Chapter Seven

Angeline woke with a start. She looked at the clock—four in the morning and threw herself back into her pillow, knowing she would lie awake until her alarm buzzed in three hours. She always had trouble falling back asleep after a nightmare. But it wasn’t really a nightmare that she had woken from; it was a memory that had replayed itself in a continuous loop over the past twenty years of sleep.

It was always the same.

“Where do babies come from?” Angeline asked with her puny four-year-old voice. She held her teddy bear tightly and twirled a single golden curl around her index finger.

Her father patted the tail end of the mare about to give birth and tipped his white cowboy hat up to meet his daughter’s eyes. “From their mommy’s belly.” He turned his attention back to the mare whose allantois fluid poured into the surrounding hay.

“Is that where I came from?” Angeline wrinkled

her nose.

“Yes, darlin’,” he replied mechanically, his full attention on comforting their horse through the process

of labor.

“Where did you come from, Daddy?”

“I came from my mommy’s belly,” he answered patiently.

“Grandma?”

“That’s right.” He sighed.

“Where did Grandma come from?”

“Angeline,” her father rebuked her sternly, “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“But I want to stay with Princess. She needs me.”

Princess kicked all four legs and wailed.

“What’s wrong with Princess, Daddy?” She furrowed

her brow.

“Wait outside the stable!” he barked impatiently.

Although she was scared by her father’s severe command, her feet quickly carried her outside of the stall—but no further. She couldn’t leave without making sure that Princess was okay. She pressed her eye to a small crack in the door and watched as her father stuck his arm up the back end of her favorite pet.

“That’s right, Princess, don’t push just yet,” he said in a calm reassuring voice. “I just need to reposition your foal; she’s an elbow lock. Just give it a second while I . . .” He maneuvered his arm and pushed the foal back into its womb. “That’s it . . .” he cooed. “I got the second foot.” He pulled the two feet, grunting from the effort.

Princess huffed as she pushed and her father puffed as he pulled.

After a few moments of cooperative effort, a white embryotic bag slipped from Princess’s womb onto the hay. Her father tore open the white sack and a baby horse was revealed. The little horse was beautiful, white with tan spots. Angeline was going to name her Joy.

He wiped the foal’s head with a towel and tried to rouse it, but it wouldn’t stir. It lay on the ground motionless while Princess whinnied and panted unnaturally. Sensing the mare’s alarm, Angeline’s father rushed back to attend to Princess. He moved quickly to and fro, checking her from all sides. She moaned in a way that made Angeline’s heart drop into her stomach. Her father wiped his hands on the towel and kissed her nose.

“Sorry, girl,” he whispered. “I promise that I won’t let you suffer much longer.”

When he stepped out of the stall, he found Angeline clutching her teddy bear with trembling arms. He knelt to his knee and pulled her close.

“I think it’s time to say goodbye to Princess.”

“Goodbye?” Angeline’s voice quivered. “Where is

she going?”

“To sleep, sweetheart.”

“Then I’ll just say goodnight,” Angeline insisted.

Her father picked her up and sat her gently beside the horse.

“Say goodbye, sweetheart. She’s going to heaven,” he said quietly, standing to leave.

“Please don’t go to heaven, stay here with me . . . I need you,” Angeline cried. She knew from previous experiences that heaven was a place you went and never came back from. She combed Princess’s mane. “Please God,” she prayed. “Please God, help me.”

Angeline jumped when the single lightbulb in the stall buzzed and shattered. The stall should have gone dark, but Angeline could still see because a golden hue like candlelight encapsulated both her and her horse. Princess whinnied and raised herself to her feet. She stood majestically, tall and proud, and Angeline crumpled into a ball on the floor.

“Angeline!” her father yelled, bursting into the dark stall. He held a gun over his shoulder. He shone the beam from his flashlight and found her lying nearly unconscious next to the lifeless body of the foal. Princess nuzzled her small neck. Angeline used all of her will to open her eyes and tell her father the good news.

“She’s all better, Daddy,” she breathed just before she lost consciousness.