The next Saturday her mom says, “Did they cancel practice?”
“No.” Sam is curled up on the couch.
“Are you sick?”
“No.”
“You missed the bus!”
“That’s okay.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“No, that’s okay.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not going.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m not going.”
“But why?”
“I don’t want to.”
“You’re skipping?”
“I’m quitting.” The word stings—and not just Sam.
Her mom stands there demanding, “What about the team?”
Sam says, “I don’t like the team.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Not really.”
“Not really? Sam, you made a commitment. They gave you a scholarship. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Sam says, but of course her mom does not believe her.
“It’s Declan.”
“No.”
“What happened with him?”
“Nothing.” Sam is a mouse hiding in a box. Her mom is a cat pawing and clawing, but she can’t get in.
“I’m going to call him.”
Sam doesn’t say it, but so what? It doesn’t matter. Her mom can’t force her to go back, and Declan can be all coachlike and professional. He can act concerned; he can act any way he wants. He has nothing to worry about because Sam won’t tell. She won’t ever talk about him, or see him, or think of him again. She says, “It isn’t Declan.”
At school she hugs her books, so no one will even brush against her in the halls.
At night she lies awake. She has a bed now, not a tent, and there is a wardrobe-partition thing separating her from Noah. She waits until Noah is asleep on his side of the partition. Then she stands on her bed and pulls ribbons from the bulletin board on the wardrobe door. They are blue and white and royal purple. 1st place, 3rd place, 5th place. Emerald green, and printed gold. She loses a few tacks behind the bed, and a couple fall onto the floor. Hopefully she’ll find them all before she steps on them. Right now, she takes her ribbons to the kitchen and stuffs them in the recycling bin.
“No! Sam!” The next morning, Courtney pulls out those satin scraps, even though Sam won’t have anything to do with them.
She won’t set foot inside the Y. Walls don’t tempt her. She doesn’t even glance at fences.
Every night, Courtney tries to talk to her. Sometimes she scolds. Sometimes she sympathizes. She says, “Why don’t you call Dad?”
“No thanks.”
“You’re just so down.”
Sam shrugs because yes. True.
Every morning, her mom chases Sam out of the apartment, but she gets to school late. In class she takes out her notebook and writes nothing.
Her mom says, “You can’t hold a grudge forever. Dad’s working and he’s trying to do good.”
Courtney won’t let up, and Sam knows it’s her own fault. After all, she made her mom think it’s her dad who upset her. “Just call him,” her mom keeps telling her, and then when Sam does not, her mom calls instead. She arranges for Mitchell to come over, just for an hour Sunday morning.
Sam doesn’t even argue. What’s the point? If her mom invites him, there is nothing Sam can do.
When the morning comes, Sam sits on the couch and watches her dad walk through the door. He looks cleaner than he did before, but she is glad he doesn’t try to hug her.
He sits on the couch near Sam while Courtney says she is driving Noah to hockey practice. Don’t go, Sam thinks, but they take off.
The room is quiet. There is nowhere to hide.
“It’s good to see you,” Mitchell says.
Sam says nothing. Then she says, “Thanks.”
“Can I tell you something?”
“What?”
He starts telling her a long story about how this is his home and Sam is his family and he is never going anywhere again. “I went to Montreal,” he says. “I was in Toronto. I was busking down in Santa Fe. I did some stupid shit you probably don’t want to hear about—but now I’m taking care of horses. I’m starting over—from the beginning.” He shows her pictures on his phone. There is a white horse named Daisy and a gray one named Archer. They are both rescues. “Your mom tells me you’re not climbing.”
“Yeah, I quit.”
“Why?” he asks, carefully, as though he knows it’s not his business.
“I just don’t want to do it anymore.”
He doesn’t say, But you were good! Or you made a commitment! He just says, “And how is it?”
“How is what?”
“Not climbing.”
“It’s great.”
Of course, that doesn’t fool him for a second. “You’ll get back there. I know you.”
“Not really.”
He flinches but he takes it. “I’ve missed a lot.”
She swallows. “Well, I’m seventeen.”
He turns up his palms, as if to say, What can I do? except he’s got a card in each hand, a red and a black queen.
He brushes his hands together and both cards disappear. “I’m not going to bother you. I’m not going to come around unless you want me to.” He tells her he is working on himself. Each day he concentrates on what’s in front of him. He sticks around. He cleans the stalls. He isn’t performing anymore.
She says, “How is it?”
He says, Hard. He says he will be going; he won’t keep her. He will let her decide when she wants to see him. He will be at Windy Hill Farm, so whenever she is ready. And he only hugs her for one second.
After he leaves, she finds the red queen in her back pocket.