The Perfect Distance

by Kim Ablon Whitney

  “Are you okay?” Dad asked.

  “I don’t know,” I managed.

  “You never get used to it,” he said.

  “You’ve seen others?”

  Dad nodded. “You work around horses long enough, you see them die. It’s a part of life for them, too.” He guided me away from the stall. “Don’t look again. Remember him the way he was—he was a great horse.”

  The worst part was that we left him there for a while. Dad had to reach Rob while he was judging and figure out what Rob wanted him to do. Dad said Rob was really upset and wanted Stretch buried on the farm. Dad suggested Rob call the insurance company Stretch was insured with before they do anything but Rob said he’d canceled the policy on Stretch after he got hurt.

  Susie came out to the barn the moment she heard. She was crying and she hugged me tight. “Oh my God, this is so awful,” she said.

  Dad and Camillo took the tractor out back to dig the hole while I fed the horses and cleaned extra stalls. It was awful walking by Stretch’s stall knowing he was still in there, and I willed myself not to look. Seeing him that one time was enough. Like Dad had said, I should remember him the way he really was: cocky and talented—shaking his head when Katie tried to pat him and tell him he was good. Katie. After everything Stretch had done for her, she’d be devastated.

  Dad suggested I go back home for a while and he’d text me when it was over. I agreed. I sat at home wondering who would tell Katie and Colby, probably Rob or Susie. I could text them but it didn’t feel right. I looked at my phone, waiting for a text to come in from them, but I guess Rob was too busy judging to tell people yet.

  When I went back to the barn, I found Camillo stripping Stretch’s stall clean of bedding.

  “How’re you doing?” I asked, even though I could tell the answer from his trembling lips and red eyes.

  “To me, he come back. I make Estretch come back,” Camillo said.

  “Does Katie know yet?” I asked.

  Camillo swallowed back tears. “I don’t think so.”

  “You took amazing care of him,” I told him. “It wasn’t your fault. It must have been from being cooped up—not getting exercised all of a sudden.”

  “But he eat all the hay. And in the stall there is manure,” Camillo pointed out. “And he drink much water. Almost there is no more left in the bucket.”

  The fact that he’d been eating and manuring meant his system couldn’t have been that blocked up. And usually when horses colicked, they didn’t drink enough and became dehydrated, which made the blockage even worse and could cause their system to shut down like Stretch’s must have. It didn’t make sense that his water bucket was almost empty.

  “I no understand,” Camillo said again. “How is possible?”

  I was still asking myself the same thing. It didn’t seem real. I couldn’t believe Stretch was dead. I shook my head and went to walk away, but then Camillo said, “I want thank you and you papá for what you do. You so very good to me since I come here and I no want to tell I no legal.”

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  “Is not okay. He give me job and I lie to him.”

  “He understands,” I assured him.

  Susie said we were all too shook up to lesson. We would just hack the horses. That was fine with me. Katie called me soon after. She was hysterical. To her Stretch was more than her eq horse, he was the one being in her life that never judged her or put her down. Through her tears, she said, “I know some people will say he wasn’t going to come back anyway, and maybe he wasn’t even happy not showing, but still, I just can’t believe he’s gone.”

  There wasn’t much I could say to make her feel better. All I could do was listen and tell her how sorry we all were and how much it hurt every single one of us. Stretch was a legend on the show circuit, almost like a Hollywood celebrity. He had talent and personality. There weren’t many horses like him and everyone, whether they ever rode him or not, knew him and would miss him.

  That evening at home Dad and I went around doing the stuff we usually did—I studied, Dad paid some bills and made dinner. We didn’t talk much but I knew we were both thinking about Stretch. How could we not be?

  When I couldn’t keep my mind focused on my work, I took our combined laundry down to the basement to put in a load. I always made sure to empty our pockets because working around horses, you never knew what you’d find in them—pieces of carrot or peppermint candies, a handful of grain, a spur or a part of a bridle. From the jeans I’d worn that day, I pulled out a scrap of paper. At first I didn’t remember where I’d picked this one up. But then it hit me: I’d found it in the aisle right before I’d seen Stretch. With everything that had happened, I’d forgotten about it. The paper was about the size of a ticket stub and had a jagged edge where it’d been torn from a pad. I turned it over to read: Thanks for taking care of this. I read through it again and again. My mind started to race and people’s words floated back to me, how Doc Tanner said that even with the surgery Stretch might not come back. How Rob had said he was done.

  “Dad?” I called, walking out into the living room.

  “What’s up?” he said, seeing my concerned face.

  I held out the piece of paper. “I found this in the barn outside Stretch’s stall.”

  Dad took the note and read it. He didn’t look up right away but kept staring at the paper in his hand.

  “I stuck it in my pocket and didn’t read it until just now.” I paused, still trying to make sense of the thoughts that were just taking shape in my head. “How could Stretch have colicked if there was manure in his stall?”

  As I asked the question, I remembered how just after Stretch had been injured, I’d heard Rob on the phone. I told Dad I’d heard him asking when they could do it. “I thought it was the operation, but maybe it was something else—”

  Dad finally looked up, his gaze troubled.

  “Dad?”

  He still didn’t speak.

  “Dad?” I tried again.

  He stood up and walked toward the kitchen. Thinking he was just walking away, I said, “Where are you going?”

  He stopped at the wall and leaned his forehead against it. He brought a clenched fist up against the wall like what he really wanted to do was smash it straight through the plaster and the sheetrock to the other side. Then he dropped his hand to his side, fist still clenched, and turned back to face me. “When your mother left us, I was going to have to go back to Mexico. But Rob agreed to sponsor me. He helped me get my green card.”

  I wasn’t sure why Dad was telling me all this now. It seemed like it had absolutely nothing to do with Rob and Stretch. “But I thought you got your green card when you married her,” I said, meaning my mother.

  “We were never married.”

  I couldn’t believe Dad had lied to me for all these years. “Why did you tell me you were married?”

  “I thought it would be easier for you.”

  I knew I’d need to process all this later, but right then I just needed to know about Stretch. “But what does any of this have to do with Rob?” I asked.

  Dad cleared his throat. He looked up at the ceiling, and I could tell he was thinking hard about what he was going to say next. “It’s complicated.”

  “What does that mean? Did Stretch . . . did Rob?” I still couldn’t say the words because then maybe they’d be true.

  “Yes,” Dad said.

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, I think he had him euthanized.”

  It was like the floor and ceiling were moving toward each other, closing in on me. Rob. I could see him at the in gate that first time I’d gone to the Maclay Finals. I thought of how I always stared at his chin when he yelled at me. I’d taken everything from him because he was Rob—the best. Only now the image I’d had of him was crumbling.

  “Did he tell you he was doing it?” I couldn’t possibly imagine Dad had known and let it happen. Dad was the one who slept in the barn when horses were s
ick so he could get up every hour to check on them.

  He shook his head. “Of course not. I didn’t know anything for sure . . . not until right now.”

  “But how can you be sure? Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I—”

  I wanted to find some way for it all to come back together again. For there to have been a big misunderstanding that we could clear up. Because otherwise my whole world was collapsing.

  “Stretch’s neck,” Dad said. “I noticed it when we were hauling him out. There was blood on the vein. It wasn’t there the night before and no one was supposed to give him a shot.”

  I felt like I was about to be sick. I brought my hand to cover my mouth.

  Dad said, “It’s fast, Francie. It was over quickly for him. I’ve heard of people who do it in a lot worse ways to try to make it seem like an accident so they can get the insurance money.”

  “And that’s supposed to make it better?” I snapped. It felt like all the blood inside my body was rushing to my head. I pictured Stretch munching hay in his stall and someone walking in, giving him a lethal injection. He was such a trusting horse, he probably just assumed he was getting another shot of Polyglycan. Then I saw him falling to the ground, his knees buckling, his body convulsing.

  “How could Rob have done this?”

  “He’s been hit hard lately—he took out a second mortgage to put up the indoor, he’s putting his mother in a nursing home. He had to return the deposit on Stretch for next year. Financially he’s hurting.”

  That was why the construction on the indoor had stopped. But it didn’t matter—money was no reason to do such a horrible thing.

  Dad continued, “Stretch wasn’t ever coming back—Rob would have paid tens of thousands of dollars for an operation and put in months of rehab just so maybe, if everything went as best it could, there would be a chance Stretch could be retired. You know a lot of people would have put him on a truck to the slaughter house.”

  “Wouldn’t Mr. Whitt have paid for the operation? Katie would have insisted.”

  “Rob asked him. He said he wouldn’t. Not after the way things ended up for Katie this year.”

  I shook my head. “If he’d known Rob was going to do this, Katie would have made him pay for it.”

  “No one knew he was going to do it. Don’t you think I would have tried to stop him? After you, these horses are my babies.”

  “So it’s perfectly legal just to kill a horse because it can’t be ridden any longer?”

  “Yes. Rob could have had Doc Tanner do it in plain daylight.”

  “So why didn’t he?”

  “I guess because if people in the barn or on the circuit found out it would be all over the bulletin boards and they’d make him out to be a monster.”

  “But he is monster. How can you still work for him? Stretch deserved that chance.”

  Dad shook his head sadly. “I would be nowhere without Rob. I wouldn’t have my green card. You’d probably be in foster care somewhere. We wouldn’t have our house, our truck, our life. It may not seem like much to you now, but where I come from, it’s everything.”

  “So we’re not going to do anything?” I asked.

  “What’s done is done. The horse is dead. There’s no bringing him back.”

  “I’m just supposed to pretend nothing happened?”

  “We’ll always remember Stretch, but Rob did what he felt he had to do. There are big financial stakes in this sport—you know that.”

  “That’s not a good enough reason to kill a horse,” I said. Tears had started to run down my face. Stretch gave Rob everything. He’d won him so many big classes and finals. And Rob treated him like a car you could just send to the junkyard.

  “Come here,” Dad said, moving toward me.

  “No!” I yelled, and turned away. I ran to my room and slammed the door, not sure who I hated more right then—Rob for killing Stretch or Dad for half-understanding it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  * * *

  I didn’t come out for the next three days. I didn’t go to school or the barn. Dad didn’t argue with me at first. He told everyone I had the flu. Becca texted to see if I needed any of my assignments. Katie and Colby texted me, too, and I tried to respond as a sick person would. Mostly I just spent hours on Facebook, looking at photos of Stretch that Katie had on her page, and photos from other equestrian websites. I Googled “people that can’t afford to keep horses” and found all sorts of terrible stories about how the bad economy had forced people to send their horses to slaughter houses, let them go in random fields, and even burn their barns down with the horses in them, hoping to get the insurance money. But most of those people probably had a lot less money and fewer options than Rob.

  Rob was back from Washington and Katie and Colby were back on the farm, too. I wasn’t sure how I could ever look Rob in the eye again. How could I ever be around him? And what did this mean for the Maclay? I couldn’t just change barns like Tara.

  On the third day of my self-imposed isolation, Dad came home from the barn and knocked on my door.

  “Come in,” I mumbled.

  He sat down on the farthest corner of my bed and I drew my knees up to my chest. He smelled musty, like horses and the barn—a smell that made me literally hurt inside, I missed it so much.

  “Rob keeps asking about you.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Francie—” Dad tried.

  I turned from him, tears slipping down my face. I had broken rule number three so many times in the last few days. “He killed Stretch,” I said. “And you don’t even care.”

  “Don’t you think it’s eating me up, too?” Dad asked. “I loved that horse. I love all the horses. But we can’t do anything. Sometimes this is what it means to work for someone else.”

  “Why can’t we leave? You can get another job somewhere else.”

  “And give up our house? Our life here? Do you want to switch schools in the middle of the year? How many other trainers are going to hire a Mexican as their barn manager? Rob’s a good boss. He treats us well.”

  “How can you say that? He’s a murderer. A cold-blooded killer who cares more about money than the horses that give their heart and soul for him.” How many finals had Stretch won? How much money had he made Rob over the years and he couldn’t pay for the surgery so Stretch could at least retire to some farm down South? I had always agreed with Dad about practically everything when it came to the horses, but I couldn’t understand this.

  “Maybe he made a mistake,” Dad tried. “Maybe he regrets it.” When I looked away, Dad added, “So what, are you ever going to come out again or are you going to stay in your room for the next fifty years of your life? What about the Maclay Finals?” Dad looked me in the eye. “Don’t punish yourself for something someone else did.”

  Later that night I was looking through my collection of odd things, wondering how many secrets were out there still waiting to be discovered, how many people got away with things they shouldn’t have, when I heard a knock on the front door. I prayed it wasn’t Rob. I was relieved when I heard Colby’s voice. He’d texted me that he was back but I hadn’t thought he would come over. “Hello, Mr. Martinez. I was wondering if I could see Francie for a few minutes?”

  I expected Dad to turn Colby away, but he came into my room and said, “Colby’s here to see you.” Dad was so desperate to get me to come out he was letting Colby talk to me.

  I got up and went into the kitchen, where Colby stood in his scrubs and UCLA sweatshirt. “Hi there,” he said gently.

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” Dad said, retreating into the TV room. I led Colby outside, to get some fresh air and because I didn’t want Dad to hear us. My hair had come loose from its ponytail and I smoothed it back behind my ears. I hadn’t brushed it in days. I knew I looked terrible, but I didn’t care. All the things I’d cared about didn’t matter anymore.

  “How’re you feeling? You don’t look as sick as I thought you would,” Colby said. “
I thought you’d have to be deathly ill for it to keep you from riding, with the Maclay Finals only a few days away.”

  “I don’t know if I’m going to the Maclay Finals,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  I started crying again. I wiped the tears away with the back of my hand but more raced to replace them.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “You’re not sick, are you?”

  I shook my head but couldn’t manage words. I needed to tell someone, to talk to someone other than Dad. Colby had become the one person I could talk to, and he’d been so great about Camillo. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I could trust him.

  “It’s about Stretch,” I choked out.

  I led him farther away from the house and told him everything. Then I explained about the green card and how Dad said he owed Rob too much and couldn’t quit over this. “I can’t believe I’m even telling you,” I said.

  “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to.”

  “I don’t know what I want,” I said.

  I looked down at my hands. I hadn’t held the reins in days and missed the feel of leather between my fingers. I missed Tobey more than anything.

  “You can’t let this stop you from going to the Maclay Finals,” Colby said.

  “You were the one who always acted like the finals didn’t matter,” I argued.

  “But they matter to you,” Colby said. “You can’t let Rob take that away from you.”

  “That’s what my dad said.”

  Colby smiled, but it was still a sad smile. “I knew I liked your father.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  * * *

  It was about a nine-hour trip to Kentucky.