High Hurdles Collection Two

by Lauraine Snelling

  Amanda Marie Crowder took top billing in the Christmas pageant at church, playing the role of baby Jesus. And like an angel, she slept right through the whole thing.

  The twins, however, were a different matter. One lost his halo, the other his harp. They and the other angels sang “Hello, Baby Jesus” around the manger.

  “That’s my baby sister.”

  Those sitting clear at the back of the sanctuary heard the whispered comment clearly.

  It took a while for the congregation to stop laughing so the next lines could be heard.

  Two days later DJ had a rampaging case of butterflies. The Christmas Eve candlelight service would be the test. Last year she’d gone catatonic when they lit their candles. She’d scared the twins half to bits.

  “Not to worry, darlin’,” Gran said when DJ whispered her fears at dinner. “You will never be afraid of fire again. You’ve been healed, remember?”

  DJ looked at her hands. “The hard way, for sure.”

  “But healed nonetheless.”

  DJ remembered Gran’s words as she dipped her candle over Robert’s and the flame grew. How beautiful that small, flickering light that she held for Joe to light from. She looked from her candle to Joe and then to Robert. Both wore grins wide enough to catch the tears that glistened in their eyes. GJ hugged her from one side and Robert from the other. Gran reached around Joe and patted her knee.

  “You were right,” DJ stage-whispered while everyone sang “Silent Night.”

  “I know. Thank you, Jesus.”

  “Amen to that.” The two men spoke as one.

  Of all her presents, that one was the greatest.

  DJ and Amy spent three days of their vacation up at Brad and Jackie’s, playing with the yearlings. Stormy and DJ made friends again the first day, and Amy took lots of pictures of the little ham.

  “She sees that camera and puts on an attitude.” Amy shook her head. “She will love the show-ring.”

  “Her confirmation is near perfect, too. She’s one of the best fillies Matadorian has sired.” Brad rested his elbows on the top of a fence post. “Seems his colts do better than the fillies.”

  “Why is that?” DJ asked. The three of them were leaning on the white board fence watching the horse kids play. She turned to watch her father’s face.

  “Not sure, but she broke the male pattern. Even her color is different. But she has his fire all right.”

  During their stay, DJ worked up to riding Herndon without the lunge line. She hadn’t jumped yet, just worked him on the flat in the indoor arena. Somehow she felt safer in there, as if there might not be as much to distract him. Since he nickered whenever he saw her coming, DJ always kept horse cookies in her sweat shirt pouch. The day he helped himself, with a little help from her, Amy snorted.

  “I can’t believe it. Someone must have exchanged another horse for Herndon.”

  “Cross my heart, same horse.” Jackie made the motions.

  “Do … do you think he’s lost his edge? His style has always set him so apart in the ring.” DJ had been wondering but was hesitant to ask.

  “I don’t think so. He still loves an audience, and the two of you go marvelously together. Want me to set up a couple of low jumps to pop over?”

  DJ swallowed. “I … I guess.” Her butterflies whooped and hollered, as only internal butterflies can.

  But jumping Herndon was like jumping Megs, only far better. He took the jumps without even a snort, his ears flicking back and forth, listening for DJ’s commands. She kept her hands firm on the foam-covered reins, and while she drove him forward into her hand, he was featherlight, almost sensing the tenderness of DJ’s hands.

  “You know what?” Jackie stood at Herndon’s shoulder, looking up at DJ. “This may sound strange, but in a way, your hand injury is a good thing. The stronger your legs and the lighter your hands, the more Herndon responds for the good.”

  DJ made a face and flexed her right hand. “You think so?”

  “Nope, I don’t just think so. I know so.”

  “So when do you want Herndon back at Briones?” Brad asked on their way back to Pleasant Hill.

  “Next weekend?” DJ gulped when she said it. Now he would be all her responsibility again. Would she be able to handle it all?

  “Done. You want me to bring Stormy, too?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m teasing. But I do want you to train her if you can fit it in. You have a good sense of the best way to train different horses, and since she is yours, I thought you might want to do that.”

  “I never thought about that.”

  “We have plenty of time. She has a lot of growing to do, but when the time comes, we’ll talk again. I’ll pay for her board and all the vet bills and such.”

  “Th-thank you.”

  “You lucky dog,” Amy said when Brad drove away. “You have two horses.”

  “How will I ever do all that? Train me, train a new horse …” She glanced down at her hands. “Train my hands to hold a pencil again?”

  “You will. Have you tried drawing yet?”

  “Huh-uh.” DJ led the way up to her room, pausing in the doorway. “What if I can’t?” Her voice broke on the forbidden word. The fear had dug itself in deep.

  “You’ll never know until you try. I’m surprised you haven’t already.”

  “Now you sound like Gran.”

  “Good.”

  That night DJ locked the fear in a box and took out a pad of drawing paper and several pencils. But even the one wrapped in foam went every which way until she threw it across the room. The fear leaped from its box and threw her across her bed to drown in her tears.

  The Sunday after New Years, DJ and her mother were bathing Amanda, who took to the water like a baby dolphin. She smiled and cooed every time, waving her arms and kicking her legs as if she were ready to take off.

  “Here, you dry her. The towel is over there.” Lindy nodded toward the rod. When DJ held out her hands, buried in the towel, Lindy scooped up the dripping baby and deposited her in the pink towel. She tucked the ends around her baby daughter and kissed the cheek of her older one. “Isn’t she the most precious thing you ever saw?”

  “Yep, almost as good as Stormy.” DJ giggled her way back to the changing table in the baby’s room. Seeing the look on her mother’s face was always such fun.

  “I suppose you want powder, too?” DJ dried the tiny fingers and toes. Manda, as she’d quickly become, reached for DJ’s face and smiled, her blue eyes wide. “Don’t tell Mom, but you are even better than Stormy.”

  “I heard that.”

  DJ powdered the baby and reached for a disposable diaper. “Mom, I can’t do the diaper thing.” Pulling the tabs off the sticky paper was beyond her fingers’ ability yet.

  “Be right there.” Lindy finished the job and handed the baby back to DJ. “I’ll be done with the printer in a minute if you can take her that long.”

  “No prob.” DJ, baby in arms, followed her mother into the office, where Lindy was printing out copies of her manuscript for a couple of her friends to read and look for problems. When the last section finished printing, Lindy took the stack of papers and tapped the bottom edge on the desk to straighten them. She set them down with a sigh. “Wow, what a job.”

  “It reads good, though.”

  “Well.”

  DJ rolled her eyes. “Well, reads well.” She sat in the chair by the window and played with the baby’s fingers. Ask her now. No, wait. The voices were too much. “Mom, I’ve been thinking …”

  Lindy stopped moving things around on her desk. “And?”

  “And I was wondering if maybe you would homeschool me next semester?” There, it was out. She didn’t even dare look at her mother.

  Chapter • 16

  The first week of the new quarter DJ attended Acalanese High School only half days.

  “It feels strange,” she answered in response to her mother’s question the third afternoon. �
�And I’m beat, but I know it will get better.”

  “I’m sorry, DJ, about not feeling I can homeschool you. I’ve prayed and Robert’s prayed and Gran, too. We all feel this is the best.”

  “I know. Guess it was a long shot, but that way I thought I could do it all.”

  “Do what all?” Lindy swayed from side to side with Manda in her arms.

  “Oh, train and teach and school and the cards and—”

  “Well, as we agreed, teaching is out until you feel up to it again. We can cut more if need be. Are you still angry?”

  “Nope, not now. I know it’s for the best.” DJ munched on the baby carrots and other veggies Maria had set out, along with the chocolate chip cookies. It had taken her a few days to reach that point of acceptance, but it helped when Bridget totally agreed with her parents. The girls from her riding class groaned loud enough to scare the horses, but they were so glad to have her back in the barns that they switched to laughter pretty quickly.

  School really had gone better than DJ thought it would. Other kids treated her like a celebrity for a day or so, and no one stared at her hands or her short hair. Even that had grown enough so that DJ could get a new style at the salon. The only bad thing: She still couldn’t take art class. She’d had to take study hall instead. Art had been the highlight of her days before.

  Everything was before or after.

  “I gotta get changed and over to the barns, Mom. Joe asked if I would take care of Ranger, too.”

  “He went to San Francisco with Gran, then?”

  “Um.” DJ snagged another cookie and drained her milk. “Tell the boys to get General’s stall cleaned out, and I’ll try to be home before dark so they can ride.” She dropped a kiss on Manda’s cheek and another on the waving pink fist. “What a sweetie you are, Manda Banda.”

  “DJ, her name is Amanda Marie.” But the laughter in Lindy’s voice took away any reproof. “Remember that tomorrow you have an appointment with the therapist.”

  “I know.” DJ threw the words over her shoulder as she took the stairs three at a time. Halfway up she stopped and yelled back, “Some girl stopped me today to tell me what a cool haircut I had. Said she might do one like it.”

  “You might start a new fad.”

  “Me? Ha, what a joke.”

  Bridget had DJ back to riding two classes on the flat and one of low jumping every week.

  “Just until you get stronger, although Jackie kept Herndon in excellent condition. The jumping will come again. You must be patient.”

  DJ groaned inside but kept a smile on her face. “I know.” Even as she stood in Bridget’s office, she kept working her fingers, pushing them into her palm with the opposite hand. She seemed to have reached a plateau with no noticeable improvement in dexterity. The therapist said that was normal, but …

  January seemed to be a month of nothing going right. At least, that’s the way it seemed. Deluges of rain kept all the riders in the covered arena with no jumping. DJ pushed herself to gain more strength during her classes and when she rode on the off days.

  “You need to take it easier,” Bridget warned.

  “I will.” But the next day DJ could feel herself tighten her leg grip. Herndon swerved to the inside, and since she was tight and not sitting deep in the saddle, DJ found herself on the ground. “Oof.” She thought more words than that. Her hands stung, her rear stung, and she wanted to scream.

  “Put him away.”

  DJ closed her eyes. Why did Bridget have to catch her like this?

  “No riding tomorrow. I warned you.” While the voice was gentle, steel underscored it.

  Without answering, DJ put Herndon away. “Sorry, big horse. This wasn’t your fault.” It was my fault. And I should know better. She called herself several names on the way out to the truck.

  Bridget met her at the barn door. “You will not beat up on yourself, either, will you, ma petite?”

  “No.” But she had the grace to look caught. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know you are, but we will get through this, too. You have come a long way. Do not be in such a rush. That is when accidents happen.”

  “What was that about?” Joe asked when he climbed in the pickup.

  DJ told him what happened.

  “Did you hurt your hands?”

  DJ shrugged. “Not really. But my pride sure stings.”

  “The inside one or the one you sit on?”

  “GJ!” But she couldn’t help but laugh.

  A week later when they finally got to return to the outside ring, DJ dropped the reins just as she and Herndon approached a jump. He stopped and she didn’t.

  “I knew you’d do that one of these times,” she muttered as she led him back to the mounting block. No matter how well Herndon behaved now, she kept expecting him to act up like he used to. She tried flexing her hands, and the strength wasn’t there. Too tired. DJ gritted her teeth and mounted again.

  “Slow canter around the ring outside the jumps, then trot the cavalletti. Next week we will do a grid. You just have to be more patient with yourself.” Bridget gave her a shrugging smile.

  DJ spent the month of February working on a lot of flatwork; the grid, which was made up of seven even jumps with two paces between and was designed to rebuild confidence; strides and balance; and attempted drawings that made it no farther than the wastebasket. The rain continued.

  “I feel like someone sure is raining on my parade,” DJ told her grandmother one night on the phone.

  Gran chuckled. “Don’t we all. Here I’m trying to paint sunny meadows, and we keep getting black clouds.”

  “And don’t tell me this, too, shall pass.”

  “I won’t. You just said it.”

  “G-r-a-n.” But DJ couldn’t help but smile. She’d stepped right into that trap. “Got a verse for me?”

  “Ah, how about Noah on the ark, when it rained for forty days and nights?”

  “Thanks a big fat bunch.”

  “But the skies finally cleared and the dove brought back a green branch. Good night, darlin.’”

  The next afternoon a hand-painted card awaited DJ on the kitchen counter. Inside was an ark with a man in a long beard, reaching for the branch from a white dove. The sun shone and a rainbow arched over the ark. Inside it read Even Noah thought it might rain forever. But it didn’t. I love you. Gran.

  DJ handed it to her mother. “Cool, huh?”

  “She just whipped this up, right?” Lindy sighed. “Such talent between you and her. Sometimes I’m jealous. I think we should frame this.”

  DJ agreed. And tried to think of rainbows instead of the rain.

  “So how is your attitude?” Bridget asked as she opened the gate to let DJ out of the arena.

  Needs a bath. “I’m working on it.”

  “I think we will leave the grids next week and return to regular jumps.”

  DJ could feel her attitude shifting almost miraculously. Surely March would be better than the weeks before. “The grid helped, though, didn’t it?” She didn’t need Bridget to answer. She felt not only stronger, but more sure of Herndon and of herself.

  That night DJ tore down the stairs, holding out a drawing tablet. “Mom, look!”

  “What?! Oh my word, you scared me half to death.” She held her hand to her heart.

  “What is it, darlin’?”

  “Hey, Gran, I didn’t know you were here.” DJ crossed to the small glass table and antiqued iron chairs set up by the French doors so her mother could see the backyard in spite of the March rains. “This.” She moved the pot of ruby tulips out of the way and laid her drawing pad on the table between the two women.

  The half-grown horse was obviously Stormy. She seemed to be reaching so far for something that she was standing on her tiptoes but at the same time gave the impression she would flee at any moment.

  Gran picked it up and tilted it toward the light. “Wonderful. Such feeling and motion. When did you do this?”

  “I just finishe
d it. I’ve been working with the pencils for weeks, and the first ones were terrible. But I got what I wanted here. That’s the way she was when Amy and I were up there during Christmas break.” She didn’t tell them about the wastebaskets full of failures.

  Gran handed the drawing to Lindy and reached an arm around DJ’s waist. “Well, I do think you can get over worrying about your artwork. You didn’t lose your touch.”

  “Or else I found it again. I was worried there for a while.”

  “DJ, darlin’, I think you’ve found a lot more than your drawing touch.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, you’re more sensitive than ever, not only in your fingers but perhaps in your heart, mind, and soul. You think?”

  DJ shrugged. She hadn’t thought about that, but like Bridget, Gran was almost always right.

  “Oh, DJ, I can’t believe this.” Lindy shook her head slowly, smiling all the while. “I have a suggestion. How about we make prints of this, frame them, and give one to Dr. Niguri, one to Nurse Karen, and one to your therapist, Jody. They would really appreciate seeing the outcome of their handiwork.”

  “I was thinking of blowing it up for Robert and Brad for Father’s Day.” It felt funny saying Dad and Dad, so she’d used their names, but that felt funny, too.

  “How about for your grandfather, too? He’d love one.”

  “Maybe I ought to go into production. So do you think I’m ready to go back into art class when the new quarter begins in a couple of weeks?”

  “I think so. Simply amazing.”

  “Thank you, heavenly Father, for all your mercies on our dear girl.” Gran studied the drawing again.

  “Amen to that. I’ve been thanking Him. Of course, it is easier now that things are better, but I tried to in the bad times, too.”

  “I know you did. Let’s do these on real good paper. How about asking your grandfather if he would like to do the frames for the two big ones? He’d be so proud you asked.”

  “Good, then I’ll take his down to the frame shop.” DJ gave her mother and grandmother each a hug.