78 79 THE CEDARVILLE REVIEW Something churned inside my stomach, and I felt like I was going to be sick. When Mom poked her head into my room, I told her I felt terrible. She walked over to my bed and felt my forehead. “Okay, baby,” she whispered. “Just get some rest, okay? I’ll make chicken noodle soup.” So, I stayed in my bedroom for hours, watching the snowflakes swirl to the ground outside the window. My stomach went from feeling awful to feeling okay to feeling awful again. By the afternoon, it had been feeling okay for a couple of hours. Tentatively, I stood up. I opened the window, and I climbed outside. I started walking, and trying not to think. I don’t really know how long I’d been walking before I saw the resort park’s stables on a hill in the distance. They have a bunch of trails in the woods, and they take people out on horseback rides. For some reason, I walked up the hill. My boots crunched the snow underneath them until I stood in the barn’s doorway. “Hey, man,” said a guy’s voice. I turned, and a man in his late thirties was working with a speckled gray Clydesdale horse. He had a cowboy hat and a shorttrimmed brown beard. “What’s up?” I shrugged. “Just looking around. I don’t know.” “Well, this is a good place to be looking around.” He grinned. “My name’s Jeremiah. What’s yours?” “It’s Jake,” I said. “What are you doing?” Jeremiah said he was cleaning the horse’s hooves. When he beckoned me closer, he showed me the hoof pick he used. I made a face. “Doesn’t it hurt her?” “Naw,” said Jeremiah. He patted the horse’s side. “She stands still. She’s a good girl.” “Has she got a name?” I said. “For sure,” Jeremiah said. “Her name is Lucy.” I took a step backward as a new wave of nausea hit me. I wanted to say, That was my little sister’s name. I wanted to shove the thought out of my brain. I wanted to run away. The mare looked at me with her big, brown, understanding eyes that reached into my heart. I stepped forward to put my hand on her nose, and her breath warmed my palm, and the churning in my stomach calmed down, just a little. So, I didn’t run away. But I also didn’t tell Jeremiah about my sister. I couldn’t. I can’t. “Want to try your hand at cleaning her hoof?” Jeremiah offered, holding the hoof pick toward me. I took it, and knelt beside him in the straw. December 23, 2:00pm
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