bed, Faithy. You did good. We have done all we can for her right now; let’s just pray she makes it.”