Free Love Lift Me by Synthia St. Claire Page B

visit,” mother reminded me.
    “So,
can I go?” Abby said impatiently. “Please?”
    “I
s’pose. Go help your sister get the rest of the groceries out of the trunk
first.”
    At
that, Abby dashed through the screen door like a bolt of lightning, letting it
bang loudly behind her. Moments later, she returned with her arms full of
groceries and chucked them with difficulty onto the counter beside me. She was
still out of breath and red in the face by the time I finished putting the all
away.
    “That’s
the last of ‘em,” Abby said pridefully. “Got ‘em all in one trip.”
    “Thank
you, dear,” mother answered.
    “Did
you close the trunk?” I asked, while balling up the empty plastic bags into one
another.
    Abby
blew out and rolled her eyes. “No. I couldn’t get it.”
    “Well,
get out there and shut it. Never know when it might rain.”
    “Not
today,” she answered on her way back to the door, going more slowly this time.
“Daddy says it’s as dry as the Sahara out there. Been like that for weeks. Gon’
be like that all next week, too.” Before she reached the handle, Abby turned on
her heels and scooped up some papers from the table next to it. “Oh yeah, I
almost forgot. I picked up the mail while ya’ll was gone,” she said, and handed
me a thick stack of envelopes.
    The
first few that I thumbed through were from the hospital or one of the many
doctors mother had gone to for treatment. I wondered how much longer my parents
could afford to keep paying Abby an allowance, much less keep the power on, now
that medical bills had begun to arrive.
    I
wished that I could wave a magic wand and make all the bills go away. What
little money I had leftover from my student loans after tuition, books, and
uniform scrubs went to paying my rent back in Watauga. If I had to give it up,
I would, but for the time being I would stay positive. Soon enough I’d be back
to studying in my cramped single-bedroom apartment in the mountains.
     
    After
helping mother to bed for a nap, I changed into my riding clothes. It would be
nice to get away from people for a while. I needed to get outside and into the
fresh air while it was still warm and the leaves had yet to fall. My leg felt
strong enough to ride and the persistent ache had almost completely vanished.
It was time to pay a long-overdue visit to Zip and Ruby.
     Both
horses were so glad to see me that I could hardly stop either of them from
nuzzling their fuzzy, whiskery faces against my neck or biting at the rolled-up
sleeves on my plaid shirt to try and get me to keep petting them. Since Ruby
seemed to prefer grazing in the meadow over riding, I let her out and wiped
down one of the brown leather saddles hanging under the loft and took Zip out for
a ride instead.
    His
slick black coat glistened in the late afternoon sun as he turned this way and
that, anxious to go. Zip was always my favorite; steady, reliable in the way he
moved, and he could run so fast over the smooth, flat plain of the meadow that
you had to hold on to the harness with both hands for fear of sliding off the back
of the saddle.
    I
took him along the outskirts of the meadow at a light trot to warm him up,
right along the border of our farm and the Johnson’s apple orchard. He always
loved it around this time of year because occasionally he could find a plump,
ripe one that had rolled far enough under the fence to snatch up. Without
slowing down, Zip would sweep his big head down and scoop up an apple and eat
it on the go. When it was time to run, though, running was all he focused on.
    “Let’s
go,” I called out and tapped the heel of my boots against his hindquarters. The
effect was almost instant. Zip jolted forward, ignoring all the apples that
might have fallen, and raced down the borderline at full speed, tearing apart the
ground with his hooves. I flattened myself against him, feeling the wind race
over my back and in my hair, blowing with it all the troubled thoughts that
clouded