Ed’s nephew is with him, Robbie sees as they climb out of the truck. Or at least, Robbie assumes that’s who he’s seeing. They’re a study in contrasts, to a comical degree. Ed has a body type Robbie’s dad would have described as a “beanpole”—taller than Robbie, arms and legs like sticks, his coveralls so loose that they’re practically flapping. He’s wearing a camo hat with earflaps.

His nephew is short, soft, with pink cheeks that don’t look like they’ve ever needed a razor. He looks like he just stepped out of a catalogue for the Gap, dressed in a wool coat, flannel-lined jeans with the cuffs turned up to flash their red plaid lining, and a navy hat with a red pom that matches the scarf expertly swathed around his neck.

Robbie is so surprised, he finds himself staring. But he shakes himself out of it when he realizes that not only has the kid noticed, but he’s starting to blush.

“Robert!” Ed calls in his booming voice, which is completely incongruous with his scrawny frame. “Where should I back in?”

Robbie considers mentioning the calf, and then, instead, he says, “Right there,” and points to the gates to the pen the cows are observing from, almost as intently as the horses.

Ed nods and hops back into the driver’s seat of the pickup, pulls through the circle drive, and then starts to back toward the gate. Only, the angle is all wrong, Robbie can see at once, and the trailer veers left—whereas the gate is to the right—so Ed puts the truck back in drive and pulls forward to try again.

What is Robbie going to do with a calf? He’s not running a petting zoo. He should probably just tell Ed everything that Megan told him, hand him the bottle, and wish him luck. He’ll probably do fine.

But Robbie thinks of the special attention and monitoring it takes to care for any fragile animal, and worry spikes in his chest at the thought of sending her off with his careless neighbor.

This time, Ed’s efforts to back the trailer result in it going right, but so fast and so sharply that Ed nearly jack-knifes the rig before pulling forward again. Robbie imagines, based on the way the pickup’s rear tires spin in the snow for a moment before getting traction, that Ed is getting frustrated and therefore a little aggressive with the gas pedal.

So, Robbie will just offer to buy the calf. Maybe he’ll overpay, but he has all the money from the house’s insurance sitting in an account, untouched. Even spending a grand would barely make a dent.

Finally, Ed has gotten himself backed up to the gate. His nephew waves him on until he’s six or eight inches from the fence-line, and then Ed hops out and walks back to open the trailer gates.

The cows are pretty docile and seem to know the score. They back up into a corner of the old shed and act like they’re going to be stubborn, but there’s nowhere for them to go and they’ve been hauled around enough to know that the three humans can out-maneuver them and do intend for them to go into the waiting trailer. So, after circling the pen, dodging Ed and his nephew’s half-hearted efforts at herding them, and twice being turned back by Robbie where he stands close to the gate, the cow with the white band around her belly gives them a long, assessing look, then turns and trots toward the waiting trailer of her own volition.