“You have a concussion. You don’t feel like studying.”
“Not right now, but I might later. I don’t want to fall behind. I already miss so much school as it is.”
“You don’t have to worry about that for the next month and a half,” he said.
So much for impassive.
Patricia popped in periodically to take my blood pressure and temperature and make sure I wasn’t seeing double. She asked me to rate my pain on a scale of one to ten using a chart of ten cartoon faces to quantify the club drumming in my skull and the dagger digging into my side. The first face beamed happily over the caption Pain free! The tenth face looked like it was dying of a medieval plague. It was captioned Unimaginable/unspeakable.
At first I settled on Six, the disgruntled face labeled Intense, but over the course of the afternoon I bumped it up to Seven, Very intense.
“Why is it getting worse?” Daddy asked.
“The Dilaudid she had in the ER is out of her system. If it gets too bad, we have standing orders to give her something.”
“Darlin’, you’re the only one who can tell us how much it hurts.”
The drug that had blunted my pain had also blunted my thinking. Being less than sharp-witted around Daddy was never a good idea. I closed my eyes against the stripes of daylight coming through the blinds. “I’m okay.”
Maybe memories of his own concussions and broken bones kept him quiet, but Daddy didn’t lecture me beyond what he’d said in the ER. Everyone came off the horse sooner or later. Some people came off a lot. Jamie, for example. Besides breaking his collarbone before Thanksgiving, he’d broken his femur a couple of years ago. He’d had long layoffs from training, and he’d missed important shows, and he was still a top-notch rider.
A small mouse of a thought scratched at the back of my brain, something about the way I’d come off. For sure I hadn’t been paying attention. Where’s your head?
My head was right here on my shoulders, doing its best to burst. Thinking made it worse, so I tried not to.
Around four o’clock, Gertrude and Eddie arrived with an overnight bag, my backpack, and a pint of peach ice cream. Daddy gave Gertrude the single visitor’s chair and sat at the foot of the bed, where he rested a hand on my ankle. I’d exchanged my long boot socks for shorter slipper socks in the ER, and through the cheap cotton blanket and the sheet, his hand was warm.
“How do you feel, sugar?”
“Seven,” I replied.
Daddy patted my leg and explained the pain chart to Gertrude, but I wasn’t very good company, and she and Eddie didn’t stay long.
She kissed my forehead lightly. “See you tomorrow, sugar.”
“Stay out of trouble,” Eddie said.
I gave him a thumbs-up.
“You’ll be okay if I leave?” Daddy asked when we were alone.
“I’ll be fine.” Leave. Leave, leave, leave.
He squeezed my toes through the covers. “You scared me when you didn’t get right up.”
I understood it was an apology—I’d scared him, therefore he’d been pissed off—but I was the one who said, “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t mean to.” He wiggled one toe at a time, as if we were playing This Little Piggy. “I’d trade places with you if I could, darlin’. Being thrown isn’t nearly as bad as watching the person you love not get up.”
I was sure he’d trade places with me; it nearly killed him not to compete.
“They’ll bring supper around in an hour,” Patricia said from the doorway. “They have roasted chicken or tofu scramble.”
“Chicken,” I said.
“Good call. I’ll let them know.”
Daddy stood up. “It’s almost time for evening chores. I’ll see you in the morning. Love you, darlin’.” He leaned over. The touch of his lips on top of my head was lost in the drumbeat of pain.
“Love you, too, Daddy.”
Once he’d left, the room seemed to expand, to become big enough for me. Even with the open door and Patricia and a nurse’s aide in and out all the time, it offered more privacy than I had at home. I studied the phone on the bedside table, but hospitals might work like hotels, giving you an itemized statement when you checked out, complete with any phone numbers you’d dialed.
I pressed the call button.
Patricia came in. “What can I do for you?”
“Will you get my backpack? It’s in the closet.”
She opened the closet door and picked up the backpack. “Mercy, girl, you won’t be carrying this for a while. It weighs a ton.” She set it beside me in the bed and then spotted the ice cream. “Peach. Yum. Do you want a spoon?”
“I don’t want it.”
“There’s a fridge at the nurses’ station. I’ll stick it in the freezer. Ring if you change your mind.”
I zipped open the backpack and dug to the bottom for my phone.
“Can you get away?” Will said by way of greeting. His voice wrapped around me, warm, hinting at the Sunday afternoon I’d hoped we’d have.
“I am away. I’m in the hospital.”
I heard a sharp intake of breath. “In the hospital? What happened? Are you all right?”
Daddy had said I was.
“Diva threw me. I broke some ribs and hit my head, so they’re keeping me overnight.”
“Some ribs? Like more than one?”
“Three.”
“Jesus,” he said. “You sound terrible. Do you feel as bad as you sound?”
Sharp beats of pain kept time with my pulse.
“Pretty much.”
“Where’s your dad?”
“He just left.”
“Is he coming back?”
“Not today.”
“Want a visitor?”
It took all my willpower to turn him down. “The nurse keeps coming in. If she said something to Daddy, he’d ask how you knew I was here. Besides, everything hurts, and I feel barfy.”
If all else failed, the prospect of seeing me vomit might keep him away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Do you even feel like talking?”
“I’d rather listen. What have you been doing today?”
Breakfast out with his family, a long run into town and back, homework.
“Then I started watching a Vincent Price marathon, and—hey, do you have the Classic Movie Channel?” He’d set about educating himself on old films. I liked them for escapism, but Will studied them earnestly. “There’s an Orson Welles marathon tonight. The Third Man starts in an hour. We could watch it together.”
I turned on the TV and found the channel, which was airing the end of the Vincent Price marathon, some movie too campy to be scary. “I have it, but you’re there and I’m here. How is that watching it together? It’s just watching at the same time.”
“You’re so literal. We’ll be on the phone together while the movie’s on.”
I glanced at my battery icon. I hadn’t had a chance to charge my phone last night; Daddy had stayed in my room. “I don’t have enough juice for that.”
“We can text instead.”
A text-and-movie date sounded wholesome compared to what we’d been doing.
“Okay, but I’d better hang up or I won’t have the juice for that, either.”
“Text me when the movie starts,” Will said.
I stuffed my phone under the pillow and spun through the channels, finally returning to the Vincent Price movie. I muted the sound. I didn’t feel like thinking any more than I felt like talking, but I couldn’t seem to help it. I should have anticipated Diva’s refusal. If I’d remembered to turn on the headset, I’d have heard Daddy’s warning. I might not have come off. At the least, I could have fallen the right way.
I shifted, seeking a more comfortable position, and experimented with the buttons that raised and lowered the head and foot of the bed. I wound up half sitting, which was better, but the rib belt was hot and confining. I didn’t care what Dr. Stubblehead said. I had to get out of it
.
The IV was plugged into my right arm, so I folded my left arm into a chicken wing and tried to pull it inside my gown, planning to loosen the Velcro straps, but the maneuver generated a shock of pain that stunned me. Fuzzy-edged patches of brown and gray dappled my vision. Through them, pinpoints of light flew toward me like snow.
I struggled to get free of the sleeve, but I could neither work my arm out nor pull it all the way inside my gown. My armpits prickled with sweat, and my core was hot, like a volcano was inside me. My breath shortened. Then it was gone.
My pulse blurred into a vibration in my temples and wrists and neck, and a weird, heaving wheeze was coming out of me—sound but not air—and it got louder and louder.
From the corner of my eye I saw color and movement.
“What’s happening here?” Patricia sounded part soothing, part perky.
The head of the bed elevated more. She pressed her palm firmly against my breastbone, which made me feel even more trapped.
“Breathe out. You’re hyperventilating.”
Out? I needed more air, not less.
“Don’t breathe from your chest. Use your abdomen. Exhale. Come on. You can do it.”
The razor wire had wrapped itself around my torso again. I couldn’t exhale or inhale. I could only wheeze.
“Cup your hands over your nose and mouth. Breathe through your fingers. You’re okay.”
I clutched at her hand. “I can’t breathe.” My voice sounded shot full of holes.
“You’re breathing right now.”
She was crushing the air out of me. I tried to pull her hand away from my chest, but she had the advantages of weight and leverage and not being injured and not freaking out.
“I’m going to cover your mouth,” she said.
“No—”
She clamped a latex-gloved hand over the bottom half of my face.
“Breathe through my fingers. Come on.”
I was going to die with the smell of latex in my nostrils. It smelled like condoms.
I sobbed once, and then I was getting air, sweet, cool antiseptic air. The tension began to bleed from my muscles.
Patricia made eye contact. “Okay?”
I nodded. She released me but remained ready to pounce and smother-crush me if I started wheezing again.
A few seconds passed. My breathing was shaky, but otherwise normal. My heart jumped like it was bouncing on a trampoline, my head thudded, razor wire was cutting me in half.
“Anything like this ever happen before?” she said.
“No.” I could hardly think because I hurt so much.
She eased my left arm out of the sleeve that trapped it, clipped the clothespin monitor to my finger again, took my blood pressure. “Want to tell me what got you so upset?”
“The belt’s too tight.”
“Leave that belt alone.” She listened to my heart, took my temperature, flashed her penlight in my eyes. Then she lowered the head of the bed a few inches. “Rest for a minute. I’ll be right back.”
I closed my eyes. Soft-soled shoes squeaked out of the room.
What the hell had happened?
She was gone more like ten minutes, but she returned eventually with a hypodermic needle.
“What’s that?”
“Sedative.”
She inserted the needle into the stub that hung off the IV, and slowly the liquid disappeared from the syringe.
The bed began to rock gently, like a boat. There was no motion sickness, only soft waves lapping at the mattress, flowing through the bedrails, washing over me, but I could breathe underwater. I could even sleep.
* * *
I WOKE IN the early morning, my room lit gray through the blinds. The bed was in dry dock. My body was filled with rocks, jagged and heavy. My eyeballs had been peeled. My head pounded.
I’d slept with the TV on, as I sometimes did in hotels. The sound was off, but the old newsreel on the screen showed Orson Welles.
Orson Welles… The Third Man. Will. I felt under the pillow for my phone. Still there, but the battery had drained.
My backpack was in the visitor’s chair. Sometime in the night I’d been untethered from the IV, so I was free to get up. I inched down to the end of the bed, past the bedrail, and put my legs over the side. Carefully, I stood up. I was steady on my feet, and hungry.
I stashed my phone in my backpack and made my way to the bathroom.
When I came out, a breakfast tray waited on the rolling table over the bed. Chewing made my head hurt, but the scrambled eggs were soft, so I swallowed them in tiny bites and sipped orange juice from a plastic cup.
Patricia breezed in as I finished the juice. “Good morning. How do you feel?”
“Better. Thanks.”
I looked past her to the woman who’d followed her into the room.
“This is Mrs. Adams.” Patricia started checking my vital signs. “She works at the hospital. I thought you two might like to talk.”
A halo of thick, pretty white curls framed Mrs. Adams’s face. She carried a manila folder, but from her black pantsuit, I knew she wasn’t a doctor or nurse.
“Nice to meet you, Roan.”
I took the business card she offered me. Beth Adams, LCSW. What was LCSW?
Patricia typed her notes into the computer. “Looking good. I’ll leave you two to talk.”
I disliked her again. I’d started to like her last night when she’d been nice, but now she’d betrayed me. If Mrs. Adams and I were supposed to talk, I had an idea what her job was, even if I didn’t know what the letters stood for. I put her card on my tray.
She sat down in the visitor’s chair. “Roan, Patricia told me your father brought you to the ER yesterday with a concussion and some broken ribs.” She consulted a printed form in her folder. “Can you tell me how that happened?”
I nodded toward the folder. “Don’t those papers tell you?”
She scanned the form. “It says you were injured in a riding accident, Roan, but it doesn’t say how exactly.”
Talking about that was harmless. “My horse refused a jump, and I came off.”
“Was your father there, Roan?”
The way she kept saying my name made me think she was trying to maneuver me into being comfortable with her.
“Yes. We were in a lesson.”
“Anyone else around?”
“The jump crew, Mateo and Fernando.”
“They witnessed the accident?”
Witnessed? With a shock, I realized she was fishing for evidence Daddy had hurt me. No one had ever suspected him of that.
With another shock, I realized I could tell the truth.
She was all but inviting me to spill my secret. I longed to tell her. I saw myself riding, competing, winning, all without Daddy there ready to claim the credit and tell me what to do next. I didn’t know where he’d go—prison, maybe. It was a satisfying fantasy, my father in prison stripes and maybe chains.
The problem was, he was inseparable from the horses, the farm, and my future. If I told Mrs. Adams or anyone else, Daddy wasn’t the only one who’d be punished. I’d be ripped out of my own life. Leaving Rosemont and Jasper and Vigo would kill me.
The desire to tell the truth evaporated.
“Roan?”
“Sorry. I was thinking maybe Kevin was there, but it was Mateo.”
She made a note on the form. “Where was your mother, Roan?”
“My parents are divorced. My father has custody.”
“Full custody?”
“Mama and I don’t get along.”
Mistake. Her eyes became more alert. “How so?”
I stalled for time. “Are you a doctor?”
“I’m a social worker.” She spoke as if she hadn’t tried to lure me into destroying my whole life. “Patricia said you had a panic attack last night.”
Didn’t I have the latitude anywhere to feel without having to explain and cover up?
“ ‘Attack’ is a little extreme.�
��
“She said you hyperventilated.”
“The rib belt made me feel like I couldn’t breathe. I panicked, but it wasn’t an attack.” I shook my head, discrediting Patricia and her wild imagination.
Mrs. Adams made another note. “Roan, Patricia overheard your father in the ER. She said he was harsh with you.”
If Patricia’s only concern was that Daddy had been harsh, I was home free.
“He wasn’t happy with me.”
“Because…”
“I can’t ride for six weeks.”
“It’s important to him that you ride?”
“It’s important to me.”
There was a beat of silence. The pieces weren’t falling into place for Mrs. Adams, which meant I had some damage control to do.
“When she overheard him,” I said, “he was speaking as my coach, and my coach is annoyed. My father, on the other hand, apologized later.” Close enough, anyway.
“Do you see him as different people?”
I laughed. “No, but he wears a lot of different hats.”
“Why did he apologize, Roan?”
“For coming down on me so hard. And for God’s sake, would you please stop saying my name?”
She wrote something down.
“What’re you writing?”
“Patient is irritable.” Her glasses had slipped down her nose, and she contorted her face to scoot them back into place. She looked clownish, but I didn’t laugh. She wasn’t funny. She was smart and astute. She could ruin everything.
“Look, I’m sorry.” I didn’t sound sorry. I tried to soften my tone. “I don’t feel well. Daddy apologized, but he went easier on me than a lot of other trainers would have.”
“Is it only the two of you in the house? Do you see your mother?”
“No. I mean, yes, it’s only the two of us, and no, I don’t see Mama.”
“Why don’t you get along?”
She’d already asked that. I couldn’t not answer a second time.
“Where do I start?” I had never told anyone, not even Will, how hateful Mama was. Daddy and Gertrude had seen her in all her rabid glory, but we never talked about it.
“Start wherever you like. Tell me anything that comes to mind.”
“She doesn’t like horses. I train five or six hours a day. She’s never understood why I’d want to do that. She has an eating disorder, and I know that’s an illness, but she used to criticize me because I’m heavier than she thinks I should be. She’s an alcoholic. She abuses prescription drugs. She blames me for everything.”
Dark Horses Page 16