“You mean finally think of somebody other than herself?” Mrs. Atwood said.
“Taking a semester off from college to help Mom doesn’t qualify?” Becky said.
“This isn’t some side ring on a Saturday morning,” her grandmother said.
“So you’re saying I’d be out of my league?” Becky said.
“This is good,” Daniel said. “You’re getting to it now.”
Daniel watched as Becky put her hands on her hips and looked more like the old woman than ever.
“I don’t want you to let your mother down,” Mrs. Atwood said.
“Don’t you mean let you down? Again?” Becky said. “It’s not Gorton who doesn’t want me on Coronado. It’s you.”
“This isn’t your call, Daniel,” Mrs. Atwood said, the snap back in her voice. “And it’s not my granddaughter’s. It’s mine. You honestly believe that she can do this?”
“Yes.”
“You’re willing to bet your job on that belief? Knowing how much an Olympic champion horse could mean to this family?”
“Yes,” he said.
And she had still not said no. Neither had Becky.
Daniel had never known a family like this, in all the horse business, where most of them were alocado. Cracked.
Becky headed for the front door now.
“Where are you going?”
“Out,” Becky said.
“You think that’s going to help get me on your side?” Mrs. Atwood said.
Her granddaughter turned at the door.
“I don’t even know which side that is anymore,” she said.
TEN
I DID THINK about calling my friend Madison, another rider from our barn, and telling her to meet me at the Trophy Room for a drink. We were both twenty-one now. After years of using fake IDs to drink illegally, it seemed almost against the law not to go to bars now.
But I didn’t. I drove to Wellington Medical, even knowing it was past visiting hours. No way Mom was going to be asleep, unless she’d given in and allowed them to slip her the kind of happy pill she said she was going to resist.
No, she’d be lying there in her bed, her brain working a million miles an hour.
When I got to the hospital I bluffed my way past the nursing station on her floor, showing the night nurse the backpack I’d brought with me and saying I’d brought some toiletries my mom had requested, even though my backpack held only my cell phone, lip balm, hairbrush, and a bottle of water.
“If she’s asleep,” I told the nurse, “I’ll just leave the stuff inside the door.”
“Promise?” the nurse said.
“Yes, ma’am!” I said. “Thank you so much.”
My dad had told me once that nobody faked sincerity better than I did when I put my mind to it.
Truly, no matter what Grandmother decided, I wanted to know what Mom thought.
My whole life I’d wanted her to respect me as a rider but at the same time hated being compared to her, mostly because I’d convinced myself early on that I’d never measure up, not just to what she was, but what she and her own mother had decided I was supposed to be. Somewhere along the line, they’d decided that I didn’t care enough.
But I did. Just in my own stubborn way. When I was eight or nine, Mom had caught me in some dumb lie and grounded me. I told them I didn’t want to live here, packed my little pink Hello Kitty suitcase, and walked out the door, good-bye.
Made it all the way to the end of the driveway before I turned around and came back.
I was still here, and I still cared. Except now Daniel wanted me to be Mom, on her horse.
Shit happened.
I poked my head into her room and said, “You awake?”
“So awake,” she said. “Just please don’t ask me how I’m doing, or I’m getting out of this bed and challenging you to a fistfight.”
“I was afraid of this,” I said. “You’re not acting like my mom. You’re acting like yours.”
What sounded like a laugh came out of her before it quickly turned into a coughing fit. Not a pretty sound.
“Sorry, Mom,” I said.
“Lost my ride,” she said. “But apparently not my sense of humor.”
I pulled a chair over to the side of the bed.
“Aren’t visiting hours over?” she said.
“I might have lied my way in,” I said.
“Bad Becky strikes again.”
But she was smiling. She looked tired as hell. No makeup. Probably not eating. Still beautiful.