Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
Shucking off my green plaid barn coat, I grab a pitchfork and gloves, and set to work, welcoming the stench with genuine contentment.
“Hello?” a young female voice calls out as I’m scooping the last of the soiled bedding from the stall.
I dump the refuse into the wheelbarrow before turning to greet my visitor.
“Oh. It’s you.” Isla stands in the middle of the alley. She looks like she just woke up, her baggy gray sweatpants pooling out of oversized rubber boots, her jacket two sizes too big. Biscuit followed her in like a puppy tailing its master, his head bowed to accept forehead scratches.
“Shouldn’t you still be sleeping?” It’s eight a.m. on a Sunday morning. When I was her age, my dad had to threaten me if he wanted me up before noon.
She shrugs—a lazy and lopsided move. “I have a shift at the market in a bit.”
“Right.” My mother’s roadside stand turned local empire. I caught a glimpse of it yesterday morning on the way in. It’s impressive.
Isla regards the wheelbarrow. “I’m supposed to clean his stall.”
There’s an offensive ring to those words, as if I’ve insulted her. At least she doesn’t seem afraid of me. “Okay. Do you want me to dump this pile of horseshit and piss-soaked hay back in there so you can scoop it up?”
The corner of her mouth twitches. “No, it’s fine, I guess.”
I set the pitchfork aside. “I thought so.” After a beat, I add, “You’re welcome.”
She averts her gaze to Biscuit. “I’m Isla.”
“I know who you are.” I remember when you were born, I don’t say. My days were long and monotonous, and I distinctively remember reading about the baby who arrived on a sweltering hot civic holiday long weekend; about the toddler who’d march up and down this barn aisle repeating Holt and horse over and over as she practiced her words; about the ten-year-old who witnessed a bison calving; and the thirteen-year-old who broke her collarbone crashing into the boards after scoring a game-winning goal.
I push the wheelbarrow out of the barn, emptying it on the manure pile around the corner. When I return, she’s brushing Biscuit’s spotted coat with skilled circular strokes.
“I hear he’s yours.”
“What?” Her brow furrows. “No, he’s not.”
“Right.” I head for the next stable over, where a massive mixed draft with a chestnut coat waits. The chalkboard sign at the door reads Copper. “You named him, you clean his stable, groom him, and ride him, but he’s not yours.”
According to Mom’s letters, when Emery and Dillon split and she moved back home with her daughter, little Isla took it hard. She’d disappear from the house often, only to be found in here with a bucket of apples, bribing the horses into listening to her woes. They seemed to soothe her.
Clive and Sandy spoke often about getting Isla a horse of her own when she was old enough to take care of it and boarding it here. They’d even started researching breeders. They expected to be around long enough to make it happen. When they died, Emery quickly put the idea to bed—adding the cost of a horse was too much to shoulder for a single parent, and her selfish prick ex-husband wasn’t going to help.
My parents took it upon themselves to bring this one home, anyway.
“I just take care of him.” Again, that defiance in her tone.
My soft chuckle carries through the barn, competing with the odd neigh and whinny of a restless beast. Girl owns a horse and she doesn’t know it. “Come on, big fella.” I open the stall door and lead Copper outside.
When I return, Isla has swapped the curry comb for a dandy brush.
I grab the pitchfork and set to task.
“You know, that’s Thomas’s chore. Cleaning Copper’s stable,” Isla calls out.
“Yeah?” I dump a load of fresh horseshit into the wheelbarrow before going back for another. Copper’s a messy one. “Is he gonna complain that I’m doing his job too?”
“He might.” She adds after a beat, “Brooks and Carson won’t, if you do Flapjack’s stable. You’ll be their favorite uncle.”
The twins. Identical and equally feral ten-year-old boys who spent last night shooting their friends through a video game on tablets, when they weren’t punching each other in the shoulder as hard as they could. Jill caught one of them chucking black pepper into the pot of squash soup.
“They’ll be here soon. Jon always sends them down early to do their chores.”
More likely to get them out of the house. “Guess I better hurry up, then.” I dump another load into the wheelbarrow.
There’s a lengthy pause and then Isla asks, “Is it weird? Being home again.”
“Yeah,” I admit.
“What’s the weirdest thing so far?”
“Fuck, I don’t know. Everything.”
“But, like, what?” she prods.
“Like …” I pause for a drink from a refillable bottle I found in my kitchen cupboard as I consider how to answer. “This water.”