Chapter 9
Logan
“Whoa, boy. Whoa.” I smooth my palm over the Appaloosa’s muzzle as I inhale the scent of hay and horse. “You must be Biscuit.” If the pale brown smattering covering his blond coat doesn’t confirm it, his restlessness surely does.
After a few beats, Biscuit’s side-to-side swaying slows and then settles.
“There you go. Good boy.” I scratch near his ear.
“This used to be my horse Storm’s stable.
” Biscuit is a lot like Storm was, according to my mom—itching to be free of his confines, impatient to run.
Storm would kick the back wall with frustration when he wasn’t the first out.
The hoof marks are still there, well-worn dents in an old barn that could tell a thousand stories.
We found Storm galloping along the main road on my tenth birthday.
Dad rode him home bareback, hoping to reunite him with his owners.
But no one answered the flyers we posted in town or the messages we left on local farms’ answering machines.
Eventually, I claimed the gray horse as mine—a present from negligent owners.
The veterinarian put him at about twelve years old, and he was the best horse a boy could ask for.
No matter which field he grazed in during the day—and we have many—he would always meet me at the fence when I stepped off the school bus.
Emery and I used to race through the property—her, on an Arabian named Smokey that was fast as hell but could still never keep up with me.
My father found Storm dead in one of the back fields one unusually warm day in September, the year I turned twenty-nine. Heart failure, it was assumed.
Now, like everything and everyone around me, life moved on, and there’s a new horse in his place.
The sun was cresting when I emerged from my little apartment above the garage.
A light shone in the main house’s kitchen and several robed figures sat around the table with their coffees.
I kept going toward the barn. So far, people have been keeping things easy, but it’s only a matter of time before I’m cornered and grilled by well-meaning aunts and uncles. I’m not ready for it yet.
Horses, I can handle. We have three of them, and their stables always need cleaning in the morning. I never particularly enjoyed the task of shoveling shit before—who does?—but it’s funny what you miss when all choice is taken away.
Shucking off my green plaid barn coat, I grab a pitchfork and gloves, and set to work, welcoming the stench with genuine contentment.
“Hello?” a young female voice calls out as I’m scooping the last of the soiled bedding from the stall.
I dump the refuse into the wheelbarrow before turning to greet my visitor.
“Oh. It’s you.” Isla stands in the middle of the alley. She looks like she just woke up, her baggy gray sweatpants pooling out of oversized rubber boots, her jacket two sizes too big. Biscuit followed her in like a puppy tailing its master, his head bowed to accept forehead scratches.
“Shouldn’t you still be sleeping?” It’s eight a.m. on a Sunday morning. When I was her age, my dad had to threaten me if he wanted me up before noon.
She shrugs—a lazy and lopsided move. “I have a shift at the market in a bit.”
“Right.” My mother’s roadside stand turned local empire. I caught a glimpse of it yesterday morning on the way in. It’s impressive.
Isla regards the wheelbarrow. “I’m supposed to clean his stall.”
There’s an offensive ring to those words, as if I’ve insulted her. At least she doesn’t seem afraid of me. “Okay. Do you want me to dump this pile of horseshit and piss-soaked hay back in there so you can scoop it up?”
The corner of her mouth twitches. “No, it’s fine, I guess.”
I set the pitchfork aside. “I thought so.” After a beat, I add, “You’re welcome.”
She averts her gaze to Biscuit. “I’m Isla.”
“I know who you are.” I remember when you were born, I don’t say.
My days were long and monotonous, and I distinctively remember reading about the baby who arrived on a sweltering hot civic holiday long weekend; about the toddler who’d march up and down this barn aisle repeating Holt and horse over and over as she practiced her words; about the ten-year-old who witnessed a bison calving; and the thirteen-year-old who broke her collarbone crashing into the boards after scoring a game-winning goal.
I push the wheelbarrow out of the barn, emptying it on the manure pile around the corner. When I return, she’s brushing Biscuit’s spotted coat with skilled circular strokes.
“I hear he’s yours.”
“What?” Her brow furrows. “No, he’s not.”
“Right.” I head for the next stable over, where a massive mixed draft with a chestnut coat waits. The chalkboard sign at the door reads Copper. “You named him, you clean his stable, groom him, and ride him, but he’s not yours.”
According to Mom’s letters, when Emery and Dillon split and she moved back home with her daughter, little Isla took it hard. She’d disappear from the house often, only to be found in here with a bucket of apples, bribing the horses into listening to her woes. They seemed to soothe her.
Clive and Sandy spoke often about getting Isla a horse of her own when she was old enough to take care of it and boarding it here.
They’d even started researching breeders.
They expected to be around long enough to make it happen.
When they died, Emery quickly put the idea to bed—adding the cost of a horse was too much to shoulder for a single parent, and her selfish prick ex-husband wasn’t going to help.
My parents took it upon themselves to bring this one home, anyway.
“I just take care of him.” Again, that defiance in her tone.
My soft chuckle carries through the barn, competing with the odd neigh and whinny of a restless beast. Girl owns a horse and she doesn’t know it. “Come on, big fella.” I open the stall door and lead Copper outside.
When I return, Isla has swapped the curry comb for a dandy brush.
I grab the pitchfork and set to task.
“You know, that’s Thomas’s chore. Cleaning Copper’s stable,” Isla calls out.
“Yeah?” I dump a load of fresh horseshit into the wheelbarrow before going back for another. Copper’s a messy one. “Is he gonna complain that I’m doing his job too?”
“He might.” She adds after a beat, “Brooks and Carson won’t, if you do Flapjack’s stable. You’ll be their favorite uncle.”
The twins. Identical and equally feral ten-year-old boys who spent last night shooting their friends through a video game on tablets, when they weren’t punching each other in the shoulder as hard as they could. Jill caught one of them chucking black pepper into the pot of squash soup.
“They’ll be here soon. Jon always sends them down early to do their chores.”
More likely to get them out of the house. “Guess I better hurry up, then.” I dump another load into the wheelbarrow.
There’s a lengthy pause and then Isla asks, “Is it weird? Being home again.”
“Yeah,” I admit.
“What’s the weirdest thing so far?”
“Fuck, I don’t know. Everything.”
“But, like, what?” she prods.
“Like …” I pause for a drink from a refillable bottle I found in my kitchen cupboard as I consider how to answer. “This water.”
She frowns. “The water is weird?”
“It’s from the well. I forgot how earthy it tastes.
I hated it, growing up. Now, I could guzzle a hundred liters.
” Because it tastes like home. “And this pitchfork.” I jab the ground with its rust-coated prongs.
“I haven’t held one of these in twenty years.
Couldn’t touch anything sharp. Hell, last night was the first time I’ve used a real metal fork in forever. ” Inside, they gave us plastic sporks.
“Wow.” She eyes the basic farm tool in a new light.
“Yeah. So … everything.”
Isla bites her bottom lip as she regards me. She reminds me so much of young Emery when she does that.
“What?” It’s obvious she has more questions and she’s dying to ask them. Oddly enough, that doesn’t irritate me like I thought it would.
She hesitates but only for a beat. “Why was my mom crying last night?”
I falter, both at the sudden change in topic and the unspoken accusation. It rings as loud as a bell toll.
What did you do to her?
“I don’t know.”
Isla’s big blue eyes bore into me as if searching for my lie.
“I swear. I just said hello. That’s all.” That, and returned her hug.
And kissed her forehead.
And invited her inside.
Was that wrong? The fuck if I know, but in that moment, I couldn’t help myself.
I swallow against the bitter knowledge that I made Emery cry. Again. How many times have I done that in my lifetime? If she’s keeping score, the tally would surely gut me.
There was a guy inside serving time for armed robbery. Fred was his name. He took to marking his cell wall with a scratch for every day served. By the time he reached year three, it was a dramatic statement.
But I doubt his tally would have anything on Emery’s wall of tears.
Despite my best intentions to give her space, the urge to see her again is overwhelming. “Is your mom working today?”
“She doesn’t work weekends.”
“She worked yesterday.”
“Only when they’re really short-staffed.” Isla pauses, as if reluctant. “She was on the sun porch when I left.”
I know that spot well. On any given summer afternoon, you could find Sandy out there with a cup of tea and a book. My mother would wander over, and we’d hear their cackles of laughter carry from across the field.
What would Emery do if I just showed up at her house, like I used to when we were kids, when our doors were revolving and always unlocked for each other?
Excited dogs bark somewhere outside, and the racket is followed by children’s shouts.
“They’re coming,” Isla sings in an ominous tone.
“I guess my work here is done.” I set the pitchfork down and shed the work gloves before veering off to the tack room. Now seems as good as any to go for a ride.
“I’m sorry about the whole rock thing,” Isla blurts suddenly. “It was stupid and … yeah, it was stupid.”