Page 49 of Justice

The trailer came at one o’clock. Skye’s car came up the drive right behind it.

Dream lost her entire mind. She was down those deck steps before I could tell her to slow down, screaming Midnite’s name across the yard. By the time I caught up she had both arms wrapped around that horse’s neck like a long-lost relative.

Then she spotted Skye getting out of her car and switched targets.

“MISS SKYE! MISS SKYE, SHE’S HERE! SHE’S HERE FOR REAL!”

My baby grabbed her by the hand and dragged her across the grass without so much as a hello. Skye came stumbling along behind her, laughing, dressed down in a pair of leggings and a hoodie, purse swinging off her shoulder.

She looked tired. That was the first thing I noticed. Something around her eyes, some straining thing she’d covered with makeup that wasn’t fully hidden. She jumped when one of the workers dropped a length of board on the concrete, hand going to her chest. Then she laughed at herself and got right back to Dream.

I made a note of it. Filed it under ask her later, gently. Figured Aubrey’s family emergency had run her ragged all weekend.

Then she got to Midnite, and whatever was sitting on her went somewhere else for a while.

We spent the afternoon with that horse.

Dream showed Skye how to hold her hand out with the apple on the palm. Skye let out a little shriek the first time Midnite lipped her fingers, and Dream nearly fell over laughing at her. They took turns brushing her down. Dream narrated every single thing that horse did like a play-by-play announcer.

Then the handler got the saddle on and asked who was riding first.

Dream went first, obviously, walked around the ring on that mare with her back straight and her chin up like she was leading a parade. Then she demanded Skye go.

“Absolutely not,” Skye said. “I’m a grown woman. I don’t do heights and I don’t do animals bigger than a Buick.”

“Miss SKYE.”

“Baby, I will hold the fence and cheer.”

“Please please please please please.”

She got up on that horse. Of course she did. Nobody has ever told my daughter no successfully. So I stood at the rail watching Skye sit up on that mare, gripping the saddle horn with both hands, her face full of pure terror, hollering at me to make it stop moving.

I laughed until my chest hurt. I hadn’t done that in a long, long time.

Dream led that mare around the ring by the lead rope, slow and serious, calling instructions up to Skye like a little riding instructor. Skye hollered every time Midnite so much as shifted her weight.

Somewhere in there I stopped watching the horse and started watching her. My land. My kid down there holding a lead rope with her tongue poked out in concentration. And that woman up on my daughter’s horse, terrified, laughing at herself, sun full on her face, looking easier than I’d ever seen her look. Three years I’d been running this house like a man holding his breath under water. That afternoon I came up for air.

When Dream finally brought them back around, I came over to help Skye down. She swung her leg over and misjudged the drop. I caught her by the waist, set her on her feet, and she came down closer to me than either of us planned.

Her hands ended up on my chest. Neither of us moved for a second.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Anytime.”

“HI STORIE! HI AUNT KIRA!”

Dream’s voice rang across the yard.

I looked up toward the deck to check on Rita.

They were standing at the deck rail. Both of them. Storie with her weekend bag still on her shoulder, Kira right beside her with her arms crossed. I don’t know how long they’d been up there. Long enough.

Kira’s face was something I’d never seen on her before. Not hurt. Not even angry, exactly. Something harder underneath both of those, and she was not bothering to hide one bit of it.

Dream took off running for the deck. She hit Storie at full speed, threw both arms around her sister’s waist, squeezed.