“You think so?”
“I do,” Stevie said.
“Well, I don’t know. I don’t think Max would want you to ride alone.…”
“Not really alone,” Stevie said. “After all, Topside will be with me. If anything goes wrong, he can come for help.”
“Nice try,” said Mrs. Reg. “I’m glad to see you haven’t lost your touch.” But she smiled at Stevie. “Okay,” she relented. “Take Topside out. But the ground’s hard, so I don’t want you to do any cantering, and watch out when you’re trotting. Take all the precautions you’re always supposed to take, and then take even more. I’m not convinced this is a good idea for Topside, but I have the feeling you could use some fresh air, so I’m going against my better judgment.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Reg. And don’t worry. Your judgment’s fine,” Stevie said. “I’ll be super careful.”
“You do that. Your mother doesn’t want two children in the hospital, now, does she?”
Stevie decided she’d better get Topside tacked up and out of the stable quickly before Mrs. Reg changed her mind. She ducked into the tack room, picked up everything she’d need for a trail ride with Topside, and had him ready in record time. She gave his girth one final tightening tug, mounted up, touched the good-luck horseshoe, and before anyone could think better of letting her take a lone trail ride, she was gone. At a walk.
Stevie pondered Mrs. Reg’s admonition about her safety. The words Your mother doesn’t want two children in the hospital now, does she? kept circling in her mind. She thought about what it would be like if she were in the hospital. Alex was getting a lot of attention. Nurses checked him at least once an hour. People stopped by. Friends sent cards and notes. Everyone in their class had made a card for him. His whole karate class had signed a big get-well card. Aunts and uncles seemed to be appearing from out of the woodwork with books, magazines, and bowers of flowers. Three neighbors had brought over covered dishes so nobody in the family would have to cook, and so they could spend more time at the hospital.
All the Lakes were visiting Alex as often as they could, day and night. Stevie and her parents spent the most time there, but Chad and Michael came over every day. They watched Alex when he was sleeping. They asked him what they could do for him when he was awake. They read to him. They changed the television station for him. They fluffed up his pillows.
And he seemed to be loving every minute of it—at least now that he was feeling better. Stevie thought about what it would be like to have people take care of her the way people were taking care of Alex. The other afternoon Alex had said he was hungry for something sweet. Stevie, who happened to have her bike at the hospital, had ridden all the way over to TD’s and gotten him hot fudge on chocolate-mint ice cream—his favorite.
If she’d been the one in bed, would he have brought her boysenberry on coffee, with pineapple chunks, M&M’s, and walnut sauce? She would have liked that. It certainly would have shown how much he loved her—just as much as she loved him.
Everybody loved Alex. At least everybody asked about him and really cared about the answers. Today at school she’d been counting. Sixteen people had asked about Alex before lunch. She stopped counting at lunch because a whole bunch of sixth-grade girls asked all at once. Stevie couldn’t help but wonder if Alex had started fishing for girlfriends in the classes below them, since he’d been striking out with all the girls in their own class. She’d been a little turned off by the girls’ gushy curiosity, and so she’d stopped counting. Still, a lot of people wanted to know how he was doing. Stevie wondered if they’d be asking the same questions if she were the one in the hospital.
“Oh, stop it!” she told herself. “Just because Alex is getting a lot of attention and you’re not is no reason to feel sorry for yourself.”
She must have unwittingly yanked on the reins in order to underscore her point, because Topside came to a halt.
“Did I do that?” she asked the horse. He didn’t answer. “Okay, I’ll try not to confuse you again. It’s all part of my scheme, you know. I’m working very hard at being a better person. It’s all for Alex’s sake,” she explained to the horse, who listened attentively. “I’m trying to do everything right, but obviously I’m not succeeding totally, since I apparently just made a mistake with you. It wasn’t a big mistake, though. It was just a little mistake. You can forgive me, can’t you?” There was no answer. “Oh, all right. If you can’t forgive me, I’ll try to make it up to you by letting you trot. Want to do that for a little while?”
That was a question Topside could answer. Like most horses, although he wasn’t a very good speaker of English, he’d learned the most important words. “Trot” was one of them. Without further ado, he picked up the two-beat gait and Stevie was posting. She knew she’d made another mistake with Topside, letting him trot before she’d actually given him the signal with her legs, feet, seat, and hands. However, he was doing what she wanted, and right now that seemed more important than correcting a mistake. She let him trot on because she loved it.
She loved the feel of the powerful, beautiful horse she was riding. She loved the sense that she was mostly in charge, even though today he’d trotted before she signaled him. She loved being alone with Topside, able to talk about whatever she wanted. She loved not having to pretend anything. And most of all, she loved the fact that, for a few minutes, she didn’t have to worry about Alex.
Without being particularly aware of it, Stevie found herself next to the big rock by the creek, where she and Phil had been sitting when she’d heard the gong from Pine Hollow.
Topside drew to a halt, at Stevie’s request. She looked out over the rushing water, the trees bare of their summer leaves, and the pines with their long needles waving softly in the February breeze. The scene was the same as she remembered it, but Stevie felt as if it were the only thing that hadn’t changed. Everything else was turning upside down, or going around in circles, or just being different.
Stevie dismounted and secured Topside’s reins to a branch. She walked over to the creek and crouched, listening to the rustling water as it followed its path over rocks and around branches—the water ever changing, the path remaining the same. Stevie reached out and let the icy water lap at her fingertips. It was cold, very cold. It numbed her fingers almost immediately, but she left her fingers in the water tingling uncomfortably because that discomfort kept her mind off what was really uncomfortable for Stevie—her confusion. It even kept her mind off the tears that rolled down off her cheeks into the icy water.
AN HOUR LATER Stevie’s tears were dried and almost forgotten and she was on her way to the hospital. When she thought about Alex, she felt selfish about her earlier confusion. He was what was important. His health is what mattered and as long as Stevie kept on behaving, he’d be all right. She was sure of that. After all, it was working so far.
Stevie put a smile on her face and walked into the hospital, waving at the receptionist, who, by now, knew her on sight. She felt refreshed and ready to be by her brother’s side. She was able to fill her promise to herself and be the kind of person she knew she needed to be in order for Alex to get better. Taking a ride had been a good idea, she decided—momentarily forgetting all the anger and resentment that seemed to want to peer out from behind her virtues. It had been especially nice to see her two best friends, if only for a moment.
Stevie took the elevator up to Alex’s floor, greeted the nurses, and headed straight for Alex’s room. The doctor had said Alex had to remain quarantined until he was ready to go home. That meant they still couldn’t be in the room with him. The room had a glass wall so she could look in, and now that Alex was feeling well enough to talk, Stevie could stand at the door and chat with him. She was happy to see him sitting up in bed as she approached. She waved at him. He waved back but he didn’t call out, because he was on the phone.
Stevie was struck by the image of him. He sat up in his bed, surrounded by flowers sent by loving, caring friends. Get-well cards co
vered the walls around his bed, and a bunch of helium-filled balloons dangled their festive ribbons from the ceiling. In the middle of it all Alex looked very small, sitting there with an IV dripping into one arm and the phone cradled against his shoulder. He had to hold the phone that way because he was playing a mini-video game with his hands. The television was showing a Star Trek rerun. He had the sound off because he’d seen the show so many times, he didn’t even have to listen to it anymore.
“Wait a sec, Josh,” he said into the phone. Then he looked up at Stevie. “How ya doin’?” he asked her cheerfully.
“Just fine. Wonderfully, in fact, now that I see how well you’re doing.”
“I’ll be with you in a few minutes. I’m just explaining to Josh what I’ve learned about this Maxx Racer game. It’s awesome.”
“No problem. I’ll wait,” said Stevie. She turned and sat down on the bench. Her routine was so set by now that her mother had come by earlier, bringing her schoolbooks. Her homework was waiting for her while she waited for her brother.
She decided to begin with science. She opened her book to page eighty-seven and found herself staring at a diagram of the human circulatory system with an inset diagram showing how the blood got oxygenated while it zipped through the four chambers of the heart. Her assignment was to make her own diagram of the heart. She took out a pencil and paper and began to draw the outline. Normally, she was pretty good in art and could make a credible diagram of almost anything. Today, however, nothing was working right. Her first attempt came out lopsided. The second try looked too short and squat. She tore up the paper and tried again. This time it was long and seemed more lumpy than anything, but she could probably make a decent diagram out of it. Probably.
She sat up and peered over her shoulder into Alex’s room. Maybe he was ready to talk to her by now. He was still on the phone. She turned her attention back to her heart.
“Groan,” she said, trying to sort out ventricles.
“What’s up?” Beverly asked, sitting down beside Stevie.
“My heart,” Stevie began.
“I know,” Beverly said. “These are very hard times for you. It must feel as though your heart is breaking. But he is getting better, and the tests this afternoon indicate that there will be no residual damage from the disease. The doctor says he’s going to make a complete recovery, as long as he takes care of himself now. That should be good news for your heart, right?”
“I suppose,” said Stevie. “But that isn’t the heart I was talking about. It’s this one.” She showed Beverly her attempt at drawing a human heart.
“Oh, anatomy was my best subject in nursing school,” Beverly said. “Let’s see what we can do here. Look, you’ve got it aimed straight up and down. I think it’s easier to draw if you make it a little bit tilted, more like it is in the chest. Here, try this.”
Beverly took the pencil and with a few quick strokes showed Stevie the best way to make her drawing. She’d be able to do it on her own now, but she didn’t feel like it. Instead, she drew four concentric Valentine-style hearts.
“That’s what we should be working on now, you know,” she said to Beverly.
“I think all the patients are getting a few candy hearts on their dinner trays tomorrow,” said Beverly. “It’s not much, but it does sort of acknowledge a nice holiday.”
That sounded nice, but just the thought that the next day was Valentine’s Day made her feel that it wasn’t enough. “There’s a dance Saturday night at the stable where I ride horses,” Stevie said.
“I didn’t realize you were a rider,” said Beverly.
That struck Stevie as very odd. Until Alex had gotten sick, riding was the most important thing in Stevie’s life. Since Alex had been admitted to the hospital, she’d literally spent hours talking to Beverly, and she’d never mentioned horses. That didn’t seem right at all.
“Yes, and I love it,” said Stevie. “I actually was on a trail ride with my boyfriend—he’s a rider, too—when I got called to come over here when Alex first got sick.”
“Oh, tell me about your boyfriend,” said Beverly.
She’d never mentioned Phil, either? And when Stevie thought about it, she realized she’d never mentioned Carole or Lisa. It made her think that the whole wide world had gotten as distorted as her drawing of the heart. Everything that was important had become so unimportant that she hadn’t even talked about it.
“So what’s his name?”
“Phil,” Stevie said. “Phil Marsten. We met at riding camp last summer, and he’s so funny and so nice …”
She told Beverly all about Phil, and when she was talking about Phil, she also started talking about Lisa and Carole and Pine Hollow and Max and Mrs. Reg. She even told Beverly about Veronica diAngelo. Then she began discussing all the horses at Pine Hollow. It seemed as if she couldn’t stop talking. Beverly just listened, very hard.
Stevie paused every few minutes as she talked, glancing into Alex’s room to see if he was off the phone yet, but he wasn’t. At that moment his life seemed to be his telephone, his television, and his video game. He wouldn’t want to hear what Stevie had to say right then, anyway, so Stevie kept on talking to Beverly.
“And what about the dance tomorrow night?” Beverly asked. “What are you going to wear?”
“Oh, it’s a barn dance—you know, a square dance,” she said. “I’ve got a real cowboy shirt that I bought when I went out to the dude ranch with Carole and Lisa. I got a hat then, too. It’s a little battered, but that’s the way they’re supposed to be. I mean, if you don’t have any dust or dents on your hat, everybody just thinks you’re a dude. My hat is battle worn. That proves that I’m a real cowpoke, at least that’s what Eli says. He’s the wrangler. He even wears a bandanna that he puts over his mouth and nose so he looks like a bank robber, except that it’s really just to keep the dust out of his lungs.”
“Will you wear one of those, too?” Beverly asked.
“No, of course not,” Stevie answered. Then she paused, looking over at her brother, who was still chatting on the phone. “In fact, I won’t be wearing any of it, because I’m not going to the dance.”
“Why not?”
“Him,” Stevie said, pointing at her brother. “A whole bunch of relatives are coming into town for the weekend to see him, and then he’s coming home on Sunday, so I have to be home. I can’t be thinking of myself all the time, can I?”
It was a pretty good question, and Beverly took a minute to think about it before she answered.
“Not all the time, no,” she said, speaking slowly, thoughtfully. “I guess not. But—”
Beverly’s answer was interrupted by the beeper that called her to another patient. Stevie knew the answer though.
She couldn’t keep on thinking about herself. She had to think about Alex. She had to think about her mother and her father and her other brothers. She shouldn’t think about Phil, Carole, Lisa, horses, riding, dances, fun, laughter, enjoyment, tricks, practical jokes, tall tales, or anything else she’d ever liked in her whole life. She had to think about school and homework and Alex. Alex. Alex. The frustrating part was that there he was, not even caring that Stevie was there to see him, that she’d been there to see him for hours every day since he’d first gone into the hospital. She’d sat in that hall and done more boring homework assignments than she ever could have imagined. And he didn’t care. All he cared about was a video game and his friend Josh and a stupid old Star Trek that he’d already memorized.
Stevie felt totally overwhelmed as she had never felt before. Her world seemed a mass of homework and resentment. Then she felt bad about feeling resentment. Then she felt worse about all the fun she was missing. Then she felt worse still about feeling bad about all the fun she was missing.
She stood up from the bench, grabbed her jacket, and walked, leaving the mess of papers, books, and undone assignments just where they were.
She had to get out of the hospital. Alex didn’t need her then. No
body needed her. She had to leave. She had to go home.
She walked through the hospital door and into the chilly late afternoon before she realized it. She walked all the way home. It was a long walk, more than five miles, but she never noticed any of it. Her parents, Chad, and Michael were all eating dinner when she arrived.
“Stevie, I was going to bring you—” her mother began.
“I don’t want any,” she said. “I’m not hungry.”
“How’s Alex?” Chad asked.
“He’s gotten to the seventh level of Maxx Racer.”
“Stevie, are you—?”
“I’m tired,” Stevie said, cutting off her father’s question. “I’m going to bed.”
“Yo, dork, it’s only seven o’clock!” Michael teased her, a little surprised by his sister’s behavior. “What are you—some kind of a baby?”
“Then it’s almost past your bedtime, baby brother,” she shot back. It wasn’t a very good put-down, but it was the best she could come up with on a second’s notice, and it felt good to deliver it to a deserving little brother.
Without further word Stevie ran up to her bedroom and threw herself on her bed. The tears came back then. She was utterly confused by her feelings and even more confused by her confusion. At the time when she should be happy that Alex was getting better, she was getting angry at him for being sick! Or was she angry at him for getting better? Or was she angry at herself? She had no idea. All she knew for sure was that she had spent all her time with her brother, who didn’t seem to care, and no time at all with her friends, who seemed to care only about her brother. She wanted everything to be the way it used to be. She wanted to be with Carole and Lisa, and she wanted to be with Phil.
She wanted to go to the dance. She wanted to forget that she’d been sad and worried. She even wanted to forget that she’d done every single assignment from school since Alex had gotten ill!
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