"It still feels strange not to start her day with the first milking. Unnatural, somehow. From where Helen stands, she has a good view through her kitchen window of the land she sold last month-five hundred hectares of open pasture, bordered by another three hundred of native forest. She pours herself a cup of strong tea and pictures her cows in their stalls, their udders heavy and swollen, as they stamp their hooves with impatience."
"She can hear the rhythmic, repetitive sound of the milking machine and smell the sharp, pungent odor of the parlor when the cows nose their way into the troughs and she attaches the cups to their teats. The new owner's sons take care of it all now, and they do a fine job. Still, she is not accustomed to changing her habits. She puts her empty mug on the counter and observes her hand as if it belonged to someone else."
Helen recently sold five hundred hectares of pasture and three hundred hectares of native forest, and she no longer performs the morning milking. She stands at her kitchen window and imagines the cows in their stalls, hearing the rhythmic milking machine and smelling the pungent parlor odor. The new owner's sons tend the herd, but Helen resists changing long-established habits. She notices her hand as aged and unfamiliar. Thiago, an early language teacher and longtime friend from her missionary days with her brother Paul, visits regularly to check on her. He brings small found objects and an envelope that prompts Helen's brief, puzzled attention.
Read at The New Yorker
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