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“She’s never going to like you more than she likes me, so you can just forget about it.”
“No. I wouldn’t want her to!” She would never want to come between a person and their parents. The idea that she would was just...terrible.
“All right. I have to go. Have fun at your little festival,” Eva said.
Jubilee looked at her phone, and the line had gone dead.
“She’s not doing the festival. None of it. I have five days.” She turned shell shocked eyes on Lana, whose expression showed surprise, and then, almost immediately, she lifted her head and gave a reassuring smile.
“We will figure something out. We have five whole days. We’ve got plenty of time. It’s not like we have five minutes. Five minutes, I’m not sure we could work with. Five days...we got this.”
Jubilee laughed. “All right. Thank you. Because I was starting to have a meltdown.”
“I could see that.”
“Nana! Miss Jubilee! Come watch me!” Nora burst into the house.
“Nora! I didn’t even know you were here. I thought you were with your mom.”
“Nope. She dumped me off because she went to go spend time with her boyfriend. Which, I don’t mind at all because dad let me Roman ride. I want you guys to come see.”
Lana looked at Jubilee, and then they shrugged.
“All right. Let me check the stuff in the oven, and then I have fifteen minutes,” Lana said as she bustled to the oven, opening the door and peeking in.
Nora practically danced around them as they gathered their things, set a timer, and walked outside.
“If you stand here on the porch, you should be able to see me as I ride by. Okay?”
“I can see your dad down there holding your horses,” Jubilee said as she walked to the edge of the porch.
“Yeah. Just a second. I’ll run down. You’ve got to see this.”
Nora took off, as Lana and Jubilee shared another smile.
“While we're waiting, I’ve been thinking, just in the five minutes since you told me, there is a family that does trick riding, and they also sing together. It’s not stuff they do professionally, but I see them at different fairs and stuff. We can see if they have Friday night free. Maybe they’d even do trick riding one night and singing the other. Or maybe they could split it up between both?”
“Either would work. Anything would, but that sounds awesome. And I know one little girl who would absolutely love it,” Jubilee said, and they shared a laugh.
By then, Nora had made it to the beach and they watched while she took the horses from her dad, getting on one, and nudging both of them into a walk, before she stood up on the back of one, and then put one foot on the other, holding the reins and standing straight up.
She looked over her shoulder toward where they were sitting and lifted a hand.
“Oh my goodness. That’s enough to scare me to death,” Jubilee said, a hand going to her heart.
Lana had the exact same look, with her hand also covering her heart, but she smiled. “She’s so happy doing this. How could I not want her to do something she loves?”
“Even though she could get hurt?”
“Is that life? You aren’t safe doing anything. And you might as well live it the way you want to, doing what God has called you to do and given you the talent for. And sure, if she gets hurt, she might wish that she could go back and do things differently, but we all have to take risks. If we don’t, we just end up stuck in limbo, scared to move out. Scared to live the life that God has for us. Because we want to see the end, that everything turns out the way we want, rather than taking it by faith.”
“Like what we were talking about before.”
“Exactly. Like what we were talking about before.”
They watched Nora for fifteen minutes before the timer went off, then they both walked back in the house, waving at Matt who stood down on the beach watching his daughter.
Jubilee continued to help Lana, but she knew she needed to talk to Matt and she knew what she needed, wanted, to say.
