Chapter 15 Slammed Doors
Slammed Doors
The late morning sky was a flat, dull gray. Even so, Bitsy felt her spirits lift as she got out of her car and walked to the
stables, dressed in a pair of light tan, well-worn riding breeches, a black turtleneck, and a khaki-colored barn coat.
It was the same every day. No matter how gloomy the weather or her mood, the second she got out of the car and breathed in
the scent of hay, manure, wet grass, and worn leather that was the perfume of barns everywhere, she felt happier, calmer,
and more confident.
Bitsy liked the house King had bought for her. And since getting to know Margaret, Viv, and Charlotte, she was starting to
like Concordia too. But it still didn’t feel like home. The only place that felt like home to Bitsy, that had ever felt like
home, was a barn. The house was where she lived; the barn was where she belonged, the only place she never second-guessed
herself.
Striding toward the stables, she was pleased to see that Lydia Bee, a ten-year-old palomino, was being saddled up by her owner for a ride on one of the park’s many trails.
Lydia Bee was sweet-tempered but a little on the lazy side; the exercise would do her good.
Three of the younger mares, Crystal, Dancer, and Gracie, had been turned out to the paddock.
When they spotted Bitsy approaching, they perked up their ears and trotted to the fence.
Dancer got there first, lifted her nose to Bitsy’s face, and greeted her with a warm whoosh of breath from her nostrils.
Bitsy reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of carrot, feeding it to the horse and stroking her neck.
She was feeding carrots to Crystal and Gracie when she saw Joey, one of the other stable hands, coming out of the barns.
Bitsy raised her hand to greet him, and Gracie nosed her shoulder, looking for another carrot. “Don’t be such a hog. You’ll
end up as fat as Lydia Bee if you don’t watch it,” she said to the horse, then turned toward Joey.
Joey had grown up in DC and graduated from high school the previous year. He’d never worked with horses before, but he loved
animals and was a hard worker, arriving at the stables at six every morning.
“How’s everybody doing?” she asked as he approached. “Did the farrier come yesterday?”
Joey nodded. “Yes, and I just finished cleaning out the ladies’ stalls,” he said, tilting his head toward the three mares.
“But Mrs. Graham might want to postpone her ride today. I just looked in on Delilah. Seems like her arthritis is acting up.
Either that or her new shoes don’t feel quite right.”
Bitsy frowned. “What do you mean?”
In horse years, Delilah was definitely a senior citizen and did have some arthritis. But she’d been fine when Bitsy saw her
the day before yesterday, and a new pair of shoes shouldn’t have caused her any discomfort.
“I don’t know . . . She’s just kind of standing funny,” Joey said.
“Funny how?”
Joey scratched his nose, trying to come up with a description.
“Well, she’s sort of shifting her weight to her back legs and stretching out her forelegs a little bit. I think the shoes
don’t—”
Alarm bells went off in Bitsy’s head. She started toward the barn.
“Shit!”
Joey’s eyes went wide. “What’s wrong?” he asked, falling into step behind her.
“Shit!” Bitsy shouted, and broke into a run.
* * *
The situation was just as Joey had described it. Delilah was favoring her back legs and stretching out her front legs, trying
to keep the weight off them to alleviate her discomfort. The difference in her stance was subtle and might have gone unnoticed
by someone with a less experienced eye. Bitsy gave Joey credit for recognizing that something wasn’t right, but she knew it
wasn’t the result of arthritis or ill-fitting shoes. Even before she started her examination, the look in Delilah’s eyes told
Bitsy this was something more serious.
Bitsy took a deep breath, taking a moment to calm herself before approaching the horse, murmuring softly as she did. Delilah’s
nostrils flared and her ears twitched back, displaying her anxiety. But she stood perfectly still when Bitsy ran her hands
down her leg to check her digital pulse at the back of her knee and feel for heat in the hoof, and she willingly raised her
right leg when Bitsy nudged her.
Bitsy examined the bottom of Delilah’s foot and shook her head.
“This isn’t good.”
She lowered the horse’s leg and took a moment to stroke Delilah’s muzzle, murmuring comforting words before sliding back the
door of the stall. Joey followed her with his eyes.
“Where are you going?”
“We need to call Mrs. Graham right away. And my husband.”
* * *
Four hours later, Bitsy and Mrs. Graham stood in a corner of Delilah’s stall, watching King with anxious eyes.
It had taken Bitsy some time to track down Mrs. Graham, who had been on a shuttle flight from New York when Bitsy reached her secretary.
She’d come directly from the airport to the stables, still dressed in a pink suit she’d worn to a fundraising luncheon.
Getting ahold of King, who’d been all the way out in Centreville, had been even more difficult.
Thankfully, he checked in with the answering service before leaving the farm and drove right to the stables.
The two women barely moved as he conducted his examination, which was nearly identical to the one Bitsy had performed earlier.
Bitsy was terribly worried about the horse and almost as concerned for her owner.
Mrs. Graham and Bitsy had developed a good, even warm relationship in the previous months. And although Katharine Graham wasn’t
the sort of woman who bared her soul, Bitsy had come to understand that being the socially well-connected wife of an important
newspaper publisher wasn’t always easy. She knew how much Delilah meant to her and what a source of comfort the horse was
to a woman who must have felt very alone sometimes. There was more loneliness going around than people would have guessed.
If Mrs. Graham lived in Concordia, Bitsy would have invited her to become a Betty.
As it was, all she could do was stand by Katharine’s side and pray that her assessment of Delilah’s condition had been incorrect.
Never in her life had Bitsy so longed to be wrong.
It was possible, wasn’t it? For all the time she’d spent with horses, she’d never gone to vet school. King had. Maybe he would
lower Delilah’s leg, look up with twinkling blue eyes and a patronizing smile, and say, “Aw, it’s nothing, Bitsy. You’re making
mountains out of molehills. Joey was right. She’s just getting used to the new shoes.”
The ensuing embarrassment would be worth it, a small price to pay if it meant that Delilah, and her devoted owner, would be
spared pain. Bitsy clamped her eyes shut and pressed her hands together.
Please, God. Please let me be wrong.
King released his hold on Delilah’s foot and shook his head.
“Laminitis,” he said, nodding toward Bitsy. “Just like you thought.”
Mrs. Graham furrowed her brow. “Laminitis?”
“It’s an inflammation of the tissue between the hoof and the coffin bone. That’s why she’s shifting her weight onto her back
legs—because the front feet are sore.”
Mrs. Graham nodded, acknowledging the diagnosis, then crossed the stall and stood next to Delilah, stroking her muzzle and
looking into her eyes.
“Is she in terrible pain?”
“Not yet,” King said. “But if it goes on for very long, if the coffin bone separates from the hoof and rotates . . .” He sighed
heavily. “I know this is hard to hear, ma’am, but I think you should put her down. I can do it for you, if you’d like.”
Bitsy let out a little gasp. She couldn’t help herself. King shot her a look, but Mrs. Graham didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes
filled with tears.
“But surely there’s something you can do? Some kind of treatment?”
King shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Graham, but laminitis can’t be treated.”
“Oh yes it can!” Bitsy cried, the words popping from her lips almost before she knew she’d said them. She couldn’t help herself.
King shot her a furious scowl, the glare in his eyes asking how dare she contradict him. Bitsy avoided his gaze, speaking
directly to Mrs. Graham.
“It is a serious condition,” she said. “And if it gets worse, the horse can experience real pain, be lame for life. But if
you catch it early, it can be treated. Back in Kentucky, my father treated four different horses with laminitis. Three out
of the four got better.”
“For how long?” King asked, sneering. “Laminitis is chronic. There’s no cure for it.”
“He’s right,” Bitsy said, dipping her head but keeping her gaze fixed on Katharine’s face. “There is no cure. And no guarantee. But with the right kind of care, it can be managed.”
Mrs. Graham was listening intently, her brown eyes solemn, her tears banished.
“And you know what to do? How to treat it?”
Bitsy hesitated, interrupted by doubt and uncertainty. But then, after looking into Delilah’s patient, soulful brown eyes,
eyes that would be certainly and forever closed if she stood back and let King take the lead, she squared her shoulders and
spoke again.
“I watched my father treat those four horses. I know what to do.”
“Your father?” King said. “And what vet school did he go to? Same one as you?”
King’s laugh was loud and cruel, like the boom of a cannon. Delilah startled at the sound of it, flaring her nostrils and
tossing her head. King paid her no mind.
“Mrs. Graham, I have been a practicing veterinarian for fifteen years. And I’m telling you what any good vet would say in
this situation: This animal should be put down. If you’d rather take advice from a woman who picked up what little she knows
about equine medicine from hanging around the barn when she was a teenager in pigtails . . . Well, I guess that’s your prerogative.
But if the horse had a say in the matter, I’m pretty sure she’d ask you to think twice before putting her into the hands of
a college dropout.”
Doubt flickered in Mrs. Graham’s eyes. King swung his gaze toward Bitsy. Had this been a fencing match, he’d have shouted,
“Touché!”
The night before, at the book club meeting, a slightly inebriated Bitsy had asked her friends if it was normal for a wife
to hate her husband. Now, sober in a way she’d never been before, she realized that she’d never hated King, not really. In
fact, she’d never truly known what hatred felt like.
She did now.
Bitsy lifted her chin, speaking in a steady, low, and deliberate tone.
“Once again, my husband is right. I wanted to become a vet. I worked hard and was fourth in the undergraduate biology program. But because I’m a woman, none of the professors would write me a letter of recommendation to vet school, so I was unable to apply.
“Around that same time, my father died and King proposed. I wanted to stay in Kentucky to finish my final semester of college,
but King had just opened his practice here. He was adamant that the wedding take place right away and that I move to Virginia
as soon as we were married. In retrospect, I should have insisted he let me complete my education, told him that if he loved
me as much as he claimed to, he would want that for me.”
For the briefest of seconds, Bitsy looked directly at King, accusing him with her eyes.
“But I didn’t. Instead, I went along with what he wanted and forgot about what I wanted. I can’t say exactly why, but I was
tired, grieving, and discouraged. And since the doors to a career had slammed shut, finishing that final semester didn’t seem
important anymore.
“So yes, Mrs. Graham, I am a college dropout. It’s a huge embarrassment to me, something I’ve kept secret from everyone, even
friends. King is an experienced equine veterinarian, and I’m not. But there’s one thing I know how to do that he doesn’t:
heal a horse with laminitis. I know because I’ve seen it done successfully. King never has.”
Bitsy stepped forward, next to Delilah, and laid her hand gently on the horse’s neck as she looked into Mrs. Graham’s eyes.
“I can’t give you a guarantee,” she said, speaking in a gentle tone. “But if you let me, I can give Delilah a chance. And
with all due respect to Dr. Cobb, that’s more than he is offering.”
Bitsy fell silent. Though King was standing behind her, she was sure she could feel the heat of his glare on her back.
But she didn’t flinch, just stood quietly, waiting.
Mrs. Graham took two long, even breaths.
Then her head began to nod, slowly and almost painfully, as if her neck was a rusty hinge that had just been touched with a drop of oil.
“Yes,” she said, then nodded more firmly, locking eyes with Bitsy and reaching out to grab her hands. “Yes. Yes, let’s try
it. Let’s give her a chance. She deserves a chance.”
King turned away, sliding open the door of the stall and slamming it closed with such force that the metal railing clanged
like a bell when it hit the stop. Delilah startled at the noise, but Bitsy didn’t move a muscle or turn to watch him leave.
Her mind was already racing, thinking about what she must do next and who could help her do it.