The Long Ride (16 page)

“He's going to do his best,” said Emily. “And his best has always been pretty good. Stevie, can you bring him around to the mounting block?”

Stevie had been working so hard to be invisible that she was almost surprised that Emily had noticed her presence. And now everybody looked at her.

She didn't say anything. She just walked the horse to where Callie would be able to mount. As soon as Callie was in the saddle, Emily and the therapist took charge. Stevie, Carole, and the Foresters stood back.

Stevie found herself next to Callie's parents.
Apologize.
She had to do it. She had to say something. She'd been driving.
I'm sorry. So sorry.
The words stuck in her mouth.

She glanced at Congressman Forester next to her. She opened her mouth to speak. And then she closed it. He was watching his daughter on horseback, walking sedately around the schooling ring. Tears filled his eyes. He reached over to Stevie and put his hand on her shoulder as much to silence her as to accept her unspoken apology. He didn't want to talk about it, either.

There would be another time when they could talk, and now Stevie knew that she could say what she had to say—that he would listen and maybe even understand.

The work was done for Stevie and Carole. This was a time when Max, Emily, the therapist, and the Foresters were all the help Callie needed. Carole and Stevie withdrew and retreated to a shady spot on a hill overlooking the ring where they could watch. It was at times like this that they missed Lisa most. They each wished she could be with them to share their healing, to be a friend. Lisa had a way of seeing the calm center of a confusing world. Her presence touched her friends now from the other side of the country.

“Think she's going to be okay?” Stevie asked, nodding toward Callie.

“Yeah,” Carole said. “She'll be fine.”

“Not today. I mean ever. Will she get all better?”

“Everything will get all better one day,” said Carole. “Probably. You, me, Fez, Callie—we're already better. A little better, anyway.”

“I guess,” said Stevie. “And I guess we shouldn't ask for more.”

“Not yet,” said Carole. “There's still a lot of healing to be done. We've got a long way to go.”

“But we've started, right?”

“Yes, we've started,” Carole agreed.

Turn the page to continue reading from the Pine Hollow series

ONE

Nothing had been the same since the accident. Stevie Lake only had to close her eyes to bring back every terrifying detail, from the dark blur of the horse that raced in front of her car to the ceaseless flapping of the windshield wipers to the utter silence that told her and her friend Carole that something was wrong—really wrong—with Callie.

Callie had been in the backseat. The old car didn't have shoulder belts back there. Callie had been tossed around like a rag doll as the car tumbled. She was unconscious, concussed, and seriously hurt. They had known that much when the ambulance had taken her away.

Carole and Stevie had been merely bumped, bruised, and cut. Stevie had broken ribs as well. But they were okay. They slept at home that night in their own beds, while Callie stayed in the hospital, watched carefully by the doctors and her family, recovering first from the accident and then from the emergency surgery that had relieved the pressure on her brain.

The doctors reassured everybody. They told Callie's father, Congressman Forester, that they were doing everything possible. They told her mother and her brother, Scott, that they were pretty sure Callie would be all right. They told the reporters who waited impatiently outside the hospital for updates about the congressman's daughter that she was resting comfortably.

Nothing anybody said could reassure Stevie. She'd been behind the wheel of the car. She was the one who had swerved to avoid the terrified horse. She was the one who had put Callie in the hospital, who had nearly killed her, and who was now responsible for the injuries that remained—and might remain forever. Callie's bones had knit, her cuts had healed, her bruises faded, but there was something else. One of the doctors called it residual brain damage.

Residual
. That meant left over. There was no telling how long it would be left over or if it would be left over forever. The realization that it might be forever left a dull, persistent ache in Stevie's heart. It didn't matter how many people told her she couldn't have prevented the accident; she was the one who had been driving. Callie's life had been in her hands, and her hands alone. Something had gone wrong, and Callie was paying for it. That was
residual
.

Callie's doctor thought horseback riding would be good for her. It would strengthen her muscles, help her balance, and give her confidence. The doctor called it therapeutic riding. It was an ironically logical solution, making everything seem simple and neat: the rider healing herself through riding. But the fact was that nothing was simple; everything was complicated. Stevie was overwhelmed by all the complications—most of them caused by her.

“Look at that,” Carole said, pointing down to the ring, where Callie was having her first therapeutic riding session.

Stevie was acutely aware of everything that was going on below them. She and Carole were sitting in a shady spot on a hillside overlooking the schooling ring, where Callie was the lone rider amid a large group of instructors, supporters, and well-wishers.

“It's as if she's on a horse for the first time,” Stevie said. “And I bet it feels that way to her, too.”

“I bet,” Carole agreed.

Down in the ring, Callie looked around nervously. She was in the saddle—a place she'd spent countless hours over many, many years—but it didn't feel the way it had before. Ever since the accident, her right side had refused to be what it had been. She could move everything, wave her fingers, wiggle her toes, but none of it felt quite right. It was as if there was a delay in getting the instructions from her mind to her limbs. And they weren't strong. She had trouble raising her right arm and moving it forward. Her leg seemed stiff, like an unfamiliar appendage. Was it hers, really? It certainly wasn't the same leg she'd always thought she'd had. When it moved, it kind of jerked. She was unsure whether it would hold her, move her forward, help her turn, stand up, sit down, or lie down. And when she got tired it got worse.

Now, here she was, sitting in the saddle of this sweet-natured horse named PC, and even just standing there, Callie was acutely aware that the horse was doing a lot more work than she was.

“Good job!” the physical therapist said.

“I haven't done anything,” Callie told her.

“That means you haven't done anything wrong yet,” Emily Williams said wryly.

Callie smiled. Emily had a way of finding high points in a flat landscape.

Emily was Callie's age, and it was her horse Callie was riding. Emily had years of experience with therapeutic riding because she'd been born with cerebral palsy. Walking on her own two feet, Emily was disabled. She needed her crutches, and if she got overtired, she had to use her hated wheelchair. She'd been riding for years, and she loved every minute she spent with PC, because when she was in the saddle, she was everybody's equal. She could walk, trot, and canter just as well as anybody else. Some people thought she loved riding because it helped her forget that she was disabled. That wasn't quite right, though, because she accepted her disability as part of herself; it wasn't something that ever went away. What she loved about riding was that
other
people forgot she was disabled. That was a gift she treasured. Now she wanted Callie to learn about it, too. She wouldn't learn today, not on her first day in the saddle, but soon, Emily was sure.

“Okay now, PC,” Emily said. “Let's make Callie do some work.” She passed the lead line to Ben Marlow, a stable hand, and clucked her tongue. Obediently PC began walking.

It took Callie a second to adjust to the pace—not that it was fast. She was moving, and for the first time since her accident, she was moving smoothly. There was no jerk or hesitation in PC's step. She sighed to herself.

“Not too fast there, Ben,” Scott Forester interjected.

“It's just a walk!” Callie chided her brother.

“Well, it looks like a fast walk to me,” Scott said.

“Slow down, boy,” Emily said as if she meant it, but neither Ben nor the horse slowed down a bit.

Callie was so focused on the work she was doing—and there was no doubt that it
was
work—that she was almost unaware of her brother's concern. Scott wasn't the natural-born rider that his sister was. He was a natural-born talker—star of every debate team he'd ever been on—and destined to be a politician like his father.

“She'll be fine as long as she isn't distracted,” Ben said, speaking for the first time as he continued to lead PC across the ring. Ben had all the patience in the world for horses. He didn't have much tolerance for people, though, and that seemed to include Scott in particular.

Scott merely glared at him, but he did stop fretting out loud. He stepped back and stood by his parents. His father slung an arm over his shoulder.

Up on the hillside, Carole and Stevie could see it all, and although they couldn't hear, they knew what was going on.

“I don't think Scott is ever going to speak to me again,” Stevie said.

“Oh, he'll get over it,” said Carole.

“He told me I should have just hit the horse and been done with it. That was what he said, ‘and been done with it.'”

“If he knew anything about horses or driving, he would know that if a car hits a horse, there aren't any winners. You swerved, and it probably saved all of our lives. Even the police investigation said so.”

“I wonder,” Stevie said.

“Don't. It's true,” said Carole. “There's no point in wondering about it.”

“No, I don't mean that. I mean, I wonder how much I saved,” Stevie said. “Look at Callie.”

“She's going to be fine,” said Carole.

“Maybe. And then there's Fez.”

Fez was the horse Stevie had swerved to avoid hitting. She'd hit him anyway, and the impact had sent the car tumbling down the hillside. The horse had been left on the road, badly hurt.

If he hadn't been so valuable, he would have been put down right away. He'd broken a leg that wasn't going to heal easily, if at all. As part of his recovery, he'd spent some time suspended in a tank of water that kept his weight off the leg. Most owners couldn't afford to give their horses the kind of treatment Fez had received, but the Foresters had insisted that the vet do everything possible to save him.

“Maybe Fez'll make it; maybe he won't,” Carole said.

“You sound like you almost don't care,” said Stevie. “An odd thought for somebody who's never met a horse she didn't like.”

Carole smiled. “Fez might possibly be the exception to that,” she said, shaking her head. Fez was a top-level endurance horse, and some of the qualities that made him a champion in that sport made him difficult to love, from Carole's point of view. Endurance riding demanded enormous spirit, heart, and determination from both horse and rider. In the case of Fez, that also seemed to translate into stubbornness. Carole had been exercising him and found herself at odds with the animal almost every time she rode him. He'd been a challenge she hadn't met easily. And then she'd seen Callie ride him and it had been as if he were a different animal. Callie knew exactly how much room to give him to let him strut his stuff. He was fiery, to be sure, but Callie managed him by letting him at least think he was in charge. It was a formidable partnership.

Another part of Fez's spirit came from his total awareness of what was going on around him. He was highly sensitive and reacted to everything, which meant he spooked easily. He'd been out in the paddock when the freak thunderstorm struck, and the lightning had terrified him into jumping a four-and-a-half-foot fence onto the road, straight into the path of Stevie's car.

“But just because I didn't like riding Fez doesn't mean I don't care about him,” Carole said.

“Oh, I know that. A day hasn't gone by that you haven't either stopped by the clinic or called to find out how he was doing.”

“And every time I stopped by, you were there, too,” Carole reminded her.

“A pair of softies, that's what we are,” said Stevie. “Besides, it was a way to avoid the journalists who wanted to talk to me all the time. At the hospital, at home, every time I turned around, there they were. Somehow or other they never located the clinic.” Right after the accident, Stevie had been flooded with requests for interviews. Reporters wanted to talk to the driver of the car that had so seriously hurt “the congressman's daughter.” It hadn't helped Stevie's own recovery at all.