Little Girls and Their Ponies

by Meg Collett

  She hissed the words so Matthew wouldn’t hear as he got out of his truck, but judging from his carefully neutral expression, he knew something was going on. Her mom recoiled as if Alice had slapped her, and maybe that would have been better than the constant verbal battering she unleashed on her mom every time she dared mention a horse to Alice. Matthew’s gaze flicked between the two of them as Alice pivoted back around and went inside, letting the screen door slam behind her.

  “Are you okay?” Matthew asked her mom back outside. He was good at asking that question, Alice thought as she picked up her speed down the hall. It wasn’t fast enough to escape the sound of her mom’s sob and muffled response.

  “She’s just so impossible.”

  It was the first honest thing her mom had said in eight months.

  Chapter Five

  She hadn’t felt her flesh burn, but she’d smelled it, mixed in with the spilled diesel and torn bark from the tree coming through the front windshield. It had been a surprising, almost sweet scent, not quite as disgusting as she’d imagined. Not that she’d imagined it much. Or ever.

  That morning, in her dream, she was back in the bent, sizzling truck, smelling her body burn. It was surprisingly quiet beyond the licking flames and the whirring and popping of the truck’s metal. Her dad didn’t speak or move, his hand—the only part of his body she saw—lay still on the dashboard. Rosie was quiet, too quiet, and still, too still. Likely dead, Alice reasoned in that moment as she relived it in her dream. Very, very dead.

  She was thinking about Rosie, and not watching her dad’s hand, when suddenly, it was gone. Panic surged up her throat, making her breath stutter. She squirmed against the bent truck’s grasp on her, her burning skin sticking to the leather seat. She couldn’t lose her dad too.

  “Where are you, Alice?” her dad asked, his voice far away and completely foreign to her ears.

  “Right here!” she screamed, her voice cracking in the heat. She struggled and fought, but she couldn’t move an inch. Couldn’t see a thing. “I’m right here, Dad!”

  “You okay, Alice?” Her mom knocked on the door, pulling Alice from the dream.

  She blinked, realizing she was awake. The wreck was gone, and only the sheets trapped her, wrapping around her legs as sweat dripped from her forehead. “I’m fine,” she croaked.

  “Okay, sweetie.”

  Her mom walked away, and Alice turned into her pillow and cried.

  She didn’t wake back up until much later. Blearily, she looked at her phone and noticed a text from Matthew.

  Matthew: I had to leave early. Didn’t have time to clean the stalls. Be back later.

  Normally in the mornings, he would feed the horses and turn them out into the field before he cleaned the barn. She figured Matt was the type of person who didn’t like to leave things undone. She used to be like that when it came to keeping a clean barn.

  Maybe it was her mom saying Alice was impossible last night. Or maybe it was the dream this morning about her dad. Or maybe it was a combination of everything weighing on her until she was sinking with guilt. Whatever it was, Alice hated herself more than normal.

  Making a decision, she texted Matthew back.

  Alice: I can get them.

  Matthew: You sure?

  Alice: I wouldn’t have told you I would do it if I wasn’t.

  Matthew: Today’s been too stressful for me to even try to understand that. See you this evening.

  Alice lifted her eyes to the ceiling and let out a breath of air. She disgusted herself. She hated the way her hip bones dug into the mattress. Her lank hair and tense body pissed her off. She needed some fresh air, needed something different than the four walls of her room.

  She went through her morning routine, even though it was almost noon. Avoiding her dresser where her old work jeans were, she pulled on yoga pants and sneakers. Her riding boots had been tucked away in the back of her closet long ago. She didn’t think she’d ever wear them again.

  “Going to the barn,” she called as she opened the front door and walked out. She didn’t know if her mom had heard her or was even inside. She didn’t bother to wait around for a response.

  The barn doors were open like the mouth of a gaping whale. Alice didn’t let herself think too much about it as she walked inside, the horse scent overpowering her as her eyes adjusted to the dimness. Bits of hay littered the aisle. Stall doors stood open. A radio hanging on the wall played old country songs from a time before Alice was born.

  Tucker bounced out of the tack room and barked, surprised to see her there. “Hey, Tuck,” she said, bending down to scratch underneath his chin until his eyes closed in doggy bliss.

  She had to set her cane aside to push the wheelbarrow out of the feed room and to the closest dirty stall. Her gait was slow and limping, tentative without her normal support, but she made it. Since Matthew kept two horses in each stall, there were only three dirty stalls, but with twice the amount of work. Once upon a time, Alice had been able to clean a horse stall faster and better than anyone.

  Now she labored for two hours before the stalls were all clean. By then her back was aching, and she had to stop every few minutes to catch her breath. Her face and neck twitched with exhaustion. The burns along her ribs and hip screamed in pain.

  She was trying to push the full wheelbarrow down the aisle when Matthew came inside, his silhouette dark with the sun behind him. He froze, mid-step, looking confused. Alice blew a piece of hair out of her face, sweat running down the tip of her nose. She struggled to keep the wheelbarrow from tipping over.

  “Are you gonna help me or not?”

  Her words spurred him into motion. He hurried down the rest of the aisle and grabbed the handles from her. “What in the world are you doing?”

  “Cleaning the stalls, obviously.” She leaned against the closed stall door and tried to catch her breath.

  “You look exhausted.”

  “Been a while.”

  “Here,” he said, setting the wheelbarrow down. “Let me help you up to the house.”

  Alice avoided his offered hand and straightened off the wall, grabbing her cane. “I got it. Sorry, I didn’t have time to fill the water buckets.”

  “Uh, no problem.”

  Slowly, she made her way out of the barn, feeling as if she’d accomplished something. Her entire body ached and twitched in pain, but she felt a hint of a smile on her face. She didn’t hate herself so much right then. Matthew’s eyes stayed on her the entire way back to the house, certainly making sure she didn’t fall. She didn’t turn around to confirm it, but she figured he was probably fidgeting with his hat while he watched her go. That kind of made her smile too.

  * * *

  Every day after that, she helped Matthew down at the barn, finding that the pain was less than the satisfaction she got from the work. It surprised her to learn that the sadness from the accident was lessening its grip on her heart—surprised and terrified her. That aching hurt was supposed to be her companion for the rest of her life.

  But she worked, and every day she got a little less sore and didn’t use her cane quite so much. Soon, she didn’t take as many breaks. Matthew let her do what she pleased; he didn’t object when she wanted to do a lot of the manual labor, though he watched her like a hawk.

  He watched her almost as closely as the palomino mare watched her little herd. The horses were growing healthier with time. Their ghastly skin conditions were starting to fade, and a thickness was developing in their stomachs. Alice might be working in the barn, but she still refused to get near the horses.

  Summer sputtered out its last few heat blasts, giving way to a brightly colored autumn. Matthew was on a farm call, and Alice planned on scrubbing the water buckets. She went into the tack room, a place she’d previously avoided, to find a brush. Inside, the smell of leather and sweat overwhelmed her. Her saddles lined one wall, and bridles hung on another. In the middle was a dusty couch that Tucker had claimed for his own. Clutter from
her rodeo days with Rosie filled the space in between. Totes, bags, and tack trunks took up almost all the walking space. Matthew had a tiny corner where he’d plugged in a little refrigerator for the horses’ medicines. He’d stacked all the other supplies he needed on top. From the towering, haphazard stack of boxes, it was clear that he didn’t have enough room.

  Like it would help keep the memories at bay, she turned up the radio and set to work. She sorted through the piles of stuff, going through each container. One pile had things to throw away without a second thought: moldy rags, old combs, mismatched socks that she used to wear under her boots. She started another pile of more precious things: Rosie’s bell boots, her good saddle pads, a wide array of colorful ribbons she and Rosie had won throughout the years. Those she packed tightly into a single tack trunk that she shoved into the darkest back corner. She double-stacked saddles on racks and cleared half the space on the wall. It wasn’t pretty, but it was the best she could do. It seemed like a good compromise with Matthew, even though he hadn’t asked her to do it.

  She knew he never would, and that’s the main reason she did it.

  “Holy shit.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. Matthew stood at the door, taking in the amount of space she’d cleared. He looked over at her, his mouth slightly gaping.

  “Holy shit,” he repeated.

  “I figured you needed more room.”

  “Well … yeah, I guess so. But you didn’t have to do this.”

  Alice shrugged a shoulder. “I did it.”

  “I see that.” A corner of Matthew’s mouth lifted in a crooked smile. He fiddled with the brim of his hat. “Guess I can put more stuff in here now.”

  “Guess so.”

  Now his halfway smile turned into a full-blown one, and he laughed at her, which had Alice narrowing her eyes. “What?”

  “You’re something else, Alice. You know that?”

  She snorted; she knew it all too well. Matthew shook his head, still smiling, his expression one of a little kid keeping a secret.

  “This means I can finally bring in more than a week’s worth of feed. Do y’all have some airtight containers here? I haven’t seen them around.”

  “No.” The word was short; Alice looked away. Their feed bins had been in the trailer’s tack compartment, destroyed along with everything else that day.

  “Okay,” Matthew said easily and quickly. “We can pick some up.”

  “We?”

  “Yeah.” He clapped his hands together, and Tucker bounded off the couch where he’d been snoozing while Alice worked. “Let’s go to the feed store. You deserve a break.”

  She opened her mouth to say she couldn’t, but stopped herself. “Sure.”

  “Okie-dokie.” Matthew drew out the words like they were revelations. Alice rolled her eyes, but followed him out of the barn, leaving her cane propped against the tack room wall.

  They walked to his truck, Matthew keeping pace beside her, which must have been awkward for his mile-long legs. Alice was only five foot four, so even back in her better days, she’d had to walk fast. He didn’t try to open her door for her, which she appreciated, even if it was an odd thing to value. He seemed to know she needed these things for herself, so he waited patiently, fiddling with the radio dials, as if finding the best music was the most important thing in the world, while she worked to haul herself into the big work truck. She finally managed it, using the door handle to leverage herself into the seat. When she tried to close the door, it just popped back open.

  “You gotta give it a good slam,” Matthew said as he cranked the engine over.

  Alice leaned slightly out of the truck and threw her slight frame into closing the door. On the third try, the latch finally caught. “Nice truck,” she huffed, looking around. “You keep it real clean.”

  Matthew chuckled at her sarcasm because his truck was anything but clean. Coffee containers from the local gas station littered the floorboard, with more holding court in the sticky cup holders. Strewn across the backseat were dirty work pants and shirts, as if he lived in this truck. Technically, he probably did some days since he was a vet. An inch of dust lined the dashboard; clearly, Matthew liked driving with his windows down on old dirt roads.

  “Hey,” he said, his voice faking sternness, “I don’t know what you’ve heard, little lady, but being a vet ain’t paying for no plush lifestyle.”

  Alice frowned even though he was trying to joke around. “Then how do you pay for the horses? Does the practice cover the costs?”

  “Uh…” Matthew’s humor fell away, and he feigned distraction while he turned out of the driveway and onto the main road. He was trying to figure out how to answer her question, which was answer enough for her. “Legally, the practice can’t pay for any animal’s care unless it’s considered a pro-bono thing.”

  “Are these horses a pro-bono case?”

  “They were.”

  “When they were at the practice?” Alice asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “So how do you afford it?”

  “Geez,” Matthew laughed nervously. “What is this? The fifth degree?”

  “The third degree.”

  “What?” he asked, shooting her a confused glance.

  “You mean, ‘I’m giving you the third degree.’ That’s the right expression. But you were probably thinking of pleading the fifth, which is your legal right to not incriminate yourself by testifying in court.” They pulled up to a stop sign, and he stared at her, blinking. “What?” she asked, shrugging. “I watch a lot of television.”

  “Right.” He pulled forward, threading his way through town, which was a three-stoplight, one-road kind of place. He had to watch for pedestrians and dogs randomly crossing the road. A huge banner advertising the upcoming pumpkin festival hung over the town’s square.

  They parked in front of the locally owned feed store. Alice used to visit it every two weeks to pick up Rosie’s grain. She looked away. “I’ll stay in here.”

  “Fine by me, Third Degree.”

  That made her smile, the motion twisting the scars on the side of her face. Matthew jumped down from the truck and headed toward the store, nodding at an older lady walking past him. Alice’s smile faded as she thought about his money situation. It was obvious that anything he made from the practice was being spent on the horses. Their care wasn’t cheap, and they needed a lot of it.

  But she had an idea to help by the time he came back out, pushing a flat-bed cart stacked high with what had to be nearly two-hundred dollars worth of horse grain, salt blocks, and tiny alfalfa cubes. The truck bounced and groaned beneath the weight of the feed bags as Matthew tossed them into the bed. Alice watched him from her side mirror, noticing how his biceps pushed at the sleeves of his shirt. He was lanky and slender, but his frame was solid muscle.

  When they were driving back through town and Matthew was whistling along to a song, Alice reached over and turned down the radio. “I want to help.”

  “With my whistling?” He grinned over at her.

  “No,” she said, remaining serious. “I want to help you pay for the horses’ expenses.”

  Deep lines formed between his dark brows that not even his hat hid. He rubbed his hand across his chin and sighed. “Alice, you don’t need to do that. You’re helping plenty, and I really appreciate it.”

  “But I can help more. I have the money from…” Her throat dried up. She hadn’t planned on explaining where the money had come from. “…My winnings.”

  Rosie had been the fastest mare in West Virginia. They always won money at the local rodeos they went to. Even out-of-state and at the big barrel racing events, she and Rosie dominated. They’d been a good team, the best team.

  “I don’t want to use that money for this.”

  “It’s just money, Matt.”

  He shook his head and stopped the truck at a red light. “It’s probably not enough, so you should just keep it for college or something.”

  Alic
e laughed, the sound twisted and bitter. “I’m not going to college.”

  He looked over at her. “Why not?”

  “Don’t change the subject. There’s plenty of money in there. It’ll help. I’ll have mom get it out tomorrow. Do you want cash or check?”

  Alice breezed over the issue of how much money she actually had. In truth, she didn’t know. Her mom handled all of Alice’s bank accounts and bills, what little she had. Since the accident, she’d lost touch with reality. The fact that she still lived at home, let her mom cook her meals, and didn’t know how much was in her bank account had never bothered her before. Now, it was pretty embarrassing.

  Like a lot of other things in her life.

  * * *

  Two days later, she handed Matthew a check. She hadn’t bothered looking inside the envelope when her mother had given it to her. She knew she and Rosie had won a lot; she didn’t need to see it in dollar signs.

  Matthew slid the check out and looked at the number. His mouth fell open. “Holy freaking shit, Alice. This is enough to start a whole horse sanctuary.”

  Alice raised her eyebrows in surprise. She looked around the barn and fields. The place had so much life now, even with just a few horses on the property. A sanctuary sounded pretty nice—a place where horses could come and heal, to recover from their pain. Her thoughts went to Rosie, and her heart began to ache furiously. No matter how much the hurt was lessening, it would never be enough. Alice would always feel her broken heart.

  “Maybe,” she said quietly to herself.

  Chapter Six

  Alice spread the fresh shavings around the stall to even them out, the woody scent tingling in her sinuses. Sunlight streamed down the barn aisle, where the cats stretched out to soak up the rays. The breeze carried a chilly nip of new autumn air. It was her favorite time of year, when the leaves were turning bright and brittle. She came out of the stall and stretched.