Golden Filly Collection Two (22 page)

But once she began, the words seemed to flow out of a deep well of despair:

I feel like I’m being jerked around like a yo-yo. Yeah, and by a kid who doesn’t know how to use the thing. One minute I’m rolling high and feeling like maybe I’ll make it, and the next I’m bouncing on the floor and my string is all wrapped in knots around me.

Everyone keeps telling me things will be better in time, but how much time? I miss you, Dad, I can’t even begin to tell you how much. Why did you leave me? What kind of God takes a father from his kids? Why didn’t you quit smoking years ago when we first asked you to?

Trish gritted her teeth. She could feel the anger again, red hot and fiery, flaming in her stomach. The “whys” fueled it higher. She flung herself down on the blanket and clenched her arms around her middle. When she finally rolled over on her back, she winced in pain.

“Ahhh.” She sat up and tried to arch her back away from her clothes. She tore into her bag. No green bottle. It was up in the car in her track bag. The pain eased when she turned her back to the breeze, but now her hair blew in her eyes.

She picked up the pen again, but the urge to write had flown away like the gull who’d screamed for her orange. She snorted. Yeah, even the gulls yelled at her. She swiped at her eyes again. Whatever happened to that iron will she had?

She couldn’t lie on her back because it hurt. She couldn’t lie on her stomach because, when the sun did come out, the heat hurt her back. She rolled on her side and pillowed her head on her book bag. At least her chemistry book was good for something!

She lay in that no-man’s-land between waking and sleeping until the breeze blew more cold than cool. Struggling up the cliff helped wake her up, but when raindrops misted the windshield she put the top up.

The foggy mist hovered over the campus too when she arrived, so she pulled on her sweats and, because she was late, ended up in the back row. Keeping awake in class was hard in the best of times, and now certainly wasn’t one of those times. She left for home at the break.

“Your mom called,” Martha announced when Trish pushed open the door and stumbled in. “Said she’d gotten your message and was sorry the machine was off earlier. Was just a few minutes ago.” She glanced up at the clock. “You’re home early.”

“I just couldn’t stay awake. Tomorrow night I meet with my tutor. Maybe he can work a miracle.” Trish went to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of ice water. “Good night.”

Once in her own room, Trish dialed the phone and waited for an answer. At the same time, she kicked off her shoes and sweats. “Hi, Mom…” Trish got no further. At her mother’s “hi,” she lost it.

“Oh, Trish, I’m so glad you called.” Her mother’s words were separated by sniffs. When they’d both calmed down again, Trish could hear her mother’s gentle words. “You’re finally crying, Trish. Thank you, God, thank you.”

Trish blew her nose and wiped her eyes. “Mom, I want to come home.” She sniffled again and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling to control the tears. Sometimes the trick worked. She drew in a raggedy breath. “What’s happening up there? How’s Miss Tee?” The questions poured out.

Trish lay on the bed, feeling limp like the seaweed on the beach.

“David has some really great news,” her mother was saying. “Here, I’ll let him tell you.”

“Hi, baby sister. How ya doing?”

“Not so good.”

“I can tell.”

“Well, how’d you like to have red, swollen eyes all the time? And the puffier my eyes are, the easier it is to fall asleep. That’s the only thing I do well right now.”

“How’s the chemistry?”

“Don’t ask.” She grabbed another tissue and blew again. “So what’s your news?”

“I’ve been accepted at the University of Arizona, pre–veterinary medicine. I’ll be leaving the last week in August.”

“Oh, David, n-o-o!”

Chapter
03

C
ome on, Trish. I’m not going to the ends of the earth. This won’t be any different than when I went to Washington State.”

“Yes, it will. You’ll be farther away.” Trish scrubbed her fingers through her hair.

“Not really. Now it’ll be air time instead of drive time, so really I’ll be closer.”

Trish could tell her brother was forcing patience into his voice. Why couldn’t she be happy for him? He was finally getting to do what he wanted to after taking a year off college to help at home.

“Hey, look who’s been gone the last months.”

“I know, David.” Trish leaned against the pillows she’d stacked up behind her on the bed. “I guess…” She struggled to find the right words. “I guess I don’t want any more change. So much has happened that sometimes I’m afraid my whole world is going to explode and fly away in a million pieces—and that I’ll never be able to put it all back together again.”

“Things will never be the same again, Tee. You can’t expect that, and you’ve got to face it.”

“I know.”

A silence lengthened between them, but it was comforting, not awkward.

“So, how’s your chemistry coming?”

“I
said
don’t ask. Oh, David, how come I’m so stupid when it comes to chemistry? I study and think I have stuff memorized, and when I take the test my brain flies right out the window. The other day I nearly caused everyone to die of smoke inhalation.”

“What happened?”

“I was reading the instructions for the experiment to my partner, and I accidentally gave part of the next one. The two didn’t mix very well.”

David swallowed a chuckle. “You have to pay close attention in the lab.”

“Tell me about it. That’s the problem, my attention span. It goes to sleep on me every chance it gets.” She wiped her nose with a soggy tissue. “And takes my brain and body right along with it. I feel as if I could sleep for years.”

“Sounds like you’re depressed to me.”

“Thank you, Dr. Evanston.”

“No, I read some stuff on grieving that Mom gave me. It said depression happens a lot, and wanting to sleep all the time can be part of it.”

“Mmmm.” Trish pulled on her earlobe. When it hurt, she removed the gold post and laid it on the nightstand. “I gotta hit the books again, David.”

“Hey, if you don’t make it home before I leave, I’ll stop by there on my way. You can show me this beach you keep running away to.”

“Sure, sounds good. Good night, David. Say good night to Mom. And tell Rhonda and Brad I could use some mail. Or a phone call.” She hung up. She was glad she’d called but she didn’t feel as good as she’d expected. She picked up her book bag, and the chemistry book fell out on her chest. She felt like throwing it across the room, but managed to calmly open it to the assignment.

She fell asleep at some point and awoke with a terrible thirst. She stared groggily at the clock.
One-thirty.
She staggered to the bathroom, drank some water, and shed her clothes on the way back to her bed. When the alarm rang, Trish felt like pulling the covers over her head and pretending the world didn’t exist. Instead, she slammed her fist on the snooze button and drifted off again.

The crowd screamed as she and Spitfire surged across the finish line, winning by two lengths. They did it; they won! She could hear his breathing, whistling like a freight train, his heart pounding against his ribs. The crowd screamed again as they trotted back to the winner’s circle.

It wasn’t the crowd screaming. Trish reached over and turned off the alarm. She rolled onto her back and closed her eyes again. At least in her dreams she was still a winner. And winning felt so good.

She pushed herself to a sitting position. Maybe she was jinxed without Spitfire! She shook her head. That was crazy. It wasn’t as if the only time she won was when she was riding the big black colt, her best friend in all the world. But now Spitfire lived at BlueMist Farms in Kentucky and wasn’t even hers any longer. At least not all hers.

She tugged on her clothes and headed for the track. That was part of the problem, wasn’t it? She was so alone. Except for Mandy, the jockey she’d talked to maybe once, the only people she really talked to here were the Finleys and her tutor, Richard. And all he wanted to talk about was chemistry. Yuk!

You just have to make the effort.
She wished her nagger had stayed at home in bed, asleep for about an eternity or so.
Besides, who’d want to be your friend? You’re about as much fun as…as a chemistry quiz.
Trish slammed the door of her car and the one on her mind also. She did
not
need his advice right now, especially when all it did was make her feel worse. Even if he was right.

At least the horses were glad to see her. Even Gatesby seemed to want some extra loving. Trish scratched ears and cheeks down the line, inhaling the good, honest smell of horse. Even though she wasn’t winning, this part of her world seemed right. The horses didn’t care if she felt brain dead half the time. Firefly lipped a tendril of hair that framed Trish’s face, just like Spitfire used to do, and whuffled in her face.

Trish wrapped her arms around Gatesby’s neck and tried to picture Spitfire there instead. But he wouldn’t come in. Was she even losing his memory?

The fogless morning felt good for a change as she worked the string of horses. She would walk some, breeze Firefly, and slow-gallop others, all the time following the conditioning program Adam had designed for the horses in his care.

“How’d she do?” Adam asked of a new mare that he’d started training.

“Kinda sluggish. Not what you’d think after all the time she’s had off. I don’t think she feels tip-top.”

Adam nodded. “We’ll check her temp. No limping on that right front?”

Trish shook her head. “Gracias,” she said as Carlos gave her a leg up on Gatesby, her last mount for the morning. When the gelding didn’t act up, she looked at Carlos with a question. He shrugged and shook his head, keeping a wary eye on the horse just the same.

“Okay, what’s happening?” she asked after a rather dispirited trot around the oval track. She leaned forward and stroked the dark neck flecked with sweat. “You shouldn’t have worked up a sweat. It’s back to the barn with you, fella.”

“We better check temps all around,” Adam said to Carlos when Trish told him what she’d observed.

Trish held the horses’ heads while Carlos and Adam checked temperatures. They drew blood on the mare, ready to send it out for diagnosis, when they saw the mare was running a fever.

“What could it be?” Trish asked when the third animal in a row showed a rise in body heat. She walked beside Adam back to the office.

“Who knows?” Adam dropped into his swivel chair and picked up the phone. He pushed the speed dial for the vet. “I think we’ve got trouble,” he said after the greeting. “Anyone else running temps?” He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “Okay, see you in a couple of minutes.”

“What did he say? Anyone else got trouble?” Trish dropped down to the lid on a green tack box.

Adam shook his head. “Not that he knows of. Carlos, disinfect all the buckets.”

“Already doing that. No one was off their feed this morning. But now that mare has a runny nose.” Carlos removed his hat to scratch his head.

“Well, she was clean when she came in here.” Adam pulled out the record book. “Doc wouldn’t have let anything by, and his inspection was only two days ago. She came in at night, right?”

Trish listened to the discussion with one ear while her memory flipped back to the siege of infection they’d had at Runnin’ On Farm the fall before. The first time her father’d been in the hospital. She’d had some mighty sick horses. Her stomach turned queasy at the thought. Could
she
have brought back the virus from some other farm she rode for?

The pickup containing the portable veterinarian clinic pulled up at the barn, and the vet climbed out. “Well, let’s see what’s going on.” He raised the door on the rear of the canopy and removed a stainless steel bucket with equipment in it.

Trish watched from the doorway as he checked over the bay mare. She looked droopy all right, and had a runny nose.

“Looks like we better vaccinate the entire string. I’ll take that blood sample in, but I’m sure it’s going to show herpes virus 1. You know the game plan, and I know you’ve vaccinated your horses regularly. Where’d this one come from?”

As the discussion continued, Trish stroked the mare’s neck and rubbed her ears. “Poor old girl, sorry you caught this. But you keep the bug to yourself, you hear?”

“This should blow over in a week or so, but make sure she drinks plenty of water. If you hear any rales in her lungs or the coughing gets really bad, she could develop pneumonia. Keep me posted.”

Trish followed him to the truck. “Ah—can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, shoot away.” He slung the bucket back in the truck.

“Could I—ah—do you think I brought the virus back from another barn?”

“Naa, she was probably a latent carrier. Wouldn’t be surprised if she had it a long time ago and all the stress of shipping and a new environment brought it on. You know Adam is really careful about his horses, but not everyone is as cautious as he is.”

“Thanks.” Trish felt like someone had just lifted a load from her shoulders and her stomach settled back down.