Whitehorse (7 page)

She chose a place in the very back of the lecture hall, Room 338, hoping to avoid Professor Carlisle's attention. Since the beginning of her freshman year in vet school, he had taken great pleasure in zeroing in on her any time he conjured up a question he was certain would stump even the most seasoned D.V.M.

She'd surmised the first day of class that Professor Carlisle, like most good old boys at vet schools, did not much care for women in veterinary medicine—at least, not large-animal medicine. He felt that women were far too emotional to make life-and-death decisions concerning animals—especially horses. After displaying a poster of Elizabeth Taylor in
National Velvet,
he proceeded to explain that anyone who had ever cried over the movie had no place in veterinary medicine. Likewise with
Black Beauty.

This class was
not
Fairy Tales 101.

Leah glanced at her watch.
Carlisle
was late getting to class. Good. She would close her eyes for a few minutes and try her best to will away the spikes of dull pain prodding at her pregnant belly. Indigestion, no doubt. Too much Mexican food at lunch—hopefully. Or perhaps it was simply stress causing her to feel as if she were in labor.

At six months along she simply would not entertain the idea that the increasing discomfort was due to anything other than the fact that she and Richard had argued again.

Fights over their cornflakes each morning had become as commonplace as her frequent trips to the bathroom. Richard wanted her to drop out of school and devote her time and energy into being a wife and mother—annoyingly chauvinistic considering this was the nineties, especially in light of the fact that they had mutually decided before they married that she would continue with her studies and build a vet practice in the
Dallas
area after graduation. Only then would they consider children.

But no sooner had they adjusted to the news of her unexpected pregnancy than he began his campaign. He made more than enough money to provide for his family. A child needed the security of knowing he was the most important component of a happy family, and that meant the mother's undivided attention, not to mention loyalty.

With no warning, at exactly the same moment that Professor Carlisle entered the classroom, her water broke. Jumping from her chair, she stood helplessly as fluid ran as if from a faucet out of her pants legs. There were snickers around her—peers believing her problem nothing more serious than a weak bladder. Then the pain—excruciating. Mind-bending. She screamed and doubled over…

Valentino Starr weighed one pound three ounces. The doctors gave him a one in one hundred chance of surviving the first forty-eight hours. The nurses put him, naked, in what looked like a plastic coffin, his red, sparrowlike body practically lost amid the tubes and monitors that bleeped his condition every few seconds.

Still hooked to IVs, her lower body feeling as if someone had raked out her insides with a dull spoon, Leah, surrounded by stone-faced nurses and cautious specialists, sat in a chair beside the incubator, counting the seconds between her son's heartbeats and singing him lullabies. She ached to hold him, but they would not allow it. Not yet. His lungs were far from being developed. His bones were brittle as dry reeds. And his skin—what there was of it—was as transparent as a moth's wing. She could see every vein in his tiny body. He looked like a road map of red and blue highways.

Because she had given birth by C-section, the staff would not allow Leah to remain out of bed for more than fifteen minutes. They wheeled her back to her room while Richard walked silent and sullen at her side. He blamed her for this horrible fiasco. Had she dropped out of school like he had wanted her to, this probably would not have happened.

Wrong, wrong, wrong! her angry obstetrician argued. Leah's problem could be summed up easily: an incompetent cervix, a condition where the mouth of the cervix opens prematurely under the weight of the baby. Next pregnancy, should there be a next pregnancy, they would know to perform a cerclage procedure by clamping the cervix closed very early in the pregnancy, thereby eliminating the chance of this unfortunate occurrence happening a second time.

The hospital smells assaulting her every numb sense and her uterus knotting like a fist, Leah looked into her husband's eyes and knew there would never be a next time—not for them.

FOUR

«
^
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T
he answering machine clicked on at seven-fifteen, waking Leah with a jolt. She listened to her own voice invite the caller to leave a message, then waited for the caller's response. Nothing. The machine cut off with an echoing finality before it reset itself for the next message.

She rolled in bed, aware that her fever had broken. Her pillow felt wet, her pajamas clammy. Lying in the semidark of encroaching twilight, she focused on the silence and wondered why Shamika and Val were running so late returning from his speech therapy. The answering machine came on again. Tossing back the covers, Leah slid from the bed and ran barefoot down the hall into the living room, where the illuminated Caller ID glowed in the shadows.
WHITEHORSE
FARM. Her heart skipped and for what felt like an eternity she stared at the answering machine as if it had turned into a crystal ball. Her recorded voice droned out its monotonous regret for not having been here to take the call, but—

She grabbed up the receiver and hit the Stop button on the machine. Taking a deep breath, she finally managed a thready hello.

"Doc Starr?"

Leah sank onto the sofa and curled her legs up under her. "Hello,
Roy
."

"Sorry to disturb you, but I was wondering if we can go ahead and draw blood on that colt? Soon as we can get him blood-typed with the registry, the sooner we can get his papers."

"You have a buyer already?"

"Looks that way. Won't know for sure until next week."

"If you'll drop the blood-typing kit off, I'll do it first thing in the morning."

"You feeling okay?"

"Better. Why do you ask?"

"Johnny says you was seeming a little under the weather today."

"I guess I was a bit out of sorts."

Roy
chuckled.

Sinking deeper into the sofa cushions, she twisted the phone cord around her fingers. "Sorry I'm late on the rent again,
Roy
. You're being very patient."

"Don't worry about it. It ain't as if we're starvin' over here."

"How does Johnny feel about me leasing this place?"

"He ain't said. I guess if he cared he would have told me so by now. Besides, he's too busy tryin' to run the government." Silence, then, "Sorry. Guess I shouldn't have brought up
that
subject."

"It's okay. Really. Confrontation between Johnny and my father isn't exactly news, is it?"

"Glad you don't take it personal. Hey, I got another call comin' in. I'll drop this kit by your place first thing in the mornin'."

The phone went dead and Leah gently replaced the receiver onto the cradle. A clock on the wall ticked. Through the closed windows the distant traffic sounded
like the hum of insects as the Caller ID continued to shimmer WHITEHORSE FARM into the dark.

For that instant before grabbing up the phone, she had believed the caller to be Johnny Whitehorse.

But why would he be calling, especially after she had verbally blasted him earlier that day? After she had once vowed to love him forever, to spend her life rejoicing in his spirit and body and children—then, with none of the emotion ripping apart her insides, declared to his wounded eyes that their relationship had been a mistake from the beginning. Their lives were a universe apart. A forever relationship simply would not work—not between them.

Why had her heart tripped at the thought of speaking with him again? She had long since buried her feelings for Johnny in a deep grave of denial. She could not possibly love a man who would intentionally strike out at her father so maliciously. Her father had been right about Johnny. He was a hothead. A troublemaker. A user. His only aim in romancing her had been driven by a nasty need to avenge his father.

Why had apologies over her behavior earlier in the day bombarded her brain like neurotransmitters gone amok?

But most frustrating: Why was she disappointed that the caller had turned out to be Roy Moon, and not Johnny? Why, in those seconds as she raised the receiver to her ear, had anticipation flooded her with a rush of adrenaline that now, in its tide of withdrawal, left her feeling nauseated and irritable … not to mention stupid?

The back door opened and Shamika's voice rang out. "Home at last. I got to have a wee-wee and then we are going to chow down on Spaghetti-O's. Is that cool?"

"Cool," came the childish, slightly slurred response, making Leah smile.

She moved to the kitchen where her son sat in his wheelchair, smiling over the prospect of eating Spaghetti-O's for supper. His blue eyes brightened when he saw her. His head wobbled and he struggled to sit up straight. One hand opened and closed in his way of saying, "I want you. Come hug me."

To hold Val now was probably foolish; his immune system was not the greatest. A simple cold could sometimes put him to bed for a week. Leah reminded herself of that as she crossed the kitchen, went down on her knees, and unbuckled the straps and braces that kept him anchored to the back of his chair.

His smile widened and laughter bubbled like spring water through his lips. "Mama hold me?" he asked.

"Yes, Mama is going to hold you," she replied.

"Mama hold Val tight?"

"So tight you're going to squeak."

Wrapping her arms around her son, Leah lifted him out of the chair. She swayed unsteadily, his weight, at sixty pounds, more than half of her own. He rested his head on her shoulder, his lips near her ear as she gripped him fiercely, her eyes closed to allow the swell of feeling in her chest to radiate through her body.

"Mama love?" he asked softly.

"Oh yes. Mama loves." She smiled. "Mama loves you more than life."

Shamika regarded them from the door. "I knew you couldn't stand it for much longer."

"The fever is broken. I'm feeling much better."