I was desert-mouthed and riding waves of bone-grinding pain. Hunger growled in my belly. I’d known better. It had been willful, self-destructive. I’d known that grief and anxiety would push my metabolism soaring even if I ate properly, which I hadn’t.
Had I really believed if I got thin enough, Bobby would return to feed me?
MOONSHOT WOKE ME, MUZZLING ALL ALONG MY BODY, HIS long whiskers tickling. The reins fell forward off his head, dragging on the ground. Please, don’t get a hoof stuck in that loop.
The sharks bumped against me. My breath was shallow, my pulse too fast. I shivered.
Gerald resettled himself inches from my face, peering at me with his pale-green eyes. He’d spent days in a trap and he’d survived, I reminded myself. He began to purr. I knew cats purred not only in pleasure but also in times of stress and pain. Cats will purr in labor. He stared into my eyes and purred with ridiculous volume. I began to breathe in rhythm with the purrs. I entered into the purring, imagining it spreading warmth through me, radiating comfort through my torso. The sharks became peripheral and then faded as I concentrated on purring, like meditation.
Like prayer.
I don’t know how long we purred together, Gerald and I. I lost myself in it until Max barked and ran away again. Muriel climbed the fence crying her bizarre shout. Gerald kept looking at me as if we were playing a game of Concentration. His purring never faltered. I tried to focus on him, not wanting to get my hopes up, but I was distracted.
When Max returned alone again, I closed my eyes and moaned. Gerald touched my cheek with his one giant boxing-glove paw, claws concealed, Hey, pay attention.
Max sat behind me, barking, the sound stabbing me. Moonshot whinnied. Biscuit answered. I tried to shush them, the sand gritty against my teeth. My head throbbed with Max’s barking. Moonshot whinnied again. Shut up, everyone. How much time had passed?
Gerald dashed away, out of sight. Oh, God. Oh, no. What would I do without him? Max kept barking. “Shut up,” I begged in a cracked old-lady voice.
“You talking to me?”
Gabby knelt before me in her suit, her face pale but resolute. “I called nine-one-one, Mom. When I first saw you. I looked up here when I heard Max barking.”
Lassie. “Fell off. Broke something. Hurts to move.”
“Oh, Mom. Mommy. What can I do? You’re shivering. I’ll go get a blanket.”
“Yes, blanket. And water. But, first, could you put Moonshot back in his paddock?”
She’d kicked off her shoes and was barefoot in hose. She reached for his dragging reins. He lowered his head, standing still as she ran the stirrups up the leathers, but he balked when she tried to lead him away. “I . . . I don’t think he wants to leave you.”
My lips cracked as I smiled. “Okay. Just untack him.”
She did, then returned with Biscuit’s purple horse blanket. She draped me in dusty warmth and gave me sips from a water bottle. Heaven. “Could you take my helmet off, babe?”
She unsnapped my helmet and slid it off my head without moving me. Ah, blessed relief.
I heard the sirens in the distance. The worst was over.
But when Max barked and took off running, Gabby shouted, “We’re up here, Dad!”
Chapter Twenty
IF MY LIFE HAD BEEN A MOVIE, THIS WAS THE MOMENT Bobby would have dropped to his knees and said, “I made a horrible mistake. I want you back.”
This was no movie. There was no going back, but our history counted for something.
Muriel put her front hooves on his shoulder and nibbled his hair. He shook his head, face pale and grim. Poor man always went to pieces when someone was hurt, so it surprised me when he was able to joke, “Goat’s out.”
The worst pain came with the paramedics.
Damn, but it hurt when they moved me. Bobby hovered, murmuring, “Oh, Cam.” When I moaned, he held my hand. I clung to it and had a strange, vulnerable flash of giving birth.
He squeezed my hand.
In front of my daughter and soon-to-be ex-husband, I told the medics from the backboard, “I haven’t eaten anything but one bite of calamari in probably three days, and not much for a couple weeks before that. I passed out from the back of that horse. Something popped when I hit the ground.”
They began to scold me for not wearing a helmet, but Gabby set them straight.
They carried me the jolting, excruciating way to the driveway