I grab my phone, needing a distraction. I go to my pictures—yes, I saved the picture Aiden posted of us—and look at it, feeling my heart rate slow. A small part of me looks forward to seeing him Friday. He makes me feel calm, and his complete lack of judgment is so unexpected. There’s something about him that makes me think he knows exactly what I’m going through, which is crazy, because his life is perfect.
I miss him. Miss his accented voice, miss the way he looks at me, miss the way he makes me feel like I’m worth it. I stare at the picture for a few more seconds before setting my phone down. I pull my hood up and rest my head against the wall, closing my eyes. Aurelia is a tough little girl. I stroke her fur and smile, feeling so much relief. She’s made it through two days and doesn’t seem like she’s missed her mom that much, which was my biggest worry. A depressed foal quickly leads to a sick foal.
I look up in the direction of Phoenix’s stall, hating the black ball of resentment I feel toward her. Mom died saving her, and she isn’t eating, isn’t doing what she has to do in order to get better. And now I’m feeling guilty because I’ve limited my interaction with her, but it’s just too painful. She’s taken care of, I remind myself. I spent my grocery money on her medicine, after all.
I doze off into a dark spiral of guilt and nightmares, waking about an hour later to Aurelia getting up. She goes to the bucket and takes a long drink of milk.
“Good baby,” I whisper, cold already. Snuggling with a baby horse is like holding a fuzzy space heater. I shoo Chrissy out of the stall, before she can nip at Aurelia’s legs, and softly walk down the barn aisle. Shakespeare and Sundance are lying down, sleeping. Benny is standing in the back of his stall with his head down, eyes closed and mouth hanging. He has one back leg bent a bit, putting his weight on the other three legs.
And Phoenix…Phoenix is awake, head hanging low and tears streaming from her dark eyes. Her feed bowl is full of untouched grain, and her hay has only been picked at, lying uneaten on the ground of her stall. I clutch my heart and grind my teeth together. She looks pitiful, completely miserable.
“Hey, sweetie,” I whisper. Her ear flicks in my direction, but she doesn’t look at me. I stand there, looking at her, unable to move for several minutes. Then I finally shake myself and go back to Aurelia’s stall to get my blanket. I slide Phoenix’s stall open and clip the stall guard into place. I wrap the blanket around myself and sink down, keeping my legs out of her stall.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, and I start to cry. “I should have done this a long time ago.” I start shaking, suddenly freezing. “I’m sorry. But it hurts, Phoenix, so much. I can’t look at you without remembering what happened. I look at you and I feel the fire, I smell the smoke, and I miss Mom, so much. And,” I start, but I have to stop until I can get the sobs under control. “It’s my fault. I haven’t told anyone that, but it is. I heard you. I went after you. Mom told me not to, but I did anyway. It’s my fault she went in, it’s my fault she never came out. I killed her!” I double over, hysterical. I’m crying so hard I can hardly breathe. The sobs come out of me in waves, rattling my body painfully.
I’m crying so hard that I don’t hear her move. A soft muzzle presses into my cheek. I open my eyes, sight blurry with tears. Phoenix is standing over me, nose pressed against my face. She blinks, and a tear rolls down her charred skin, falling onto me. I slowly sit up. She nudges me.
“You’re not mad, are you?” I whisper, voice trembling. “You should be. You can be. I should have been here from the start, Phoenix. Maybe you’d be better. I just can’t. And I know it’s an excuse, and a stupid one at that. But I can’t. I can’t do this all.” I close my swollen eyes. “Everything feels like it’s falling apart, and my arms aren’t long enough to hold it all together. Things are slipping away, and I don’t know what to do.” The tears start to fall again. “I don’t know what to do about anything.”
I put my hand on Phoenix’s muzzle, fingers sweeping over soft fur and rough scars. She heavily exhales, breath warming me. “I’m sorry,” I repeat. She takes a step back, and I curl my legs to my chest and cry myself to sleep, not waking until sunrise.
Phoenix is eating hay. Her feed dish is empty. I bite the inside of my cheek and feel like crying again, but this time out of relief. I close my eyes and tip my head up. “Thank you,” I whisper. I get up, stiff from sleeping half in Phoenix’s stall and half in the barn aisle.
I give everyone hay, mix up another bucket of milk for Aurelia, change Phoenix’s bandages, and then dish out grain. I do a quick five-minute grooming on everyone while they eat, and let the three big guys out in the pasture. Aurelia prances around the round pen. I go back to Phoenix. She ate half her grain and is nibbling the new flake of hay I gave her.
“Want to take a walk?” I ask.
She looks into my eyes, and I know the bond we should have formed months ago is being built. I slip a halter over her head, adding another padded bandage under the nylon so it doesn’t hurt her scars.
Her manners will need work once she’s better. For now, I’m not worried that she’s pulling and walking ahead of me. She hesitates at the threshold, sniffing the air. My heart hurts all over again.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “We’re going outside.”
She’s lived her whole life in a barn, away from fresh air, sunlight, and grass. She’s lived her whole life in misery, forgotten, abused, and neglected. Not anymore. She’s home now, with me, and I’m giving her a second chance.
We slowly walk up and down the driveway. She’s so curious and scared of everything, even the springy grass under her hooves. It takes a while, but she begins to nibble on it. I let her get a few mouthfuls before brining her back into the barn. She has to be weaned onto grass to keep from getting sick.
I let her out in the dry lot. She walks around, sniffing the dry dirt, then goes to the fence and eats the grass growing along the sides. I’m scared this isn’t real, that it’s all a dream and I’m going to wake up to her dead and lifeless in her stall next to me.
I try to shake those thoughts from my head as I go back into the barn to get her hay and a bucket of water. I clean stalls but am too tired to sweep the aisle. I nuzzle Aurelia and trudge into the house. I manage to take a shower before collapsing into bed and sleeping for a little over an hour before I wake up in a panic.
Phoenix is outside.
I race downstairs and to the window. She’s slowly moving around the dry lot, eating whatever grass she can get outside the fence. I put my hand over my heart, trying to will it to slow down. It’s cloudy today, so I can leave her out a while longer before worrying her exposed skin will get sunburned. If her wounds scab over better, I can put a mesh sheet on her, blocking out the damaging UV rays. She isn’t ready for that yet.
I go upstairs, brush my hair, and get dressed. I’m dog-tired, but I have shit to do. I wash dishes, fry the last two expired eggs and pray I don’t get sick, and sweep and vacuum the first floor after I eat. I’m behind on laundry, but that can wait. I go back out and put Phoenix back in her stall. She looks outside longingly, and I promise I’ll let her out again when the sun goes down.
Aurelia drank half her bucket and is now passed out in a sunny spot in a cluster of clovers. I pull my phone from my pocket and snap a few pictures and then go back inside, sinking onto the couch. I’m asleep in minutes.
My phone rings and wakes me up.
“Hello?” I grumble.
“You okay?” Lori says. “I’m on my way over with lunch.”
“I’m okay,” I tell her. “I was sleeping.”
“Oh, sorry for waking you up. But you’re going to eat then get your ass up to bed. I know you stayed in the barn again last night.”
I lie back down. “I did.”