The next day, after spending the afternoon with Tom and Dasher, I really wanted to tell my mom about what I was doing. I’d had a wonderful time at the ranch, working and getting to know the bay mare in the round pen. Tom said that working a horse in an enclosed area brought their focus to their trainer, in turn allowing the trainer to understand the horse.

Dasher and I “joined up”, in other words, she chose to come to me in the round pen, leaving the wall and seeking companionship with me. She followed me obediently over obstacles, which I had laid out on the ground. After an hour of work, she trusted me to not lead her into any sort of danger, and even followed me over a two foot jump and across a green tarpaulin. I then spent another hour after this brushing her without tying her up. I laid my hands on every part of her body, from the tip of her velvet nose, over the tip of her ears, all the way down over her rump and down her back legs, and then back up under her belly.

I wanted to blurt this whole experience to my mother in an excited ramble of words. I wanted to tell her my goals. I wanted her to understand and encourage me in every way that a mother should. When the time came that Dasher and I went to our first race, she should be on the sidelines like other parents snapping pictures or rolling the tape in the video camera. Her voice should carry above all the excitement.

When I got home, I went straight to my room. I was excited. I was sad. I could not share my joy and newfound happiness. I could not tell her anything, because she might make it go away. And I was afraid, afraid that if I joined her in the living room, I would surely end up blurting out the whole story. It sat there on the tip of my tongue, dancing, demanding to be told, and craving to be heard. To prevent the temptation, I disappeared into my room every day after returning from the ranch.

In my room, I stared at the horse models and posters adjourning every inch of my walls. I dreamed of what it would be like when I went to a barrel race for the first time. Wandering to the window, I would then stare outside, into the overgrown two acre pasture, where the fences leaned and the wire lay partly on the ground. Once upon a time, a horse, or maybe a cow, had lived there. I liked to think that it was a horse, and that someday again a horse would live there. It would be my horse.

I managed to keep my mouth shut for a week, and would have managed longer had I not been confronted. But, my mother was beginning to have suspicions. Before, I had only gone to the ranch a few times a week, now I was going every day, telling her that I was at Jamie’s house, or staying after school. By Friday, I had been arriving at home well after suppertime, which was not usual, during the course of the entire week. It was only a matter of time until she checked up on me. I should have known that and taken that into account when I pulled into the driveway at or around six everyday. Some part of me wonders though if I did it on purpose. As though, subconsciously, I meant to be late so that she would start getting curious.

When I came home Friday evening, I heard my mother’s voice as I was walking in the door and beginning to go to my room.

“What’s going on, Beth?” I followed the sound of the voice to my left, where she sat in the living room reading a book with Mary Chapin Carpenter playing softly in the background.

“What do you mean?” I answered, walking to stand in the entry way between the dining and living area of the house.

“I called Jamie’s two hours ago, you weren’t there, nor had you been at all today, or yesterday, or the day before that.” Her eyes pierced mine from across the room.

“Yesterday I stayed after school a while to work on my biology lab project,” I explained.

“What about the day before yesterday? Today? Where were you after school,” she demanded, not really asking anymore. Then again, she had not been asking all along and her tone was growing edgier by the second.

“I was,” I stuttered, and then paused. I thought of Dasher, my grandmother, and barrel racing. I thought of the three barrels and Tom’s supporting voice guiding me through the pattern. It made me ache to think of losing them and the opportunity to ride, but there was no viable excuse I could tell to my mother. At least, there was none that my mother would believe. I felt helpless; I did not have a choice. I had to tell her.

“I’ve been at the ranch,” I paused, watching the shadows flit across her face. “I’ve been working there a few days a week after school for the past two years.” My words, though they seemed like a punch to my mother, a lie revealed that was sudden and out of nowhere, hung in the air until they were stale and until the air was so thick, I wasn’t sure anything else said would be heard.

Mother remained silent, staring at me with a look that was not quite anger, but not quite disappointment or fear either; most of her expression was surprise and sadness. Taking advantage of her tight-lipped mood, I began talking, explaining things to make her understand and hopefully not be too angry with me. I did not want her taking away the only happiness I had found to appease my aching soul and make me feel important and free.

Her expression had fallen from those mixed emotions to one of sadness. “I can’t look at you right now. You’ve lied to me all these years? Gone against my wishes?”

I started to leave. “If I had told you the truth, you wouldn’t have let me go and I needed to go, Mom. You don’t understand, but being around Tom and the horses again made me feel alive and I couldn’t lose that.”