Bloodless Day

Pre-race Nerves

You know what sucks?

Long car drives.

You know what sucks more?

Long car drives across an entire country- an entire continent, actually. From the Atlantic to the Pacific.

We averaged about three tantrums per state, I figured. Twenty were BD's. The rest were Jack's.

"Welcome," Ned sighed, looking as tired as I felt, "to California." We glowered out the window, at the horse trailer we'd been following and the shedrows we'd parked at, across the famed Santa Anita track. My eyes drifted up to the mountains that circled the track, a sight I'd missed, but instead of relief, I felt a hollow ache at all I'd lost and all I'd gained.

I thought I would've been happier. Lighter, in the presence of home. California had been my house for sixteen years; the mountains, my bedroom. I'd lived and loved and lost here, and now that I was back...

It didn't feel right.

I felt frazzled and irritated by the drive, nervous by the prospect of the race, and everybody's nerves were unraveling like a kite string. "At last," Jack grumped from the back. "I was beginning to think we'd end up in Mexico."

"Okay, that was one wrong turn," Ned said, his Irish accent creeping out over his words, something I'd learned only too well that he did when frustrated.

With a violent shove, I kicked open the back door of the truck- Jack had insisted that the legroom in the front was good for his leg, and I didn't have the height to argue with him, not that he did either- and leaped out. My sneakers touched California dirt for the first time in a year, and that's when I realized what was wrong.

Kentucky was home. Piperson was home. BD was home and everybody around me was home.

All California was was a dusting of bad memories and a dead friend.

And shrieking.

Lilac burst through the Piperson shedrow, disrupting a cat, two grooms, and a pitchfork in her haste to reach our truck. She was colorful in riding clothes, furious and glorious, her blonde hair whipping a halo around her. She was everything Piperson Farms had been missing for the past few months, and she was flinging herself into Ned's arms.

The ginger-haired groom caught her in a kiss, everything they'd missed about each other in the past few months colliding into a moment.

Jack dragged me from the scene by rapping on the truck window. His tanned face peered down at me, then nodded towards the truck bed.

Oh, right.

Scurrying away from Ned's side of the truck to give the two their privacy, I fumbled with and dropped the tailgate. Squashed down and lashed to stillness with bungee cords was Jack's portable wheelchair, and with unfortunate ease I extracted it from its bondage. "Hope you're happy," I grumbled when it was snapped into place and on the ground next to Jack's door, so he could slip directly into it.

"I never am, anymore," he said.

Half of my mind wondered whether I was this miserable to be around with in the past few years, and the other half wanted to shout not-very-nice things at the jockey. The second half was about to win when Lilac bowled into me.

"Anna! Ohmigosh! I can't believe how much I missed you, and Ned, and- Jack! Jack Jack Jack! How's Skip? How's Buddy and Enchantment and even that dammed cat with the one white paw and- has Dad been good? And you? How ARE you two?"

And just like that, everything was okay.

"We missed you! A lot! The barn is so quiet without you," I said, fiercely hugging her with everything I had. She clung back with equal passion, bouncing lightly on her toes. Then she stepped away, looking me square in the eye.