by Kate Lattey
I started to cry then, and Mum pulled the covers back and invited me to crawl into bed with her. Critter burrowed down between us happily as I curled up into a ball on my side, letting the tears run down my face. Mum stroked my hair and murmured something about Anders being fit and young and having a good chance of recovery, but I knew they were only words.
A question pushed its way through my tears and forced me to speak. “How did this even happen?”
“I’m not sure,” Mum replied. “All Christina knew was that their car went off the road and flipped, but not what caused it to leave the road in the first place. I expect we’ll find out more when we see AJ tomorrow.” Her hand rested on my forehead for a moment before sweeping my dark hair back out of my eyes. “Try and get some sleep, honey. We’ll go and see them first thing in the morning, I promise.”
I nodded, and she took her hand away and rolled over. Critter burrowed his way in against her back, and I lay there, staring into the moonlit room, waiting for sleep to come.
I must have slept eventually, but I didn’t exactly wake up feeling rested. Mum insisted that we get up and feed the ponies before she would call the Macleans to arrange a hospital visit, so I dragged myself into the shower then pulled on some clean clothes before heading out to help.
I found Mum in the feed room, reading the back of a tub of some kind of new supplement that she’d bought online. She was a sucker for supplements, always buying the next miracle potion that came out, regardless of whether we really needed it. If it came in a plastic container and said it was good for ponies, she would buy it and give it a go. I had long ago given up on trying to stop her, and any attempts to convince her that the supplements were all most likely cancelling each other out had fallen on deaf ears.
“What’s that?” I asked as she unscrewed the lid and scooped out a heaped spoonful.
“Joint supplement. I thought we’d give it to Molly since she’s not as young as she was. Derrick Andrews said they use it on their ponies and it’s done wonders for Buck.”
“Buck’s almost nineteen,” I reminded her. “Molly’s fifteen and fighting fit. Besides, I dare you to put anything in her feed that won’t stop her from eating it.” Molly had always been extremely fussy, and if her feed tasted even slightly foreign she’d turn her nose up at it.
“It’s supposed to be very palatable,” Mum argued, dumping the scoop into Molly’s bucket with a puff of white powder. “How did you get on yesterday? I meant to ask you last night, but…” Her voice trailed off before she rallied herself. “Your father said he was going to take you to look at some horses while you were away.” I could hear the excitement in her voice, and I tried to muster some enthusiasm.
“We went to Little River.” It still sounded weird just saying it, to even consider owning a horse from that farm. So immaculately bred, so incredibly talented. I thought of Tori, and hoped I could live up to her. “And yeah, we found a horse.”
Mum looked up, her eyes alight. “And?” she prompted.
“And…” I kept her in suspense for a moment, then grinned. “She’s being vetted this week.”
“Ah. Another mare,” Mum said, pretending to sigh but smiling despite herself.
I ignored her prejudice. She always made a big deal about how mares were much harder work than geldings, but personally I preferred them. There was something very special about working with a good mare. You had to get them on your side, had to convince them that it was worth their while to do what you were asking, but when they agreed, they would throw themselves into it wholeheartedly. You couldn’t ask a mare to do something stupid or foolhardy, not unless she was confident enough in herself and in you to take the risk. Geldings you could pretty much persuade to do anything, after a fashion, but mares had to understand why, not just what. They were so much more challenging, but so much more rewarding too.
“Yep. About sixteen hands, black, with lots of bling. Super talented. You’ll love her.”
“I’m sure I will,” Mum said with a smile. “Add salt to these buckets, would you?”
I grabbed the rock salt container off the shelf beside me. Himalayan rock salt, because anything else was supposedly inferior and Mum wouldn’t give our ponies anything she didn’t consider to be the best of the best. As she opened yet another jar of supplementary powder, I wondered what she’d find to give Tori. My new horse would probably end up with more powder than feed in her bucket on a daily basis.
“Well. It’s all very exciting,” Mum continued as I threw a fistful of pale pink salt into each bucket. “Never thought I’d see the day that your father would spend that kind of money on a horse. I suppose miracles really can happen after all.”
Her cheerful tone sounded a bit forced, and I bit my lip as I added salt to Squib’s feed. The subject of money was a touchy one, although Mum was oblivious to the fact that my father had told me the truth about the reason they’d split up. She’d always told me it was because he’d become tired of us and found another woman. I’d harboured that resentment against my father for years, feeling abandoned and unloved, until I’d confronted him about it and he’d replied that it had been nothing of the sort. He’d told me the truth – at least, his version of it. That he’d become fed up with Mum’s propensity for spending money as soon as he could earn it, flinging it all away on horses and ponies and not allowing anything for a rainy day, putting us constantly into debt until he was barely staying afloat, and then going behind his back when he’d told her that he was on the verge of bankruptcy and buying a horse truck. He’d stormed out in a fury and taken a job in Australia, leaving Mum with me, the house, the ponies and the truck – all of the things that, according to him, mattered to her more than he had. It was such a stark contrast to the answers she’d always given me, but it made sense, and somehow I knew that he was telling the truth, as little as I wanted to admit it.
I still hadn’t told Mum that I knew any of this. I wasn’t sure why. Sometimes it made me furious, and I just wanted to demand an explanation of why she would tell me that my father didn’t love me just to cover up her own mistakes. But I could never quite get the words to leave my mouth. She’d stuck around. She’d been at fault, sure, but she’d been there. She’d stuck around, she’d raised me, she’d bought me ponies and taken me to shows and looked after me when I got sick. I argued with her constantly, and took my frustrations out on her and got mad at her all the time, but she was my Mum. She’d been all I’d had for so long that I couldn’t bring myself to do anything that might upset the balance between us. Even when it turned out that she’d been lying to me for years.
Because Dad wasn’t exactly perfect either. He’d turned his back on us years ago and barely stayed in touch. He’d tried, he said, reckoned he’d done his best, but his lack of interest in ponies and my lack of interest in anything else had been a wedge between us. Even before he’d gone, I’d never been that close to him. He’d been working for most of my childhood, and while I now knew why he’d had to work so hard, it didn’t change the fact that he hadn’t been around. We weren’t close. I barely knew him. He said that wasn’t his fault, but it wasn’t mine either. I couldn’t make a relationship spring out of thin air just because he wanted us to have one.
Not to mention that he’d skipped out on years of child support, leaving me and Mum to struggle to make ends meet. I could imagine it now, in those early days after he left us – Mum calling him on the phone, telling him we were living hand-to-mouth, and that she could barely afford to feed me. I knew what he’d have told her if she had. Sell some of those ponies. Put food into Katy’s mouth before theirs. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. He might as well have suggested that Mum cut off one of her limbs. Of course, we did sell ponies – we bought and sold all the time – but those were the schoolers, the breakers, the problem ponies. Not the competition ponies, not my winning team. Not the show ponies, or the show jumpers. I needed them. Don’t go to as many shows. Don’t spend all your money on diesel and entry fees and expensiv
e tack. The words would’ve gone in one ear and out the other. Those costs were as non-negotiable as paying the phone bill or buying groceries. It was things like trendy school shoes and fashionable clothes and a bike with a chain that didn’t fall off every time I rode it that I had missed out on. But I hadn’t minded, because I’d had my ponies.
And Dad was spending money now. He was paying back the child support that he’d withheld for years, which he’d apparently done because he’d known it would all just be spent on the ponies, and he’d been determined not to fund my mother’s habit. He’d actually said that, as though she was a meth addict or something, instead of just a woman with an equine obsession. But my father had lately come to realise, after several attempts to convince me that going to University wouldn’t be an enormous waste of time and money (school was bad enough as it was, without signing up voluntarily for three more years, and paying through the nose for it), that the only thing I wanted to do with my life was ride horses. And so he’d capitulated at last. He’d bought Molly for me, after her owners had threatened to end our lease and sell her to someone else, and now he was going to buy Tori. Finally I had both of my parents supporting my career. I should have been ecstatic, but instead I was filled with a lingering sense of apprehension.
“I can’t wait to meet this new horse,” Mum said as she finally got done mixing the feeds. “It’s time you had some really decent horsepower.”
“Hey,” I argued reflexively. “What’re you saying about Molly and Lucas?”
“Nothing against them,” Mum assured me complacently. “They’re wonderful, but they’re not going to take you to the Olympics, now are they?”
“Ponies have been to the Olympics before,” I reminded her. “And Tori’s a nice horse, but I’ve still got a long way to go before I make the New Zealand team. Let’s not count our chickens before they’ve hatched.”
Mum chuckled as she straightened up and dumped a pile of feed buckets into my arms. “You can try, honey, but I know your father. Those chickens have been well and truly accounted for.”
* * *
We stopped on the way to the hospital to pick up flowers and chocolates, because Mum insisted that we couldn’t show up there empty-handed. I’d grabbed the latest issue of Show Circuit off the couch for her before leaving home, even though I hadn’t had time to read it properly myself, but Mum didn’t think that was enough of an offering. I’d only just managed to restrain her from buying a massive pile of heavily-scented flowers that would’ve probably knocked AJ unconscious, but I hadn’t been able to stop her from picking out a small, brightly-coloured bunch instead. She swore they would cheer AJ up, as though something as trite as flowers could make up for being smashed up in an accident that was going to end your show season when it was only halfway through, but there was no changing her mind. My mind flickered towards thoughts of Anders, then skittered away again in alarm. I couldn’t even begin to process that, and I forced myself to focus on the immediate problem in front of me, which was that I couldn’t for the life of me remember what kind of chocolate AJ liked.
“Just get milk,” Mum said, reaching forward and grabbing a block of it off the shelf.
“What if she likes dark chocolate? Isn’t that supposed to be better for you?” My own hand snaked out towards the blocks of bittersweet. “It has antioxidants in it or something.”
“Get that then.” Mum returned the milk chocolate and took a step back, but my reach faltered halfway.
“I can’t remember though. She might not like it. People either love or hate dark chocolate, and I don’t want to get her something she won’t like.”
“Well hurry up and make a decision,” Mum muttered irritably, as if she hadn’t lingered over the flowers for ten minutes already. “We’re going to be late if we don’t get a move on.”
My eyes scanned the shelves frantically, hoping something would leap out at me, waiting for AJ’s voice to come into my head and declare her undying love for hokey pokey, or caramel, or milk strawberry. But there was nothing, just an emptiness inside my mind as though AJ was already gone. She’s not. She’s fine, I reminded myself desperately. I needed to see her, and every second I spent standing here indecisively was time I could be spending with her. And yet I stood there, frozen in place, unable to make a simple decision. Everything in my head had gone fuzzy, like the static you hear when you’re flicking between radio stations. My eyes flicked across the golden wrappers. Rum & Raisin. Dark Cacao. Hazelnut. Peanut butter…
A memory broke through at last as I recalled the sensation of hard knuckles being rapped against the side of my head, and a deep, laughing voice. “Has your brain hamster fallen off its wheel again, Katy-did?”
A lump rose to my throat at the thought of Anders, leaning over the back of the couch and teasing me about something dumb that I’d said. He’d been eating toast with peanut butter, and the smell had made me queasy. I hated the stuff, but he didn’t, and I grabbed a block of chocolate off the shelf at last.
Mum was relieved that I had made a choice. “Good, let’s get moving.”
“Wait.” I didn’t move. “This is for Anders. I still need something for AJ.”
Mum hesitated. “Honey, I don’t know whether Anders is going to be…”
“He can save it for later then,” I said defiantly. Sensing that Mum was gathering herself up for a further opinion or reassuring comment, I picked up a block of milk caramel. “Everyone likes caramel, right? I’ll get her that.”
“Okay. Good.” Mum seemed relieved that she didn’t have to have whatever conversation she’d been bracing herself for, and we made our way quickly towards the checkout.
* * *
AJ was propped up against a couple of pillows, looking paler than I’d ever seen her before. But she was awake and alert, talking to her two sisters as they sat on hard plastic chairs beside her. A nurse tried to intercept us as we made our way towards her bed, but Mum detained her while I walked quickly to my friend’s side.
“Hey.”
AJ turned her head slowly in my direction. “Hey! What’re you doing here?”
“Duh.” I flourished the magazines and chocolate in her direction. “Coming to see you. I don’t hang out in places like this for fun, you know.”
A slight smile crossed her face. “I meant, you were on holiday with your Dad. Weren’t you?”
“I came home early,” I told AJ, setting the gifts down on the table beside her bed.
The latest Show Circuit issue was already there, untouched. Clearly someone else had had the same idea as I had about keeping AJ amused, although she didn’t look like she was going to be up for much reading any time soon. She had one arm in a sling, an angry red graze down her face, and several stitches in her chin. I wondered if they’d leave a scar, and how badly she’d mind if they did. An awkward silence hung between us as I shifted my feet, searching for something to say.
“I brought you chocolate.”
Astrid and Alexia were sitting on the other side of the bed, staring at me in silence, their eyes condemning my interruption of their family time. AJ came from a big family – she had two brothers, two sisters and two parents - and they were close, both figuratively and literally. Only last month, when her eldest brother Aidan had moved out to go off to University, had AJ finally been given a bedroom all to herself. For the first time in living memory, she’d told me proudly. A monumental occasion in the life and times of AJ Maclean. Well, here was another one. First car accident. First hospital stay. First near-death experience.
“Thanks.”
Alexia peered suspiciously across the bed at my gifts, then shook her long golden hair back over her shoulder. “She won’t eat that. AJ doesn’t like caramel.”
I frowned at her, then looked to my friend for confirmation. “I thought you did.”
AJ started to shrug, then winced painfully. “Not really. Too sweet for me.” I thought of the peanut butter block in Mum’s handbag and wondered whether I should give her that one in
stead, but AJ spoke again before I could suggest it. “How’s Squib?”
“Fine,” I assured her quickly, relieved to finally be on a topic I was comfortable with. “Fat and happy as usual. I gave him a feed this morning and he kicked the bucket over and scattered it everywhere, then got mad at the chickens when they tried to help him clean it up. You should’ve seen his face!”
AJ chuckled. “I wish I had! I can just imagine it though. He’s so cute.”
The smile faded from her face as she looked down at the hospital gown and the sling supporting her shoulder. I felt awful for her, but I couldn’t think of anything to say that would make it better. There were no words.
Mum finally joined us, having escaped from the ward nurse, and deposited the flowers on top of my offerings beside AJ’s bed.
“I thought these would cheer the place up,” she told my friend, and AJ sounded genuine in her gratitude.
“Thanks, they’re great! I love them.”
“How’re you feeling?” Mum asked, and my face flushed as I realised my blunder. That should’ve been the first thing I’d asked her, and I hadn’t. What was wrong with me?
“I’m doing okay,” AJ told Mum. “Sore, but-”
She was cut off as Alexia stood up, the metal legs of her chair scraping across the linoleum floor as she fixed her attention on something over my shoulder. “Can we go now?”
I turned to see AJ’s mother walking into the room, looking exhausted. She smiled weakly at Mum and they shared a brief hug, even though they barely knew each other really and had definitely never been on hugging terms before. I supposed that’s what having children in hospital did to you.