Lukas
My shovel scrapes along the concrete floor. The scoop is filled to the brim with horse shit and hay as I lift, feeling the muscles between my shoulders burn with the movement. I swing the shovel and twist, dumping it into the wheelbarrow with a heavy thud.
A warm exhale sounds from behind me, and I turn, spotting my old horse, Bailey, standing at the back of the barn, ears perked, tail swishing back and forth as she watches me.
“Whatcha looking at, girl?” I call to her, turning back toward the heap in front of me, but before I can lower my shovel, she blows out another pocket of air through her nose.
A smile crosses my face, and I stand tall, working my shoulders side to side. Between my days working on the farm, and evenings and weekends spent repairing the old house, my body is shot.
I lean the shovel against the wall, spinning to face the back of the barn with my hands on my hips.
Bailey looks at me, shaking her head once and lifting her front hoof, dropping it on the concrete with a click—the move she used to always show me when she wanted a treat.
“What’s that, girl?” I tease, reaching my arm around the wooden half wall, dipping my hand into the bag of biscuits my grandma whipped up for them.
“Thought I was being sneaky, sticking these over here while I worked.” I grab a couple of hunks in my palm, and when I bring my arm over the side of the wall, she catches a glimpse of the cookie-shaped mounds, releasing a gentle nicker that has a smile splitting my face.
I meet her out at the back door, and when she steps closer, snout reaching for my hand, I quickly tuck it behind me.
“Nah, ah,” I tsk. “Patience.” Bailey has been the strongest horse we have ever had, and the most patient.
We’ve had her for as long as I can remember.
She’s a quarter horse, with a rich chestnut coat and a mane to match.
She was the horse all of us kids first learned to ride on.
The one that my dad could rely on when he needed a good worker.
She’s in her final years now, obvious by the gray streaks in her mane and the white surrounding her eyes.
She now gets to spend her time resting, soaking up the sunshine, eating as many sweet treats as she can stomach.
When I come to stand in front of her, I lean down to rest my forehead against hers. She lets me, for a brief second, before taking a step back and shuffling side to side. Her snout reaches out to sniff behind my left hand, and when I don’t budge, she moves to smell my right side.
Her soft whiskers tickle the skin on my forearm, and I chuckle, finally giving in and holding my right hand out to her. Palm flat, I hold still as she steals the apple and oat biscuit from my hand, and I stand there, letting her use it as a plate to catch her crumbs.
Once she’s satisfied that she’s licked up every morsel from hand number one, her brown eyes dart to my other side, and I hold that hand out, offering her the other one.
She takes that one, lips brushing against my palm, and I rub the slobber on the side of my jeans before reaching up to slide my palm down her neck. “Good, huh?”
An exaggerated yawn escapes me, and I close my eyes, lifting my face to the sky.
The first warm days of spring are with us, and I soak in the sunny rays for a moment before I sling an arm around Bailey’s neck, resting my cheek against her strong muscle.
She stands still, and I lean into the hug, curling my other arm up and around.
And for the faintest moment, I feel her turn her head, as if trying to wrap herself around me to return the favor.
“Thanks, girl. Needed this.”
Hugs are one of the things that I’ve come to learn I’ve taken for granted.
I used to hug Mags, I’m sure. I know with every hello and goodbye I’d pull her to me, but I can’t remember the in-between times.
The hug you give someone just because you’re happy to have them in your life.
The hug to say hi after a long day. The ones just to say I care about you. The ones that say thank you.
When I got home from the Marines, my mom and grandma couldn’t stop with the hugs.
I spent too many months letting them hug me without wrapping my arms fully around them in return.
Without offering them that comfort back.
It was too much back then, too much human contact, and I couldn’t handle it.
I had spent the last four years hardening myself, detaching myself from affection, trying to snub out the emotions I had felt because of all the loss.
That feeling stayed with me once I was discharged and returned home.
When it became too much, when I felt like I was suffocating from the affection, I’d find an excuse to pull away early, and after a while, they stopped trying.
I’d come out here, lock myself away in the horse barn and sit with my anger.
I’d stare at the tack room where Mags first asked me if I liked her.
The main hall where I kissed her for the first time.
God, I was so nervous that night. So embarrassingly in love with the coolest girl in Copper Ridge. And there she was, asking me if I had a crush on her, and I was almost too nervous to say yes.
When the nights got bad, when I couldn’t sleep because of the nightmares and it was too quiet on the farm, I started keeping a bottle of whiskey out here.
And the nights where it would get real bad, I’d come out here, park my ass on a hay bale, and lean against the wooden boards of the horse pen.
I’d crack the bottle and drink away my thoughts.
After a few nights, Bailey started coming to stand on the other side of the wall.
I could hear her quiet movements as she stood, swaying side to side.
Her big body would brush against the wall at my back every now and then, the subtle noise reminding me that I wasn’t alone.
One night, when it got particularly bad, when I couldn’t sleep without seeing Collins’s face over and over again, I ran out here, searched for my stash, and found my bottle empty. I threw the glass, letting it shatter against the wall, then crumpled on a pile of hay bales.
I blubbered and cried by myself, then felt the soft whiskers of her nose as she stretched her neck over the wooden wall to find me.
I tried to ignore her, and she’d push a little more, teeth nipping at the side of my sweatshirt for attention.
When I finally gave in, I looked up and couldn’t help but laugh at those big nearly alien-like eyes staring down at me with such concern.
I went into her stall and we stared off, and when I raised one arm to rest on her neck, she took a step forward. I put my other arm up, and she leaned into me. She was my first real hug, the first vulnerable hug I let anyone get since Mags, and it felt damn good to have someone.
I pull away from Bailey, scratching the coarse hair that falls between her ears once as I clear my throat. “I guess, I can let you go, huh?” Her nostrils flare once, her side eye telling me she needs to make sure I’m all right.
I chuckle, smoothing my hand down her back and patting her on the side. “I’m good, girl, you go run off.” I jut my chin out toward the back field where we can see the rest of the horses grazing on the horizon. “Go on, I’m good, I swear.”
She turns to trot off, but not before she turns once more, as if she’s really making sure that I’m all right. And something about that has my throat stinging.
We don’t deserve animals.
I’m about to turn toward the main house to go find my mom and give her a real hug, a hug that’s long overdue, when my phone rings from my back pocket.
Pulling it out, I’m surprised to see an unknown number with a generic healthcare name scrolling across the front.
“Hello?”
“Lukas.”
“Nana?” I turn back into the horse barn, carefully stepping over the piles I haven’t picked up yet, and move to the front door where I’ll have the best cell reception.
“You all right? Where are you?”
“It’s not me you need to worry about,” she says. “It’s these nurses. Lukas, I need you to come down here and show these girls who’s boss.”
I chuckle at the sound of her ornery voice, relieved that she isn’t calling from the hospital, or calling because something else bad has happened.
“When I was there yesterday it seemed like they all knew what they were doing.” Nana did end up fracturing her hip, just as I suspected.
Thankfully, it was able to be fixed with surgery.
She was in the hospital overnight and discharged the next day to a rehab facility that sits just outside of town.
She wasn’t happy about that, as one would imagine.
She insisted she could go home and that a home health nurse stopping in once a day would be sufficient.
It was a fight between her and Mags’s dad, and she begrudgingly agreed to go to a rehab facility, warning us that if the food was shit, she would take a taxi back home.
“Well, that was yesterday,” she bites out. “My morning medications were fifteen minutes late today, and I’ve asked for fresh water three times, and you know what? They haven’t brought it yet.”
I cock my brow at that. “They won’t bring you fresh water?” I start toward my truck, ready to hop in and head there immediately if they truly aren’t taking care of her. “I can be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Not today,” she says. “What about tomorrow? Can you come and see me tomorrow?”
I had just tucked the keys into the ignition and was about to fire up the engine when I pause. “Nana,” I say sternly. “If they aren’t giving you water to drink, I’m coming down there right now to take care of it.”
“It’s fine, Lukas. You know I’ll whip them into shape. How about you come and see me tomorrow? About two o’clock?”
“Tomorrow, what?” My hand falls to my lap, keys still sitting in the ignition. “Are you sure I can’t come today? It’s no bother, seriously.”
“I said tomorrow, and I would like to see you tomorrow. Can you do that?”