Chapter 26: A Good Horse

Dawn was cracking through the open spaces of the barn by the time we woke up. We somehow woke up at the exact same time—I slept on a pad of hay in the corner of the stable while Jo slept curled up to Willow.

I stood up, watching Jo. I wondered if she would feel any better this morning, or if she would feel even worse. The first sleep after a tragedy is always the worst.

Jo sat up, her hair filled with hay, her eyes puffy and red from crying and from sleep. She looked at Willow, pressed her hand under the horse's arm, as if checking one last time to see if it was real. I expected her to burst into tears again, but she only closed her eyes and pursed her lips. Silent words formed on her lips that I could not hear, but I think she was finally saying goodbye. She leaned down to Willow's head, patted her mane gently, and kissed her between her ears.

Jo didn't cry, but she didn't say anything at all. Richard had already started digging a grave the day before, expecting the worse. When we stepped out of the barn and into the creeping morning sunrise, he was already out in the field with his tractor.

I helped Jo to gather some other horses to help take Willow's body out into the field. We secured ropes around Willow's body, and Jo kept undoing them for fear that they were too tight on her. It was obvious she had experience handling horses, but she worked slow and steady, never saying a word other than instructing me.

It was evening by the time Richard finished digging the grave, and we maneuvered Willow's body gently into it. I felt dirty from sleeping in the stable, sweaty from the day's work, and starving. But I didn't complain or quit. I helped Jo find two good pieces of wood in the leftover pile from when they had built the new barn. She took a small pocketknife and carved Willow's name across the horizontal plank. In smaller words, she wrote below it: A Good Horse. When Richard finished covering the grave, Jo took the cross and stuck it in the ground above the fresh dirt of Willow's grave.

I was standing a little away, giving her the space she needed. Once the grave was finished, she stepped back and stood next to me. She just stared at it for a while, not crying, not saying anything. After a few moments, I felt her hand reach for mine, her fingers hesitating over my palm. I enclosed it around her hand and held it softly, staring at the makeshift gravestone and the freshly turned dirt as the sunset spilled over the distant hills.

Jo didn't want to go home, but I told her she couldn't stay in the stable forever. She hadn't eaten in days, and we both were very dirty, so I finally convinced her. She took her Fury that she had driven herself in, and I took the Pontiac, following behind her as we drove home. I watched her hair flowing back in the wind of the convertible whose top was always down, driving towards the sunset as it faded.

I wasn't aware of what would be waiting for me at the Donnelley Estate. As soon as I stepped into the house after Jo, Katie came flying down the stairs, Marty right after her. Her hand grabbed the column at the end of the stairs as she swiveled around it, her dress flashing as she did. "Where the hell have you been?!" she exclaimed, looking between Jo and me.

Jo creased her brow. "What?"

"Not you—you!" Katie said, pointing her finger past Jo and straight at me. I froze where I stood, her eyes dropping down to the Pontiac car keys in my hands. "You stole our car!"

"No, Katie," Marty said, raising his hands to try to deescalate the situation he had already foreseen. "I gave her the keys to go to Manor Farm."

"You were supposed to have French lessons today with the children!" Katie screeched, her face turning red as the veins in her thin neck bulged. "What the hell did we hire you for?!"

"Katie—"

"You had no business going to Manor Farm! That is our farm! It is not your job to go play with horses all day when we are paying you our hard-earned money to educate our damn children!"

I felt like my knees were going to crumble beneath me. I opened my mouth to try to say something, turning into stone under Katie's venomous eyes, wide and furious.

"Katie," Marty said again, stepping a little in front of her. "Jo was having a hard time, so I sent Becca to go be with her."

"Oh, drop it, Marty!" Katie screamed, now pointing her finger at him. "You always try to undermine me in these situations. This degenerate girl has been abusing the terms of her work, getting into our family businesses where she has no place being! She's just a teacher!"

"Mom!" Jo finally yelled, and Katie's eyes snapped to hers with doubled rage. "Stop it! Do you not know why Becca was with me?!" She paused, Katie's stare holding up. "Willow died." Her voice cracked as she spoke.

Marty's face dropped, his eyes softening. It looked like he was about to reach out to console Jo, but Katie's laugh rang through the entrance hall.

"Oh, for God's sake, Joanna, it's just a horse!"

Jo looked like she was going to pounce on her mother and start strangling her. She stepped forward, and I made the motion to grab her arm, but she was already in front of Katie's face.

"Willow was not just a fucking horse," she spat, and I saw the stone in Katie's eyes start to crack. "Don't you ever call Becca any of that again. She was there with me today when you weren't. I would have much rather buried you today than Willow."

My eyes widened at Jo's harsh words. Katie stared at her in disbelief, and Marty looked down to the ground with a disappointed sigh. While they were shocked that their daughter was speaking to them like this, it seemed like it wasn't the first time Jo had spoken such morbid curses to her mother.

Jo stormed upstairs, leaving me alone with the parents. Katie looked at me and just scoffed, storming away in the opposite direction, leaving me with Marty who stared at me apologetically. With a shaky hand, I lifted the keys to him. He took them and gave me a sheepish smile.

"Thank you, Becca," he said, surprising me. I was ready to start apologizing and packing my bags. "I'm sorry you had to see that. I know Katie is my wife, but don't listen to her, alright? You were brave for going to be with Jo." He saw that I was still stiff, so he placed his large hand on my shoulder and shook me a little. "Not a scratch on the Pontiac, right?"

I shook my head and quietly said, "No, sir."

"Good," he said with a soft grin. "Go get cleaned up. The smell of horse in this house right now is just unbearable." He started to walk away but stopped, turning to me again. "Oh, and try to keep Jo company tonight. Every time they fight, it gets..." He spun his fingers in the air and shrugged, giving me another awkward smile as he flipped the keys in his hands and walked away.

I stayed there for a minute, standing in the entrance hall and trying to process what had just happened. Katie screaming at me, Jo standing up for me, wishing her own mother's death right in front of my face.

Slowly, I turned to the staircase, taking a few steps before a small figure startled me. It was Holly, holding onto the railing, crouched on the stairs just past where none of us could see her when we were in the hall. She was in her white and pink pajamas, her white hair messy.

"Holly," I said in surprise. Her eyes were wide and misty, her little mouth turned downwards in distress. I feared that she had heard everything, all the screaming, what Jo had said.

"Is Willow dead?" she asked me in a squeaky, fragile voice. Her chin started to wobble, her fingers clutching the stair railing so hard they were white.

I opened my mouth, trying to think of what to say. It was obvious that she had heard Jo say that Willow died, but I wasn't sure how to respond to this little girl's question without crushing her.

"Yes, honey," I whispered, kneeling down so that I was level with her.

Holly's eyes moved to the floor as tears welled in them. "What does that mean?"

Pain struck me as I realized Holly didn't even know what death was. Fear filled me as I tried to think of how to explain death to a six-year-old, but somehow it started tumbling naturally from my lips.

"It means she's just sleeping. She was a good horse, but she was old and in a lot of pain. Now she just gets to dream. Her body isn't with us anymore, but her soul is still dreaming. Like a long nap."

Holly looked up at me questioningly. "But we won't get to see her anymore?"

I gave her a small smile, reaching out and touching her knee. "No, honey. She lived a long, long life, but she deserves to just rest now."

She looked content with the answer, her eyes drying. But she was still looking at the floor, as if there was something else she wanted to say. Finally, she looked up at me, and in that sweet, sweet voice, asked, "Is Jo going to die?"

My face contorted in surprise, but I tried to show no expression, though I was confused why she would ask this. "Of course not, Holly. Jo's not going to die. Why do you ask that?"

She looked hesitant. "Mommy says she's going to get herself killed one day."

My heart ached in my chest, because why would a mother say something like that in front of her daughter, and why did anxiety fill me at the thought of it and how it could possibly be true?

"No," I said, covering up my emotions with a smile. "Jo is gonna stay with you for a long, long time. She's not going to die."

She looked at me for a moment with that same troubled look on her face before finally it seemed that she accepted my answer. I told her that she needed to get back to bed, but she lifted her arms up, expecting me to pick her up. As little of a thing she seemed, she was heavy, but I lifted her and put her on my hip, carrying her up to her room and tucking her in bed. She asked me to stay a while, so I did. I sat on the edge of her bed, staring up at the ceiling until finally her eyes closed and her breathing slowed. I turned off the light in her room and closed the door, going to my own room.

I still smelt of horse and hay, so I took a blazing hot shower, thinking about everything that had happened in the last 24 hours. I thought about Holly asking if Jo was going to die, and how the thought frightened me so. When I dried myself and dressed, I opened the door to see Jo sitting on my bed.