Golden Filly Collection Two (17 page)

“That will go fast.”

“How come I…” Trish shut her mouth. If she’d called home more often, she’d have known.

“I can’t wait. I’ll have a year-round tan then, not just rusty like you Washingtonians.”

“Yeah, big talk.” Rhonda flicked soda at him with her straw. “You know for sure where you’re going to school, Brad?”

“Mom says Clark, Dad says University of Washington, and my scholarship is for Washington State. I had thought David was going to be there and we could room together.” He rested his chin on his hands. “I’m accepted at all three.”

“Now the
big
question. What are you going to be when you grow up?” Rhonda teased.

Trish felt like a spectator watching a play from the last row of the balcony. The voices faded in and out, as with a faulty sound system.

“What are you going to do, Tee?”

Trish snapped to attention. “Who, me? Uh—join the foreign legion.” Trish took a bite of pizza before looking up to get her friends’ response.

“Funny.” David shook his head.

“We’re seniors this year.” Rhonda jumped in to fill the silence. “We can do anything we want.”

“Right.” David and Brad spoke in the same breath.

Trish sat through the movie but couldn’t have told anyone the plot. Rhonda stayed overnight with Trish, and though they usually didn’t lack for things to talk about, Trish had to force herself to stay awake. She drifted off in the middle of a sentence.

In the morning, Marge insisted they all go to church together. Trish felt about as much like going to church as to the dentist. She was the last one out to the minivan and sat in the back. Rhonda turned to talk with her but Trish was not in the mood.

She managed to ignore the songs, the Scripture-reading, and the sermon, until Pastor Mort quoted Jesus: “ ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions.…I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am, there you may be also.’”

Trish clamped her teeth on her bottom lip. Her father had quoted that verse many times. She glared at the pastor. Had he purposely used this Scripture—because he knew she would be there? Arms locked across her chest, Trish mulled the thought over, trying to put his voice in another dimension.

Rhonda poked her in the side. “You okay?” she whispered.

Trish shook her head.

The service closed with the hymn from Isaiah: “He will raise you up on eagle’s wings.…” Trish tried to shut it out. When that didn’t work, she walked out the door. It may have been her theme song at one time, but not anymore.

“Pastor Mort asked about you,” Marge said when she got to the car. “He wondered why you left suddenly. Do you want to go back in and say hello? We’ll wait.”

Patrick nodded. “It might do you good, lass.”

Trish erupted from the backseat. “How come everyone knows what’s best for
me
?” Her voice broke as she climbed out of the van and slammed the door after her.

She met Pastor Mort as he was entering his study. “I—I’m sorry I left church like that. I just couldn’t take any more.” She slouched in a chair in his office.

“I thought so. You looked pretty uncomfortable.” His smile was easy; his voice without condemnation. “Contrary to what you might have thought, I did
not
choose that Scripture passage. It was the assigned portion for today.”

Trish had to grin. He’d read her perfectly.

“I know that was one of your father’s favorite verses. He was looking forward to that mansion, you know.” Pastor Mort waited for Trish to say something. He was good at waiting.

“I didn’t want to come to church today…”

“I figured as much. How’s the anger these days?”

Trish grinned again. “Better, I think. It’s hard coming home, though. Everything comes back as soon as I walk in the door.” She looked down at her hands. “I can’t do anything right anymore either. I can’t ride like I used to; can’t win anything. And I nearly flunked my chemistry quiz—and I’d studied. All I want to do is
sleep
. I can’t breathe; it’s like the air is too heavy.”

Pastor Mort nodded. “Depression can be a part of the grieving process. It happens when we turn our anger inward. Does that seem to fit?”

“Maybe.”

“Have you read your father’s journal?”

Trish shook her head.

“Have you started one of your own?”

“I—I just don’t have time right now. I—” She looked up to study the man’s face. “I’m scared. Really scared.”

“Why is that?” His voice was soft, compassionate.

Trish sensed that he really cared. “I—I don’t think life is worth living anymore.”

“Too much effort?”

“Mmmm.”

“May I pray with you, Trish?”

Trish shook her head.

“Well, if I can’t pray with you now, I promise I will pray
for
you.”

She nodded, holding back the tears.

“Try the journaling. I know it will help. I could find someone down there for you to talk to, if you’d like.”

“I gotta go. They’re waiting for me.” Trish stood to her feet. “Thanks.”

“It’ll get better. Believe me.” Pastor Mort stood with her. “I’ll send you the name of someone in San Mateo.”

The next morning Marge drove Trish to the airport. “What did you think of Miss Tee, Trish?”

“Patrick’s been doing a good job with her.”

“No…I have.”

Trish stared at her mother. “You?”

“Yes. Surprised?”

“Surprised isn’t the word; you don’t even
like
horses.”

Marge drove into the short-term parking lot and turned off the engine. “It’s funny, isn’t it. All the years your father worked with the horses, I was busy raising you kids. Now he’s gone, and you and David…”

“But I’m coming back.”

“I know that. But you’ll start your senior year this fall. After graduation who knows where you’ll be.” Marge turned toward her daughter. “I needed something to do—something to really occupy my time—so I asked Patrick if I could help with the horses. It’s been good. I feel closer to your dad down at the barns than anywhere. Maybe it’s because he was so happy there.” She continued as the tears ran down her cheeks. “I found that I’m good with the babies. Of course, I always have been good with babies.…”

“Oh, Mom, I’m really proud of you.”

“Thanks, Tee. I figured it couldn’t hurt to try. Selling out had crossed my mind. How are things going for you in California?”

It was the first chance all weekend that Trish had had to really talk to her mother. “Not too good. I’ve lost my touch—can’t seem to get them into the money.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Marge laid a hand on Trish’s shoulder.

“The sportswriters even talk about it in their articles. Pretty bad, huh?” She opened the car door. “We’d better go.”

“I know.…Just remember that I love you—and miss you. The house is pretty empty.”

Trish tried to smile around the quiver of her lips. “It won’t be too long till I’m home.”

Aboard the plane, Trish pondered her mother’s words—“selling out.” Would her mother ever really consider that? Was there anything she could do to stop it?

The next afternoon, Trish’s mount stumbled coming out of the gate. The filly went to her knees, and Trish somersaulted over her head and thumped in the dirt.

Chapter
14

T
rish took the roll on her shoulder.

Her mount lunged back up on her feet and galloped down the track after the receding field.

Trish continued the somersault roll to a sitting position and took a moment to get her bearings. She sat in the dirt of the track, breathing hard; coughing, and spitting some dirt from her mouth. After flexing her arms and legs to be sure everything was intact, she staggered to her feet, still a bit woozy from the force of the fall.

A track ambulance stopped beside her and the paramedics jumped out. “You okay?” one asked as he swung open the rear door and reached for his case.

“I’m fine. You don’t need any of that stuff.” Trish flinched when she moved her head. “I’m just shook up.” She grimaced again when she touched her right shoulder.

“Bruised too, I’d guess.” A young woman grasped Trish’s right hand. “Squeeze.” She watched Trish’s flinching response. “You’d better have them look at that in First Aid. Come on, jump in. We’ll take you over there.”

Jumping was a bit beyond Trish’s ability at that moment, but she climbed into the ambulance for the ride to the nurse’s station in the same building as the jockey rooms.

By the time Trish sat down on a gurney in one of the curtained-off examining alcoves, her shoulder was throbbing. She rotated it carefully. It worked, but it hurt.

Waiting for the nurse, Trish laid back and closed her eyes.

“I think she’s done for as far as racing is concerned.” Trish tried to ignore the man’s voice on the other side of the room, but he spoke too clearly. “Anyone could have won on Spitfire; he was that good.”

“I don’t know,” the other voice responded. “She’s won plenty of other races too.”

“Yeah,
before
her father died. She’s just a lucky kid who’s run out of luck.” His voice was a hoarse whisper, but Trish heard him with no trouble.

Does he think I’m deaf or something?

“No better than a green apprentice. It was all hype, nothing more.”

Was it true? Is that what people were actually saying and thinking about her?

“So, how’re you doing?” A gray-haired nurse with a warm smile swished back the curtain. “Heard you took quite a spill out there.”

Trish nodded. “It’s just my shoulder. A hot shower’ll take care of the rest.” The man’s insensitive words pounded in her brain. While the nurse helped her remove her silks, she could feel the anger and hurt burning in her stomach and flaring up into her chest.

Trish winced when the woman moved the injured shoulder and gently but firmly felt for a break. “Just a bruise, I’m sure. You have any more mounts today?” Trish shook her head. “Good. Let’s ice it and put it in a sling to take the pressure off. Knowing jockeys, though, you’ll be up and riding again tomorrow.”

Trish tried to smile, but it felt as if her face would crack with the effort. Was her gift with horses really gone? Buried with her father?

The nurse slapped a chemical ice bag to activate it. Trish turned onto her stomach, and the woman placed the bag high on Trish’s shoulder blade, then pulled a sheet over her.

“Lie there with the ice for a bit, and I’ll get you some aspirin. A nap wouldn’t hurt either.”

But sleep was out of the question. Trish had a hard time lying still. When she squirmed, the pack slipped. She slid it back in place again and took a deep breath to relax. The pack slipped again. Trish rolled over and swung her feet to the floor.
This is not working.

She pulled her silk shirt around her shoulders and headed for the door. In the hall she ran into the nurse. She shook her head. “Why don’t you go down to the whirlpool and then see the masseuse?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“And use the sling…”

Trish ignored the pain in her shoulder as she changed clothes in the women’s jockey room. She jammed her things into her sports bag, her arm back in the sling, and hurried out the door. All the way around the south end of the track and into the parking lot, her shoulder throbbed and the anger churned in her stomach.

Slinging her bag into the backseat of her car, Trish slid into the driver’s seat. She punched the button to put the top down and started her engine.

Each time she shifted, the pain in her arm reminded her of the pain in her heart, the pain in her mind.
How much more of this can I take?

She stopped for the lights, northbound on Camino Real. She had no particular destination. The sign read “92 to Half Moon Bay.” Trish took the cloverleaf and headed west, over the hills to the Pacific Ocean.

The winding road invoked speed. Trish shifted down on the upgrade and leaned on the accelerator. Wind blew her hair back and made her eyes water. She roared around one curve and hit the brakes. A truck and trailer rumbled up the grade in front of her.

You don’t learn too fast, do you,
her nagging voice shouted above the roar of the car’s engine.

Trish backed off. All she needed right now was a traffic ticket or, worse, an accident. The truck ahead of her picked up speed after it crested the last hill. Trish could see the ocean in the distance. She followed the curving road down between bushy hills that finally opened onto a narrow valley, lined on both sides with Christmas tree farms. As the valley widened, she passed truck farming, a winery, and the houses and businesses of the town of Half Moon Bay. The road ended at a traffic light on Highway 1.