Chapter 38
YOU WON AN OSCAR
JOEY
Rearview by Nicolina
“Shoulders, Joey. You’re collapsing through the turn.”
Mom’s correction cuts across the arena, sharp with the precision of a woman who has spent thirty years reading horses and the people who ride them. I straighten automatically, adjusting my posture, but the movement is mechanical. My body goes through the motions while my mind is somewhere else.
The sand shifts beneath Townshend’s hooves. His ears pin backward, his stride shortening by half a beat. I should soften my hands, release the tension coiled through my thighs, but I can’t seem to unclench anything today.
“Better. Now take him through the figure eight.”
I guide Townshend into the pattern, but my timing is off. I ask for the lead change half a stride too late, and he compensates with a choppy transition jarring up through my spine. On any other day, I would have anticipated it.
“Joey.” Mom’s voice sharpens. “What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing.” I tighten my core, press my heels down, and force myself to focus. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’ve missed your leads three times. Townshend is getting frustrated.”
She’s right. He tosses his head every time I give him a muddled cue. He’s a good horse, patient, forgiving, working through his trauma one session at a time, but even he has limits. I’m asking him to trust me when I can barely keep breathing.
“One more pass.” I gather the reins. “I can do this.”
“Joey.” Mom crosses her arms.
“One more.”
I push Townshend into a canter, and for three strides, everything aligns. His rhythm steadies beneath me. The familiar rock of his gait loosens something in my chest, and I almost, almost, find the quiet center I’’ve been searching for all morning.
The screen door bangs open against the house, and Maggie steps out onto the porch.
Townshend coils beneath me, muscles bunching.
His head snaps up, and he’s lurching forward before I can catch it.
I reach for the inside rein to circle him, a correction I’ve made a hundred times, but I hesitate, and the reins tear through my fingers.
For one suspended second, nothing exists but blue sky, and then I hit the ground and fire splits through my shoulder.
I scream and roll onto my side, clutching my arm to my chest as dust swirls around me. Townshend’s retreated to other side of the round pen pacing.
“Joey!” Mom drops to her knees beside me, hands hovering, afraid to touch. “Don’t move. Where does it hurt?”
“My shoulder,” I grunt.
Maggie skids to a stop and drops down on my other side, her face bloodless. “Oh my god, Joey,”
“Can you move your arm?”
“Mom.” My voice breaks. “I’m pregnant. What if the fall hurt the baby?”
Maggie stares at me and I can see the devastation.
“Oh, baby,” she says, smoothing down my hair. “Okay, sweetheart. We’re going to get you to the hospital and make sure you’re both fine.” She turns to Maggie. “Go get the car. Pull it up to the gate.”
Maggie doesn’t move. She’s still staring at me, mouth open.
“Maggie!” Mom’s voice snaps her back to reality.
My sister blinks, scrambles to her feet, and runs.
“What about Townshend?” I try to lift my head, but the movement sends fresh heat blazing through my shoulder.
“Don’t worry about him right now. He’ll be fine.”
I close my eyes against the too-bright sun, willing myself to breathe through the throbbing ache in my shoulder and the dread coiling tight in my stomach.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I say.
Mom smooths down my hair like she used to do when I was little. “Let’s not worry about that right now.”
The car pulls up to the gate and Mom shifts gears.
“Can you stand?” Mom asks, and I nod.
She braces one arm behind me and eases me to a sitting position. The world tilts and then steadies as I get my bearings. The pain in my shoulder is nothing compared to the weight pressing down on my chest. I cradle my injured arm against my body and let her guide me to the car.
Monitors beep as I lie propped up on the hospital bed. Mom sits in one of the plastic chairs with her hand wrapped around mine. Maggie paces by the door, arms crossed tight over her chest, giving me a look that says everything without any words necessary.
One of the nurses wraps a blood pressure cuff around my good arm and studies my swollen shoulder, making a tsk noise.
“How’s the pain on a scale of one to ten?” She prods the joint, and I hiss through my teeth.
“Seven. Maybe eight,” I grit out.
“We’ll get you something for the pain.” She looks at my chart. “Oh, I see here you’re pregnant. Any idea how far along?”
I try to count backward, but the math tangles in my head. “I’m not sure.”
“We’ll do an ultrasound and check on the baby.” She smiles and then makes a note. The door opens behind her. “Perfect timing, Dr. Warren.”
A woman roughly in her fifties steps in with kind eyes. “I hear we took a tumble off a horse today.” She pulls up a stool beside me and I nod. “Let’s see what we’re working with.”
She manipulates my shoulder, and I bite down on a groan. My grip tightens in Mom’s hand and I look over at her for support. She quietly mouths, “It’s gonna be okay.”
“That’s a dislocation.” Dr. Warren rolls her stool back and meets my gaze.
“We need to get it back in place. I’m not gonna lie.
It’s going to hurt, but it’ll be quick.” She glances at the chart.
“Since you’re pregnant, we’ll skip the sedation, but I can do a local injection directly into the joint.
It’s safe for the baby and it’ll take the edge off. ”
“Do it,” I say.
Dr. Warren nods and turns to the nurse. “Lidocaine, please. One percent, no epi.”
The nurse hands her a syringe, and Maggie’s eyes go wide.
“Jesus, that needle is the size of my forearm,” Maggie says.
“Maggie,” Mom warns, glaring at her. “Sit down and be quiet.”
“What?” Maggie shrugs, oblivious, but drops into the plastic chair and mimes zipping her lips.
Dr. Warren swabs my shoulder, and the needle slides in with a deep, aching pressure that makes me hiss. She depresses the plunger slowly.
“Give that a few minutes to work.” She sets the syringe aside and stands. “Mom, I assume?” She addresses my mom, who hasn’t relaxed since we got here. “Keep holding her hand.” She smiles and pats my mom on the shoulder.
“Squeeze as hard as you need to,” Mom says.
I fix my attention on the ceiling tiles, counting the tiny holes in the acoustic panels. The throbbing in my shoulder dulls to a heavy numbness, but I can still feel the wrongness of it, the joint sitting where it shouldn’t be.
“On the count of three,” Dr. Warren says, positioning my arm. “One… two…”
The pain cuts through. A grinding, nauseating pressure followed by a pop that echoes through my head.
“Holy shit,” Maggie says in a strangled voice. “That was… oh my god.” She makes a gagging noise. “I’m gonna hurl.”
“Maggie,” Mom warns.
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” She waves a hand, but her face is a pale green.
“Worst part’s over,” Dr. Warren says, easing my arm down. “We’ll do an X-ray and get some blood work later, but we can do an ultrasound right now to check on the baby.”
My throat tightens. I manage a nod because I don’t trust my voice. All I can focus on is if the baby is okay, not the throb in my shoulder, or the scrapes on my elbows.
The nurse wheels in the ultrasound machine, and everything else fades.
Dr. Warren squirts cold gel on my stomach, presses the wand against my skin, and I hold my breath until the screen flickers to life. I don’t see anything except negative space, a gray static full of shadows.
I don’t think I could take anymore today. If something is wrong, I will shatter. Dr. Warren moves the wand around my stomach, and I can’t bear to look anymore. Instead, I focus on my mom, who’s focused on the screen. I watch her expression change and how her hand comes up to cover her mouth.
“There we go.” Dr. Warren angles the screen toward me. “See that flutter? Strong heartbeat.” She points to a tiny area that blinks in and out of existence, no bigger than a raspberry. A flutter so small it shouldn’t mean anything, but it means everything.
My baby.
Despite the fall, despite everything, my baby is okay.
“Oh, Joey,” Mom’s voice breaks. Her fingers tighten around mine, and when I glance over, her eyes are wet too, her expression caught somewhere between worry and wonder.
Even Maggie has stopped pacing. She stands frozen near the foot of the bed, arms hanging loose at her sides, staring at the screen like she’s seeing a ghost.
“Looks like you’re measuring around six weeks,” Dr. Warren says softly, printing out an image. “Everything looks good. Baby’s right on track.”
Dr. Warren hands me the grainy printout, and I clutch it like a lifeline. The tiny blur with its flickering heartbeat. The first picture of my baby.
“I’ll have the nurse come back in, get you set up with a sling and some ice,” Dr. Warren says, standing. “Rest, physical therapy, and follow up with your OB within the week. You and baby are doing great.” She smiles, giving my leg a motherly pat before exiting.
Mom leans in close, her voice low. “Does Jesse know?”
Her question breaks something inside me. I nod, and the tears spill over again. “Are you disappointed?” I ask Mom. “I know this isn’t something…”
“Joey Morgan,” Mom interrupts, cupping my face, her grip steady and sure. “You have never disappointed me. Not once in your entire life. And you’re not starting now.” She brushes the tears from my cheeks with her thumbs. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to figure this out together.”
I nod, but the knot in my stomach tightens. “What about Dad?”
“You don’t need to worry about your father.” She squeezes my hand. “I’ll handle him.”
Her phone buzzes. She glances at the screen, and her jaw tightens.
“He’s here. I’ll meet him downstairs.” She presses a kiss to my forehead. “Maggie, stay with your sister.”
The door swings shut behind her, and quiet settles over the room. I shift in the bed, trying to find a comfortable position.
Maggie’s expression shifts. The vulnerability hardens, and there she is, my sister, the one who fights when she’s hurt.
“I’m sorry, did I slip into a coma? Did pigs start flying?
Jesse? Um, since when are you and Jesse getting it on?
And not to mention you told Mom before you told me?
” She presses a hand to her chest, staggering back a step like I’ve physically wounded her.
“Joey, that’s literally against the twin code.
I’m pretty sure it’s a felony in twelve states. ”
I sit up straighter, ignoring the blaze in my shoulder. “You really want to know?”
“Yes!”
“Because you’ve made everything about you.” The words escape before I can stop them, and once they’re out, there’s no taking them back. “This is the Maggie show. Congratulations, you won an Oscar for worst supporting sister in a TV drama!” I turn away from her.
Maggie recoils. “That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?” Something cracks open inside me, and the flood pours out. “My whole life, I’ve celebrated every single thing you’ve ever done, because I love you. But do you have any idea what it’s like to live in your shadow?”
“Joey, I didn’t…”
“Everything is always about you.” I keep going even as my voice becomes hoarse.
“Your career, your relationship drama, your big feelings filling every room you walk into. And I love you for it, I do, but there’s never any space left over for me.
There’s never room for me to be anything other than Maggie’s sister, Maggie’s support system, Maggie’s audience. ”
“I didn’t know you felt that way.” Her arms fall to her sides and her eyes begin to tear up.
“I know you didn’t.” The anger leaks out of me, replaced by something older and sadder. “You never meant to push me aside. You don’t even see it happening because it’s so natural, the way everyone orbits around you while I fade into the background.”
“That’s not true.” She rounds the bed to stand at my side.
“It is true.” I brush the tears from my cheek. “I called you, Maggie. I picked up the phone to tell you about everything, and before I could get a word out, you told me you thought you were pregnant.”
The color drains from her face.
“I didn’t know. If I had, you know I would have listened, I would have been there for you. I’m sorry.”
“I know,” I say. “I kept waiting for a good moment to tell you but it never came.”
Maggie sinks into the chair beside my bed. She presses her hands to her face, and her shoulders shake with silent sobs.
I didn’t say any of it to hurt her. I said it because I couldn’t hold it anymore, because being invisible in my own life finally crushed me into pieces too small to keep hiding.
“I’m sorry.” Maggie’s words come out muffled, broken. “God, Joey, I’m so sorry.”
I reach for her hand, and she takes it. “You’ve never been cruel. You’re not selfish on purpose. You’re a storm, Maggs. Beautiful and destructive and completely unaware of the wreckage in your wake.”
She lifts her head, mascara streaking down her cheeks. “I hate knowing you couldn’t talk to me.”
“I hate it too.”
“I’m always the one who shows up. The one who holds everything together. And the only person who ever made me feel like I didn’t have to—” My voice falters, his name catching sharp in my throat. “He’s the one who broke my heart.”
Maggie doesn’t say anything for a long time.
Her fingers move through my hair, slow and steady, the way Mom used to do when we were small and the world was too big.
I can feel her breathing change, the rhythm of someone swallowing everything they want to say so they can give you the silence you need instead.
“I’m right here,” she whispers. “I’m not going anywhere. Not ever. You hear me?”
I nod into her shoulder, and we lie together in the silence.
When she speaks again, her voice is different. Steadier. The Maggie who shows up when it counts.
“So Jesse, huh?” She swipes a rogue tear from my cheek. “Start from the beginning. I want to know everything.” She gives me a wicked smile. “And if Dad doesn’t kill him, I’ll bury him myself.”
A soft laugh slips out of me—easy, vulnerable—and it catches me off guard. I can’t remember the last time it came that freely.
Maggie’s mouth twitches. “I’m serious. You ever need a shovel or a getaway driver, I’m your gal.”
“I know, Maggs.”
I take a breath and I tell her everything.