“What an incredible space.”

“Isn’t it? My grandparents had it moved here from Idaho, board by board,” she says, leading us toward a set of wooden stalls. In the nearest one, a mother alpaca stands facing a corner, a harness and lead around her sloping brown neck. Cricket looks through the metal slats curiously, and then sits to see what we’ll do.

“She hasn’t gotten the hang of nursing,” Tally says. “It happens sometimes. I’m just going to help her along.”

I follow her in, watching as she kneels under the animal, stroking her thigh and talking softly. Little by little, the animal seems to relax. “You’re good with her.”

“She doesn’t like people that much. I have to go slow with this one.”

She seems to be talking about the process as well as the mother alpaca. I watch the milk run into a bucket, thin streams only slightly cloudier than water. After five minutes, Tally has collected only a small amount of fluid, less than half a cup.

“Will that be enough for the baby?” I ask.

“Hope so. This is mostly colostrum. The cria is going to need it.”

In a stall nearby, the newborn is still damp. Tally has lifted him onto a large heating pad and now takes some of the colostrum into a syringe before lowering herself to the ground. “Here, Anna. Can you lift his head for me?”

“I’m afraid I’ll do something wrong. He’s so small.”

“He’s tougher than he looks.”

Kneeling in the loose hay, I reach to support the baby’s neck. His coat is like warm, wet carpet. His pulse taps against my palms, and I feel my heart turn over. The vulnerability in his body is almost too much to take. “Will he live?” I ask, afraid of her answer.

“He’s had a rough morning, but I think so. Here.” She hands me the syringe. “Place it right at the base of the tongue. There you go. You’ve got it.”

I feel a tug as the cria latches on to the soft plastic tip, see his eyelashes flutter as he looks at me, suckling. An old ache floods in, rushing through all my doors like water, or like love actually.

“Not so different than bottle-feeding a baby,” Tally says. There’s a long, quiet space, then she says, “I was thinking about forgiveness today. You know, so many people get confused about what it is, binding it up with guilt. Feeling ashamed about things they never had any control over in the first place. I don’t believe forgiveness is something we have to kill ourselves trying to earn. It’s already here, all around us, like rain. We just have to let it in.”