Bittersweet Farm 2: Joyful Spirit Read online

  Bittersweet Farm 2:

  Joyful Spirit

  Barbara Morgenroth

  Copyright 2013 Barbara Morgenroth

  Chapter One

  I banged on the door again. “Lockie!”

  “Shhh,” Greer hissed from inside.

  Seeing no point in staying longer, I turned, went down the stairs and into the barn. CB was poking his nose out between the bars again and I gave him a quick kiss as I passed by. Butch was eating the second cutting hay that we had just gotten in and it looked delicious.

  As I left the barn, Lockie was getting out of his truck.

  “Hi.” He was smiling.

  “Hi.” I was not smiling.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked closing the truck door.

  Even though it was ridiculous, I was too annoyed to find any humor in it. “You’re upstairs in bed with Greer.”

  “Am I enjoying myself?”

  “By the sound of it, very much.”

  “Go Lockie!” He grinned.

  “I’m going to kill her,” I said.

  I had put up with so much from my half-sister over the years and never bothered to react but that seemed to have been my mistake. Ignoring her only upped the ante for the next time.

  “No, let’s go see what stunt she’s pulling.” Lockie grabbed my hand and ran me through the barn to the stairs to his apartment. There he brought me to a stop and whispered “You stomp up the stairs, and I’ll be quiet.”

  I shrugged and thumped up the stairs with Lockie following me, then raised my hands questioning what was supposed to happen next. He banged on the door and motioned to me.

  “Lockie! What are you doing in there?”

  “Don’t get up!” Greer said from inside the apartment.

  Lockie started to laugh silently and motioned for me to keep going.

  “If I ever get a hold of you,” I said, “you’re going from King Stud to Wimpy Gelding!”

  “Yikes!” Lockie mouthed silently.

  “You think I’m kidding? Without anesthesia!”

  “Don’t pay any attention to her. Talia’s a coward,” Greer said. “She never does anything.”

  “Barehanded. And if you survive that, I’m telling everyone on the east coast show circuit who castrated you and why! I’ll probably get a medal!”

  Leaning over to me, Lockie whispered into my ear. “Isn’t that a little over the top?”

  “I thought you wanted it to sound convincing!” I whispered back.

  Noiselessly, Lockie went down the stairs while I stamped down behind him in a feigned rage.

  As I reached the ground floor, he pushed me up against the tack room wall with his body. It was fantastic. It made up for everything.

  “Tell me the truth, Silly Filly. Did you believe for one second I was in there?”

  “Not for one second.”

  “A half a second?”

  His nose was on my nose.

  “No, Lockie.”

  I was about to kiss him when he stepped back.

  “Tack CB. We’ll go for that hack. I had an idea.”

  “Apparently that idea doesn’t include me treating you like Butch,” I called to him as Lockie walked toward Wing’s stall.

  “How so?” He picked up Wing’s halter and opened the stall door.

  “I would have kissed him,” I said.

  “You can kiss me some other time.”

  I stood in the middle of the aisle. “You’re impossible.”

  “I’m very possible.”

  ***

  Ten minutes later, we were riding through the field that bordered the outdoor arena. In another hour, the horses would be turned out to spend the night at pasture, absent the heat and flies. In another two weeks, the fall school semester would begin. It was our senior year and while I had been indifferent before, that had changed.

  It was true that The Briar School was in town. Greer and I were day students while most of our classmates lived on campus; we didn’t leave home but now I didn’t want to leave at all. There was so much for me to do at the barn that I wasn’t sure how to get it all in after the school day.

  For the first time, I wanted to take lessons. I had always loved riding but the rest of it wasn’t fun. It wasn’t a challenge and I wasn’t engaged. That had changed because there was so much to learn from Lockie.

  Instead of just a place to live, the farm now felt like home.

  “This is where the cross-country course should be,” Lockie said pointing toward a curve in the hill. “We can take advantage of the natural terrain.”

  Since the subject of an outside course hadn’t been mentioned in weeks, I didn’t realize he was still thinking about it.

  “It won’t be as demanding as some courses” he said

  “Like those with a ditch and a berm,” I said over him.

  “I don’t remember that,” Lockie replied.

  Lockie’s memory of the fall he’d taken at that jump in the combined training event was gone and maybe that was just as well, but the after-effects remained. The headaches were persistent and the doctors my father had found for him hadn’t been able to completely resolve that issue yet. I was sure there were days it hurt Lockie just to walk. His sensitivity to light was controlled, to a large degree, with special contact lenses but sounds were more acute to him than they were to me and there was nothing to be done about that.

  Never complaining, Lockie managed the barn, trained horses, gave lessons, didn’t ask for a pass when he didn’t feel well and never lost his temper with Greer when even a saint would have been swearing at her.

  Lockie reminded me so much of my mother, I had come to admire Lockie as had my father and he was a tough man to please. I saw first-hand how difficult life had been for my mother during her illness and thought Lockie possessed the same kind of stoicism she had.

  I just wished he wouldn’t take the chances he did on his horse. The doctors didn’t want him to ride at the same level he had previously, but riding was his life and it wasn’t something Lockie was going to give up easily or at all. Training horses and coaching riders wasn’t enough.

  While understanding his desire to continue riding, I knew it was so easy to take a fall. The last time I hit the ground, it had been over nothing. Butch shied and I hadn’t been paying attention so my legs weren’t tight on the saddle. Off I went.

  The same thing could happen to Lockie, too. A moment’s distraction, leaves blowing, or a squirrel running in front of Wing could be the cause. It didn’t have to be over a huge fence and the truth was that Lockie couldn’t afford to hit the ground again.

  “Talia. Are you paying attention?” Lockie said.

  “I thought you gave up on the idea of having an outside course. Greer does all her jumping in the ring and I’m not ...”

  “Yeah, I know and I wanted to talk to you about that.”

  “What?” I felt a rush of impending doom.

  “There’s a hunter pace in late September and I would like you and Rogers to ride it.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m done competing.”

  “It’s not competing. It’s like hacking through the woods with your friend.”

  “Since other teams will also be riding and there’s a time element, I think that could be categorized as a competition.”

  “If you’re going to nitpick ...”

  “Why should I ride it?”

  “Because I can’t and Rogers needs the experience on Karneval.”

  As good a friend as Rogers might be, and while I wished her well on the horse she had bought from us, this wasn’t sufficient motivation to convince me to compete.

  “That�
�s not a good enough reason, sorry. Find someone else.”

  “It should be a team from Bittersweet.”

  “Why?”

  “Because your father asked me to get the farm’s name in the paper once in a while. I couldn’t get Greer to the National Horse Show, so ...”

  “That’s not your fault!” I said over him.

  “I don’t know when Greer’s first show success will be. This will be good for everyone.”

  “Except me.”

  “All right.”

  “You’re going to leave it at that?” I asked,

  “I told you I’m not here to make you miserable.”

  “And you’re okay with me saying no?”

  “If you don’t want to, you don’t want to.”

  We kept riding up the hill.

  “I’ll do it,” Lockie added.

  “That’s so unfair!” I should have known there was a trap in it for me.

  “No, it’s not. I want to do it and you don’t.”

  “Your doctors don’t want you to compete,” I reminded him.

  Lockie turned in the saddle. “It’s not competing, it’s just riding across country like we are now.”

  “We’re not galloping!”

  “Because we’re talking.”

  “Not anymore.” I turned CB around and cantered down the hill away from him. A moment later Lockie was galloping beside us, leaving me no choice but to pull up.

  “What are you doing?” I demanded.

  “I’m trying to talk to you.”

  “You galloped down the hill!”

  “I’m not going to live in bubble wrap for the rest of my life. I’m sorry if that upsets you. Stop worrying and enjoy my life with me.”

  “I actually do understand this,” I began.

  “Good.”

  “Let me finish. You love riding, but it’s not worth risking your life. Be grateful. If that means having to give up some things, then you do that. You were blessed and it seems like you don’t appreciate it.”

  “Maybe by living my life fully that expresses my appreciation,” Lockie replied.

  I was so angry with him I couldn’t say another word. After untacking CB, I returned him to his stall and going up to the house went directly to my father’s office.

  I tapped on the door.

  “Come on,” he said.

  I entered to find him on the phone.

  “I’ll call you back. Bye.” He hung up. “Hi, Talia. What’s wrong?”

  I was so transparent that everyone who looked at me apparently could detect exactly how I felt? Terrific. I paced to the bookshelf then back to the window.

  “What happened?” He asked.

  “Lockie,” I managed to say.

  “Is he okay?”

  “He won’t be if he keeps taking chances!”

  “Would you like to sit down?”

  “No.”

  “All right. What did he do?”

  “The doctors said ...” I couldn’t finish.

  My father waited for a moment.

  “He ...”

  “I loved your mother. Watching her fade and not be able to do anything drove me crazy. It was the first time in my life that I was so ineffective.”

  “Tell Lockie ...”

  “No, it doesn’t work that way.”

  “Dad!”

  My father smiled. “You almost sound like Greer.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  My father picked up his phone and keyed in some numbers. “You’ll talk to Lockie’s doctor. Ask the doctor the question you fear most.”

  “Dad,” I began to protest.

  “Ask. Get past it. Say the words. Say ‘Is he going to die from the injuries he sustained in the accident?’”

  I glared at him.

  “That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t respond because the answer was yes and we both knew it.

  “Hi,” he said into the phone. “This is Andrew Swope. Is Dr. Jarosz available? Thank you.” He held out the phone to me. “After you talk, I want you to take a shower, put on something nice, and we’ll all have dinner.”

  Chapter Two

  Sitting on the floor of the shower stall, I cried as the water streamed over me. Years of tears in a seemingly endless flow poured out. When I was spent, I stood, turned off the water and got ready for dinner.

  “Good,” my father said as I entered the dining room.

  Lockie was already seated at the foot of the table with Jules, our live-in chef and my confidant, who was seated across from my place. I sat.

  Greer had driven off earlier while Lockie and I were out in the field. Maybe she was embarrassed or maybe she didn’t give a damn when she saw his truck parked in front of the barn. Maybe she thought that hurting me was all that mattered.

  “Before we have dinner,” my father said, “I’m going to speak and you two will listen.”

  I didn’t look up from my salad plate.

  “I understand how passionately you both hold your positions and that’s admirable. Tali, your concern for Lockie is an expression of one of your finer qualities. You possess a deep capacity for compassion. It’s something you inherited from your mother.” He paused. “But, undoubtedly, not from me.”

  I took a sip of water.

  “Lockie, riding is your life,” my father continued. “It could also shorten your life. We like you very much so we would prefer it if you were with us for as long as possible. What to do? What to do with you two.”

  “Tell him what the doctors told him,” I interjected. “He’s not supposed to ride.”

  “They didn’t say that,” Lockie replied. “They said I could ride.”

  “You take too many chances,” I said.

  “I had one bad fall in fifteen years of riding. How do you know that will ever happen again?”

  “It doesn’t have to be the same, all it has to be is a fall,” I shot back. “Dad?”

  “I can’t live a half-life,” Lockie said.

  “It’s better to be alive.” The words almost tasted as bitter as they sounded.

  “Time out,” my father said. “Talia, you said you trusted me to help Lockie.”

  I looked at him. I had never been fair to him and this question made me realize that. In some stupid way for me, he was entangled with the loss of my mother. She had loved him and he had also been the source of her own emotional pain. Too young to understand the relationship they had, all I could see was her sadness and blamed him for it.

  Normal families consisted of a father, mother, and children living in the same house. I didn’t have that. Many of my classmates didn’t either, but that wasn’t foremost in my mind. There was another family, Greer’s, and adult complications that were beyond a child. All I could see was that my parents weren’t together and it was a source of distress for my mother. When she became ill, somehow the two issues were conflated. In my nine year old mind, someone needed to be responsible and I chose him.

  “It’s a bad habit of mine,” I replied.

  “She’s upset,” Lockie said.

  “Please don’t make excuses for my bad behavior,” I said to him. “But I’m not going to stop worrying about you.”

  “It’s unnecessary,” Lockie replied.

  “I thought this was my turn to speak,” my father said.

  “I apologize,” I told him, wanting only to get up from the table and stay in my bedroom for a couple days.

  My father pointed to me. “You will get off Lockie’s case.” He pointed to Lockie. “You will stop taking chances.”

  I was reluctant to say anything. It didn’t seem like much of a resolution to the situation. I was supposed to stop worrying about Lockie and what constituted “taking chances”? That could be anything from a trail ride to the hunter pace.

  “From your expressions, I see that displeases both of you. Good.”

  My father was enjoying this all too much. “That means my dictum weighs equally.”

  “Is
it time for dinner?” Jules asked.

  “Not quite. I have news. Talia asked me to do something for her some weeks ago.”

  “And you found the doctors for Lockie,” I replied.

  “Yes. After I discussed Lockie’s status with Dr. Jarosz, I realized he wouldn’t want to give up riding no matter what the doctors said. In fact, it would be wiser if you didn’t ride again, Lockie, but since that’s not your chosen path, we have to work with you. The problem is not hitting the ground or even hitting your head. A helmet will protect a rider’s head from a rock but it doesn’t do enough to minimize what happens when the impact causes the rider’s brain to hit the inside of the skull. Brain against bone is not an optimal event.”

  “I was wearing the best helmet available.”

  “They’re good but we’re going to do better. We’re developing a new helmet. The force of the impact must be absorbed before it reaches the brain.”

  I looked at Jules and she smiled encouragingly at me. At that moment, I fell in love with my father and was certain, beyond doubt, that this is the man my mother had loved.

  “That’s possible?” Lockie asked.

  “Yes.”

  I turned to Lockie then back to my father.

  My father smiled. “I went to a helmet manufacturer and brought a composite material designed for some other application entirely and asked them to put the two together. We’ll have a prototype soon. Until then, I would ask you, Lockie, to limit your riding to what the doctors have prescribed. When we have the new helmet and are sure that it works as we hope, then perhaps we can convince the doctors to give you more leeway on your activities.”

  “Agreed,” Lockie replied.

  “And you, Talia?” my father asked me.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Good. If only everything was so easy to negotiate,” my father said as he picked up his fork.

  There was silence at the table for a moment.

  “Is there anything, in some small measure, I can do to repay you,” Lockie asked.

  Jules’ fork, dropping on her plate a little too hard, made me glance in her direction. Pushing her chair back, she stood. “Excuse me,” Jules said and hurried from the room.

  My father stood and moved away from the table. “Excuse me. Carry on with dinner,” he said as he followed her out.