“See you tomorrow.” She waved to Adam as she left the area.
“You okay?” he called.
Trish nodded and waved again. He couldn’t see her tight jaw or burning eyes. She was not okay. Instead of going home, she took the road to Half Moon Bay.
Firefly was too good a horse to be messed up by an incompetent rider, Trish told herself. She kept up the internal harangue while swinging through the turns of Highway 92 to the ocean.
Arriving at Redondo Beach, Trish opened her trunk for her blanket and the journals. The box with the eagle inside had tipped over and the eagle was only partially wrapped. She pulled it out, securing it by the base. With one finger she followed the arch of the spread wing. She’d been so happy at the time to find the perfect gift for her father. Now he was gone—and his daughter couldn’t even race anymore. Why?…Why?
Trish carelessly rewrapped the eagle and stuffed it into the box again, shoving the offending reminder as far back in the trunk as possible. She grabbed her books and blanket and a small cooler with drinks and an apple, and slipped and slid her way to the sand.
The sun played hide-and-seek between the high clouds as Trish hiked south from the trail. She threw her things on the sand, pulled off her shoes, and jogged to the water. The jog made her shoulder muscles scream with pain. The race and the fact that she hadn’t been wearing a sling hadn’t aided its healing. Trish kicked at the foam frosting left on the beach by the outgoing tide. She wished she could run forever, leaving the hurt and pain behind her, but she tired quickly and trudged back to the blanket.
All of a sudden her anger flared against her father. Before he could break his smoking habit, he had developed lung cancer. What kind of father would smoke, when he knew it could make him sick? She opened her father’s journal again, and the first words she saw were from the Bible. She slammed it shut.
I’m no good. I can’t ride, let alone win, and I can’t even get a decent grade on a stupid chemistry quiz. She lay back on the blanket, exhausted, wishing the sky would come crashing down on top of her.
After a while, she sat up again and stared out over the surf. Way out there her problems would be over.…Trish rose to her feet and plodded to the edge of the water. A wave rolled in and rippled around her toes. She waded out to her knees.
I could just start swimming—straight out. Once through the surf, it would be so easy. She waded farther, oblivious to the depth. Waves broke and surged around her hips and waist. Just keep on walking. Then start swimming. No more problems.
Trish had no idea how long she stood watching the horizon, transfixed. When a gull shrieked overhead, she realized her feet were so cold she couldn’t move them.
She watched the gull. To have wings like that…to soar and ride on the wind. To look down from that height. Maybe then I’d see all that was happening—and understand.
“God, if you care at all, help me,” she spoke aloud. “I can’t stand this anymore.”
Her feet ached, but she turned and forced one foot ahead of the other until she reached the shore and her things.
She crumpled to the blanket and wrapped it around her feet, rubbing them briskly.
When she picked up her journal, it fell open near the back. The pages were filled with handwriting. What’s this? I only wrote that junk to God in the front of the book.
Trish looked again. It was her father’s handwriting!
Dear Trish,
It was almost as if she could hear his voice.
If you are reading this, I’m either in the hospital near the end, or I’m with my heavenly Father.
No! her mind screamed. I want you here with me—I need you! Tears squeezed out from under her clenched eyelids. Then the dam burst. Great racking sobs shook her body. She hadn’t cried like this since her father’s death.
I love you, Tee, with all my heart. I’m begging your forgiveness for my selfish habit that caused this whole thing. Knowing I must leave you and David and your mother breaks my heart. It’s more than I can bear alone. I wanted to see you grow up; see what a wonderful young woman you would become. I wanted to be therefor you when you needed me.
Oh, Dad…God, please… She couldn’t see for the tears. She couldn’t breathe for the sobs. She cried for all the times she hadn’t…couldn’t…wouldn’t.
I know that you are a fine and gifted jockey, Tee. Don’t let anyone convince you differently. Don’t let the hard times get you down. There will be some, you know. Believe in yourself as I believe in you. And when you’re hurting, call on your heavenly Father. He hears you, and He’s there for you, no matter what happens. He is the only one who can get you through the troubles of life. He’s gotten me through, even though I’ve failed Him so many times.
I know you will be angry. I know I was. But don’t become bitter, Trish. Tell God just how you feel. Let it all out. You can’t shock Him. He understands you and knows you.
Always remember that I love you. I know where I’m going…to the mansion He has prepared for me. Someday, I’ll meet you there, Trish. Don’t ever give up.
Your dad
Trish lay back on the blanket, relief washing over her like a wave. High above, a gull floated on the rising thermals. Then a song, almost audible, drifted on the wind and echoed through the sandstone cliffs above her. “And He will raise you up on eagle’s wings.…Bear you on the breath of God…” The gull, dark against the sun, dipped and soared. “And hold you in the palm of His hand.”
Trish hummed the familiar melody, allowing the words to work their healing. The tears flowed again, unchecked, and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
My thanks to Candy in the public relations department at Bay Meadows track in San Mateo, California, for the track tour and her wealth of information.
To my dad,
Laurel,
who gave me my first horse,
a stubborn Shetland pony named Polly,
and who set me back on when I fell off.
Thanks for loving me,
even through those in-spite-of years.
Chapter
01
What do you do when you’re only sixteen and your father has died? You’ve reached the pinnacle of success, winning the Triple Crown, about the highest honor in Thoroughbred horse racing. Where do you go but down?
Tricia Evanston tried to stop the questions from racing through her mind, but she didn’t seem to have control over much of anything anymore. What did it all mean? Would she feel like the bottom of a manure pit for the rest of her life?
She rubbed the sand off her feet and drew them up to rest on the red plaid blanket she’d spread on the beach. After clamping her arms around her bent legs, she leaned her chin on her knees and stared out at the horizon. Only here at the beach did she seem to find any peace, any trace of the song.
Trish shifted her gaze to the seagulls wheeling and dipping on the air currents above her. They looked so free. Held up by the air. Do seagulls cry? she wondered. She hadn’t cried since the day her father died a month ago—until yesterday—and now she couldn’t seem to quit.
“Well, do you cry?” she shouted at one bird hovering so close she could see the black ring around his yellow beak. He shrieked back at her and let the wind carry him away. “You just wanted something to eat, you didn’t want to talk. I don’t want to talk either. Talking hurts. Crying hurts. Everything hurts.”
She reached in her cooler for something to feed him but all she found was an orange. That was one good thing about living in California—the fresh oranges. She dug into the stem end with her thumbnail and pulled back the peel.
The gull returned, tracking her movements with a beady eye. When she tossed up a peeling, he snatched it up but dropped it immediately.
“You’re smarter than I thought. I don’t eat the peelings either.” Trish chewed each juicy section, wiping her chin with the back of a tanned hand. She flipped a section up toward the gull. He dropped that too. “Don’t like oranges,
period, huh?” When she finished, she glared at her chemistry book and flopped back on the blanket.
Her outstretched hand grazed the journal her father had kept in the months before he died. When she turned her head, the carved wooden eagle she’d given him for their last Christmas together lay right in her line of vision.
Eagle’s wings. The song from Isaiah 40 had been her theme song. Only yesterday had she finally heard it again, deep within the hidden places of her mind and heart. She listened intently. Against the thunder of the surf and shriek of the gulls, was it still there? Trickling through and dancing on the sunbeams?
She closed her eyes. Please, let me hear it again, her soul pleaded. I need the song. “Raise you up on eagle’s wings…” It was so faint maybe she only imagined the words. “Bear you on the breath of God…” It flowed from within her now, growing stronger, like a stream rushing downhill. “And hold you in the palm of His hand.”
Trish wrapped her hands around her shoulders. If she reached out with only a fingertip she would surely touch the hand, it felt so real. She waited, hoping for more of the song, but as it faded away, the peace remained.
When a cloud darkened the sun that slid on its downward trail, she took a deep breath, shivering slightly in the breeze. Could she hold on to this feeling on the way back to San Mateo and through the days ahead? Or was it only here at the beach it came to her?
Carefully, so as not to disturb her fragile feelings, Trish picked up her own just-begun journal along with her father’s, wrapped them in a towel along with the eagle, and slipped them into her pack. Then folding the blanket and picking up the Swingline cooler, she slogged her way through the soft sand to the base of the eroded sandstone cliff.
The trail staggered its way up through the rocks, now hiding, then pitching vertically. It took sure feet and a gymnastic balance to make it to the parking lot with full hands. Trish stopped at the rim to catch her breath.
She listened. Yes, it was still there. Stowing her gear in the trunk, Trish dusted off her feet and slipped on her sandals. She glanced in the side mirror and despaired of ever getting a brush through her thick, wavy, midnight hair. That’s what someone had called it once, the color of midnight. She liked the sound of that. Wearing her hair in a braid down her back was the only way to control it. Trish fluffed her bangs and covered her green eyes with dark glasses. Her nose looked about ready to peel—again. Would she ever learn to use sunscreen?
Trish unlocked the door of her red Chrysler convertible—the car presented her when her colt Spitfire won the Kentucky Derby—and slid behind the wheel. She listened intently. The song—yes, she could hear it.
She drove slowly out the bumpy road, past the towering eucalyptus trees, and turned left onto Highway 1. With each sweeping curve up the hill, leaving the town of Half Moon Bay behind, the song grew fainter. By the time she reached the College of San Mateo campus, located high on the hill overlooking San Francisco Bay, her song, like the beach, was only a memory.
Trish had come from her home in Vancouver, Washington, to stay with friends of the family, the Finleys, in hopes that the busyness at the track and a makeup chemistry course at the College of San Mateo would help get her mind off her father’s death.
Welcome back to the real world—and a D in chemistry. Tonight was a lab, and that was always more interesting than the lecture—or the quizzes. As she and her partner, Kevin, lit up the Bunsen burner, Trish studied the experiment instructions.
While he added the first two elements, her mind flipped back to the beach. “And then what?” Kevin’s sharp voice brought her back.
“Then heat until the color changes to…”
The compound fuzzed, smoked, and smelled atrocious.
“What are you trying to do—kill us both?” Kevin dropped the test tube in a deep sink, where it shattered.
“Clear the room, everyone,” the teacher’s assistant ordered, turning the fans on high.
When Trish finally quit coughing, along with everyone else, lab time was over and she was still further behind. An F sure wouldn’t help her grade any.
It was a miracle she was able to reach the condominium with her eyes streaming like they were. She dragged herself up the stairs and, after closing her bedroom door, threw herself across the bed. She buried her face in a pillow to muffle the heart-wrenching sobs. Trying to pray only made her cry harder.
“Trish,” Martha Finley, wife of breeder/trainer Adam Finley, and Trish’s “other mother,” poked her head in the doorway after knocking several times. Without another word, she crossed the room and, sitting down on the bed, gathered the sobbing girl into her arms. She murmured soothing sounds and stroked Trish’s hair, allowing her to cry.
“I—I’m so tired—of cry—ing.”
“I know. But tears are necessary when you’ve been wounded like you have. Only by crying and talking through your grief and confused feelings will you ever begin to heal.”
“I want my d-a-d.”
“I know you do, honey. I know.”
When the sobs finally lessened, Martha handed Trish a tissue.
“everything is such a mess. I can’t think straight. I can’t concentrate on anything. It’s like I live in a big black fog.” Trish reached for another tissue and Martha handed her the box.
“I just want to run away—and keep on running.”
“But you’ll take yourself with you,” Martha answered wisely.
“That’s the pits.”
“Ummm.”
Silence but for a hiccup and sniffs.
“Martha, I want my dad back.” The tears flowed again. “I need my father.”
Martha held Trish close, rocking back and forth and crooning the songs that mothers have used through the ages to comfort their children.
When Trish finally crawled between the covers, she felt like a wrung-out stable rag. Swollen-shut eyes, raw, burning nose, and a heart that weighed two tons didn’t make her feel any better. While she feared another night of tossing and turning, sleep crept in before she could turn over even once.
The song—that was it. Trish opened her eyes to check the clock. Had the song come before she slept or just now as she awoke? It didn’t matter. It had come—and not only at the beach.
She threw the covers back and leaped from the bed. This was sure to be a better day. The song had come. She flew into the bathroom and turned on the shower. As she stepped under the pelting water, she was humming.
Fog swirling about the streetlights and blanketing the ground made driving to the track an exercise in concentration. Trish squinted through the windshield, driving slow enough that she could stop before hitting anything—or anyone. Morning sounds at the track seemed muffled by the gray miasma.
She left her car in the parking lot and trotted through the gate, lifting a hand in greeting to the guard. She dodged to the side as a bug boy, the fringe of his leather chaps dangling in the breeze, sped past on his bicycle. A pony rider on a bay quarterhorse plodded past on his way to escort another high-strung Thoroughbred out to the track. Trish knew that watching her feet instead of the traffic around her could cause an injury, so she kept her head upright. This morning that wasn’t difficult.
Gatesby tossed his head and whinnied a greeting as soon as she turned the corner into the Finley stalls. Firefly, in the stall next to him, added her welcome. Trish kept a careful eye on the gelding; she didn’t feel like getting nipped today—or any day for that matter. Gatesby harbored the genes of a natural rowdy, not malicious, but a bite in fun hurt just as much as one in anger.
Trish scratched behind his ears, always keeping one hand on his halter. “You old goof-off. Been buggin’ anyone yet today?”
“Sí, elestúpido caballo me mordió,” Juan, one of the grooms, told her. He pointed to a spot on his arm, shaking his head.
Firefly nickered again.
“Your turn, I know.” Trish left the gelding and ducked her shoulder under the filly’s chin. Standing like this, his head draped over Tri
sh’s shoulder, was Spitfire’s favorite position. Trish swallowed a lump at the thought of her big black colt, now a stud at BlueMist Farms in Kentucky. Oh, how she missed him! But when a colt has won the Triple Crown, he goes into syndication and retires to stud. The money from that transaction would keep her family comfortable for years to come.
But that knowledge didn’t make things easier for Trish. She gritted her teeth and, giving the filly one last scratch, moved on to the next stall.
Adam Finley and Carlos Montanya, the head groom, stood inside discussing the problems the colt was having as they wrapped his legs for the morning work.
“Who’m I doing first?” Trish asked after waiting for a pause in the conversation.
Adam turned, a smile creasing his apple cheeks. “Morning, Trish. Think we’ll go with Diego’s. Juan is saddling him now.” Finley unhooked the canvas gate across the stall door and stepped outside. “How you doin’ this morning?” He peered into her face and nodded. “Better, I can tell.”
“Martha blabbed.”
He nodded again. “Yes, and we’re grateful.”
“For what?”
“You.” He reached inside the tack room and brought out her whip. “Be careful out there this morning. Everyone’s kinda antsy.”
How could such a simple comment, that the Finleys were grateful for her, make Trish want to bawl, she wondered. She raised her knee for the mount.
Two horses later, Adam’s advice paid off. A horse galloping beside her spooked at something and leaped sideways, crashing into her mount’s shoulder. Her horse stumbled badly and within a few paces pulled up limping. Trish dismounted and led him back to the barn.
“If I’d just paid closer attention,” she grumbled to Adam when she reached the row of stalls.
“Lass, for crying out loud, you can’t foresee everything. You kept him from a bad fall. Coulda done a lot more damage, and hurt yourself on top of it.” He stripped the saddle off so the stable hands could wash the animal down and pack the injured leg in ice.
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