North Oak 3- Morning Glory Page 13

  “Help us heal. Amen.”

  Normally Hillary’s mashed potatoes and meatloaf was Alex’s favorite meal in the world, but tonight it tasted different. Something in the air put it off. But she made an effort to polish her plate, and offer Hillary a grateful smile despite the pain between them. She waited for Laura to finish, and hoped she’d do so quickly, so she could help her up to her room.

  Cade was about to grab their plates when Alex took them to the sink instead, trying to sound cheerful. “I got it.”

  She washed them clean and set them in the drying rack. There was a look of pride on Cade’s face, and he nodded his head toward the stairs. Alex hurried to Laura’s side and went up to her room with her.

  When she eased her to her bed and sat beside her, Laura wrapped her arms around Alex and hugged her guts out. “Thank you for what you did today.”

  Alex wiggled and shoved her arms away. “Ugh, touchy feely, you weirdo.”

  Laura giggled, and Alex couldn’t fight an infectious smile she got from her. “Seriously though, Al. Thank you.”

  Alex picked at her nails, pretending she didn’t know what Laura was talking about. Secretly, though, kind of liked feeling like she’d done something right. Liked the feeling of gratitude for standing up for the family.

  Laura rested against her pillows. “You said exactly what Dad and I have been feeling for years. I don’t think either of us ever had the nerve. We just wanted to see Mom happy.”

  “I shouldn’t have taken the bow.”

  “No, but now Mom knows she has to deal with it. She knows we all feel that way. I think…” Laura’s gaze wandered.

  “What?” Alex asked.

  Laura looked at her. “I think she knows she needs to honor both of her babies.”

  Alex wrinkled her nose. “I’m not a baby.”

  Laura slipped her arm around her shoulders, and squeezed. “You’re our baby.”

  This time, Alex didn’t squirm. She let Laura hold her there; this crazy girl who was her sister. After a contented moment, Laura spoke. “Brooke said she noticed Venus Galaxies bagging up.”

  “What, is she going grocery shopping?”

  Laura laughed. “That means her milk’s coming in. When that happens, it means they’re super close to foaling. I think you should hang out with mom tonight. She might need an extra pair of hands.”

  “You know what I think?” Alex said. “I think you’re what holds this family together.”

  Laura smiled. “I’m not so sure about that.”

  CLEARBROOK

  “Well, Egg,” Dejado said as they rumbled into Clearbrook Farms in his pick up truck. “This is it.”

  Brooke listened to the engine idle, and her fussy filly kicking the trailer, as she took in the new digs. Clearbrook was a stark contrast to North Oak, with white board fences and orange and blue flowers everywhere. It almost seemed more opulent.

  She got out of the truck and headed toward the office, taking a deep breath of crisp air. Be cool, she told herself. A young woman sat at the desk inside, filing paperwork. She reminded Brooke of Laura, with her manicured nails, pencil skirt, and pretty blouse.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I made a call about an opening in your boarding barn. Brooke Merrsal.”

  The young woman smiled at Brooke. “Ah, Miss Merrsal. We’ve been expecting you.” She picked up the phone on the desk and pressed a button. “Frank, our new boarder is here.”

  She replaced the receiver and nodded to Brooke. “He’ll be right around to take you over.” She motioned to a few chairs against the wall. “Have a seat.”

  Brooke shoved her hands into her back pockets and looked out the window, too nervous to sit. With Clearbrook so far from North Oak, she’d have to work Morning Glory in the afternoons and evenings, once school was done for the day. She hoped this was the right choice for them.

  A pot-bellied man in khakis, and a blue shirt with the farm’s crest on the pen pocket, opened the door. “You Merrsal?”

  She offered her hand to him, and he took it firmly.

  “Frank,” he said, wiggling the dark brushy mustache beneath his nose.

  “Nice to meet you,” Brooke said.

  He jerked his head outside. “This way.”

  He hopped into a golf cart-looking vehicle and started it up. Brooke waved to Dejado, and his own engine rumbled to life. She sat beside Frank and hung on as he took off down a bright lane, hugged by trees with tiny pink buds on their naked branches. The cart went faster than it looked like it should go, and Brooke found herself tucking back hairs escaping her ponytail.

  Clearbrook was beautiful, bright, and clean, even very modern looking. North Oak had that old school charm, where you pictured a fading breed of men smoking cigars on their rocking chairs in wrap-around porches drinking gin. A certain legacy feel with the likes of Sam Riddle and Eddie Arcaro ghosting around. A heavier, darker ambience.

  “Nice place, ain’t it,” Frank said. “We have solar power shingles and panels on every building. We grow our own oats and hay to cut down feed costs. And we keep everything in the family. Our herds are smaller, but our overhead is bigger. We even have a pool to work the horses in.”

  Brooke tried to convince herself that all tech here didn’t make Clearbrook better than home. Though she couldn’t help thinking North Oak could certainly use some improvements, after seeing all this.

  “Can I…” Brooke asked hesitantly, “use any of it?”

  Frank laughed. “For a price. We do have bills to pay, y’know. Whaddya need?”

  That pool sure sounded nice. She’d read about building up muscle tone in horses with water’s low impact. She bet they even had one of those fancy panel walkers, where a horse was allowed to move freely in a circular shoot, rather than kept on a short line by a groom.

  “Just your training track,” she said. She’d save up for the cooler amenities somehow.

  They pulled to a stop in front of a long white barn with dark windows; also solar power collectors, Frank noted. Brooke shook her head, awed that the whole farm powered itself. How was she going to afford boarding here again?

  Frank got out and pushed open the barn doors, then came to help Brooke and Dejado with Morning Glory. “Let’s see her then.”

  Dejado opened the trailer and Brooke backed the filly out. Morning Glory looked around at her new surroundings, sniffing the air and flicking her ears.

  Frank stood back with folded arms and a big smile on his face. “Well isn’t she a looker!”

  Brooke smiled up at Mags, rubbing her neck, reminded that yes, this was her horse, and she was proud of her regardless of her record. She’d find a way to pay for boarding somehow. Whatever it took to get the filly into a racing mindset, Brooke would do it.

  Frank walked backwards a few steps before turning and leading them into the barn. The aisle was a pale, nearly white cobblestone, offset every twenty-five yards or so with a circle of stone forming a river pattern. Brooke wondered how they kept it all so clean.

  He showed them to a stall at the far end with a nice view of the training track. He pulled a hankerchief from his back pocket and blew his nose into it. “I, uh, heard about your filly’s little problem.”

  Brooke led her into the stall, unclipping the lead shank from her halter. “She doesn’t have a problem.”

  Frank leaned against the stall. “Morning Glory is a morning glory. Ironic, right?” He chuckled.

  Brooke’s brow furrowed. She’d heard the term before, but it never crossed her mind to associate it with her filly.

  Frank went on, “I thought maybe if she could see what her job is, she might turn around for ya. So I put ya by the track.”

  Brooke stared out at the impeccably groomed track, racking her brain over the term morning glory. A horse that ran brilliantly in the morning, but washed out by race time. She glanced at Mags who nickered to her softly.

  Maybe this was the best thing for her. Maybe switching her workouts to the afternoons, when
she normally tanked, would be the first step in the right direction.

  ***

  Alex was stoked when Brooke asked her to come to Clearbrook with her to work on Mags. She’d been practicing balancing on Speedy as often as she could, and to finally get a chance to try on a real horse had Alex chuffed.

  She thumped her foot impatiently on the floor of the ugly Cadillac Brooke drove, wondering if this drive could possibly take any longer.

  Brooke didn’t say much outside of assuring they were almost there. She even remained pretty quite when they did get there, tacking Mags up in silence.

  She gave Alex a boost into the saddle, and Alex grinned to finally be on a real racehorse. She gathered the reins and secured her helmet. “Anything I should know?”

  Brooke rubbed the filly’s face. “Nah. She’s a sweetheart. I just want to see how she’s moving today. You won’t go faster than a canter at best.”

  She led Alex and Mags down to the track where another horse and rider waited. Alex recognized him from the barn at North Oak when Brooke had acted all goofy.

  Brooke passed them off to him. “Just take her round the outside rail at a jog.”

  He nodded, and pulled Mags down the track. She yawned like this was the most boring thing ever. Alex rose in the stirrups, balancing carefully against the filly’s neck.

  “Hi,” the young man said. “I’m Dejado.”

  Alex kept her eyes focused intently on the track ahead. “Hi. You’re wrecking my concentration.”

  From the corner of her eye, she saw him grin sheepishly. “What’s to concentrate on?”

  “Apparently not all of us are riding gods. Some of us have to work at it.”

  “You think I’m a god?”

  Alex was glad Morning Glory snorted before she did so herself. “I think you’re a dork.”

  “Oh.”

  “Can we go a little faster?”

  Dejado clucked to his mount and moved into a jog. Alex bounced in the stirrups, tangling her fingers with Mags’s mane to keep herself steady. She braced her heels against the filly’s sides, finding her rhythm, conscious of the steady breaths they were taking together.

  If she weren’t so focused on staying aboard, Alex might have done some sort of crazy dance right there. A little air in her face, cold and biting, made her forget her troubles back at North Oak, made her feel free again. For the two whole minutes it took to get around the track, her heart was healed.

  And whenever Dejado opened his mouth, Alex would simply ask him to please stop talking. She wanted to enjoy this. Every hoofprint she and Mags left on the track was like leaving the past behind her. Even the bow in her pocket couldn’t match the weird mix of feelings this opportunity gave her, of peace and joy and exhilaration all at once.

  “At least tell me your name,” he said over the breeze.

  Alex grinned, snarkily answering with the first thing that came to mind. “Call me Ishmael.” She and Carol had been studying Moby Dick for English. “You know what Ishmael is inside-out? Lame-ish.”

  “You’re funny.”

  Alex wrinkled her nose that he was still trying to make conversation with her. “You should see me in a good mood.”

  Not that she wasn’t, just not as good as she had been when he had been silent. “Can we go back to not talking?”

  “Oh, right. So you can concentrate, and I can be a god.”

  “Dork.”

  As they approached where Brooke stood near the rail, Dejado called to her, “You want me to take her around again?”

  Alex chewed her lip, not sure if she wanted to yell ‘please say yes’, or ‘please say no.’ She wanted to have a chance to canter on Morning Glory, but she didn’t want this Dejado guy constantly taking her out of the moment.

  They paused by Brooke. “She looked good out there.”

  Dejado smiled at Alex. “Yeah, she did.”

  Alex narrowed her eyes at him, and noticed Brooke giving him a funny look too. Alex felt a little weirded out, like a third wheel or something.

  Brooke’s tone was one Alex hadn’t heard before. A darker one, almost a little possessive or angry or something. “I think we’re done.”

  Alex didn’t know whether to be disappointed that she didn’t get to go around again, or relieved to get out of this crazy mess developing. “I’ll cool her out,” she said, swinging from the saddle, and running her stirrups up.

  She glanced over her shoulder as she led Mags away. Dejado was looking at her funny, and she could hear him ask Brooke, “Who is she?”

  The seething glare Brooke locked on to her with said it all: “Trouble.”

  HER BABY

  Alex spent the next few nights on foal duty, wondering how Hillary was feeling inside. If she was still upset, she didn’t show it. She simply made her rounds, helping mares birth their babies, and jotting down the notes and information necessary for the farm.

  The suspense of waiting for Venus Galaxies to pop, or for Hillary to finally confront her past, was almost more than Alex could stand. She leaned her head on her hand and yawned, staring at Venus Galaxies’s tv monitor from the room where several other tv’s tuned into the mares ready to go.

  The space heater in the corner made the room so warm, it was putting Alex to sleep. But just as her eyelids began to droop, she noticed Venus Galaxies lift her tail, and something white slip out.

  “Holy crap!” Alex got up so fast, her chair tipped over, and she went face first to the floor. She scrambled to her feet, bumping into the door frame, and racing toward Venus Galaxies’s stall.

  “Hills!” Alex called.

  Hillary was there in a flash. “She’s early.”

  “Is that okay?”

  Hillary opened the stall door and went to the mare. “We need to wrap her tail. Get me the blue vet wrap in my bag.”

  Alex scanned the aisle of the foaling barn, and caught sight of the dark bag several stalls down. She ran toward it, skidding beside it, and brought it back. She rifled through the stuff inside and pulled out a roll of blue, sticky gauze-y stuff.

  Hillary pulled out the tip and started wrapping Venus Galaxies’s tail up. The mare craned her head around, looking like she was wondering what was going on. Alex’s fingers itched watching her work, hoping she’d ask her to do something else for her. But once the mare’s tail was all bandaged, Hillary stepped out of the stall and shut the door most of the way, keeping it open just a crack.

  She folded her arms over her chest, hawk-eyed on North’s prize mare. Alex glanced at her, then back to Venus Galaxies. “Shouldn’t we call North?”

  Hillary nodded. “Few more minutes. I know he’ll want to be here for this.”

  Alex gripped the bars of the stall and pressed her face against them. Watching Venus Galaxies bite at her belly, and strain against contractions was agonizing. “Can’t we do anything for her?”

  She glanced at Hillary. Was that a smile playing at the corner of her mouth?

  “She’s got this,” Hillary assured.

  Venus Galaxies paced the stall, shoving her nose into her feed bucket like she was hungry, then turning away like she wasn’t. Her own restlessness brushed off on Alex, who sort of started pacing along with her.

  The mare paused and arced her neck, belly tightening. Two legs slipped from beneath her tail. Hillary pulled out her cell phone and started dialing. By the time she was off the phone with North, Venus Galaxies had lowered to her knees and rolled on to her side.

  Her breathing was steady, except when she grunted with effort while pushing. She lifted her head and bit at her side occasionally. She thrashed when she pushed.

  Alex could barely stand it and hurried in, kneeling by the mare. She gently moved her head into her lap, cradling it and caressing it. Something of her own instinct settling in. “Easy, lil sis, you got this.”

  Venus gazed up at her with darkest eyes, blinking beneath long silky lashes. Her breathing eased for a moment as Alex stroked her cheek. Alex stared into the ocean in those eyes, f
eeling like their souls could touch. She was barely aware North had showed up.

  “Did I miss anything? Is she—”

  “Shh,” Hillary hissed.

  Alex let part of herself be open to Venus Galaxies, zoning in on her. “Whoa babe. Easy.”

  Venus Galaxies took another deep breath, finding her own place of focus and calmness. She bore down, freeing the foal’s head. Alex continued stroking the mare’s cheek and face until she was ready for the next push. Her own stomach tightened with Venus Galaxies’s as the mare produced the foal’s shoulders.

  “That’s it, girl. Almost done.”

  Hillary moved in to start pulling the birthing sac away from the foal, and helping Venus Galaxies out. She tugged on the foal’s long, spindly legs when the mare pushed again.

  “One more time,” Hillary said. She grabbed Alex’s hand unexpectedly and placed it on the mare’s side. “Baby’s coming out a bit cockeyed. On the next contraction, I want you to push your hands towards me.”

  Alex remembered the first time she held Hillary’s hand, feeling rescued from the storm of her life. She smiled without looking at her. “Can we sing Kumbaya?”

  “Oh my land, Alex,” Hillary laughed. She squeezed Alex’s hand, pressing against Venus Galaxies’s side. “Feel that? Here comes. On three.” She let go, grasping the foal’s forelegs again. “One…”

  Venus Galaxies started to groan, and Alex could feel the mare’s belly tightened around what seemed like hips and a horse’s hind end.

  “Two…”

  Alex braced against the bulge, getting ready to help Venus Galaxies push.

  “Three,” Hillary said.

  Alex shoved and jiggled the foal’s stuck butt toward Hillary. Venus Galaxies seemed to understand they were helping, and worked extra hard.

  “C’mon, baby. C’mon,” Hillary urged.

  Alex echoed her without thinking, urging the baby out. “C’mon!”

  Alex slipped against Venus Galaxies’s back as the little butt rotated inside her. The mare sighed and lifted her head, whickering eagerly.

  A tiny foal lay in the bedding, shivering awake.