She looked around the table. “Now I’m all set. Think how great this stuff will look in the winner’s circle! Thank you, everybody.”
“Tee, I have something more for you,” her father said when they got home. He went into his bedroom and brought out a flat package. Trish looked at him with a question in her eyes. “Go ahead. Open it.”
It was a beautiful book with a Thoroughbred’s head on the cover. Inside the pages were blank. Trish had a puzzled expression.
“In all his visits with me at the hospital, Pastor Mort encouraged me to start a journal. Writing things down has helped me in the last few weeks, and I thought it might do the same for you.”
She flipped through the pages. The flyleaf read, “To my daughter, Trish, with all my love. Dad.”
“I wanted to say so much more—”
“The mare’s down and in hard labor.” David poked his head in the door. “Should be any time now.”
Father and daughter stared at each other a few seconds. Matching smiles creased their faces. Trish grabbed both their down vests and they headed out the door together.
“You want to change first?” Hal shrugged into his vest.
“Naw. Let’s get down there. Give me the keys and I’ll drive.” She paused. “Or would you rather walk?”
“I’d much rather walk.” Her father dug in his pocket. “But we’d better drive. Here are the keys.”
Hal leaned his head back on the seat even on the short stretch to the stables.
A glance at his face in the light from the dash made Trish aware how exhausted he was. Deep lines from nose to chin creased his face. Without a smile to hold the facial muscles up, his skin sagged. While he didn’t wheeze, his breathing was shallow and quick. Any exertion made him stop to catch his breath again.
That ever-present snake of fear slithered back to her mind and hissed, He’s dying and there’s nothing you can do about it.
“Dad…”
“Um-m-m”
“Do you think you better go back to the house?” She tossed the keys in her palm. “This could be a long wait.”
He opened his eyes and reached for the door handle. “Don’t worry. Let’s go see that mare.”
Don’t worry. Such an easy thing to say, Trish thought as their footsteps sounded loud in the quiet barn. And such a difficult thing to do.
Together they leaned over the stall door. David sat in the deep straw, stroking the mare’s head.
“Good thing she recovered so quickly from that virus. She had time to get her strength back,” Hal murmered.
“Will that affect the foal?” Trish asked.
“No, it was far enough along to be safe.”
As they watched, her body shuddered with the force of a contraction.
Two tiny hooves emerged, then withdrew.
“I brought you a stool.” David nodded toward the corner. “Trish, come take my place so I can pull if I need to.”
“She’s progressing well,” Hal said softly as another contraction forced the hooves out again. The three of them took their places, ready for an emergency, but relaxed, caught now in a rhythm as old as life.
The mare groaned at the next spasm and a nose joined the hooves.
Three more contractions and the foal slid out onto the straw, securely wrapped in its protective sack.
David took a cloth from his back pocket and cleaned the foal’s nostrils of mucus. The foal snorted and shook its head.
“It’s a filly.” He picked up some straw and began scrubbing the foal clean.
“Good girl,” Trish praised the mare, who lay still through the contraction bringing forth the afterbirth. Then the horse surged to her feet, gave a mighty shake, and began nuzzling her offspring. Trish got up slowly and carefully walked around the two to sink in the straw again at her father’s knee.
“What’ll we name her?” Trish asked.
David left off his scrubbing as the mare took over, cleaning the foal with her tongue. Instead, he tied off the umbilical cord and clipped it with scissors that had been waiting in the pail of disinfectant.
“You name her. She’s yours,” Hal said.
“Mine?”
“Well, she was born on your birthday. I’d say that old mare gave you a pretty special present.”
“Oh, Dad…” Trish couldn’t get any more words past her resident throat lump.
“I know what to call her.” David draped his arms around his knees as he joined them in the corner. “Miss Tee. You know, capital M-i-s-s capital T-e-e.”
“Perfect. Trish, meet your namesake.” Hal hugged Trish and kept his hand on her shoulder.
Trish watched each movement the foal made. The three of them laughed as Miss Tee propped each toothpick leg and tried to stand. Within an hour she was on her feet, wobbling to her mother’s udder and enjoying her first meal. Her tiny brush of a tail flicked back and forth.
The three left the box stall. While David went to get a bucket of warm water for the mare, Trish and Hal leaned on the door to watch the nursing foal.
“With her bloodlines, you should have a real winner there.” Hal rested his chin on his hands. “I can see your entry in the programs. Owner, jockey, Tricia Evanston.”
“Our entry. We’ll have so many by then, Runnin’ On Farm’ll be famous from Seattle to San Diego. Breeders from all over will be bringing their stock to be trained by Hal Evanston.”
Hal remained silent.
Trish trailed off. They had built this dream together, talked it into reality. Spitfire was their great hope this year but next…
“Funny how…” Hal’s voice was a low murmur, like he was talking to himself, “how God brings new life in as old life fades away.”
“God didn’t do it,” Trish snapped. “The mare did.” And quit talking about life fading away, she wanted to shout at him.
“I’ll drive you up.” Her flat tone cut each word clean.
Chapter
13
Trish didn’t talk to her father for two days.
The morning after her birthday he wasn’t at the table.
“Your dad had a bad night,” Trish’s mother explained. “He’s finally sleeping.”
When Trish pleaded homework in the evening, she wasn’t lying.
She’d gotten a D on that day’s chemistry quiz. And midterms were coming up.
She spent every spare minute with the foal. Miss Tee accepted Trish as part of her family and already loved being rubbed behind her ears.
That afternoon Trish brought a soft brush into the box stall. With Miss Tee nearly in her back pocket, she began grooming the mare.
“She’s a beauty,” Rhonda whispered as she leaned against the stall half-door.
The foal scampered to the far side of her mother at the sound of a new voice. “Isn’t she.” Trish continued brushing with long, sure strokes.
The mare flicked her ears, shifted to relax the other hind leg, and went back to drowsing contentedly.
“Do you think she’d let me help you?”
“We can try. There’s another brush in the tack room. I’d like to take her out today.”
The mare turned to face the newcomer as Rhonda opened the stall door and slipped inside. Rhonda stood perfectly still but carried on a singsong conversation while the horse sniffed her proffered hand, the brush, up her arm, and finally blew in her face.
“You smell other horses,” Rhonda said. “And me—I’m no different, just haven’t ridden you for a long time.” When the mare relaxed again, Rhonda rubbed behind the horse’s ears and stroked the brush down her neck.
The little filly peeked out from behind her mother’s haunches. She twitched her pricked ears to free them from the veil of her mother’s long, black tail draped over her face.
Trish chuckled. “What a sweetie.”
The two girls chatted quietly, the mare dozed, and the filly became a little bolder toward the strange person who had entered her world.
“You look better now,” Rhonda said as
they dropped their brushes in a bucket.
“How’d I look before?” Trish asked.
“Bad. What’s happened?”
“Well,” Trish chewed on the inside of her lower lip, “it seems every time things start to get better, my dad talks about dying or…” The tears that seemed to stay right behind her eyelids gathered again. “Or he…umm—he’s too sick to come to the barn.” Straw rustled as the mare moved to the water bucket. The slurp and gurgle of her drinking seemed loud in the otherwise silent barn.
“Rhonda, sometimes I don’t even want to talk to him. I don’t want to see him…see how sick he really is. I hate all this.” Trish rubbed her fist across her eyes. “And I shouldn’t be angry at him. Not my dad.” She leaned into the mare’s neck and let the tears flow.
Rhonda patted Trish’s shoulder, her own tears running down her cheeks. “It’s not fair,” she whispered. “You and your dad, you’ve always been so special to each other. But, Trish, you can’t give up. You know we’ve all been praying. God can work miracles. You can’t give up.”
“I haven’t.” Trish sniffed the tears away. “At least not all the time. I pray and keep saying God knows what He’s doing and I feel better. Then something happens that knocks me right down again. I feel like a yo-yo. Up and down. Up and down.” She felt a tiny soft nose brush her hand. Miss Tee stretched her neck to sniff again.
Trish and Rhonda stood still and let the foal come to them. One tentative step at a time, all the while poised to dart back behind the safety of her mother’s tail, the filly approached the two girls.
Trish sneezed.
The foal wheeled on spindly legs and disappeared behind the mare.
“She’s just perfect.” Rhonda wiped the moisture from her face.
“Yup. At least something’s perfect in my life right now.” Trish grasped the mare’s halter. “Come on, old girl. Let’s give you some exercise.” She snapped a lead shank on the halter, slid the bolt on the stall door, and led the mare out of the stall. The filly glued herself to her mother’s shoulder, trying to see everything but keeping herself hidden.
Rhonda opened the small paddock gate so Trish could lead the mare and foal through. The mare braced all four legs and shook herself as soon as the lead shank was unsnapped. The filly darted around the far side of her mother, tiny ears pricked and eyes wide.
Trish and Rhonda leaned against the fence, smiling at the colt’s antics.
“Well, I better get going with the others. You want to work Firefly?” Trish asked.
“Sure.” Rhonda glanced at her watch. “I’ve got time. I have to work out in the arena tonight. Dad doesn’t like me taking the high jumps without anyone there. Besides, it takes too long to set the poles again by myself.”
“Don’t knock ’em down and you won’t have to get off so often,” Tricia teased.
“Thanks for the advice.” Rhonda punched her friend on the shoulder. “At least they haven’t had to call the paramedics for me.”
“Don’t be jealous.” Trish stroked first Spitfire and then Dan’l after all the chores were done that evening and she’d led the mare and foal back into their stall. “I haven’t been ignoring you. Miss Tee’s just a baby and babies need lots of attention.” She dug in her pocket for a piece of carrot for each of them.
Morning workouts with Spitfire were spent in long conditioning gallops with a final breeze around the track. He fought to go all out, but Trish kept him to the schedule her father had set. Unless he sweated up because he was hyper, the black colt was in superb condition, rarely lathering by the end of the run.
On Friday night, Trish’s father knocked on her door. “Trish, I think it’s time we had a talk.”
Bent over her chemistry book, she answered, “Sorry, Dad, but I’ve got to finish this assignment.”
Opening her door slowly, her father spoke softly, “I know you’ve been angry with me.”
“Dad, it’s not you.” Trish turned to face him. “It’s this whole…” She searched for a good word.
“Mess?”
She nodded. “But please, I can’t talk tonight.”
“Okay,” he agreed. “But I’ve missed you these last couple of days.”
Trish chewed her lip. “I’m sorry.” The words didn’t come easily.
“Well…how about we move the Anderson horses to the track tomorrow? Gatesby’s race is only a week away. I ordered the supplies in today.”
“Hope he loads okay.” Trish perked up now that the discussion was on the horses.
“We’ll hood him if we have to. Get to bed early tonight.” He pressed her shoulder with a comforting hand.
Trish leaned her cheek on the back of his hand. “I’ll try.”
That night Trish managed to stay awake for more than a short sentence-prayer. She thought about the good things that were happening: Miss Tee, the workouts, her dad at home, and all the friends who helped out and cheered them on. “Thank you, heavenly Father,” she said and named each one. “Thanks, too, for loving me. I’m sorry I’ve been so angry. Please forgive me? I don’t know how to deal with all this. And sometimes I’m so scared. Please make my dad all right again. Amen.” She punched her pillow into the right shape, then added, “I almost forgot. Please, God, help Spitfire and me to win the race.”
The morning fog rolled back as Trish trotted Gatesby out on the track for his early workout. He snorted and slashed at fog tendrils with his front feet.
“Feeling your oats, aren’t’cha.” She laughed as he leaped sideways at something only he sensed. After a couple of laps, he settled down for the long gallop, repeatedly tugging at the bit whenever he thought Trish might not be paying full attention.
Spitfire gave her the same kind of ride. “What’s with you guys today?” She smoothed his mane as they trotted the cooling circle. “David feed you dynamite or something?” Spitfire jigged sideways for a furlong before he settled back to an easy trot. Flecks of lather flew back from where he kept working the bit.
By the time she’d finished Firefly and the three-year-old, Trish felt like she’d done fifty push-ups a hundred chin-ups. She rubbed her arms as she shucked her jacket at the kitchen door.
“Hard workout?” her father asked as she slid into her seat at the table.
“Yeah. They’re all really feisty today.” She rubbed a particularly tender spot on one shoulder. “And that clown Gatesby snuck by my guard. He wasn’t just nipping either.”
“He got me when I was cleaning his hooves.” David joined them. “And it wasn’t my shoulder.”
The laughter felt like a little piece of heaven to Trish, and the French toast her mother set in front of her tasted as good.
The comforting scene ended too soon with her father’s “Well, let’s load ’em up. That way you can work them both real easy on an empty track this afternoon.”
“They’re all taped and ready.” David shoved back his chair. “You coming with, Dad?”
“Yes. If I get too tired, I can sleep in the truck.”
The loading went amazingly well. When Gatesby saw his stablemate walk right up the ramp and into the double-wide horse trailer, he followed with only a rolling of his eyes. The shallow pan of grain Brad held out might have contributed to the success.
“You want me to stay here and muck out stalls?” Brad asked as they slammed the tailgate shut.
“Of course not. That’s why we have a king cab, to take all of us.” Hal waved toward the pickup. “You deserve a break with the rest of us.”
“Trish, run in and tell your mother we’re leaving,” her father said as they stopped at the house.
Why me? Trish thought as she stepped from the vehicle. This’ll give her another chance to worry at me. She slid the glass door open and leaned inside. “We’re leaving, Mom. See you later.”
Her mother wiped her hands on a towel and joined her at the door. “Trish, please watch out for your father.” The two of them descended the stairs together. “He gets so tired and I—”
&nbs
p; “I know.” It felt strange to be on the comforting side for once. “I’ll try.” Trish climbed back into the truck relieved.
“You all be careful,” Marge cautioned when she shut the truck door.
“We will,” the three chorused as David shifted into low gear and eased the rig down the drive.
A thrill of excitement, pleasure, and suspense rippled up Trish’s spine as they entered the bustling stable area of Portland Meadows Racetrack. When they stopped in front of their five designated stalls, she felt like she’d come home. My second home, that is, she hastily amended the thought.
Gatesby backed out of the trailer with his ears flat against his head and hooves thundering on the ramp. Trish handed one lead shank to David and kept up her low murmur, soothing the high-strung animal. Between the two of them, they worked him into his stall. They left him cross-tied in the box, but he let them know his displeasure by a tattoo of hooves on the back wall.
“We’ll let him settle while we go do the paper work.” Hal joined Trish after they moved the three-year-old in next door. “John Anderson will be here about two o’clock to watch you work out.”
“You mean he’s finally back in the country?” She kept her voice light in spite of the knot that tightened her stomach. Riding in front of an owner for the first time was as bad as giving a speech in front of a room full of classmates.
“Right. I know he’s gone a lot. But an absentee owner makes it easier for the trainer. You haven’t had him trying to tell you how to train his horses.”
“True.” Trish drew in a deep breath. The mixture of horse, shavings, straw with an overlay of hay, and grain dust smelled better than any perfume to her. She stuck her hands in her back pockets. They were here, and her race was only two weeks away. Right about now she and Spitfire would be riding to the post. She studied a circle she’d drawn in the shavings with her booted toe.
“Scared?” Her father’s gentle question penetrated her reverie.
“No. Yes.” She grinned up at the smile she saw on his face. “Can I be both at once?”
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