and one leftover green chile enchilada. I haven’t had a chance to go to the market yet, so we could go out to dinner. La Choza? Plenty of restaurants within walking distance.”
“Maybe I’ll just have a cheese sandwich,” he said.
Peter still ate dairy, which Margaret was supposed to remove from her diet immediately. He’d been a vegetarian since his early teens, which she blamed on a school report on factory farming. She always thought one day he’d pick up a burger and that would be the end of it. But he’d stuck to his principles, and just look at him, so trim and healthy, with a bloom in his cheeks.
Echo whined. “Why don’t you take her out for a quick walk? The air will do you good. Meanwhile, I’ll fix you a plate.”
“Sounds good,” he said, and stood up.
And when your stomach’s full, and you’re ready for a nap, I’ll tell you my news. The diagnosis. How I fell today. Why I’d better stop driving.
Chapter 4
Skye pressed the button on her watch, and the face shone blue. Two in the morning, officially Friday, thank God. It felt to her like anytime, any year, anyplace out here. Or some kind of dream landscape, maybe. But her dad had come for her. After ten years not hearing from him, he was like a stranger to her, but here he was. What Skye remembered about the day her father left was this: She’d just gotten home from school, lugging her books in the pink backpack he’d bought her for the new school year. She didn’t have any homework because she’d done it during lunch. She didn’t have many friends. Other kids didn’t like her because she was smart, always getting the top grades on tests and winning spelling bees. She also tended to hit first and try to work things out later, which did not go over well with anyone. Nobody sat with her at lunch, so she figured she might as well get her homework over with so she could spend the weekend riding her horse. She was twelve and a total barn rat. Not one horse, not even that insane Arab her teacher owned, scared her. When a horse bucked, she made herself limp as a sack of potatoes, hung on to its mane, and knew all she had to do was wait it out. A tired horse gave you a better ride.
Back then, she thought about horses constantly. How to improve her skills and win more blue ribbons in gymkhanas, the monthly riding competitions. Learning tricks. Did she want to be a trick rider more than she wanted to be a veterinarian? It was a tough choice. Why not do both? The veterinary degree would prove to be most useful, but training on the weekends seemed possible. When Mama and Daddy were seriously fighting, like lately, she had to think of something besides their yelling or go crazy. Horses it was.
Her parents were the kind of married people who never actually engaged in normal conversation with each other. Instead, they threw barbs and guilt bombs that would explode later. Daddy would come home from shoeing and say, “I picked up six new clients,” by which he meant this month the bills would be paid on time. Mama’s response should’ve been, Good for you, and congratulations, because I know how hard you work , but instead she’d say, “And when are you ever going to mow the lawn? Our house is the shabbiest one on the street.”
“I can do it, Mama,” Sara would say, but her mother wanted her dad to do it, because that was his job. This particular afternoon, it was clear to Sara that they’d been going on like this for some time. She heard them from the front yard—Daddy’s rumbly low bass and Mama’s screeching—which meant their neighbors could hear, too. Sara stopped on the porch before going in. When she heard the sound of plates breaking, her daddy opened the door. He was carrying a duffel bag. There were shorts hanging out of it and the zipper wasn’t pulled all the way.
He looked at her for a second, as if he were considering taking her along, but then he looked away and hurried toward his truck. Skye watched him throw that
“Maybe I’ll just have a cheese sandwich,” he said.
Peter still ate dairy, which Margaret was supposed to remove from her diet immediately. He’d been a vegetarian since his early teens, which she blamed on a school report on factory farming. She always thought one day he’d pick up a burger and that would be the end of it. But he’d stuck to his principles, and just look at him, so trim and healthy, with a bloom in his cheeks.
Echo whined. “Why don’t you take her out for a quick walk? The air will do you good. Meanwhile, I’ll fix you a plate.”
“Sounds good,” he said, and stood up.
And when your stomach’s full, and you’re ready for a nap, I’ll tell you my news. The diagnosis. How I fell today. Why I’d better stop driving.
Chapter 4
Skye pressed the button on her watch, and the face shone blue. Two in the morning, officially Friday, thank God. It felt to her like anytime, any year, anyplace out here. Or some kind of dream landscape, maybe. But her dad had come for her. After ten years not hearing from him, he was like a stranger to her, but here he was. What Skye remembered about the day her father left was this: She’d just gotten home from school, lugging her books in the pink backpack he’d bought her for the new school year. She didn’t have any homework because she’d done it during lunch. She didn’t have many friends. Other kids didn’t like her because she was smart, always getting the top grades on tests and winning spelling bees. She also tended to hit first and try to work things out later, which did not go over well with anyone. Nobody sat with her at lunch, so she figured she might as well get her homework over with so she could spend the weekend riding her horse. She was twelve and a total barn rat. Not one horse, not even that insane Arab her teacher owned, scared her. When a horse bucked, she made herself limp as a sack of potatoes, hung on to its mane, and knew all she had to do was wait it out. A tired horse gave you a better ride.
Back then, she thought about horses constantly. How to improve her skills and win more blue ribbons in gymkhanas, the monthly riding competitions. Learning tricks. Did she want to be a trick rider more than she wanted to be a veterinarian? It was a tough choice. Why not do both? The veterinary degree would prove to be most useful, but training on the weekends seemed possible. When Mama and Daddy were seriously fighting, like lately, she had to think of something besides their yelling or go crazy. Horses it was.
Her parents were the kind of married people who never actually engaged in normal conversation with each other. Instead, they threw barbs and guilt bombs that would explode later. Daddy would come home from shoeing and say, “I picked up six new clients,” by which he meant this month the bills would be paid on time. Mama’s response should’ve been, Good for you, and congratulations, because I know how hard you work , but instead she’d say, “And when are you ever going to mow the lawn? Our house is the shabbiest one on the street.”
“I can do it, Mama,” Sara would say, but her mother wanted her dad to do it, because that was his job. This particular afternoon, it was clear to Sara that they’d been going on like this for some time. She heard them from the front yard—Daddy’s rumbly low bass and Mama’s screeching—which meant their neighbors could hear, too. Sara stopped on the porch before going in. When she heard the sound of plates breaking, her daddy opened the door. He was carrying a duffel bag. There were shorts hanging out of it and the zipper wasn’t pulled all the way.
He looked at her for a second, as if he were considering taking her along, but then he looked away and hurried toward his truck. Skye watched him throw that
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