Never Let You Go (10 page)

Thomas led Rosie to a neighboring stall with fresh bedding and a full bucket of water. The foal followed, testing out his wobbly, knock-kneed legs.

“Let’s give Rosie some privacy.” Thomas ushered the group toward the door. “We’ll scrub the birthing stall in the morning.”

Outside, they paused near the barn doors. They weren’t high-fiving each other, but Megan felt like they should be. There was a general sense of “good work, team.”

“Get some sleep,” Thomas instructed. “Isaac and I will do the morning chores.” He patted Anna and Megan on the shoulders. “I’m glad you two could be there. I know how much you were looking forward to it.”

The guys went around to their bunkhouse, and Anna and Megan walked slowly back toward the farmhouse with Thomas. Now that the excitement was over, Megan’s feet were heavy. But the fatigue felt good. Thomas waved good night on the porch.

Megan and Anna trudged up the path to their cabin in silence for a while. “Are you thinking about the foal?” Megan asked.

Anna paused. “Of course,” she said, and linked her arm with Megan’s for the rest of the walk.

It was only later, when she was cocooned in the rough comfort of her bed, that Megan realized Anna had been lying.

CHAPTER 6

“Well, I thought it was icky.” Anna sat on her bed, her back against the wall. Funyun crumbs covered the black tank top she had slept in. She stuffed another handful into her mouth, then folded over the top of the bag and attempted to pitch it across the room to Megan, who lunged over the edge of her mattress to catch it. She missed, though, and Funyuns sprayed over the cabin floor.

“Damn it.” Megan climbed out of bed and started picking up the greasy onion rings.

It was eleven and they still hadn’t left the cabin. The day outside was gray and cloudy. There was no breeze. They probably would have emerged sooner if Anna hadn’t had a snack stash in her trunk. Still, Megan was starting to feel like she needed to brush her teeth. “How can you say it was icky? It was, like”—she searched for the proper words—“the miracle of life!”

Anna slurped from the can of warm Diet Coke beside her. “A
nasty miracle. All that blood and whatever else was coming out of her—I don’t even want to know.”

Megan located the last renegade Funyun under the bed and tossed it out the open door. She went over to her trunk and dug out some clean underwear and her second-to-last pair of jeans.

“Well, I thought it was amazing.” Megan almost choked up all over again, just thinking of Rosie nuzzling her new baby. “What was really incredible was how fast the baby got up. When you think about human babies and how helpless they are . . .” She threw her clothes on the bed and pulled off her pajama top.

Anna grinned. “Hey, how’d you like hanging out with Robert last night? He’s not too bad, right? I told you you’d like him.” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

Megan tried not to let her annoyance show on her face. “Hah-hah. He’s into
you
, for your information. He told me so last night.” She yanked her Cleveland Indians T-shirt over her head.

“I’ve already got my boy.” A secretive look crossed Anna’s face. She beckoned Megan closer, then stuck her hand under her pillow. She pulled out a square of gray cloth and dangled it before her.

“What’s that?” Megan took the cloth in her hand. It was a piece of jersey material, about the size of her palm. The edges were jagged and uneven.

“Promise not to tell?” Anna leaned over, even though they were alone. “It’s a piece of Jordan’s shirt.”

“
What?
What did you do?”

“Nothing.” Anna snatched the swatch and held it against her
chest. “I was just playing around. I snuck up behind him yesterday while he was trying to fix the hose and cut it off the bottom of his shirt.”

“You
cut
it off his shirt?” Megan stared at her. “Did he notice?”

Anna shook her head. “He had no idea. That razor is really sharp.”

“Jesus, Anna. I can’t believe you’re carrying that razor around with you.” Megan knew her voice was rising, but she couldn’t help it. “Are you crazy?”

Her friend’s brow darkened. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t understand. You’re always such a priss.” She paused. “Except that one time, of course.”

Megan swallowed as silence filled the cabin. She looked out onto the porch, where a squirrel was busy shucking a walnut on the steps, then back at her friend. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you crazy.”

“I just want to keep a piece of him near me,” Anna said. “That’s all.” She kissed the cloth and slid it inside her shirt. “I’m going to wear it here, always. Right next to my heart.” She pressed her hand over the place where the cloth was.

The air in the cabin suddenly felt unbearably close.

“Okay, yeah.” Megan stuffed her feet into her sneakers. “Hey, um, I’m going over to the barn. See how the foal’s doing . . .”

As her sneakers padded along the muddy path, Megan pictured Anna creeping up behind Jordan and silently, delicately, slicing a piece off of his shirt. Then she thought of Anna’s face in the cabin just before. Flushed. Intense. Mr. O’Gorman’s
handsome, swarthy face swam up in front of Megan’s eyes as if conjured there. It was four years ago now, but the memory gave her the same crawling feeling she’d had at the time.

Mr. O’Gorman was nice, and cute—the cutest teacher in the school, in fact. Lots of girls had had crushes on him. During American history, half the girls passed notes back and forth, talking about his shaggy hair, his green eyes, the way he’d sit on his desk when reading aloud to them. But Anna took it to a different level.

First, there had been the whole T-shirt thing. After all the fallout from that, Megan had been ready to back off from the Mr. O’Gorman Fan Club, but Anna wasn’t. She’d talked about him all the time. It had been hard to get her to focus on anything else. Anna had stolen her mom’s credit card and paid for some online site, just so she could get his unlisted phone number. After that, she’d called his house every night to hear his voice and hung up when he’d answered.

And she’d written him these long letters, which she’d kept in a special velvet bag she’d sewn. Anna had stolen his red coffee mug after class one afternoon when he was in the faculty lounge. Megan knew because Anna had shown it to her. She’d held it against her cheek and then stood on her tiptoes and pushed it onto a high shelf in her closet where her mother wouldn’t find it.

And Megan was the only one who knew that Anna had ridden her bike over to Mr. O’Gorman’s house every weekend after her mother had fallen asleep. She sat outside, watching his bedroom window.

She couldn’t see much, Anna had told Megan later, because he always had his shades down, but just watching his shadow walk back and forth was enough.

It had all blown up when Mr. O’Gorman had finally had the phone calls traced. Anna had to have a big meeting with her mother and Mr. O’Gorman and the principal and Ms. Seaver, the guidance counselor. The upshot of the whole thing was that Anna was transferred out of Mr. O’Gorman’s class and put on probation for the rest of the year.

Megan stopped abruptly in front of the barn. The memories were boiling up inside her, threatening to drown out any excitement at visiting the new foal. She shook her head, trying to clear her mind. This wasn’t middle school, she told herself. Jordan wasn’t Mr. O’Gorman. And it wasn’t any of her business what Anna did. She could take care of herself. She’d told Megan that plenty of times.

The barn doors were open, but no one was inside. The doors to the horse stalls stood ajar, and shavings and hay were strewn in front of Rosie’s stall. Megan went through to the open doors at the other end and found Thomas, Dave, and Isaac leaning on the fence, watching Rosie cropping grass in the pasture while the foal lay by her side. He wasn’t moving, and Megan’s heart skipped an instant before she realized he was just sleeping. Darryl and the donkey grazed nearby.

“Hi,” she said, coming up to stand beside Isaac. “How’s the baby doing?”

“Beautifully,” Thomas told her. He was wearing fresh overalls
and a blue denim shirt. “Rosie’s a natural mom.” He dug in his pocket and handed her a white envelope. “Here’s the photo from yesterday. There’s one in there for Anna too.”

“Hey, I hear you got to see the whole thing,” Isaac said, smiling his little sideways smile. “Congrats. Not sure I would’ve wanted to see it myself.”

“Actually, it was incredible,” Megan told him. “A little . . . messy, but incredible.”

Dave snorted and Megan blinked in surprise. She never thought she’d be the one to make Dave laugh.

“Megan, I have a job for you, if you’d like,” Thomas said. “You remember I had mentioned that I hoped you would each find a project to work on this summer, apart from the usual chores.”

Megan nodded.

“How would you like to start training the new foal?”

Megan tried not to shriek in excitement. “Seriously? Wow. That would be so, so amazing. I mean, I feel like I know him already.” She squeezed the top rail of the fence to keep from throwing her arms around Thomas.

“Isaac and I are going to go muck out the pigs,” Dave interrupted. Megan guessed he wasn’t too interested in her raptures over the foal. Isaac gave her a little wave, and the two strolled off. As Megan watched them go, her stomach suddenly sank.

“Um, Thomas?” she asked hesitantly. “I don’t really know anything about horse training.”

He didn’t look concerned. “That’s okay. This part, the early stage, is more about getting the foal used to people.” He put his
fingers in his mouth and whistled across the pasture, two sharp blasts. Rosie looked up from her grazing and trotted over, her tail held high. The foal climbed to his feet and ran beside her like a shadow. Darryl and the donkey followed behind.

When the mare and foal came up to the fence, Thomas rewarded her with a piece of carrot he had pulled out of his pocket. Darryl and Cisco tried to push in, but Rosie flattened her ears and warned them off.

“She’s feeling a little protective,” Thomas explained. He patted the foal firmly on his fuzzy head. “Basically, I want you to get the baby used to being handled. Every day, you’ll brush him, pick up each of his feet, get him used to wearing a halter. Once he’s comfortable with all of that, you’ll want to teach him how to walk on a lead rope. That’ll be about it until he’s a year old or so.”

“Okay,” Megan said slowly. The foal’s brown eyes were startlingly human. “That doesn’t sound too hard.” She reached out and patted the baby’s head too.

Thomas gave her an encouraging smile. “It’s not. It just takes patience and kindness. I see that in you, Megan. You’ve got a quiet way about you that the horses like.” He plucked a tiny red halter off the fence post beside him and handed it to her. “You might as well get started.”

Megan took the halter. The sun was peeking out from the clouds, and it shone bright on Thomas’s white hair. Several yards away, he stopped and turned around. “By the way,” he called, “think of a name, will you?”

A
name
! Megan turned back to the mare and foal, who were
both still standing expectantly at the fence, probably waiting for another carrot—or the mare was, at least.

The pasture felt empty without Thomas’s confident presence. Even the scrape of the gate latch seemed loud as Megan drew it back. It felt funny being in the pasture with the horses, instead of in the stall. Too open, somehow. She walked over to Rosie and patted her neck. The mare sniffed her hands, and finding no carrots, dropped her head to the grass.

Megan looked at the foal, who gazed back at her curiously. She cleared her throat.

“Hi,” she said. She reached out and touched the little horse’s mane, which stood straight up. The hair was soft, not coarse like Rosie’s. Megan half expected the foal to shy away from her, but instead, he reached out with his delicate upper lip and snuffled her shirt.

“Hey, now,” Megan gently pushed the little nose away. At least he wasn’t afraid.
Okay. Thomas said to get him used to being handled.
Megan fetched a currycomb and brush from the barn and returned to find the horses standing under the shade of a big tree in the corner of the pasture. She slipped under the fence and, talking softly to the foal, started rubbing him with the currycomb, taking off the last bits of muck from the birth. The little body felt unbelievably delicate in comparison with when she’d groomed Rosie. Instead, the foal seemed to be strung together entirely out of tendons, fur, and long bones.

The baby liked the brushing, Megan figured, since he was leaning on Megan’s hand, but he was curious about the black
rubber comb and kept reaching around and trying to bite it.

“No, no,” she told him quietly, and gently pushed the foal’s head so that he faced the front. Meanwhile, the foal kept stepping this way and that, as if he were ticklish. The squirming reminded Megan of trying to get her two-year-old cousin dressed when she babysat him.

The clouds overhead were breaking up in earnest now, scuttling away in big gray clumps. A haze hung over the grass, and the air was humid and mellow. The donkey was asleep standing up in a shady corner, but the horses switched their tails constantly and stamped their feet as they grazed.

Megan switched to the soft brush. The baby liked that even better than the currycomb. Megan managed to brush his whole body, even down his long, slender legs, talking to him the whole time. He seemed to like that—his ears flicked back and forth.

As she worked, Megan realized she hadn’t thought of Anna once since she stepped into the pasture. Her mind had been entirely occupied with the little horse, but in a calming way, like meditating. It was a relief—she didn’t realize how tense she’d been, watching Anna’s movements, analyzing her moods, trying to figure out the Jordan situation.

“There you go, sweetie,” Megan cooed. She tried to keep her voice low and steady. She set the brush down on the fence rail and ran her hands along the baby’s spine. “Does that feel nice, sweetie?”

The foal turned his head and looked right at Megan. He had beautiful long eyelashes. “Maybe that should be your name,” Megan told him. “Sweetie. Do you like that?”