Look Twice

by M. Garzon

  “Well, it’s not as though he’s a stranger, is it? She’ll be safe with him,” Gran said reasonably. “I fail to see the point of letting this kerfuffle spoil everyone’s Christmas. Jaden is right. Let Téa go with him, and the rest of the family will gradually come to terms with it.”

  Dec muttered something unintelligible under his breath. He turned his glare on me.

  “I said no. End of discussion.”

  I didn’t bother asking why, since the only response we’d ever gotten to that question was, “Because I said so.”

  After dinner, Gran and I cleaned up. I watched her out of the corner of my eye, wondering how to thank her. She’d never been the warm and nurturing sort, but we’d grown steadily closer over the years and I’d been dreading her censure over my involvement with Jaden. So much so that I’d been avoiding her, I realized suddenly. I put down the plate I was holding and faced her.

  “Gran... thanks. For trying, I mean,” I stammered.

  “Well, I’ve thought it over, and in my view, everyone’s overreacting. You can’t help who your mother married, after all.” She smiled suddenly, lifting years from her face. “I remember what it’s like to be young and in love.”

  Gran’s smile ignited my own. The dark weight that had been pushing me down dissipated, and I felt suddenly lighter. I hugged her a bit tentatively, and she patted my back.

  “You mustn’t give up hope,” she murmured.

  After Jaden left I went to help Seth with the bedtime check of the barn. We went down the aisles, making sure that doors were securely latched, horses had hay, and lights were turned off. I stepped into Cal’s stall to straighten his blanket.

  Seth flipped his shaggy mane out of his eyes as he stood in the doorway. “This whole Christmas dinner thing is stupid. Dec’s being unfair. He’s unreasonable. He’s unfaironable.”

  “You know that’s not really a word, right?” I said.

  “What are you, the word police?” He grinned. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Sis, but if you go away with Jaden I’m totally using it as leverage to go to Julia’s.”

  I patted Cal on my way out. “Go for it. Dec can’t be any madder at me than he already is.” I paused, gazing at Seth uncertainly. “Will you be okay if I go?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Think I can’t manage a few days without you?” He slung his arm around my neck and pulled me toward the door.

  “That was pretty surprising with Gran, huh?” I asked.

  Seth nodded thoughtfully. It would have been less surprising if Gran had lobbied for him. They’d been close from the beginning, but then, Seth was the lovable one. For a long time, I had thought that Seth got all the aces in our shared genetic deck — the tall, blond, blue-eyed looks as well as the good-natured calm. But somehow I got Jaden, and that trumped everything. My ordinary looks and smallness couldn’t bother me anymore after that.

  * * *

  The next day my best friend Teri found me in the tackroom. Her celery-green eyes were shadowed by worry.

  “Remember that horse I told you about?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  On her way to our place, Teri drove past a horse that lived in a small pasture by the road. He seemed neglected so she’d been keeping an eye on him.

  “He’s skinnier than ever and there never seems to be anyone on the property, so I asked around about him.” She tucked her wavy caramel hair behind her ears as I sat down next to her. “Word is, the couple in that house are getting divorced. The horse was the wife’s but she moved out, and the ex-husband’s not taking care of him.”

  I frowned. “So either he’s being vindictive or he just can’t be bothered. But why doesn’t the wife take her horse?”

  “She lives in the city, and she can’t move him until the divorce is settled.”

  We were in the midst of making plans to bring over some hay when Dec came into the tackroom. “Téa, please tell me you’re not harassing the neighbors again,” he said tiredly.

  I relayed Teri’s story as best I could.

  Dec gave me a stern look. “First it was the chained dogs. Then it was the pigs that never saw the light of day. This is no different, Téa. That horse isn’t yours and you have no business interfering.”

  I understood his reticence. The other times I’d gotten involved in trying to improve the lot of animals, their owners had been farmers and they’d been unappreciative, to say the least. Dec had borne the brunt of their displeasure, although I’d certainly felt the sting of his afterward.

  “This is different,” I pleaded. “The man caring for the horse might just be ignorant. I want to offer him help if he needs it.”

  “Then call the S.P.C.A. If the horse needs help, they’re the ones who should provide it.”

  “But it might take days for them to go there.”

  He stepped into my space, intimidating me. “Téa, stay out of this. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes.” I looked away, resigned. Dec was supporting my choice to be with Jaden, after all. I didn’t want to aggravate him unnecessarily.

  After Dec left I turned to Teri. “C’mon, let’s load some hay into your trunk. You can drop it off for the poor guy on your way home.” Surely a bit of food couldn’t be considered interference. I smiled over at Teri as we stuffed hay into the trunk of her car. It was just like her to be doing this, I thought fondly. She never made a big deal of her good deeds.

  My phone rang right after I’d fallen asleep that night. I answered it clumsily to hear Teri talking a mile a minute.

  “Whoa... can you start over? At human speed?” I sat up in bed.

  Teri took a strangled breath. “The horse is down. He looked awful when I gave him the hay, but he was eating. Then when I was lying in bed I realized I hadn’t seen a water bucket. I couldn’t stop worrying about it so I came out here to check. And he’s down! I can’t get him up, and there’s no one in the house.”

  “Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  My mind raced as I hurriedly yanked on clothes. Dec wasn’t going to like this, and I would undoubtedly pay for it later, but I had no choice. I stuck my head into the hallway. Dec’s bedroom door was closed; it was almost midnight so it was a safe bet that he was asleep. I let myself into Seth’s room across the hall and shook him awake.

  “What?” he mumbled groggily as I turned on his desk lamp.

  “Put on your superhero cape, little brother.” I filled him in as he started dressing.

  “Hold it. We’re not telling Dec?” He frowned worriedly.

  I shook my head. “He told me to stay out of it,” I admitted.

  Seth chewed his lip, thinking. “If the horse is down we might need help to get him in the trailer.”

  “That’s why I’m bringing you — you’re the brawn in this operation. Now come on.” I headed out the door without waiting for his answer.

  We hitched the two-horse trailer up to Dec’s truck, my heart jumping with every metallic clang. Luckily Dec’s dog, Blue, was old now and getting a bit hard of hearing. A few years ago her barking would have given us away for sure. I ran and got a couple of horse blankets, and at the last second grabbed some electrolyte solution.

  It was cold, and our nervous breaths punctuated the drive like clouds of hope. I texted Teri when we got close and she flashed her headlights so we could find her. She jumped out of her car to meet us, underdressed and shivering, and led us to a dark shape on the ground. She’d thrown a blanket I recognized from her car over the horse, who was completely prone. I dropped to my knees by his head and held my hand over his nostrils, and was reassured by a puff of warm air. Teri and Seth arranged another blanket over him before Seth left to scout the field.

  “Hey buddy,” I said softly, stroking the gelding’s forehead. “We’re going to help you, okay?”

  My eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough to see his open. He struggled to lift his head and I helped him, cradling it in my lap. He blinked up at me, his gaze filled with nothing but trusting innocen
ce, as though I wasn’t a member of a species that had almost killed him.

  “Okay,” Seth puffed as he came jogging back. “The gate’s at the top of the paddock, which means I have to drive all the way down here.”

  Luckily the snow wasn’t deep, but you never knew what holes or other dangers might be lurking beneath the surface.

  Teri went with Seth, and I remembered the bottle of electrolytes in my pocket. I unscrewed the cap and dribbled it into the horse’s mouth a bit at a time. You could die from dehydration a lot sooner than starvation.

  The trailer bumped slowly across the field, and Seth positioned it so the ramp would be right in front of the horse. I prayed fervently that he’d be strong enough to stand and walk the few steps onto it because if he couldn’t I didn’t know who to call. The police? The S.P.C.A.? I was worried that neither of them would act quickly enough to save him.

  “Téa, you pull on his halter, and Teri and I will push from the side. On three,” Seth said, and counted.

  We pushed, pulled, and cajoled, speaking gently. I cursed myself for not thinking to bring some treats — I’d have bet an apple would be a strong motivator. The horse had rocked onto his chest and extended his forelegs. He obviously wanted to get up, but he was so weak. I felt the frozen tracks of my tears as I turned to Teri.

  “Do you have any food in your car?”

  Her face lit up before she ran. She was back in seconds, brandishing a bag of carrots.

  “I forgot to leave these for Picasso today!”

  I broke off a small piece of carrot and offered it to the horse, whose ears pricked forward in recognition.

  “Okay, Rocky,” I said as he chewed. “You’re going to have to work for the rest.”

  “Rocky?” Seth grinned at me.

  “Well, he’s obviously a fighter.”

  When Rocky gave me a hopeful look we resumed our pushing and pulling, but this time I also held a carrot just out of reach. After a couple of tries he heaved himself up, and we all patted him while he ate his prize. Then I led him forward, petrified that his shaking legs would give out, but he staggered up the ramp and stood trembling in the trailer. I turned to Seth.

  “What if he falls while we’re driving? Should we get him to lie down?”

  It was dangerous, but we decided to try. I pulled behind Rocky’s knee, bending his foreleg and trying to get him to understand what we wanted. Whether he understood or not, he wasn’t strong enough to stay up on three legs and with a groan, he half-lay, half-collapsed on the rubber-matted trailer floor.

  Seth drove at a snail’s pace and Teri followed in her car. We turned off our headlights before pulling into the long driveway, but our entrance must have been too noisy. We had barely lowered the trailer’s ramp when Dec burst out of the house.

  I had planned to leave Seth out of this entirely; when Dec discovered the new addition in the morning I was going to tell him that I’d gotten the horse myself. I frantically groped for a good explanation as Dec stormed closer.

  “What the hell, Téa!” he yelled. I felt Teri jump next to me.

  “We went and got the neglected horse,” she blurted.

  I shot her a look.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled. “Dec scares me a little.”

  Dec looked inside the trailer. He huffed loudly while the rest of us held our breaths.

  “All right, let’s get him out of there,” Dec muttered.

  Rocky was still lying down, and he peered at us anxiously over his shoulder. I went and knelt next to him.

  “It’s almost over, sweetie,” I soothed, rubbing his shaggy neck. “One more big effort and you can rest.”

  Maybe Rocky had begun to hope because he stood up more easily this time. Teri led him very slowly into the barn, with Seth and me supporting him on one side and Dec on the other. We put him into a stall and set about getting him extra bedding, hay, and water with more electrolytes. Once Rocky was comfortable, Dec crooked a finger at us and headed for the house without looking back.

  We were still in the entryway when Dec turned and speared me with a look.

  “It was my idea,” I said quickly. “I forced Seth to come.”

  Dec’s brows crept up as his gaze traveled from my scant five feet two-and-a-half to my brother’s six-foot frame. “Let me guess, you used physical coercion,” he said drily.

  “Blackmail,” I responded blandly.

  Dec passed a hand over his face. “Seth, go to bed,” he ordered. His eyes moved to Teri, her flannel pajama pants visible between her coat and boots. “You’d better spend the night, kiddo. You can call your parents in the morning.”

  Teri nodded to him before giving me a worried look.

  “I’ll be right up,” I said quietly.

  She followed Seth upstairs while I followed Dec into the office. He leaned against his desk and crossed his arms.

  “You never seem to learn, Téa.” His voice was quiet, the calm before the storm.

  I said nothing but kept my eyes down. I knew this dance far too well.

  “Do you remember the last time I hit you?” he asked conversationally.

  “Yes,” I whispered, my mouth going dry. I wasn’t likely to forget that day, just six months before, when I had barged into this very room to find my stepfather beating my brother.

  “My brother used to try to protect me, you know,” he said. “There were times he’d step in front of me and willingly suffer a blow for my sake.”

  My eyes flew upward as he paused, but I didn’t even breathe, shocked as much by the revelation as by the image of Uncle Peter as victim.

  “When I saw Seth shielding you that day — shielding you from me — it was like a kick in the gut. I vowed right then that I’d never hurt either of you again.” He swallowed. “It hasn’t always been an easy vow to keep.”

  I turned my face away. There was no point in denying it; I’d seen it in his eyes.

  “Which leaves us with a question.” He sighed. “Now what do I do with you?”

  I raised my eyes slowly and saw what he was offering — the first strand in a web of trust. A smile began to twitch across my face.

  “There’s always military school.”

  “They’d be begging me to take you back within a week.”

  When he stepped closer I had to force myself not to tense up.

  “If you’d come to me and told me the horse was down, I would have gone with you, Téa. I might have gotten mad, but I would’ve gone.”

  * * *

  The next morning I lent Teri some clothes. She was a bit shorter than me, but with a nicer, more feminine body. We checked on Rocky before starting to feed and found him still lying down, looking comfortable and alert. I winced at the sight of the bones jutting under his skin.

  Seth was already throwing hay bales down from the loft, and Teri and I went to cut the baler twine and distribute the flakes to the stalls.

  “That was a great save last night, Ter,” Seth commented when he climbed down.

  “I couldn’t have done anything without you guys,” she mumbled. She turned her face away, blushing.

  Seth grinned and picked up half a bale of hay, which was way more than I’d be able to carry. Teri watched him stride down the aisle for a minute, then grabbed some hay without looking at me. After we finished feeding she left, promising to leave a note at Rocky’s owner’s house. I yawned my way through three lessons and worked two horses — barely — before deciding to try and sneak in a nap. It would mean ignoring my oodles of homework, but the next day was Sunday and I reasoned I’d find time for it then.

  But Sunday brought a surprise. Seth and I were heading to the house for breakfast after feeding the horses when a car drove into the yard way too fast. A slightly overweight man got out and came huffing toward us, his florid face livid.

  “Where’s my horse?” he demanded.

  “What do you mean?” I hedged. This was undoubtedly Rocky’s owner — or rather, the owner’s husband — and I wasn’t feeling kindly dispo
sed toward him in the least.

  The man’s round face got even redder. “Listen, you punks, I know he’s here and I want him back now! And I’m charging you with theft!”

  “Why don’t you go get Dec,” Seth suggested to me, eyeing the man warily.

  As if he’d summoned him, we heard the screen door slam and saw Dec head our way. He took in the scene at a glance.

  “Can I help you?” he asked briskly.

  I expected the stranger to back down in the face of Dec’s presence, but if anything his belligerence increased. He stepped toward Dec and thrust out his chin.

  “These punks stole my horse! Where is he?”

  Dec didn’t even blink. “It’s in the hands of the S.P.C.A. now. If you’d like your horse back you need to contact them.”

  I jumped as the man suddenly screamed, “No! No, not again!”

  Dec stepped closer to him. “I’m going to ask you nicely to get off my property,” he said grimly, “but I’ll only ask you once. If you don’t go I’ll remove you by force.” His hard stare didn’t leave the man’s face.

  The guy went even redder, but he started backing away. “You won’t get away with this! Stealing from me, everyone stealing all the time! You’ll be next, just wait.”

  Dec watched him drive away before turning to us. I didn’t meet his eye and kept Seth between us as we headed into the barn; we all seemed to feel the same need to see Rocky. He’d been moved to a stall in the corner farthest away from the arena, so that other horses wouldn’t have to pass in front of him, since we didn’t know if he’d had his shots or whether he was sick. I had put a sign on his stall asking people not to pet him, but admitting we had let a potentially contagious horse into the barn opened us up to all kinds of problems. It was something I hadn’t thought of when we had rescued him, but when Dec had pointed it out to me I’d been doubly impressed with his restraint over my impulsiveness. Rocky’s owner, however, presented a whole new level of complication.

  “You sure know how to pick’em, Sis.” Seth grinned at me as he gave Rocky a pat.