Kentucky Sunrise

by Fern Michaels

  She waited for the session to begin.

  “What is it about this room you don’t like, Emmie? Be as specific as you can.” Ian’s pen was poised over a yellow tablet, ready to record her response.

  “For one thing, I don’t like those pictures on the wall. They’re the result of an illness, a disease or . . . something. Don’t ask me to make one. I don’t like all the bookshelves, and I can’t understand why you have to turn on the lamps when there’s bright sunshine coming in the windows. Most of the patients here can’t hold a book or a magazine, yet you have them all over the place. I don’t care why. You could at least look professional. Wearing docksiders, shorts, and tee shirt makes me think you’re trying to con me into something. You’re a doctor, so look and act like one. You asked me a question, and I’m answering it.” Emmie spoke in a cool, detached voice, a voice that clearly said I don’t give a damn about this office or about you either, Doctor Ian Hunter.

  Ian Hunter had had his share of difficult patients before, but Emmie Coleman had been front and center this past month. He’d been treating her for five weeks with absolutely no results. He had yet to see a spark of interest. He leaned back and took a deep breath. “Okay. That was a good, detailed response. Now it’s question and answer time. Before we start with the questions, let me say, again, that I know your history, but it was given to me by your other doctors and by your mother. I would really like to get your response to what I already know, so today the questions will deal with those facts that I do have.”

  Emmie grimaced as she looked down at her hands. Most of the swelling in her hands and the rest of her body had gone down, but her joints were still inflamed and painful. She could actually walk a little now and even hold things in her hands, but it had taken her two long months to get to this point. No quick fix, the rheumatologist had said. She nodded, indicating that Ian should ask his first question.

  “If you could be anywhere in the world right now, right this minute, where would you like to be?”

  Emmie looked at her watch and didn’t hesitate for a second. “Back home in the barn, getting ready to exercise Hifly. If I ever get back there, he’s not even going to know me.”

  Ian sat up straighter in his chair. Was this the spark he’d been waiting for?

  “I’m the first to admit I know nothing about horses but why is that?” he asked. “Don’t horses know your scent? Surely, they’ll recognize you when you return home.”

  Emmie fixed her gaze on the window to the right of Ian Hunter’s head to stare at a vibrant blue hibiscus bush. She carefully shifted her weight and her lips narrowed into a thin straight line. “Don’t you mean if I go home? They might recognize me, but it’s too late now for me to train Hifly. My mother took over that job, and Jake is in training to be a jockey, thanks to my mother and her little swap deal. She agreed to take on Jake and train him so I could come here. No one wanted that horse but me. Now they’re going to train him for the Derby. That was to be my decision. I was the one who was supposed to do it. Just in case you don’t know who Jake is, he’s Sunny Thornton’s son. I keep forgetting what her married name is. Her mother built this center. She probably pays your salary, too.” She wanted him to look impressed, but he didn’t.

  “Are you at odds with your mother over the horse, Emmie?”

  “That’s really a stupid question and I’m not going to answer it, Doctor Hunter. My mother has nothing to do with my condition other than the genes she passed on to me.”

  “I think your father might have passed on a few genes himself. You can’t hold your mother totally responsible for the gene pool.” Ian paused for a moment. “Tomorrow is Visitor’s Day. Are you ready for company?”

  “No, I’m not. I told them I didn’t want any visitors. You people can’t force me to have visitors.”

  “Don’t you want to see your daughter?”

  “No, I don’t. She’s happy up there on that super-duper mountain that my mother arranged. There’s no need to have her see me here like this.” His expression told her he wasn’t quite convinced. “I’m not going to change my mind, so don’t even try.”

  Ian made a steeple with his fingers before he propped up his feet on an open desk drawer. “Let me throw out a question, Emmie. If your mother, your daughter, and Hifly were in peril, and you could only help one of them, which one would you choose to help?”

  Emmie switched her gaze to the orange-and-yellow painting on the wall before she sucked in her breath. “That’s another stupid question. You people drummed into my head from the day I got here that we don’t deal with what-ifs. It is or it isn’t. Don’t try to trick me. That is one ugly picture,” she said, pointing to the orange-and-yellow painting.

  “I’m not trying to trick you. Add that question to the list that you will have to answer before you leave here. By the way, Sunny is the one who made that particular orange-and-yellow drawing. Do you have any idea how hard it was for her to do it? You saw her hands. It took her hours and hours to make those slashes of color. Painful hours. She didn’t give up till she filled the paper. The colors represent the sunrise on the mountain where your daughter now resides, and where Sunny grew up.”

  “I’m sorry,” Emmie said.

  “No, you’re not sorry, but you should be. Sorry is just a word some people use when they don’t know what else to say. Furthermore, I wasn’t trying to trick you. You’re on the defensive, and that has to make me wonder why. Your mental health is as much in jeopardy as your physical health. Until you face your problems, you won’t heal. You refused visitors at the beginning of the month and you’re refusing them again. That will go on your overall evaluation. You cannot leave here, Emmie, until all the doctors on your case sign off on you. You’re fighting me, and I want you to stop it.”

  “Yes, sir, Doctor, sir!” Emmie said smartly. “Actually, I’m getting to like this place. When you people aren’t poking and prodding and drawing blood and making me pee in bottles, it isn’t half-bad. The food is actually delicious, and the bed is comfortable. With my mother’s connections and money, I can probably stay here for the rest of my life. Now, what other questions do you have for me? We still have twenty-five minutes to go.”

  Ian Hunter wanted to haul off and give his patient a good swat. Until he saw the tears in her eyes. He looked away, pretending not to see.

  “Talk to me about the horses. You grew up with them, didn’t you? Just ramble, say whatever comes into your mind. Think of it as educating this equestrian ignorant mind. I consider myself ahead of the game if I learn one new thing each day.”

  This is safe ground, Emmie thought. Horses were one thing she could talk about from morning to night. Until that moment she hadn’t realized she was perched on the very end of the deep, comfortable chair. She squirmed backward and took a deep breath.

  “I was pretty young, but the first horse I really remember was Stardancer. He was the one who threw Maud Diamond off his back and crippled her for life. My mother managed to train that horse, and she loved him dearly, probably more than she loved anyone. Then Flyby was born, and she raised and trained him from a colt. She trained him herself and ran him in the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont. She won the Triple Crown. Flyby’s colts sold for millions and millions of dollars. Then along came Shufly, Flyby’s son. She gave him to Metaxas Parish as a gift. She trained and ran him in the Derby. She won, and Shufly has a Triple Crown, too. And she raced one of her brother’s horses, too. My mother, she’s one of a kind. To know her is to love her.” Her voice was so snide, so bitter-sounding, that Ian stopped doodling on his pad to stare at her with wide eyes. She ignored him.

  “There was a really bad fire at Blue Diamond Farms a while back. My mother was severely burned trying to save the horses. Flyby got her out of the barn, but she was disfigured. She spent a long time in a special hospital in Thailand and went through many, many operations. She saved the horses at a great cost to herself. We were all brought up and taught from an early age that the horses came
first. She has to wear this thick, muddy makeup to cover all the scars. She said the horses don’t care what she looks like.

  “My brother Nick used to work with the horses, but they weren’t his life like they were mine. He went off and became a lawyer. My mother said Nick had the touch. But you know what, he didn’t want the touch. I, on the other hand, wanted it so bad I could taste it. My mother has it. Somehow or other, it skipped me. I know I could have trained Hifly for the Derby. I know it.”

  Dr. Hunter leaned across the desk. “Did you just want him to run in the Derby or was it that you wanted to train him to run in the Derby? Does it make a difference?” he asked, a blank look on his face.

  Emmie snorted. “Of course it makes a difference. A horse is only as good as his trainer. I would have made a good one. Hifly is mine. I bought him when no one else wanted him. I bonded with him just the way my mother bonded with Flyby and Shufly. I had my jockey all picked out and was going to have him come to the farm and work with Hifly, so he would be comfortable with him on his back. I even gave some thought to riding him myself. I think I’m good enough. Now, she’s training him and Jake will probably end up riding my horse. The horse no one wanted but me. My mother actually chastised me for buying Hifly. I wasn’t trying to prove anything to anybody when I bought him. I saw him, liked him, and I felt something. At that time I didn’t know if he was Derby material or not, and it wouldn’t have mattered either way. I fell in love with the horse. That’s the bottom line.”

  Ian digested the information, scribbled a few notes, and followed up with another question. “If the horse is yours, and you feel so strongly, why don’t you tell your mother how you feel? Knowing the circumstances, don’t you think she would defer to your wishes? If you don’t care, that’s something else entirely.”

  “You don’t know my mother, Doctor Hunter. She made a deal with Fanny Thornton. Jake for this place. Now she has to prove Jake can do it, and the only horse she can do that with is Hifly. Gadfly is a lost cause. He’s mean.”

  Ian scratched his head. Talk about a crash course in horse breeding. “What makes a horse mean? What’s the difference between Gadfly and Hifly?”

  “A world of difference. Different mares for one thing. Gadfly never liked me. Maybe I was too hard on him. He’s huge. Huge and mean. It was hard to control him. I had . . . to . . .”

  “What? What did you have to do to him?” Ian was sitting up straight and literally holding his breath.

  “I hit him. I had to hit him. I didn’t want to do it. I’ve never hit a horse in my life. That’s the first thing my mother taught Nick and me. No matter what, you never strike a horse. I don’t have my mother’s sterling record. Hell, I can’t even come close to it.”

  “Do you want to tell me why you did something so foreign to your nature?”

  Emmie paused to marshal her thoughts. “Gadfly did intimidate me because of his size. I tried to overcome the feeling, but I was in pain the first time. I was going to give him an apple and when I stretched out my arm, I had this excruciating pain ricochet down my arm and into my hand and fingers. I dropped the apple. When I tried to bend down to pick it up, my right side seemed to lock up on me. Gadfly pitched a fit because he didn’t get the apple. I thought he was going to kick down the door of the stall. No one was around to help me. The pain didn’t go away. In fact it got more intense, so intense, I couldn’t move. Gadfly wanted the damn apple, and he wasn’t about to give up on it, so I used my left hand and whipped it across his face. It was hard enough that he felt it. I think I stunned him, but he did quiet down. Right then, I started to hate that horse. Then I became afraid of him. I just kept whacking away at him. I couldn’t seem to stop myself. Listen, I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Emmie said, mopping the perspiration from her forehead.

  Ian risked a glance at the clock on his desk. He could call it quits for the day or press on. The professional side of him said to stop the session and suggest a stroll around the grounds.

  “Let’s call it a day. If you like, I can push your chair over to the snack bar, where we can get one of those icy things that dribble down your chin. My treat. What do you say, Emmie?”

  “No, thanks, Doctor Hunter. I have a book I want to read. This next hour is free time for me. I can get back to my cottage on my own.”

  “Okay. I’m still going to get that slurpy thing. Maybe I’ll get blueberry today,” he said lightly. “I’ll see you at ten sharp tomorrow morning. Remember, now, you have pending questions you have to answer. Not necessarily tomorrow, but soon.”

  Emmie spun her chair around and was out the door a second later. She didn’t bother to respond. The moment she was inside her assigned cottage, she got out of the chair and walked around to exercise her legs. The chair was for outdoor travel and the rougher terrain of the grounds. Inside, she was to walk around as much as she could.

  There was no book to read. Why had she lied to Dr. Hunter? The next day was Visitor’s Day. That meant she had the whole day to herself since she wasn’t accepting visitors. What would she do with herself? Sleep? Not likely. No visitors probably meant she would have all her scheduled therapies regardless. Somebody would be checking on her hourly. Maybe she could call someone. She had thirty minutes of accumulated telephone time she could use up. Nick? Her ex-husband? Her daughter?

  Emmie sat down on the small love seat and propped her legs up on the ottoman. She realized she felt better than she had in months. Just last week Dr. Hunter had told her she was her own worst enemy. He’d gone on to say, If the object of your being here is to get well so you can go home, why are you fighting all of us every step of the way? Is it for attention? Is it payback time to your family? Or is it that you hate who you are and what you’ve become?

  “All of the above,” she whimpered.

  Emmie closed her eyes and let her mind roam. Where was Nick, her half brother? What’s he doing right now, this minute? Nick had always been kind to her, but she knew in her heart that he was her mother’s favorite child. Her mother had been harder on Nick than she was on her, and yet Nick had survived, thumbed his nose at their mother’s demands, and gone on to do what he wanted to do. She, on the other hand, didn’t have the guts to do any of the things Nick did. She couldn’t even stand up for herself. Maybe it was time to use those thirty minutes of telephone time to call her father. Her real father. Maybe that’s what was missing in her life, a father. If she did call her father, and her mother found out, she’d probably disown her, and call her a traitor in the bargain. Did she dare risk it?

  How many times in the past she’d fantasized about her father. She’d even dreamed about him. In her dreams he was always kind and loving. In those dreams, he’d bring her presents and put his arm around her shoulders and call her his little princess.

  Sooner or later the shrink would get around to asking her about her childhood, her parents, and what it was like growing up. Maybe if she called her father, she could find the answers so they would be on the tip of her tongue, to be rattled off at the appropriate time. Or would she be calling her father only to piss off her mother? More than likely the latter.

  “I hate this place. I hate it, hate it, hate it.” Dr. Hunter’s words echoed in her mind: Then do something about it. Stop fighting everyone and give a hundred percent. It’s all about mind-set, positive thinking, and looking forward to the future.

  “Okay!” The phone was in her lap a moment later. She dialed long-distance information, copied down the number, and placed a person-to-person call to Dillon Roland. No one was more surprised than Emmie when her father answered the phone.

  Emmie jumped right into the conversation before she could change her mind. “I’m not sure what I should call you. This is Emmie Coleman. You’re my father. If this is a bad time, I can call you later.”

  “Emmie! I don’t know if you’ll believe this or not, but I’ve thought about you a lot over the years. It’s nice finally to talk to you. Is something wrong?”

  Emmie sighed. “I
guess there’s a lot that’s wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t have called you. I guess I wasn’t thinking. You know what, let’s just leave it at that and I’ll hang up.”

  “No. Wait. Please don’t hang up. You must have called me for a reason. Tell me what it is, but first tell me, does your mother know you’re calling me?”

  “No, my mother doesn’t know I’m calling you. This is probably a mistake. I seem to be real good at making mistakes. I don’t want to intrude on your life.”

  “The truth is, Emmie, I’m alone right now, and I could do with some intrusion. My wife passed away a while back and my children are scattered all over the country. Everything isn’t all black or all white. I do have a side where you’re concerned. Perhaps one day we can sit down and talk about it.”

  “How about tomorrow? It’s Visitor’s Day.”

  “Exactly what does Visitor’s Day mean, Emmie? Where are you?”

  She told him.

  “I’m so very sorry. I watched my own father battle the same condition. I have a touch of it myself, but not like you’ve described. I’m also on medication. It’s bearable. I’ll tell you what. If I can get a flight out this evening, I’ll be there first thing in the morning. I can find my way. You’re sure now you want me to come there.”

  Oh, God, no, I’m not sure. “Absolutely,” she said. What’s one more giant-size mistake on my record?

  “Then I’ll do my best to be there. If for some reason I can’t make it, I’ll call you. I’m glad you called me, Emmie. I really am. You need to know this right up front. I would never have called you because of your mother. She’s very powerful, and she makes herself understood quite clearly. Are you okay with that?”

  “Yes, I’m okay with that.”

  When she hung up the phone, she was shaking so badly she thought she was going to faint. She took huge, deep breaths, trying to calm herself. When the electronic buzzer went off by the front door to remind her of her whirlpool therapy, she almost jumped out of her skin.