She edged a little closer.
“Because he was the first pony I ever rode.”
Emily looked up at her dad and made her mouth into a tiny O.
“Where is Rusty?” she asked.
“Come on, I’ll introduce you, and if you feel like it, you can give him the peppermint.”
Rusty lived in Tucker’s old stall now. I didn’t want to know who was in Fire’s, but my feet turned that way on their own. Fresh shavings bedded the ground, hay filled the rack, and a new purple bucket hung from the wall. Other than that, it was empty. Purple was Kennedy’s favorite color. If her horse was moving into Fire’s stall, it would be okay.
“Can I give him a candy?” Emily asked.
I took her hand and unfolded her fingers. “You have to hold your thumb in, like this,” I said, showing her how to keep it flush against her hand. “That way he won’t think it’s a carrot. Then, we put the peppermint flat on your palm, and hold it up underneath his mouth, like this.”
She tried to shrink back, but as I knew he would, Rusty gently lifted the peppermint with his lips and Emily giggled.
“It tickles!” she said, wiping her hand on her jacket.
“Thank you,” Daniel said. “She needed someone like you today. I don’t know the front end from the back end of a horse, so I was useless.”
“Not useless,” I said. “You’re here.”
Joe got back a few minutes later. He pulled the trailer slowly down the driveway until the ramp was lined up with the barn door.
“Thanks for coming,” he said when he saw me. “I ended up getting two extra!”
“There’re four in there?”
“Yup. Wait, you’ll see.”
Amelia and Erika came out of the barn with lead ropes. “Can we help?”
“Sure,” Joe said. “I’ll give you the first two. They go up to the isolation barn. Any two stalls are fine.”
First one out was a cute bay pony with a white blaze running down his face and wide black hooves.
“Little gelding to replace Bluebell,” Joe said. “Hopefully he’ll be more polite.”
The next one was an old gray with knobby knees and a swayback but kind eyes and blue spots on the pink skin around his mouth. Erika took him, and she and Amelia walked side by side up the driveway toward the four-stall annex barn.
“Wait till you see this,” Joe said.
He hooked open the inside metal doors that separated the front of the trailer from the back. Hooves pounded against the rubber mats.
“Easy, pretty lady,” Joe said, his voice familiar, gentle, experienced. “Let’s walk out front first. There ya go, good girl.”
A tall, bright bay mare with long legs and a beautifully arched neck came down the ramp, prancing like she expected a crowd to clap for her. Her legs looked like they’d been dipped in white paint halfway to her knees. A white blaze started under her black forelock and traveled down to a point at the end of her chiseled nose. Large dark eyes darted every which way. Her nostrils flared, then she thrust her head into a small patch of grass.
“She’s exactly what Kennedy has always talked about. She’s beautiful!” I said.
“One hundred percent Thoroughbred, but you can clearly see the Arabian horse influence from her ancestry in her face and neck,” Joe said.
“What’s her name?”
“Registered name is Eclipse, but Kennedy can call her whatever she wants.”
I patted the mare’s sleek neck. “Eclipse. It fits. How old is she?”
“Only four. Never raced. Clean bill of health and a big project for Kennedy, but she’s up to it. Think she’ll approve?”
“Um, yeah, pretty much.”
The last horse still in the trailer screamed and kicked the walls, shaking the whole thing from side to side. Bam! Bam!
“Who is that?”
Joe rolled his eyes and handed Eclipse’s lead rope to Luis with instructions to put her in Fire’s old stall. The horse in the trailer screamed again, sending shivers throughout my whole body.
“I think this last one has to go back,” Joe said. “The seller must have given her a sedative to keep her calm while I tried her out, but it wore off about halfway home. I had to stop twice to get her lead rope retied in there. She’s a beauty but way too wild for a school horse. I’ll get her.”
He disappeared into the back of the trailer.
“Easy, girl, easy now,” he said. “Everything’s going to be okay, easy.”
BAM! A hoof hit the metal side of the trailer.
“Whoa. Easy, little lady, easy,” Joe said. “That’s a good girl, that’s a good girl. You’re home for now: nice oats, nice hay, you’re okay—”
Hooves struck again, followed by a loud thud and a grunt coming from Joe. The trailer rocked, and a black mare bolted down the ramp. Her lead rope hung loose around her legs as she skidded to a halt on the asphalt. Her black eyes locked with mine, then she snorted and was off, galloping down the lane toward the woods, her silky mane and tail streaming out behind her. With every stride, she flung her head left to right and screamed like a wild stallion.
About halfway down, she hurtled through a gate into a field and raced from one end to the other, mud flying. She was magnificent, and she was terrified. I sprinted down the hill just as the mare charged out, turning toward the woods, her tail flipped up like a flag. Before she reached the end of the lane, she swerved right into Fire’s paddock and slammed to a halt.
“Lizzie! Stop!”
Joe was yelling at me from the top of the hill, but I couldn’t stop. No way. I’d seen the look in the mare’s eyes. She was every bit as afraid as Fire had been when he first came. Every bit as frightened as I was the day Mom and I arrived at Good Hope. By the time I got to the paddock and shut the gate, she was standing in the corner, her side pressed against the fence, her body heaving. Red veins pulsed inside wide nostrils, and a long black forelock fell over the pencil-thin blaze of white on her face. She blew a loud snort, put her nose to the ground, and trotted with long graceful strides to the other side, then stopped, raised her head, and watched me.
Mud coated her legs up to her knees. Flecks of brown were splattered all through her tail. I put my hand out, palm up, offering her a peppermint. It was all I had. She examined me warily, then tightened her muscles and bolted past, kicking a back hoof so close that the air brushed against my cheek.
“Lizzie, get out of there!”
Joe limped down the lane, holding his leg where she had kicked him. Robert and Luis were right behind him. The mare stopped again, sweat shining on her onyx coat. She watched me from the corner, flicking her ears back and front, back and front. I waited, just like I’d waited for Fire. Finally, her shoulders relaxed and she lowered her head.
“Everything is okay, pretty girl,” I said quietly. I took one cautious step toward her. “You’re home now. You’re safe.”
The lead rope dangled from her halter.
“I know just how you feel.”
I took another baby step.
One more and I stopped, giving her a chance to get used to my being so close.
“You’re okay, pretty girl. Everything is okay,” I cooed.
“Lizzie!”
The mare startled, flung her head, and tossed her forelock aside. A thin line of blood trickled down her face.
One more step. “I can get that cleaned up for you.”
She eyed the peppermint in my hand. I forced myself to breathe slower, easier, even though my heart was pounding. Finally, she got the scent of the mint and reached her head toward me, sniffed, then lifted the candy with her lips and crunched.
The entire world stopped moving in that moment. My hand moved slowly, so slowly, under her chin, until I wrapped my fingers around the lead rope. Before she could pull away, I scratched her cheek, then behind her ears and in that place under her forelock where a pocket of hair was soft and curly.
“Easy, sweet girl. You were just afraid. Nothing wrong except you need a
friend. I’m right here, right in front of you. I am your friend.”
She lowered her head and wiggled her lips the same way Fire used to.
“I understand. This is your new home. You’re safe here, sweet girl. I promise.”
Summer
Thirty-Three
Air-conditioning!”
I spread my arms wide and fell backward onto my bed in our new apartment, giggling out loud. Jamie walked by in the hallway carrying a giant box toward Mom’s room.
“If I’d known you didn’t have air-conditioning over there, I would have bought you a little window unit.”
“Oh, no.” I sat up and wagged my finger. “Miss May doesn’t allow window units except in the common room. It jacks up the electric bill too much.”
“Ah. Of course. You like your room?”
I looked around at the stark white walls, the plain beige carpet, and the single window looking out to a courtyard of flower beds. “Best room ever.”
After everything from storage was carried in from the moving truck, Kennedy brought us dinner from the pub. Joe came with a plant for Mom. Linda was working, but she had sent over toilet paper and chocolates. We all sat on our old kitchen chairs, using unopened boxes as tables.
“Mmmm, chicken tenders and honey mustard,” I said.
Kennedy laughed. “You’re going to turn into a chicken tender one of these days. It’s all you eat.”
“Not true,” I said. “I only eat them from the pub. Nothing else compares.”
“So,” Kennedy said coyly, “guess what Ellie did to me today.”
“Hmmm?”
She stood up and pulled her riding breeches down on one side, exposing the top of her hip. “She bucked me off, little brat!”
A large area had already turned purple and black. Mom’s hand flew to her mouth. Joe rolled his eyes. Jamie glanced at Kennedy and kept eating.
“Doesn’t that worry you?” Mom asked him.
Jamie shrugged. “She’s been through worse; she’ll survive.”
Kennedy nudged me. “Can you feel the love?”
“Well,” Jamie said, “if you’re going to ride young horses that behave like rodeo broncs, maybe you should get one of those protective vests that three-day eventers wear.”
“Not a chance,” Kennedy said. “Besides, a vest only protects your ribs and back, not your hips.”
Mom cut a dainty bite of chicken parmesan. “Speaking of rodeo broncs,” she said.
Jamie cut a bite of his steak and dipped it into A.1. sauce. He was addicted to A.1. Kennedy claimed he even put it on his scrambled eggs.
“Um, hello?” Mom prodded. “Rodeo broncs?”
“Oh, yes, I nearly forgot.” Jamie wiped his mouth with the corner of a napkin and laid his fork and knife neatly on his plate.
“Forgot what?”
“Wait for it,” Kennedy said, grinning. “Wait for it. Tell her, Dad.”
“Well. Did you like my new SUV?”
Kennedy rolled her eyes.
“Your SUV?” I asked. “Yeah, I guess. I mean sure, it’s nice.”
“The reason I bought it— I mean, there were a lot of reasons. One, so Kennedy could have my old car. I didn’t like her driving around in that tiny death trap—”
“Dad!” Kennedy said sharply. “Stop with the death trap and get to it, would you?”
“Well, I got this specific SUV because I wanted something roomy enough for long trips. You know: leg room, luggage, all of that.”
“Okay,” I said.
“So you and your mother will be comfortable on our trip.”
“Trip?”
“Dad! Spit it out so we can call Bryce, would you?”
“Bryce?”
Kennedy threw her arms up. “Yes! We’re going to see Bryce!”
I jumped up and looked at Mom, then at Jamie, over to Joe, then at Mom again. All of them were smiling and nodding, and Mom had tears in her eyes.
“Wait, how did this happen? Kennedy, we’re going to see Bryce!” I spun around and reached out to hug her.
“Careful,” she said. “You’re going to tip over the fancy furniture.”
“Does he already know?”
“Of course he knows,” Mom said.
“We all knew,” Joe said, smiling.
“When are we going?”
“Next month,” Mom said. “Last week of July, during the big rodeo.”
“We leave the twentieth, drive three days, spend a week, then come back,” Jamie said.
“Are you kidding me?”
“Not kidding,” Kennedy said.
“I can’t believe it! Are you coming with us?”
“Not on the driving part, thank the good lord,” Kennedy said. “But I’m flying out for a few days while you guys are there. You and Bryce aren’t going to ride in those mountains without me, you know, not a chance.”
“Let’s FaceTime him right now, can we?” I flung around to Mom and bumped the box I was using as a table. French fries scattered all over the floor. “Do we have internet here?”
“Do you really think I would move us out of Good Hope and not have the internet already set up for you?”
I touched my face and pinched my cheek.
“Internet, air-conditioning, my own room, and going to see Bryce, all in one day. It’s more than I can take.”
“The trip is a gift from Jamie,” Mom said. “He wanted to do it for you.”
“Thank you, Jamie, thank you so much. This feels like a dream.”
“You’ve both survived a tough year, Lizzie. You’ve earned it,” he said.
I touched my cheek again and looked around the room, at the boxes and bins and the giant mess from the move, and french fries scattered on beige carpet, and at the four most important people in my life: Mom, Kennedy, Jamie, and Joe. My eyes stopped when I got to Jamie, the thin, quiet man who had seen a tiny girl named Kennedy in the hospital after a fire and made her his own, and whose gentle way made Mom happy again. And Kennedy, who was trying to get Bryce on FaceTime for me, and had become the closest thing I’d ever had to a sister. And Joe, who had seen me longing to belong and made it happen. I thought of the troubled, winding path that had brought us here, to this new home, and friends, and a totally different life from what Mom or I ever could have imagined, and nothing in the world that had happened over the past year and a half mattered as much as all those things did. Nothing.
“Thank you,” I said quietly to no one in particular. “For everything.”
“Mom?”
Even with fresh white paint everywhere, my new bedroom was dark. Mom’s room was right across from mine, but she couldn’t hear me. I switched on the lamp, threw my covers back, and tiptoed across the hall. Her old bed was so big, it left only a narrow path between the sides and walls of the bedroom. Mom looked shrunken under the covers.
“Mom?”
“Hmmmm?”
“I’m not used to sleeping alone anymore.”
“Mmmmm,” she mumbled.
Then silence.
“I’m not scared. I’m just not used to it.”
Silence.
Very gently, I laid the corner of the comforter back and slipped into the bed, then pulled the covers up to my chin.
“Mom?”
Silence.
“I just wanted to say thanks for being so strong. And I love you.”
A week later I knocked on the front door at Good Hope, not sure if I was allowed to just walk in like before. Miss May peered out, then flung the door wide.
“Come in, come in,” she said brusquely.
“Thank you.” I wiped my paddock boots on the mat and stepped into the front hall. “My mom said you called and we have some mail?”
“Yes, come with me,” she said. “You need to tell your mother she should have had it forwarded already.”
I followed her along the hall to the kitchen. “Yes, she knows and says she is sorry for any inconvenience.”
Mom hadn’t really said that. I
made it up. But it was easier that way.
“Are Angela’s girls here?”
“No.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Wait here,” she said. “I’ll go get it from my office.”
Miss May left the back way. A tiny girl with curly light-brown hair peered around the corner from the hall, clutching a plastic horse to her chest.
“Hi,” I said.
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t answer. I squatted to eye level and smiled.
“I like your horse. I had some like that, too.”
She clutched it tighter, like she was afraid I might take it from her.
“I used to live here,” I said.
She blinked.
“My name is Lizzie. What’s yours?”
She pointed to my boots. “Horse,” she said, barely above a whisper.
“Your name is Horse?”
She shook her head. “You have a horse.”
“Oh, I see. I work at a stable and I ride, but I don’t have my own horse. Not yet.”
She thrust her index finger into her chest and said, “Ride.”
“You want to ride a horse?”
The little girl barely tilted her chin, but it was enough for me to understand exactly what she meant.
Miss May startled both of us when she came back. The little girl took off down the hall.
“Here you go,” she said, handing over a bundle of mail. “And I found this left behind. It was under the mattress of your bunk.”
The horse book. The one from Dad that the thrift store couldn’t sell. I held it in my hand for a second, feeling the weight of it and all that had come after, but then I handed it back to Miss May.
“I’d like to donate it,” I said. “To that little girl who was just here, the one holding the plastic horse.”
“Grace,” Miss May said. Her eyes flickered with something soft. One side of her mouth twitched, and she looked wistful. “She’s so tiny. It’s always the little ones I worry about the most.”
We stood like we had so many times before, in another awkward silence with me looking out the window at the cedar tree, trying to understand how I’d never noticed that Miss May worried about us. A finch darted in behind the tree, then flew away. Maybe the birds kept coming back, hoping I’d return to feed them.
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