Missing

by Becky Citra

  He hesitates and then says, “I’ve got too much work to do.”

  “Marion says I have a gift with horses,” I say desperately. Somehow I think that this might make him hear me. “I told her it was because of you, that you taught me to ride.”

  Pain flickers through Dad’s eyes. “Thea, your mother gave you your gift,” he says tersely. “Not me.”

  What’s Dad talking about? I’d had hundreds of lessons from him, usually in a group with four or five other kids who came to our stable. He’d cheered for me at all my horse shows. A memory pushes in— trotting around the show ring on Monty, searching the stands for Mom’s face and then spotting her on the sidelines, not watching me at all but talking to a client instead.

  “What do you mean?” I say.

  “Mom was the one who put you on your first horse. I thought you were too little—you were only four—but she was determined. She spent months walking you on a lead rope. She never got tired of it.”

  “Dixie,” I say slowly. “The horse was called Dixie. She was really a pony, wasn’t she?”

  “That’s right. It took your mother ages to find her. She searched all over the Valley. She said it had to be the perfect pony.”

  “The photograph of you and me on Skipper,” I say. “I thought—”

  “Your mother popped you up and took that photo,” says Dad. “You and I never moved out of the driveway. You’d been out riding with Mom; you’d just got off Dixie. I didn’t take over the lessons until you were six and started going in shows. I taught all the lessons at our stable.”

  I feel like I have been kicked in the stomach. Memories flood back, memories that must have always been there. Mom, standing in the round pen, circling me around and around on the end of a lunge line. Mom picking me up when I fell and putting me back on. Mom promising me that one day I would have my own horse to train. How could I have forgotten?

  “And Monty,” says Dad. “Mom found Monty for you too. Same thing. He had to be perfect. It wasn’t that she didn’t care about you, Thea. She was just always so tied up with the business side of the stable.”

  I swallow. I don’t trust my voice.

  “It’s those early years with Mom that gave you your passion for horses,” says Dad. “She gave you your gift.”

  Passion. I know I will hold on to that word, like something precious.

  “I didn’t know,” I say.

  “It’s your mother you should thank,” says Dad.

  We push away our bowls of cereal. I guess neither of us is hungry now.

  Dad stands up. “I’m sorry,” he says, and I think that he means much more than not coming to see me ride Renegade. And then he is gone.

  The sun shines down out of a bright blue sky and the air has a clean, washed feeling about it.

  Sun—warm on my shoulders, gleaming on Renegade’s shiny black coat, soaking into the saddle that smells of leather and saddle soap.

  Renegade stood perfectly while I saddled him. He is waiting now, his ears pricked forward, alert but calm. I haven’t taught him about the bridle and bit yet, so I slip a halter with a lead rope attached to it over his head.

  I look at Marion and she smiles at me. “Swallow your nerves,” she says. “You’ve prepared well for this moment. Enjoy it.”

  She leaves the round pen and stands outside, watching through the rails.

  I put my foot in the stirrup. Marion has told me to mount Renegade as if I’ve mounted him a hundred times before. So I do, swinging my leg over his back without hesitating. I settle myself into the saddle. I let my breath out slowly.

  I’m not sure I want to be here. I glance back at Marion and my heart skips a beat. She is not alone. Dad is standing beside her.

  At that moment my world changes.

  Dad gives me a little nod. I want to be cool but I can’t help it. My face splits into an enormous grin.

  I nudge Renegade with my legs, feathery touches, and he starts to walk. I hold on to the rope but I don’t need to do anything. After all, there is nowhere Renegade can really go in the round pen except around and around. I sit still. Marion says that on your first ride you are a guest in your horse’s house. I try to be respectful.

  It is four years since I have been on a horse, but it feels like yesterday. I imagine I hear Mom’s voice. Way to go, Thea.

  Suddenly Max and Bob erupt out of nowhere, sprinting across the corral, barking their joy at finding us. It frightens Renegade, and he breaks into a trot. My heart jumps into my throat, and I’m not sure what’s going to happen next. Then I hear Dad saying calmly, “Just go with it, Thea. Sit still. Breathe.”

  I breathe. I let my back absorb the motion. It’s coming back to me now. But it helps so much that Dad is here.

  My shoulders relax. Renegade and I move together as one. He trots twice around the pen and then he settles back to a walk. I lean forward and stroke his neck. His ears swivel back toward me.

  I want to ride forever. I never want to get off. But Dad says that Renegade has probably had enough for his first time.

  I tell Renegade whoa and he stands still. I slide onto the ground. Dad comes into the round pen. He strokes Renegade’s neck, rubs him between his eyes.

  “You’ve got a good horse, Thea,” says Dad.

  I think I will burst with pride.

  Twenty-Four

  Marion leaves in the afternoon. She shakes hands with Dad and Tully and Van, but she gives me a long hard hug. “Thank you,” she says. “For helping me find Livia.”

  I ask her if she’ll come back next year and she says maybe, but I don’t think she will. I think Marion has finally closed this chapter of her life.

  Van and I go for a walk, and I tell him two stories about my mother.

  I tell him how my mother left my father and me for another man. I tell him everything, about finding out from Samantha Higgens and how I never saw my mom again.

  Van listens carefully. Then he says, “She left your father. Not you. I bet she wouldn’t have given you up. She’d have come back for you. You’d probably have ended up living with her part of the time and your dad part of the time. That’s usually the way it goes.”

  Trust Van to think of something like that. He sounds so certain that it takes my breath away.

  “Have you ever told your dad that you know?” asks Van.

  “No,” I say.

  “Will you?”

  I think about that for a moment. “I don’t know. Maybe one day.”

  Then I tell Van the second story about my mother.

  That she loved me enough to give me a gift—a passion for horses. It’s the best gift she could have given me. Van says he can just picture me at four years old, jogging around on a pony on the end of a rope.

  My thoughts about my mother are still mixed up. Maybe they always will be. I wish more than anything that she was still alive. But I know one thing. It’s not going to hurt so much to let myself remember.

  Twenty-Five

  At the end of the summer, a letter arrives for me. It’s in a pale blue envelope and there are English stamps on it.

  Dear Thea,

  I thought you would like to know that Esta died this morning. She lived several weeks longer than was expected. She was comfortable at the end and didn’t suffer. Our past few weeks together were very special. We talked and talked. There was so much Esta needed to let go of, and I think it gave her some relief to talk about what happened.

  It may be hard for you to understand how I can forgive Esta, but she was my sister. She was fourteen when it happened, a troubled girl and terribly unhappy. I never believed that she meant to kill Livia or even meant her much harm. One foolish impulsive action, a rock thrown without thinking of the consequences, caused so much pain for so many people.

  Esta answered the questions I have wondered about. Livia stopped breathing almost instantly, she said. When Esta realized that Livia was dead, she told me to go back to the cabin and say that Livia had gone with me. I was to tell no one where we had
been. She said we would all get into terrible trouble if I did.

  Why didn’t I tell anyone that Livia had died? The truth is, I didn’t know.

  When Esta came back to our cabin, she told me that Livia had been pretending, that she was only frightened by the wasps. Later she said she had seen Livia with Heb. And I believed her. Or wanted to believe.

  I am not a religious person but I have prayed for both Livia and Esta.

  I think often of you and Renegade.

  Your friend,

  Iris

  Chloe and I ride side by side, across the field and onto a trail that disappears into the sun-dappled forest. I’m riding Renegade and Chloe is on a big bay called Sam. Renegade feels powerful, like he wants to run, but he is responsive to my aids. Together, Dad and I have taught him to give softly to the bit, and he mouths it gently now. I pat his neck and tell him, “Good boy.”

  Chloe and I have been chattering since we left the barn. I have so much to tell her. My biggest news is that WE ARE STAYING! Last week, Tully offered Dad a job as the manager of his future stable and horse-breeding business. Tully confessed that a few days before he came into the café that night in June, he had run into one of Dad’s old friends, Matt Booker, at a horse auction. Matt had told him that Dad was living in town and looking for work. “He’s your man for horses,” Matt had said.

  “So I had my eye on you for this all along,” Tully had said to Dad with a wink. “I figured you’d get tired of banging nails.”

  We toasted Dad’s new job with champagne (a very small glass for me). Dad and Tully are out right now looking at a string of riding horses that a dude ranch in the area is selling. I love the thought of the barn being filled with horses again. I like to think that Renegade had a lot to do with this.

  “What did Van say when you told him?” says Chloe. She turns and scrutinizes my face with a wicked gleam in her eyes.

  My cheeks feel hot. Lately, I’ve been finding myself thinking a lot about the way it felt when Van held my hand when we found Livia.

  I squeeze my legs against Renegade’s sides and he breaks into a trot, pulling ahead of Sam and Chloe.

  “Hey!” yells Chloe. For a few minutes we fly along the trail. I can hear Sam’s hooves thudding behind me. We come out into an open meadow and gallop, side by side, the wind blowing in our faces.

  Laughing, we pull the horses to a walk. “That was great,” says Chloe.

  It’s a hot day and we let the horses amble home. We talk about our plans for tonight. Some of the youth-group kids are meeting in town for dinner and a movie. I’m going with Van, and Chloe is going with Mike, who she insists is just a friend.

  Renegade nickers when he sees the ranch spread out below us. I stroke his neck. I know just how he feels. We’re home.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank my editor, Sarah Harvey, who always gets what I am trying to say and makes it better. I would also like to thank my sister Janet, who is never too tired to read my manuscript one more time, and my husband, Larry, who makes it possible for me to have the time to write.

  Becky Citra is the author of many books for children, including After the Fire, Never To Be Told and Whiteout. Becky lives on a ranch in Bridge Lake, British Columbia, where she has ridden and trained horses for thirty years.