“But you won’t be lifting weights or running any races, promise?” The nurse, a middle-aged black woman, looked over her half glasses, trying to look stern. “From what I hear about you, you’d bring your horse right in here, too.”
“Oh, could we?”
Thela, as she’d introduced herself, rolled her eyes and began disconnecting the oxygen line. “What a girl.” Together, Thela and DJ maneuvered into the hallway with the IV stand, Lindy close behind.
Though DJ had been managing the trek to the bathroom, which was right across the room, by the time she reached the corner of the hall and looked back, her room looked a mile away and her legs and chest were doing a wobbly dance.
“C-can I sit down?”
“Of course, child. Should never have brought you this far.” Thela snagged a wheelchair that sat along the wall and set the brakes. “Now, I’m not going to take you back in this, but …”
DJ sat down quickly and closed her eyes. The hall, too, had taken to dancing, up and down and in circles.
“Let me rephrase that.” Thela flipped the footrests into position. “Since you are riding back in the wheelchair, you can keep your eyes closed. Do you need to put your head down? You’re not going to faint or throw up, are you?”
“No.” The word came out in a whisper. At least she wouldn’t if she kept her eyes closed—she hoped. How embarrassing. Her mother’s cool hand felt good on the back of her neck.
As soon as she was tucked back in bed and hooked up again, DJ made her lips smile whether they wanted to or not. “Thanks for the ride.”
“You’re welcome, sweet thing. We sure do have to get you built back up.”
“So I can go home.”
“Right. Let me listen here.” Thela applied the stethoscope to DJ’s chest. “Take a deep breath.”
DJ did as asked and a cough exploded. When she could quit hacking, she lay back, limp as Herndon’s used leg wrappings.
Thela rubbed her ear. “Serves me right. I asked for that.”
DJ nodded to the water pitcher. “Mom, could I have a drink, please?”
“Sure.” Lindy filled the plastic glass. Her eyes shot question marks at the nurse, who studied her patient.
“Need some pain meds?”
DJ nodded. Now not only did her hands hurt, but her chest did again, too. And the cough had started a headache. In fact, if she thought about it, which she tried not to do, she hurt about everywhere a person could hurt.
Not long after Thela injected the medication into the IV, DJ began to feel like she was floating again, as if she would bounce off the ceiling pretty soon.
“Better?”
DJ nodded and turned her head to look at her mother. “You better get going.”
“No hurry.” Lindy held the glass again so DJ could drink. “I’m beginning to think we ought to get you a tube so you can suck water at your own speed.” Her mother’s voice came from a long distance away.
“Umm …”
“I love you, Darla Jean Randall.”
“Me too. Night, Mom.”
“Oh, one more thing. There might be a surprise for you tomorrow.”
“Really?” DJ’s eyes popped open. “What?”
“Ah, I won’t tell.” Lindy kissed her on the cheek.
“Oh, my goodness.” Karen turned from looking out the window. “DJ, you won’t believe this.”
“Okay, what’s up?” DJ had finished her breakfast with many interruptions. Karen would stop feeding her to keep glancing out the window.
“Nothing, nothing at all.” But the glint in her eyes said something different.
“What’s going on?”
Chapter • 4
“What is it?” DJ insisted.
Karen crossed back from the window to DJ’s bed. “Come on, girl. You gotta see this.” She lowered the bed rail and grasped DJ’s upper arm to help her sit up and swing her legs over the edge. “Let me get your IV pole and you’ll be truckin’.”
The grin on her face promised something special.
“Can’t you tell me what it is?” DJ craned her neck, hoping to see over the windowsill. Nada.
“Can’t is the right word.” With all the tubing hooked over the pole’s supports, Karen brought the clanking stand around the end of the bed and braced DJ with her other arm so she wouldn’t slip. “Shoulda just lowered the bed.”
“Good thing I’ve got long legs, huh?” DJ felt for her slippers and slid her feet into them. How come even the distance to the window seemed like such a hike? How would she ever get back in shape after all this lying around? She blinked as the room shifted. Although the doctor told her that was normal for someone with a head injury and on so much pain medication, shifting walls were still scary. Sometimes DJ woke up thinking she might be this way for the rest of her life. At least at this time of the morning she was less woozy than later in the day.
She slammed the door in her mind against the thought of later in the day. The treatments came on like a runaway horse whether she tried not to think of them or not.
“You ready?” Karen’s voice had gone from joyful to gentle.
“Yeah. Did I zone out again?”
“Only a little. Not to worry.” With Karen pushing the pole, they shuffle-clanked their way to the window.
DJ looked down into the hospital parking lot. The first thing she saw was a familiar horse trailer attached to her grandfather’s pickup. She looked straight down, closer to the building. A bunch of grinning faces topped a long sign held up by lots of willing hands. The sign read We miss you, DJ. Get well fast! The hands belonged to all her friends from Briones Riding Academy, where DJ stabled her horse and taught younger kids to ride. Amy stood front and center, jumping up and down and waving both arms. Major, DJ’s first horse and dear friend, pricked his ears and, when her cousin Shawna tapped his knee, bowed.
“Circus tricks. She’s teaching him circus tricks. How funny.”
“Who?”
“Major. He’s such a sweetie.”
“You want the window open?”
“Yes, please.”
DJ leaned close to the screen and whistled her special high-low greeting for Major. He looked around, searching for her. She whistled again, and he raised his head, looked right at her, and nickered, nodding as if to say, “Get on down here. What are you doing way up there?”
Shawna, now Major’s owner, waved and yelled, “Can you come out to play?”
The others hollered their greetings.
Other nurses and medical people gathered in DJ’s room to cheer, too, and many from the first floor filled the front walk and clapped along.
Fighting tears, DJ swallowed, looked upward, did everything she knew to stem the flow, but nothing helped. Her friends had given up their Saturday to come all this way to see her. After all, the UC San Francisco hospital wasn’t just around the corner from their homes in Pleasant Hill.
“So do you want to go down there?” Karen touched DJ’s shoulder to get her attention.
“Can I?”
“Sure. I’ll grab us a wheelchair. You have to promise not to ride the horse or even get too close, but …” Karen glanced at the nursing supervisor, who nodded. “After all, they came all this way.”
“Don’t go away,” DJ called through the window. “I’m coming down.” She glanced down at her hospital gown and up at Karen. “In this?”
Karen shrugged. “I guess we’ll wrap a sheet around you. Nothing goes over those boxing gloves of yours.”
Within minutes DJ and her entourage blew out the front doors and up the sidewalk to where her friends waited.
“Now, here are the rules.” Karen held up her hand like a traffic cop. “If you have a cold, stay back, no one can touch her, and she can’t go riding.”
The last comment made everyone laugh.
“How did the rest of the show go?” DJ looked from Tony Andrada to Hilary Jones, who’d both been at the show at Rancho de Equus.
“I won Juniors.”
“And I did Intermediates.”
“And Bunny got third in her class.”
“We cleaned up.” The answers all overlapped and ran together.
“We sure miss you teaching our class,” her three girl students added.
“You can teach even if your hands are bandaged. You know, when you get home,” Angie said. “We need you.”
“Thanks.”
“Oh, and Bridget said to tell you she’ll come by in the next few days. She has something she wants to talk over with you.” Tony hunkered down beside DJ’s wheelchair. “It would be cool if you could come to the classic at the end of this month and cheer us on.”
DJ looked up at Karen, who shrugged. “Once we get you out of here, everything will depend on how well you feel.”
“Does it still hurt bad?” Shawna asked.
DJ nodded and rolled her eyes. “Like nothing I can describe.”
“Can I bring Major closer?” Shawna asked Karen. “He wants to show her something.”
“I guess, if he won’t be spooked by the pole and chair and stuff.”
“Major?” The look of shock on Shawna’s face matched DJ’s.
“He’s a retired police horse. Took a bullet in the shoulder and kept on working. Nothing scares him.” DJ rested her elbows on the arms of the chair. Why did just sitting in a chair and chatting with her friends make her tired?
Shawna led the big bay through the group and up to the chair. Major studied DJ as if trying to figure out what had happened to her, then reached forward and nuzzled her cheek, wuffling in her ear. DJ leaned her cheek against his nose and ignored the tears that streamed down her cheeks.
“Oh, Major, you smell so good.”
He sniffed the top of her head and raised his nose, rolling his upper lip back.
“Guess I don’t, huh? Remind you of the hospital you were in?” DJ laughed through her tears.
“He sure doesn’t think you smell good.” Karen laughed with the rest. The minutes flew by like seconds as they all caught DJ up on the latest at Briones and the beginning of school.
Finally Karen glanced at her watch. “Sorry, kids, but DJ has a date with therapy in a few minutes, and I better make sure there’s not a horsehair on her. Come say your good-byes.”
After all the others filed by, some leaving cards in her lap, Joe squatted down in front of her chair, his knees creaking loud enough to make the others laugh again.
“I’ll be up later, now that I’m well enough to pass inspection. You do what they tell you, okay? We need you home yesterday.”
DJ wanted to throw her arms around his neck, to bolt from the wheelchair and leave IV poles and hospital gowns and the coming torture far behind. “Thanks for coming.”
“We’re all praying for you.” He glanced around at the group, who all nodded. “And lots of others, too. God can handle anything, even burn therapy.”
But, GJ, it hurts so bad. I can’t stand it. Instead of saying the words, DJ just nodded.
“Okay, DJ, we’re outta here. Wave to your admirers,” Karen instructed.
“See you all. Thanks for coming. Bye, Major.”
Shawna tapped his knee, and Major stretched one leg in front of him, put his nose on his knee, and bowed.
“I can’t believe this. Major, the horse of many lives.” DJ waved again. She sat straight until Karen wheeled her through the doors, then slumped in her chair. “I feel like I’ve run a marathon, and I haven’t even been out of this stupid chair.”
“Hey, don’t call this elegant mode of transportation stupid. It might quit, and then where would you be?” But Karen patted DJ’s shoulder as they waited for the elevator. “You’ll make it, DJ. And I know how you dread the hours ahead. Everyone does.”
“It isn’t just the treatment. I hate what the drugs do to my mind. All I want to do is sleep.”
“I know. But the more we can control the pain for you, the faster your body will heal. It takes a tremendous amount of energy for your body to produce all the new cells to remake your hands, fight off any infection, and even grow new hair—which, by the way, cute as yours is coming in, you might start a new style.”
“So I’m not just a wuss?” DJ stared down at her bandaged hands, her words barely a whisper.
“Oh, DJ, has that been bothering you?” Karen squatted and put a hand on DJ’s arm. “I have seen tough men—men who went to war, even—faint from the pain of the burn treatments. I’ve heard them screaming like they might never quit. One woman patient said she’d rather have ten kids by natural childbirth than ever go through anything like that again—and I tell you, she was tough. But she told me it’s easier if you scream. And I believe that screaming lets the tension out so the body can concentrate on healing, not on keeping the hurt inside.”
“Really?” A tear slipped down DJ’s cheek. “I hate crying all the time.”
“I know. But tears help with the healing, too. There are special chemicals released in tears that are better on your cheeks than inside.” She stroked DJ’s fuzzy hair.
“Now you sound like Gran.”
“Well, that grandmother of yours is one dynamite lady. I feel privileged to get to know her.”
“Me too.” DJ sniffed. “You got a Kleenex?”
“I sure do.” Karen dug in her smock pocket and used the tissue she found there to wipe DJ’s eyes and nose. “Now, we have fifteen minutes or so until we head to the little room of horrors. You want to stay in the chair or opt for the bed?”
“Bed, please.” DJ sniffed again. “Thanks, Karen. You’ve helped me a lot.”
They had just gotten her back into bed when Gran breezed into the room. “Whew, I made it in time today.” She set her bag down on the chair and leaned over to give DJ a hug. “So they all got here all right?”
“Sure did. Half the hospital went out to watch.” Karen finished checking all the equipment. “You two visit, and I’ll be back when they call for us.”
“So how was it? I planned to drive in the caravan, but my agent called right then and I needed to talk with her.”
“Did you know that Shawna has been teaching Major tricks?”
“Of course, darlin’. Joe’s been helping her. Those two get to laughin’, and Major looks at them like they lost their horse cookies. Funniest thing you ever saw.”
“How are the boys doing with General?” DJ looked at Gran from the side of her eyes. “They’re not teaching him tricks, too, are they?”
“Not that I know of, but I think he already knew a few. You know, I think Shawna has a real gift for training animals. She’s got Queenie— whoops.” Gran clamped her hand over her mouth. “Promise me you won’t tell anyone that I almost let that slip, please?”
“I won’t tell if you let it slip a bit more so I know what’s going on.”
“No can do. I’d lose my grandmother status.”
“G-r-a-n.”
“Nope, I promised.” She crossed her heart with one finger. “I even crossed my heart. You wouldn’t want me to break a promise, would you? Besides, it gives you something to look forward to.” Gran dug in her voluminous bag. “The boys sent you … Ah, here it is.” She pulled out an envelope with horses stamped all over it. “They got a bit carried away, but they were having fun.” She laid the envelope on the white bedspread and began digging again. “Your mother sent something, too.”
“More homework?”
“No, pages from her book. I said I’d read them to you so you could let her know what you think.”
“She brought homework yesterday.” DJ nodded toward the pile of books on her nightstand. “She’s going to rig up something so I can turn the pages with my teeth.” DJ rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“Sounds like a good idea to me. Maybe we should employ readers. Once you get home, there’ll be plenty of people willing to help.”
“Sorry to interrupt, ladies,” Karen said as she came into the room. “They’re ready for us.”
DJ felt her whole body tense up as if some
giant had grabbed her head and feet and wrung her like a dishcloth. God, please help me. I can feel a scream coming already. “I don’t want to go.”
Chapter • 5
“Is it over?”
“Yes, darlin’. You fainted. Best thing that could have happened, far as I’m concerned.”
“I fainted?” DJ could feel her brow wrinkling. “How long ago?”
“Oh, they brought you back here and you woke a bit, but the painkillers put you to sleep again without you becoming much aware.” Gran glanced up from her sketch pad. “It’s evening now. You feel like eating?”
“Not really.” DJ looked at her hands. The bandages were a bit smaller, but not much. “I remember someone screaming. Was it me?”
“Oh, you and a couple others. As Karen says, screaming is better than holding it in.”
“Hey, if I could faint every time … It wasn’t so bad.” DJ could feel the weights pulling down her eyelids again. “Will you be here when I wake up again?”
“If not me, maybe Joe or Robert. He’s feeling left out.”
“Joe?”
“No, Robert. He and the boys miss you terribly.”
DJ tried to answer, but the tide of sleep swept her out.
“Hey, Deej, welcome back.” Robert set his book aside and leaned on the raised rails of DJ’s bed. “Had to come see for myself that you are getting better. Not that I don’t trust the others, but …”
“Hi, Dad.”
Robert blinked his appreciation of her use of “Dad” and reached out to run the knuckle of his right forefinger down her cheek, the tenderness of the gesture bringing a smile to DJ’s pale face. “You have no idea how much it means to me to hear you call me that.”
“I’m pretty lucky, you know. Two cool dads.” DJ tried to clear the frog out of her throat and smiled her thanks when Robert held the glass for her.
“You want more than water?”
DJ thought a moment. Getting her mind to leave the muzziness of la-la land and come back to work took some doing. “I think I’m hungry. And maybe some Gatorade or something would taste good.”
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