Calico Horses and the Patchwork Trail (3 page)

That evening as they headed home after work Milla glanced at the clipboard. She knew all about the forms and how people from all over the country wanted to adopt the horses that were brought to the holding pens that her dad helped manage. She liked flipping through the pages to see where the applicants lived.

“Don’t mess with them, please. I have them all in order,” Devon said.

“Anyone from far away?”

“Oh, yes,” he smiled. “Got some from Australia in there.”

Just like him to treat her like a kid, she thought, as she read through the addresses. “Wow…Connecticut?”

“Yeah, how about that,” Devon replied. “They’re probably thinking they’re going to get this gorgeous gentle horse that will do whatever they ask,” he laughed.

“Don’t they know the horses are wild?”

“Yes, and no,” he said. “I think most have big hearts and they want to adopt them and give them good homes. They think it will be nice and rosy but when they try to bring the horses into their barns, well, that’s a whole different story.”

She thought back to the day she was helping a friend at a nearby ranch. Milla was leading a gentle horse named Snoopy and had accidently gotten too close to another horse. She had been kicked with such lightening speed that she never saw it coming. Ugh, remembered Milla. I don’t know what was worse—the pain of the injury or the pain of the teasing she had gotten in school. Two black eyes, which turned an ugly purple and yellow, are what she wore for several weeks. All the kids called her “raccoon face.” The doctor said she was very lucky since a kick to the head could have been much worse.

“Well, you just never know about these wild horses, Dad,” she said. “I bet if they could talk they would tell everyone off.”

“Yeah, kind of like you when I drag you away from a book and yell, ‘Lights out.’”

“Yeah, yeah, real funny,” she said. Actually it was pretty true. She frowned as she thought about the unfairness of it all. Adults made the rules for kids and the rules for the wild mustangs…and adults could be very bossy.

As they pulled into the driveway she thought about all of the horses that had been adopted. Did they ever become tame? Did they like their new homes? It must be hard getting ripped away from everything they ever knew without any say in the matter and finding themselves in a new home. Why hadn’t she ever thought about this before? Geez, those mustangs and me have a lot in common, she thought.

As the sun was setting she and her dad stood by the jeep watching the last hints of light flickering across the Calico Mountains. The heat of the day was melting away and the coolness of the evening began to creep in. “I always love this time the best,” Milla sighed.

“Well, you’re free from school for a while. You’ll have plenty of sunsets to enjoy now.”

“No matter how many times I stand here and watch I always get this warm feeling like Grandma is standing here beside me.”

“She loved this place,” Devon nodded, “and she loved those mountains. I remember how I would go looking for her and find her standing in silence, just breathing in their beauty. I’m glad you think of her when you look at them, Milla.”

“Well, when I was very little she told me that they were really made of fabric and that they liked to fool people into thinking they were just rocks.”

“And you believed that?”

“Yep,” she smiled. “I believed every word because it was our secret.”

“She made you keep it a secret because she didn’t want anyone to think you were nuts,” he laughed.

“Nope. Grandma told me they held a special gift but only for the people who especially loved to watch them at sunset.”

“Did you ever learn what the gift was?” he asked.

“Yep, I saw them become our patchwork mountains. That was the secret—they let me see their stitches.”

Chapter 5

Brenda Anderson grew up in a family where you didn’t speak of divorce. Every time she had tried to talk to her mother about it, her mother would just smile absently and ask Brenda about her job or if she had read any good books lately.

Brenda didn’t dare go to her father because he would lecture her about quitting or giving up. He would never let her forget how she quit the softball team when she was nine. Brenda never really liked team sports and so one day after she struck out at the plate she handed her bat to her coach, got on her bike, and rode home. Her dad had never forgotten this and often reminded her of how quitting the team caused the mighty Linwood Panthers to forfeit the game because there weren’t enough players. No, she could never speak to her father about divorce.

After Mark moved out, her parents pretended to act surprised but she knew they were simply raised in a generation where people didn’t talk about family problems. They were wonderful grandparents and they adored Carrie; her father would play silly games while her mother would pull her granddaughter into her lap as if she was still only a toddler. That was the hardest part of divorce and Brenda was very much aware of it as she and Mark tried their best to resolve their differences to avoid this painful outcome. When families break up it affects everyone. In time couples learn that what they think is a private affair that only concerns them has a rippling effect that touches everyone, including grandparents, relatives, neighbors, co-workers, friends, and even the family pet. Looking back, it had been so hard that night she had driven in the darkness rehearsing what she would say to her parents. There were a lot of tears shed that evening but in the end they understood this was her life and they respected her decision to try and work things out with her husband. And now here she was months later driving with Carrie to Nevada.

Brenda had never driven farther than Washington, D.C., and this was an entirely new experience for her. She had always been the one looking at the map, never the driver.

The gas gauge read a quarter of a tank and Brenda began to look for a place to fill up. Back home she always visited the same station a few blocks from her home. The mechanic was a good friend of the family but Brenda knew she would no longer have his trusty service once she settled in Nevada. She pulled into the next station and began studying the map while waiting for the attendant to come out and pump the gas. After a minute or two she was startled by a horn blasted from the car behind.

“What’s he beeping at us for, Mom?

“I’m not sure,” Brenda replied. She looked around to see what was keeping the worker. Then she saw others pulling up and getting out of their cars, pushing buttons on the gas pumps, and helping themselves. “Oh, no…I think I’m supposed to pump my own gas. Okay, okay, I’m going,” she said to the rearview mirror, waving to the impatient man in the red sports car behind her.

Carrie began to laugh, as she had never seen her mother pump gas before. “Oh, man,” she said, “I gotta get my camera!”

Brenda walked up to the menacing pump and began to read the instructions. I can do this, she thought…piece of cake. She swiped her credit card and waited. Tiny green blinking words flashed on the screen: “Enter your zip code.”

“Zip code…what zip code?” she asked the machine.

The driver of the red sports car backed up and moved away, shooting her a disgusted look. Brenda walked back to the car trying to figure out what to do. I can’t get gas on this new credit card without my zip code, but I don’t have any idea what that number is. Another car pulled in behind her. She quickly called Sam.

“Hello, this is Sam,” the voice said.

“Quick, what’s your zip code?” Brenda asked, watching the driver of the yellow minivan behind her as he stuck his head out of his window looking in her direction.

“What? Brenda, is that you?”

“Hurry, Sam. Yes, it’s me. I’m pumping my own gas for the first time and I don’t know my zip code.”

She quickly punched in the code that Sam gave her, thanked her friend, and flung her phone through the open window of the car. She continued following the directions as the blinking green words guided her through the process. She placed the nozzle into the tank and squeezed the handle. She felt the thrust of the fuel as it began to fill up the tank. Her heart was racing. She was scared it would overfill and shoot gasoline out everywhere.

How do people do this? she thought. After a few minutes the filling suddenly stopped and she replaced the nozzle. “Wow, that wasn’t too bad,” she said to herself, tucking the receipt into her pocket as she climbed behind the steering wheel.

“Oh, man, Mom, you looked like really scared,” said Carrie.

“Well, it was actually very frightening for me. They don’t know that we aren’t allowed to pump our own gas in New Jersey and that this was my very first time.”

“Do you think you’ll have to do that again?”

“Yes, but now that I’ve done it, it’s really not that hard,” Brenda said, grinning at her daughter.

This was just another one of those tasks that Mark used to do, she thought. I never had to worry about car repairs or lawn work or fixing things around the house. I don’t think I ever realized how much we did for each other until we separated. She thought back to the weekend that Mark had spent with Carrie and his attempts at cooking. She had teased him about the photos documenting the disastrous event—Mark looking lost as he tried to make what looked like spaghetti. Carrie didn’t mind as it had turned into an excuse for boardwalk pizza and a few arcade games of whack-a-mole.

Brenda let out a deep sigh and looked over at her daughter, who was now falling asleep. She covered Carrie with a sweater and lifted the camera from her daughter’s lap. Oh, geez, she thought, glancing at the camera with the photo of her looking horrified as she pumped gas. I really do look helpless. I bet she’ll send this straight to her dad. Yep, payback time.

Chapter 6

“This is the second time in a row that you have made a mistake and I am losing my patience,” Sam said into the phone. “No, I do not want you to put me on hold again. I want an answer as to why you’re overcharging me on your services.”

Max, who had been quietly cleaning himself, decided it was probably a good time to go hunt for mice. He was just leaving the room when Sam slammed down the phone.

“Disconnected!” she yelled at no one in particular. “How am I supposed to get any work done if all I do is sit on the phone waiting to speak to a human being? Please press 5, please press 3…I could press a million times and it wouldn’t make a difference…when I finally do get a human, the phone goes dead!”

Utterly frustrated, she reached for her coffee and leaned back in her chair. She knew from experience that beginning her day feeling sour would only grow worse if she let it. “Think happy thoughts,” she chuckled to herself. What am I, the good witch of the North? She closed her eyes and let her mind drift to thoughts of Brenda and Carrie already headed her way. She smiled at how tough Carrie acted the last time they spoke on the phone. She was as cold as ice to Sam, standing her ground and making it quite clear that this move was not to her liking. And then she said something really odd. She told Sam how she and her mom had agreed that it was okay to not like Nevada. She didn’t have to like it if she didn’t want to. Hmm, thought Sam, I don’t like the way the laundry service is messing up my accounts. So, what does all this agreeing to not like something really mean? You can agree to not like it and move on? Sounds pretty weird to me, she thought. But she knew somehow Brenda seemed much less stressed and uptight. Maybe something had changed between mother and daughter. Well, good, she thought. Maybe Carrie will come out west and learn to love the place. The phone rang and to Sam’s astonishment it was the laundry service calling back to apologize for their mistake.

It was a busy Tuesday at the Musical Mustangs Bed & Breakfast. Just as people were checking in, a false alarm brought fire trucks with sirens blaring right to her front door. Her cook had used too much oil that morning and the smoke billowing out the back door scared a customer into dialing 911. Sam apologized to the firemen, gave them some fresh pastries, and sent them on their way. Somebody ought to give me treats, she thought. I’m the one always putting out the fires. Just then Kelly, who was working the front desk, called over to her, “It’s your friend, Brenda, on the phone. I can hardly hear her. I think it’s a weak connection.”

Sam headed to her office and as she was about to pick up the extension a small swatch of fabric hanging off the side of the receiver caught her eye. What, another one? she thought. Is Max bringing these in?

“Hi, Brenda. Did you pump your gas okay? Where are you, anyway? She laughed as she opened the drawer to tuck the swatch in among the others.

“We just passed the sign welcoming us to Ohio,” said Brenda.

“Sweet, so how’s the trip so far? You sounded like you were really freaking.”

“I didn’t know that I would have to pump my own gas, Sam. But I managed and so far it’s been all right. We hit a thunderstorm last night and had to stop earlier than I’d planned. We’re both really tired and I decided to just enjoy this time with Carrie. It’s not a race.”

“That’s true. Take your time and see the country.”

“Yep, that’s just what I told my daughter. We’re exploring this together. You know, I’ve never driven this far from Jersey, so we’re learning about these new places at the very same time…me at thirty-six and Carrie at ten.”

“Wow, I never thought of it that way…. Hey, Brenda, you’re fading out. Should I call back?”