“Where are you going?” Gus said.
“Eavesdropping,” I said. “Something heavy going on out there between Mom and Daniel.”
If they were afraid of being overheard, they weren’t acting it.
“Maggie,” Daniel said. “That is an answer, but not an explanation.”
“Well, it will have to do,” she said.
“Every other rider in the jump-off, every single one, went inside,” Daniel said. He paused and said, “At least all the ones really trying to win.”
“Drop this.”
“I’m just trying to understand,” Daniel said. “Because we both know the plan was to go inside.”
“Plans change,” she said.
EIGHTY-FIVE
GUS AND I HAD FINISHED our morning session, one that had started earlier than usual today, Gus having told me he had to be in Miami on business in a few hours.
We’d been talking again about what Tyler had said, and what Daniel had said to Mom on the boardwalk.
“You need to let this go,” Gus said.
“I’m not a little girl she has to let win,” I said.
“You said you asked her about it, and she said she hadn’t let you win, correct?”
“I don’t believe her,” I said.
Sky was already back inside. Gus had moved his wheelchair out of the ring and into some shade near the front of the barn.
“Is she in the habit of lying to you?” he said.
“No.”
“Then repeat: Let it go.”
“But Cullen was right,” I said. “There was no reason for her to take that jump the way she did.”
He sighed, then looked at his watch.
“Do you need to get going,” I said, “or are you tired of listening to me?”
“Little of both.”
“I know it sounds like I’m whining.”
“Only because you are whining!”
“But we’re both reaching for the same goal,” I said. “Mom and me. We’re both trying to make the Olympics. And I’ve made it this far without her mama-bear-ing me. And you know who looks bad when she does something like this? Me.”
“If she did.”
“Trust me,” I said. “She did. Even if she won’t admit it and neither will you.”
I shook my head. “I mean, I’ve got enough going on without dealing with this shit.”
“Got a lot on your plate, do you?”
He cursed. Loudly. As if he’d heard enough.
“Would you like to know who’s really dealing with some shit today? Your boyfriend.”
“Not my boyfriend.”
“Hush and listen!” he said.
The words hit me so hard I was surprised they didn’t knock me back. I saw Emilio poke his head out of the barn door.
“Daniel’s appearing in immigration court today, trying to save his friend’s ass,” Gus said. “The guy was locked up in Fort Lauderdale. The hearing’s in Miami.”
“He didn’t tell me.”
“Probably because all you’re dealing with,” Gus said sarcastically.
“Is he in trouble?” I said.
“No,” Gus said. “But he’s about to be.”
EIGHTY-SIX
GUS HAD INSISTED on driving and proceeded to do so like a maniac, taking the turnpike most of the way. On the way down he told me about Hector Suarez, who’d been a groom at Dick Gilbert’s barn and worked with Tyler Cullen’s horses until two ICE agents had arrested him at the Lake Worth home he and his wife shared with two other grooms. It was over an old arrest for assault, from a bar fight that, according to Gus, had started with a guy at the bar calling Hector a “spic.”
At the time Hector had never appeared for his court date, afraid of being deported. Four months ago, he’d been caught in a big ICE sweep in our area, been thrown into a federal detention center in Fort Lauderdale, the closest detention center of its kind to Palm Beach County. The hearing about whether he would be permanently “removed” from the United States and sent back to Mexico was this morning.
“So that’s where Daniel would disappear to,” I said.
Daniel would be there to speak on Hector’s behalf. They had been friends since their parents had come together from Mexico to the United States. As Dreamers, children of undocumented parents, Hector and Daniel had been free from government scrutiny. But now, as Gus said, nobody was safe while the Supreme Court deliberated. Children of undocumented immigrants who had been born here, they were safe. Not Dreamers.