“Wolf,” Mr. Pickens said, “let me remind you again. I do the talking.”
Ignoring his lawyer’s advice, my father said, “I never sent any such letter.”
Mom sighed. “You have an awfully convenient memory, Les. But I have a filing system, something my college professor daddy taught me. You did indeed send that lovely note along with the divorce papers—which I read, gave to my lawyer, signed, copied for the file, and sent back.”
She glanced over at Robbie and me to make sure we were all right with what we were hearing.
I’d already grabbed Robbie’s little three-fingered hand and now gave it a gentle squeeze. How could we know if we were all right? Maybe Mom didn’t talk about the wolf, didn’t actually say a bad word about him either to me or to Robbie, though I’d overheard her tell Martha once or twice, when the subject had come up, that “rubbing a wound only makes it worse.”
He leaned forward again and gave her a look that scared me. “I never signed any papers. You never put a penny into this place. It all comes from my earnings. You get a check from me every month, lady. Blood money. I’m amazed the farm’s still running. You may have been well educated, Han, studying literature and all, but you never did have a lick of sense then or now about how the real world works.”
“Wolf!” Mr. Pickens said, anger in his voice. “Zip it!”
The meanness of what my father was saying just about took my breath away. I knew how hard Mom worked to keep the farm going. To keep Robbie and me safe. To teach Robbie all he would need to know about dealing with the world.
Tears welled up in my eyes, but as soon as they started, they stopped. Seems I was too mad to cry.
Mom glanced over at me again and recognized something on my face. “You’ve just lost your daughter for good,” she told him, “and she and your son were the only wonderful things you ever helped bring into this world.”
“I make music,” he said. “I make people happy with my songs.”
“I only have your word that you make people happy. But I do know for certain that you never made us happy—Ari and Robbie and me.” She stood up, went over to the desk, opened a secret drawer that even I hadn’t known existed, and pulled out an envelope. She handed it to Mr. Pickens.
He put on a pair of half-glasses that made the bottom of his eyes bigger than the tops, and skimmed the contents of the envelope. Then he read the papers again, slowly this time. At last, turning, he glared at my father.
“Wolf,” he said, “you told me there was nothing in writing.”
“I didn’t sign any papers,” my father said. “Just like I told you.”
Mr. Pickens shook the letter at him. “But you signed this letter. And here’s a copy, duly notarized, of the divorce papers.”
“I didn’t write any letter.”
I’m sure my mouth was gaping open. The lawyer was holding the very letter, and my father kept saying it didn’t exist.
“It’s got your signature,” Mr. Pickens said, shaking the letter again at him. “A signature I know all too well.”
“Then I must have been drunk at the time. Or high.”
“Legally, being under the influence of either alcohol or drugs is no excuse. Especially as the letter shows no proof of that. And trust me, you don’t want to say that sort of thing in front of a judge, or—may I remind you—in front of anyone except me! Furthermore, technically, you did desert your wife and children.”
I’d never heard anyone use furthermore in an actual sentence before.
“One child,” my father said. “A girl. I couldn’t possibly have fathered that other one.” He didn’t look at Robbie when he said it.
Mom looked up at the ceiling. “Children. Both your children.”
He scowled. “The baby was as good as dead before I left, so technically I only deserted my wife and daughter. How was I to know he would manage to live?”
How indeed? I thought, remembering when I first knew that he wasn’t coming back, thinking it had to have been my fault, that I hadn’t been good enough or sweet enough or—
“You’d seen Robbie only once in the hospital, and he was joyously alive,” Mom said. “He’s still the most joyous child I’ve ever known.”
I gave Robbie’s hand another squeeze. He squeezed mine back.
The wolf stood and loomed over her. He’s five foot nine, and Mom is … well … she’s not anywhere near that big. “You should have had that thing aborted when we found out about the pills.…”
I went cold. I could feel sweat on Robbie’s palm.
Mr. Pickens came over to stand between them. “I’m not liking what I’m hearing, Wolf. There are two children involved. Your children. You and I are leaving right now before you make it any worse. And this letter—”
“That letter was private between me and my wife.”
Mr. Pickens smiled, one of those mouth-twisting, this-is-not-funny smiles. “There’s nothing private here apart from your conversations with me.”
“Besides, I’ve been listening and heard it all,” said a new voice, very grimly. Dr. Herks was standing in the door, body taut, as if ready to explode. I wondered how long he’d been standing there.
“The letter,” Mr. Pickens emphasized, “says exactly what your wife just said.”
“Ex-wife!” Mom was emphatic.
Mr. Pickens sighed. “Girl babies and monstrosities. Wolf, if that phrase gets out to the press, you can kiss your career good-bye.”
“My lawyer’s on her way, Hannah,” Dr. Herks said quietly, “if you want to talk to her.” He must have used the barn phone.
“Thanks, Gerry, but I think we’re done talking.”
“Who’s he?” my father demanded, looking directly at Dr. Herks.
“Dr. Herks, the vet,” I said. “The one who’s been taking care of Kai.” In my head I added, Taking care of us, too.
“Ari, take Robbie outside,” Mom said. “There’s something more I want to say to your father, and I don’t want you two hearing it.”
“But, Mom—”
“Come on, Ari,” Robbie said. “Something smells awful in the kitchen. It’ll be sweeter in the barn.” Which was the snarkiest thing I’d ever heard him say.
Just before we left, I turned to look back. Mr. Pickens was handing his card to Dr. Herks. Mom stood with her arms folded across her chest, stone-faced. My father was doing his wolf imitation, snarling. It was the sort of scene our English teacher calls a tableau.
As I pushed Robbie along, he made up a little song which probably comforted him, but it didn’t help me at all.
My brother is a horse,
And I am a seal.
No big deal, nope, no big deal.
It’s not the way you look that counts,
It’s the way you feel, the way you feel.
It’s what makes you real, boy,
Makes you really real.
He sang it all the way to the barn.
21
Monsters
WHAT I DIDN’T KNOW UNTIL LATER was that my father and mother argued for a few minutes more, about money and about the farm and about visitation rights. For me, not for Robbie.
He called Mom some awful names and accused her of things like having boyfriends and not declaring how much the farm made on her taxes and other things he simply made up. He even—or so I learned much, much later—accused her of trying to sabotage his career and hiring someone to kill him. Mr. Pickens finally had to drag him away, but not before my father slammed the door so hard, it almost came off its hinges.
Dr. Herks heard him say to Mr. Pickens, “You go wait in the car. I’ve got something to take care of first,” but by then Dr. Herks was so busy soothing Mom that he didn’t get outside right away. Besides, he figured that the lawyer could handle it, since he’d already shown us how he could shut my father up.
Maybe love makes you blind to danger. Or maybe love makes all our choices hard ones.
* * *
Robbie and I were already back in Kai’s
stall. Except for the little song, Robbie and I hadn’t spoken a word since leaving the house.
The familiar smell of horse brought us back to ourselves, our real lives. Not the lies that our father had made up about us. I unlocked the door, and we slipped in.
Agora was casually munching on oats, because nobody had gotten around to moving her back into her own stall that morning. Ignoring her, Kai was standing in a corner reading the George Washington book.
He looked up and grinned at us. “George Washington did not cut down a cherry tree,” he said. “That was just a made-up story.”
I laughed, but it quickly turned into something else when I heard noises coming from the other side of the barn—horses whinnying in alarm, someone cursing loudly.
I knew at once who it had to be.
“Robbie,” I said, “stay here with Kai and Agora. Keep the door locked. I’ll see what’s going on, and if I have to, I’ll get Dr. Herks.”
Without checking through the blinds first, I opened the door and was about to slip through it when someone pushed past me as if he hadn’t even noticed I was there.
“Where’s my little jackpot?” he said. “Where’s the answer to my money woes? You’d better be real.” His words were slurring, and he seemed crazed. Or drunk. Or both.
He shoved Robbie aside so hard the wheelchair tipped, and Robbie tumbled to the floor. Luckily, there was a lot of straw to cushion his fall, but the chair fell on top of him, pinning him against the wall.
“Ari! Ari!” he called out, in a panicky voice.
I ran toward him, but before I could help, the wheelchair was lifted up by Kai as if it was no more than a toy. Setting the chair to one side, he kneeled on his forelegs and picked Robbie up, cradling him in his arms, saying, “Don’t be sad, Brother. Kai is here.”
Robbie was sniffling, but rubbed his eyes with the back of his three-fingered hand.
My father took in the scene and suddenly understood that it was Kai, the pony boy, kneeling before him. “My little monster!” he crowed and threw his arms wide as if to embrace both Robbie and Kai.
I started to bend over, to check that Robbie wasn’t badly hurt. As far as I could tell, no bones broken, no blood. Just a little scared, and now a lot mad.
That’s when the wolf man said, “So you’re coming with me, monster,” as he reached down for Kai’s mane.
I put out a hand to stop him. “The only monster here is you, Dad.”
He made a fist. I thought he was going to punch me, and I didn’t know what to do. I closed my eyes and flinched.
But Agora had had enough. She trotted over, turned her back to him, and kicked up and out with all her might.
Look Out for Her Heels, indeed!
If Agora had been a horse, she might have caught him in the chest and broken some serious bones. But she was only a pony, and her hooves hit him farther down.
He sure screamed a lot for a grown man.
Hobbling out of the stall, he yelled for his lawyer. “Daniel! Daniel Pickens! Get over here now!” His voice began rising higher, almost if he was singing. “I’ll sue you for assault, Hannah. I’ll have this farm and everything you own. Daniel, get over here. I need to go to the hospital right away!”
I ran out after him, tears flooding my eyes. Not tears for me. Not even tears for Robbie or Kai. But for my father, who would never be able to make his way back to us after this. Not that we wanted him to—not ever.
He never looked back, just climbed into his car, a bright red Corvette convertible, and, with his lawyer in the passenger seat, spun out of the driveway. It rained gravel.
When I returned to the stall, Agora was once again head down in her oats bucket, placidly munching away. In the corner, Kai—a bit awkwardly—was helping Robbie up onto his back while Robbie clutched his mane. They both saw me at the same time.
“Look, Ari!” Robbie called. “I can ride, too!”
“Robbie, that’s—” I began, meaning to say how dangerous it was.
“Not without a helmet, young man!” It was Mom behind me. Behind her stood Dr. Herks. And behind him was Martha.
“And not until you learn how to do it right,” Martha said. I wasn’t sure if she was talking to Robbie or to Kai.
Dr. Herks plucked Robbie from Kai’s back. “Kai’s still too young to carry this much weight. It will hurt his back and harm his legs. But at the rate he’s growing, I bet you’ll be able to ride him safely by the fall.”
As he brought Robbie back to his wheelchair, Dr. Herks added to Mom and Martha and me, “It’s not just the boy part that’s growing fast, his horse half is growing at a phenomenal rate, too. He’s already taller than Agora, just not filled out.”
“That’s because he’s magic!” Robbie said. “And when I’m on his back, I’m magic, too.”
Magic. What I’d always wanted.
Besides, it turned out to be the best explanation we were ever to get.
* * *
Back in the kitchen, we talked about what had just happened, and who had hurt whom.
“He didn’t really hurt me, Mom,” Robbie said. “Except my feelings.”
“Well, Agora hurt him!” I’m embarrassed to say I grinned at the memory.
“Then I hope he has to go into the hospital.” Martha was busy pulling the rubber bands out of her hair and combing out the snarls with her fingers. “Hospitals can make you sick, you know. Doctors, too.”
Dr. Herks laughed.
“Oh, not you, Herkel,” she said. “You’re not that kind of doctor.”
Mom shook her head. “Hospitals make you well, Martha.”
“A lot you know. When have you ever been in a hospital?”
Mom got that exasperated look on her face, her forehead crossed with lines like notebook paper. She held up her hands and started counting on her fingers: “Appendix, tonsils, Arianne, Robbie, oh—and a bout of pneumonia when I was a child, and a broken arm from falling off a horse when I was fifteen. Is six times enough?”
Martha gave a loud humph, and Dr. Herks laughed again.
He’s enjoying this way too much, I thought. But with very little urging, he called his lawyer, and we all listened in shamelessly, at least to his part of the conversation.
Afterward, he assured us that Mom’s insurance would probably cover any doctor bills that a horse of hers inflicted. Furthermore, Dr. Herks’ lawyer doubted Dad’s lawyer would ever let him sue us, given the fact that Dad had as good as assaulted his daughter and his handicapped son, and had been vocal about his plans to steal a valuable asset from his ex-wife’s farm (Kai). Plus the knowledge that Dad’s reputation could be ruined by any revelation of what had happened here would—Dr. Herks’ lawyer said—“guarantee his silence.”
Still, she promised to give Mr. Pickens a call in about an hour just to be sure.
And so we weathered two storms—the reporters and Wolf Hurricane, as Robbie called it.
22
Plan A+
THAT NIGHT, exhausted by the day’s revelations, I fell into a deep sleep and had the same dream again: Robbie sitting astride a horse, looking tall and whole.
I woke up, and it was still dark. The clock said it was twelve thirty, but I didn’t feel sleepy at all. In fact, I was incredibly excited about my dream and what I thought it meant. So I got up, put on my robe and slippers, and went into Mom’s room to tell her all about my idea before I forgot it or dismissed it as just a dream.
She wasn’t there.
Robbie? I thought. Kai?
And then the worst thought of all: Dad’s come back!
I kicked off the slippers and was heading toward Robbie’s room when I heard a noise in the kitchen. It was Mom, and it sounded as if she was crying.
I took off at a run. “Mom!” I shouted.
She was sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of tea in front of her. Dr. Herks was on his knees on the floor, a look of pain on his face.
“What’s wrong?” My heart seemed to be pounding out a strange rhythm in
my chest.
Dr. Herks looked up at me, then got laboriously to his feet. “I’ll let you know when your mother gives me her answer.”
“Answer?”
Mom’s hands left her face. Tears ran down her cheeks. “Yes,” she said. “That’s my answer. Yes.” She took a deep breath. “But only if the children agree.”
Dr. Herks put his arms around her. “Let’s start with Ari.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, but my face was hot because I’d already guessed.
“I’ve asked your mother to adopt me,” Dr. Herks said and winked.
I laughed. “I don’t need another brother, Dr. Herks,” I said. “I need a dad.”
He gathered me into their embrace. “Then you’ve got him. But only if you call me Gerry.”
That’s when I remembered why I’d been looking for Mom and pulled away, trying to look serious, which was hard because I had this ridiculous grin threatening to split my face in two. “Listen, I have an idea.”
“Better than this one?” Gerry asked.
Holding hands, they looked at me with goofy smiles, maybe even goofier than mine. But I couldn’t wait to tell them.
“Maybe,” I said, “since it includes all of us.”
“Go on,” Mom said, and Dr. Herks … Gerry … said it at the same time.
“So, I had a really strange dream several nights ago and now again.” I told them all about it. They looked at me oddly, as if I’d gone crazy or something.
“Ari…,” Mom began. “It’s nearly one in the morning.”
“No, Mom, listen. I think it’s about Robbie on Kai’s back. Up there he had a kind of power. A kind of…” I waved my hands around as if I might pluck the word I was looking for out of the air.
Gerry nodded. “A kind of wellness?”
“Presence,” Mom offered.
Taking a deep breath, I nodded and then spelled it out. “Maybe Kai could learn how to carry handicapped riders like Robbie, to help them become stronger in their bodies—and in their hearts.”
Mom clapped her hands. “Yes!” she breathed. “Yes!”
Leaning toward me, Gerry grinned. “Arianne, it’s brilliant. Why didn’t I think of that?” He turned to Mom. “I’ve read about this sort of thing in Scandinavia. A woman—I can’t remember her name—had had polio and couldn’t walk without canes. But she’d been quite the horsewoman before and went back to riding as soon as she could. She even won a medal at the Helsinki Olympic Games for Dressage.”