Bailee went on to learn barrel racing, although we never decided to go on to competition. We stretched Farley’s patience for a while and then went on to English riding. Bailee spent a half hour on Socks, riding him just to warm up, and to have one on one time. She was confident in the saddle now. She spoke without hesitation. Her grammar was improving. She took my father’s words to heart and paid attention to how sentences were constructed and, although she still lost words, she was able to come up with enough of them to communicate comfortably. After her half hour with Socks she put him in his stall and worked a half hour with Mack. She now brought two carrots to class and I wondered if her lunches were suffering for it. About a month after we returned home Bailee came to her lesson in a different frame of mind. She usually got right to work grooming her horse, waiting for help with the saddle and bridle and she rode with a purposeful goal in mind. Not so this time.
“Is everything okay at home?” I asked.
“I’m going to be gone for a while,” she said.
“Really? Where are you going?”
“I’ll still be here but I won’t be able to ride for a couple of months. I can’t stand it, Chas, I’ll die of boredom and loneliness. I’m going to miss the horses so much! And I don’t even know if I want to do this. I’ve gotten so used to just being me. I’m afraid I’ll be different if they fix my hands. I’ll be in bandages and some kid at school will have to help me write. This sucks!”
Oh, man, I thought, Dad did it! After all that, he actually went through with it!
“But Bailee, just think of all the things you will be able to do without a struggle when it’s all over. It’s going to take some work but you’re used to that. You’ll have to go to physical therapy and they’ll teach you how to use your new hands.”
“But I’ll be just like any other kid. If I talk right and my hands get fixed there’s no reason Farley has to let me come here. I won’t fit in.”
“Hey, Farley does this to see kids succeed in life. You have a place here no matter what happens. Who knows, you could become a volunteer and help teach the little kids. Once you’ve gotten the riding experience you need you can help others along. You’d be great at that because you know how tough it is. Stick with Farley’s school. He will always welcome you here.”
“But I’ll be gone two months.”
“It’s okay, it’ll feel like a long time but you’ll make it and you’ll be better off for it. Just think how it’ll help you become a horse trainer. You’ll be able to handle the ropes.”
She was still moody. It was a big step she was taking and it felt like a big risk.
“Does it hurt to have an operation?”
“Not while it’s happening. It will be painful for a while but you will learn to work through the pain.”
“Have you ever had an operation?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Was it hard?”
“Bailee… you helped me get over it. I thought I’d never get well again but you and Apache helped me. Your operation won’t be as bad. And I’ll be there for you, just like you were here for me.”
It was a long haul. As Rusty and I waited for Bailee to come through the surgery I paced the halls, I sat quietly in a little plastic chair, Rusty’s arm around me. We made small talk but it was a tense six hours. How could it take six hours?
“What if she goes through all this and it doesn’t work?” I asked.
“You can’t play the what if game, Babe, I’ve done it too many times. It doesn’t work. You’ve just got to have faith in Bailee just like I always have faith in you.”
“But she’s just a kid.”
“I think the same thing when you’re the one. I’m sorry, Cass, I know you’re not a kid but you’ve got so much life in you. I can’t help it.”
“What if we have kids and I’m still a trouble magnet. I don’t think I could stand being a trouble magnet mom, too.”
“You’ll just have to choose your trouble more carefully. Be the trouble making mom for the soccer coach.”
“Rusty, you know I don’t choose my trouble. Trouble just stalks me.”
“Look at Patrick and Bailee. Have they ever gotten into any trouble because of you?”
“You know they have. Bailee wouldn’t have run away except for my meddling and Patrick got into lots of messes when he visited us. He got stuck in a tree, he called the police on Mark, he could have gotten shot…”
Bailee’s parents were around. They juggled Brandon and took turns making snack food runs. When Bailee came out of surgery her dad was with her. Her mom was distant.
“She’s asking for you,” Don Roland said. It was the pits, just being a visitor. All I could do was take ten minutes here and ten minutes there.
“Hey, Bailee,” I said quietly at her bedside.
“Chas, this weird,” she said. I noticed she’d slipped back to little kid talk again but thought she’d find her vocabulary again once her mind was clear.
“I know. It’ll feel weird for a while. Just be glad it does. When the weirdness fades you’ll start noticing your hands more. Then you’ll wish things were weird again. It’ll be okay. Just do what the doctors say.”
“Tell you dad I did better in school. Maybe this operation help, too. Teacher say I get bad grade in math because she no understand my scribbles. Maybe scribble less after I get better.”
It was a good sign that she was able to think and talk about school even in her fuzzy state.
“You just think about getting better. You can catch up on school later.”
Later arrived and I visited Bailee at her house, helping her with homework. She did indeed have a lot to catch up on but she seemed to understand it. Her bedroom consisted of a twin bed in a metal frame and a small dresser in a plain white room in a small apartment. Brandon toddled in every once in a while. Bailee now talked better than Brandon did. He was a chatterbox and I wished Rusty could babysit him so Bailee and I could work in peace. She didn’t get all the right answers and that led us to some one on one tutoring, but there was no reason for her to get bad grades. She struggled with juggling facts, but I did, too. I never cared what year the Napoleonic Wars were or who was president in 1812, so we both struggled a bit, but at least we had a sense of humor about it.
Occasionally the Rolands would let Bailee come to my house and Rusty would come home to find us bent over a school book, reading horse books out loud, or putting Shadow through the obstacle course. He knew dinner might be a little late but chocked it up to kid time.
My card of pills ran out and I debated. Bailee called me to say her physical therapist gave her permission to ride again and that made the debate easier. Time with Bailee or one of the boys always swayed me towards Rusty’s side. Strict called me out on a search and the debate turned into an all out argument. In the end, I never did fill the prescription. I went on the call. It was a rough search. Three days with a heavy pack. Rocky ground. Wild animals in camp. But that is another story.