Free Stray Horse by Bonnie Bryant Page B

there. As her mother reminded her many times, he often wasn’t there because he traveled so much. Lisa shrugged it off. She pulled on some clean and comfortable clothes and put her books on her desk so that she could do her homework as soon as she was finished with dinner.
    Lisa always kept her room very tidy. Her mother insisted on it, but she would have done it anyway because it was her nature to be organized. It seemed a little odd, then, to see a crumpled mass of papers in the middle of her floor. She bent down to pick them up. She only had to begin to unfold them before she realized what it was. It was her list of all the good things she’d been doing—all the things she’d wanted to share with her parents, especially her father. She dropped the papers back on the floor and went downstairs.
    Normal. That was how everything felt. Her mother was pulling a casserole out of the oven, and the table needed to be set.
    Lisa pulled three place mats, three forks, and three knives out of the drawer. Then she realized her mistake and replaced one mat and one set of silverware, hoping her mother hadn’t seen her error. One look and she knew that her mother had. She didn’t say anything, though.
    Lisa put the settings on the table, poured a glass of milk for herself, and asked her mother what she wanted.
    “I’ll have milk, too,” said Mrs. Atwood.
    That was odd. She usually had a glass of wine with dinner, even when it was just the two of them.
    Lisa gave her mother milk. She brought the salad over to the table and put out plates for each of them. Her mother brought the casserole to the table, and they sat down. Mrs. Atwood served Lisa a plate and then served herself. Lisa gave herself some salad and then passed the bowl over to her mother.
    They ate.
    “Where’s Dad?” Lisa broke the uncomfortable silence.
    Her mother looked stunned. “We told you. We’re separated,” she answered.
    “I know, but where is he?” she asked.
    Mrs. Atwood appeared shaken. “He’s staying in a hotel downtown for now,” she said. Then her voice wavered. “Once the divorce is final, he’s moving to California.”
    Lisa stood up and took her plate, stacked her mother’son top of it, and walked toward the sink. The world around her seemed to melt a bit, distorted like one of those mirrors in a fun house.
    “Mom—” she began.
    “Don’t worry,” said Mrs. Atwood. “I’ll do the dishes. You can just get to your homework.”
    Lisa felt the plates slip out of her hand. There must have been a sound, a loud one, but she didn’t hear it.
    “Okay,” she said mechanically. Then she went up to her room and started her homework.

N OTHING M AX COULD have said would have prepared The Saddle Club for the Wainwright Jump Team.
    “Let me see if I’ve got this right,” Stevie said to Carole. “Mrs. Wainwright has Red measuring the temperature of her horse’s drinking water?”
    “You’ve got it right. I guess ‘cold’ isn’t good enough. It’s got to be exactly forty-three degrees Fahrenheit,” Carole told her.
    “Mr. Wainwright isn’t so fussy, though. He told Denise it needed to be between forty-three and forty-five degrees. Max warned us, didn’t he?”
    “ ‘Fussy’ really didn’t cover this. How can Red stand it?”
    “Easy,” said Carole. “He can stand it because you and I are doing everything else.”
    “Where’s Lisa?” Stevie asked, realizing that their threesome was looking a lot more like a twosome.
    “She’s with PJ,” Carole said.
    Judy had given PJ a clean bill of health on Thursday, and Lisa had brought him over to Pine Hollow Thursday afternoon. It was a short walk from CARL, so she hadn’t even needed to wait until she could get someone to drive a van. She hadn’t wanted to waste a second until she got him to Pine Hollow.
    “I see what you mean,” Max had said, admiring his newest tenant. He gave PJ a pat on his face. The horse flinched. “Did I hurt him?” he asked.
    Lisa shook her head.