Free When Happily Ever After Ends by Lurlene McDaniel

for Mr. Campbell’s death, he had been experiencing severe depression. Mr. Campbell co-owned and operated a riding stable with his wife Kathleen on the mountain. He was a decorated Vietnam veteran and a member of the Better Business Council. He is survived by his wife, daughter Shannon, and mother Mrs. Betty Campbell.
    The print began to wiggle as tears stung Shannon’s eyes. She wadded up the newspaper and bolted from the house. “Take it easy,” Zack said, stopping her in her tracks and grasping her upper arms as she ran into the barn. “What’s the hurry? Are you all right?”
    “This!” She flung the newspaper at him. “Why did the paper write about my father this way?” Seeing her father’s existence summed up in a few brief lines of copy seemed cold and cruel.
    Zack quickly read the article. “It’s a news story, Shannon. That’s their job. It’s nothing personal.”
    “It stinks! What do they know about my father and our lives? ‘Severe depression.’ ” She spat the phrase. “My father was good and kind and … and … they should have said that!”
    “I don’t think they meant to be mean.”
    “Why are you defending them? What do you know about it anyway? You don’t even have a father!” She regretted the words immediately. She had no right to hurt Zack. He’d done nothing to hurt her.
    “I have one,” Zack said quietly, his face pale.“I just haven’t seen him in a long, long time.” He let her go.
    “Well, I hate the reporter. I hate the newspaper. I wish their whole building would explode!”
    “Would it make you feel better?”
    “Yes!”
    “Would it bring your father back?”
    His words hit her as if he’d slapped her. As if he’d torn open the raw and oozing wound in her heart.
Nothing
could bring her father back. A strangled cry escaped Shannon’s mouth, and she shoved Zack as hard as she could and ran outside. “Wait!” he yelled.
    Black grazed in a nearby pasture. Shannon seized a bridle hanging on a hook and called the horse to her. Her hands were shaking, but she got the bit into Black’s mouth, hoisted herself onto his back, and dug her heels into his flank. The dark horse leaped forward. Shannon leaned low across his neck. She saw the fence loom on the far side of the pasture and she urged him forward. She felt his muscles bunch and then his forelegs lift as he soared effortlessly over the barrier. He hit the ground and galloped hard across the pasture.
    Shannon gulped in air while wind whipped through her hair and stung her eyes, making them water even harder. Trees dashed past in a blur of green and all she heard was the steady pounding of the horse’s hooves against the ground.
    As she tasted the wind, felt the jarring ground, and smelled the scent of Black’s sweating coat, Shannonturned off her thoughts and became one with the galloping horse. Sometime later, she felt the horse’s gait slackening as he slowed to a canter, then to a trot, then to a walk. She heard him breathing hard, saw flecks of white foam on his neck, and felt his sides heaving beneath her legs.
    “Whoa.” She reined him to a halt and slid off his back. Her legs trembled and her body felt limp, but the ride had helped purge her of her seething anger. In its place was numbness and exhaustion. Shannon dropped the reins and let Black nibble on the grass. Wearily, she sat on the hard earth, facing westward, and stayed there until the sun went down.
    As darkness fell, she thought of her mother. She hurt too. Over the past several days they’d eaten and slept and walked around the house together in a numb daze. If only they could talk, really talk, about what had happened. But Shannon wasn’t sure where to begin. Her father was dead, and without him, their family seemed to lack cohesion.
    Shannon had seen him put in the ground, with only a bronze plaque, wreaths of flowers, and a mention in the newspaper to mark his existence. How could she go on without him? How could her family ever