The Long Ride

by Bonnie Bryant

  “Not right now,” said Mr. Forester.

  “Yes, one—or maybe a few,” said Mrs. Forester.

  Yes?

  “Is Callie out of danger?”

  “I don’t know,” Dr. Amandson told her. “We’ll have to watch her closely, for a long time, until we’re sure.”

  “Is there any way this physical therapy could be dangerous to her?”

  “No, not really,” said the doctor. “As long as it’s carefully monitored.”

  “What kinds of things will they do?”

  “The therapist will develop a program that will begin very slowly, building up muscles and working on balance and coordination skills. We’ve found that the progressive healing of patients in physical therapy is a lot like the way babies learn motor skills, crawling, walking, and so on. They try to create a program that is interesting as well as useful. I don’t know Callie other than as a comatose patient. Is there some activity that she enjoys more than others that we might try to incorporate in her therapy? Swimming perhaps?”

  “Well, she does like to swim,” said Mrs. Forester.

  “Horseback riding,” Mr. Forester said. “It’s the thing she loves the most in the world.”

  The doctor smiled. “Have you ever heard of therapeutic riding?” he asked.

  “No,” said Mrs. Forester. “But I have the feeling we’re going to hear a lot about it—and soon.”

  A few weeks after that, Emily found Carole and Stevie in Fez’s stall.

  “Ouch!” said Carole, shaking her hand. Fez had nipped at her fingers when she gave him a carrot. “Didn’t you ever hear the saying Don’t bite the hand that feeds you?”

  “Being sick has not improved his disposition,” Stevie said.

  “It rarely does,” Emily told them. “And, speaking of being sick, guess who called me. I hate it when people say things like that, so I’ll tell you. Callie Forester. She was calling me from the physical therapy room at the hospital. Her therapist thinks horseback riding would be good. They wanted her to go to Free Rein—the therapeutic riding center where I learned to ride—but she said that if she was going to ride again, it was going to be at Pine Hollow. She wants me to be her instructor.”

  “Perfect,” said Carole. “Absolutely perfect. You’ll be perfect for her.”

  “Maybe I will be, but PC definitely will be. He’ll be glad to have another rider from time to time.” Emily had utter faith in her horse, and everybody who had ever seen him perform knew she had reason to feel that way.

  “When will she be at Pine Hollow?” Stevie asked.

  “Right, how soon?” Carole echoed.

  “We made a date for next Wednesday morning. You’ll both be here, won’t you?”

  “Absolutely,” said Stevie.

  “Of course,” Carole told her. “We wouldn’t miss that for anything.”

  “Good, because she’ll be here with her therapist and her parents. I think Scott’s coming, too. It’s going to be a real family outing for them. There’s a lot of work to be done before then, too.”

  “Yes,” Carole said. She knew what Emily meant, but she had work of her own to do before she saw Callie. She had to figure out how to apologize for the past and make the future better.

  “Both her parents?” Stevie asked. “They’ll be here?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  Stevie felt a shiver. The whole family would be there. She hadn’t seen them since the hospital. Now she’d see them all. Scott, whom Stevie liked because he was charming and funny, probably wouldn’t be funny anymore. Stevie had been driving in the accident that hurt his sister. Congressman and Mrs. Forester wouldn’t want to see Stevie because Stevie’s car had nearly killed their daughter when it struck their horse.

  And Callie?

  Could Stevie look at any of them? What would she say? How could she say she was sorry in a way that meant anything when she’d hurt them all so badly? Could she ever face them?

  She didn’t know.

  SIXTEEN

  The first person to arrive on Wednesday was Scott. Carole, Stevie, and Emily were tacking up PC for Callie when Scott came up the driveway, riding a bicycle.

  He looked around uncertainly and then, recognizing Carole, walked over to the girls. Stevie was glad she was standing on the far side of the horse. Maybe she’d never have to speak to anyone.

  “Hi,” Carole said. “I guess it’s Callie’s big day.”

  “I don’t know. This seems pretty crazy to me.” Scott shook his head.

  “You’ll see.” Carole introduced him to Emily, who leaned forward with a crutch under her left arm to shake hands with her right.

  “I know, I know,” she said, anticipating his concern. “You’re trying to figure out if this is a case of the blind leading the blind …”

  Scott blanched. Clearly Emily had been right on the mark. “I wasn’t going to put it that way,” he protested, shifting his eyes away from her crutch and back to her face.

  “Of course not,” said Emily.

  “Well, I guess my sister knows what she’s doing.”

  “We’ll see, won’t we?” Emily asked. “Anyway, I was as uncertain as you are, but I’ve talked with Callie’s therapist, and we have a pretty good program lined up for your sister. Besides, it’s not me who is going to be doing the instructing. It’s good old PC here. He knows absolutely everything. He’s the best teacher in the world.” She gave him a firm pat on the neck to punctuate her statement. The well-behaved horse didn’t budge.

  “You named your horse after a computer?” Scott asked, smiling for the first time.

  “No, it stands for Physical Courage,” said Emily.

  Carole laughed. Stevie smiled tentatively. PC’s “real” name was an ongoing joke. Whenever somebody asked Emily what PC stood for, she had a different, and apt, answer.

  “Is something wrong with your car?” Carole asked, noticing the bike for the first time. Stevie cringed, shifting herself even farther behind the horse. She had noticed the bicycle immediately and didn’t want to hear the answer. It wasn’t going to help to talk about cars.

  “Uh, no—Well, yes—Sort of,” Scott stammered.

  It was the accident. Stevie was sure. It had to be. Because of her carelessness, the congressman and his wife must have decided that all young drivers were unsafe. Or maybe it had frightened Scott so much that he couldn’t drive anymore.

  “I’ve been grounded,” Scott said.

  Stevie had to know. “Is it because of me?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, looking at her for the first time. He seemed to be about to say something but changed his mind. Instead, he turned his attention to Carole and continued. “Not at all. It’s because of me. I was driving the Jeep a couple of weeks ago before we moved here and I backed into a stone wall on our neighbor’s property. I just made a small dent, but Dad found it last week and blew up at me. It wasn’t so much that I’d done the damage, he said, but that I’d tried to hide it. Being a congressman makes him especially touchy on the subject of cover-ups. Anyway, I’m on two-wheel transport for a month.”

  “S-Scratch? Dent?” Stevie stammered.

  “Yeah,” said Scott.

  “Left rear?” she asked.

  “You must have seen it in the body shop, I guess,” said Scott. “It really wasn’t much of a dent. It won’t even reach our deductible, but it definitely annoyed my father. He’s tough.”

  That dent. It seemed like such a small thing compared to everything else that had happened, but it made Stevie feel a little better to know that she hadn’t made the dent in the Foresters’ Jeep. That didn’t change the fact that she’d tried to hide it, but that was too complicated now. She patted PC vigorously to mask her relief.

  Carole looked over at Stevie. Stevie never was any good at hiding her feelings. She knew something had just happened to her friend, but she had no idea what. She’d find out later. For now, she had her own weight to lift.

  The Foresters’ car pulled into Pine Ho
llow’s driveway. Carole could see Callie’s parents in the front seat. Callie and another person—presumably her physical therapist—were in the back. It was time for Carole to talk to Callie, to do it right, to start all over again.

  She walked over to the car when it stopped and waited for the door to open. With the help of the therapist and a pair of crutches, Callie got out. She was unsteady, unsure, and insecure in every way.

  Carole took a deep breath, smiled at the girl, and stepped forward. She was determined to make this a new beginning, just as she’d done that day with Fez when she’d untacked him and started over.

  “Callie, I want us to have a fresh start,” she said.

  Callie nodded.

  Carole offered her hand. “Welcome to Pine Hollow,” she said. “You’re going to love it here, I know.”

  Callie looked at it uncertainly for a second, then tucked her left crutch firmly under her arm for balance and reached forward with her right hand, much as Emily had done a few minutes earlier with Scott.

  “I’m sure it’ll be great,” said Callie, shaking Carole’s hand. She smiled back.

  Callie’s parents also got out of the car. Max came out of the stable and greeted them warmly. The therapist helped Callie over to where PC was waiting for her. Max introduced Emily and PC to the Forester family.

  Callie looked awkwardly at Emily. “I never really—and now—”

  “It’s okay, Callie,” Emily said, cutting off the apology she knew was coming her way. “You already took care of that. What’s past is past.”

  “I only wish …,” said Callie. She helped herself forward so that she could pat PC. “This is the boy who’s going to teach me to walk again?” she asked.

  “He’s going to do his best,” said Emily. “And his best has always been pretty good. Stevie, can you bring him around to the mounting block?”

  Stevie had been working so hard to be invisible that she was almost surprised that Emily had noticed her presence. And now everybody looked at her.

  She didn’t say anything. She just walked the horse to where Callie would be able to mount. As soon as Callie was in the saddle, Emily and the therapist took charge. Stevie, Carole, and the Foresters stood back.

  Stevie found herself next to Callie’s parents. Apologize. She had to do it. She had to say something. She’d been driving. I’m sorry. So sorry. The words stuck in her mouth.

  She glanced at Congressman Forester next to her. She opened her mouth to speak. And then she closed it. He was watching his daughter on horseback, walking sedately around the schooling ring. Tears filled his eyes. He reached over to Stevie and put his hand on her shoulder as much to silence her as to accept her unspoken apology. He didn’t want to talk about it, either.

  There would be another time when they could talk, and now Stevie knew that she could say what she had to say—that he would listen and maybe even understand.

  The work was done for Stevie and Carole. This was a time when Max, Emily, the therapist, and the Foresters were all the help Callie needed. Carole and Stevie withdrew and retreated to a shady spot on a hill overlooking the ring where they could watch. It was at times like this that they missed Lisa most. They each wished she could be with them to share their healing, to be a friend. Lisa had a way of seeing the calm center of a confusing world. Her presence touched her friends now from the other side of the country.

  “Think she’s going to be okay?” Stevie asked, nodding toward Callie.

  “Yeah,” Carole said. “She’ll be fine.”

  “Not today. I mean ever. Will she get all better?”

  “Everything will get all better one day,” said Carole. “Probably. You, me, Fez, Callie—we’re already better. A little better, anyway.”

  “I guess,” said Stevie. “And I guess we shouldn’t ask for more.”

  “Not yet,” said Carole. “There’s still a lot of healing to be done. We’ve got a long way to go.”

  “But we’ve started, right?”

  “Yes, we’ve started,” Carole agreed.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Pine Hollow series

  ONE

  Nothing had been the same since the accident. Stevie Lake only had to close her eyes to bring back every terrifying detail, from the dark blur of the horse that raced in front of her car to the ceaseless flapping of the windshield wipers to the utter silence that told her and her friend Carole that something was wrong—really wrong—with Callie.

  Callie had been in the backseat. The old car didn’t have shoulder belts back there. Callie had been tossed around like a rag doll as the car tumbled. She was unconscious, concussed, and seriously hurt. They had known that much when the ambulance had taken her away.

  Carole and Stevie had been merely bumped, bruised, and cut. Stevie had broken ribs as well. But they were okay. They slept at home that night in their own beds, while Callie stayed in the hospital, watched carefully by the doctors and her family, recovering first from the accident and then from the emergency surgery that had relieved the pressure on her brain.

  The doctors reassured everybody. They told Callie’s father, Congressman Forester, that they were doing everything possible. They told her mother and her brother, Scott, that they were pretty sure Callie would be all right. They told the reporters who waited impatiently outside the hospital for updates about the congressman’s daughter that she was resting comfortably.

  Nothing anybody said could reassure Stevie. She’d been behind the wheel of the car. She was the one who had swerved to avoid the terrified horse. She was the one who had put Callie in the hospital, who had nearly killed her, and who was now responsible for the injuries that remained—and might remain forever. Callie’s bones had knit, her cuts had healed, her bruises faded, but there was something else. One of the doctors called it residual brain damage.

  Residual. That meant left over. There was no telling how long it would be left over or if it would be left over forever. The realization that it might be forever left a dull, persistent ache in Stevie’s heart. It didn’t matter how many people told her she couldn’t have prevented the accident; she was the one who had been driving. Callie’s life had been in her hands, and her hands alone. Something had gone wrong, and Callie was paying for it. That was residual.

  Callie’s doctor thought horseback riding would be good for her. It would strengthen her muscles, help her balance, and give her confidence. The doctor called it therapeutic riding. It was an ironically logical solution, making everything seem simple and neat: the rider healing herself through riding. But the fact was that nothing was simple; everything was complicated. Stevie was overwhelmed by all the complications—most of them caused by her.

  “Look at that,” Carole said, pointing down to the ring, where Callie was having her first therapeutic riding session.

  Stevie was acutely aware of everything that was going on below them. She and Carole were sitting in a shady spot on a hillside overlooking the schooling ring, where Callie was the lone rider amid a large group of instructors, supporters, and well-wishers.

  “It’s as if she’s on a horse for the first time,” Stevie said. “And I bet it feels that way to her, too.”

  “I bet,” Carole agreed.

  Down in the ring, Callie looked around nervously. She was in the saddle—a place she’d spent countless hours over many, many years—but it didn’t feel the way it had before. Ever since the accident, her right side had refused to be what it had been. She could move everything, wave her fingers, wiggle her toes, but none of it felt quite right. It was as if there was a delay in getting the instructions from her mind to her limbs. And they weren’t strong. She had trouble raising her right arm and moving it forward. Her leg seemed stiff, like an unfamiliar appendage. Was it hers, really? It certainly wasn’t the same leg she’d always thought she’d had. When it moved, it kind of jerked. She was unsure whether it would hold her, move her forward, help her turn, stand up, sit down, or lie down. And when she got tired it got worse.


  Now, here she was, sitting in the saddle of this sweet-natured horse named PC, and even just standing there, Callie was acutely aware that the horse was doing a lot more work than she was.

  “Good job!” the physical therapist said.

  “I haven’t done anything,” Callie told her.

  “That means you haven’t done anything wrong yet,” Emily Williams said wryly.

  Callie smiled. Emily had a way of finding high points in a flat landscape.

  Emily was Callie’s age, and it was her horse Callie was riding. Emily had years of experience with therapeutic riding because she’d been born with cerebral palsy. Walking on her own two feet, Emily was disabled. She needed her crutches, and if she got overtired, she had to use her hated wheelchair. She’d been riding for years, and she loved every minute she spent with PC, because when she was in the saddle, she was everybody’s equal. She could walk, trot, and canter just as well as anybody else. Some people thought she loved riding because it helped her forget that she was disabled. That wasn’t quite right, though, because she accepted her disability as part of herself; it wasn’t something that ever went away. What she loved about riding was that other people forgot she was disabled. That was a gift she treasured. Now she wanted Callie to learn about it, too. She wouldn’t learn today, not on her first day in the saddle, but soon, Emily was sure.

  “Okay now, PC,” Emily said. “Let’s make Callie do some work.” She passed the lead line to Ben Marlow, a stable hand, and clucked her tongue. Obediently PC began walking.

  It took Callie a second to adjust to the pace—not that it was fast. She was moving, and for the first time since her accident, she was moving smoothly. There was no jerk or hesitation in PC’s step. She sighed to herself.

  “Not too fast there, Ben,” Scott Forester interjected.

  “It’s just a walk!” Callie chided her brother.