A continuation of this from a few weeks ago. Not sure if it's a whole story, or just part of one; might keep it as blog fluff. Contains mild spoilers for The Wild Charge - which is available now! - and is set in the future, when the kids are young adults.
They kept
her in the hospital for three days. She had breaks in her right tibia and
fibula that required surgery: bone chip debris that had to be extracted and
pins put in. The broken ribs hurt, but it was a pain she’d endured before; the
worst was the dislocated hip that had been put back in place while she was
unconscious, upon first arrival at the hospital. Even with the morphine,
breathtaking pain spiked outward from her pelvis every time she so much as
shifted her weight. Her head hurt, too, but it wasn’t her first concussion. Her
broken arm was pinned immobile across her chest with a sling. She hadn’t been
brave enough to look at her reflection yet, but Emmie’s face, when she accepted
the Facetime call, told her it was rough.
Emmie
clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes going comically wide…and then glazing over
with tears. She rallied admirably with a few blinks and a smoothing of her
expression that took obvious effort. “Oh, baby,” she murmured. “I’m so sorry.”
Violet had
shed her own tears earlier; had pressed them into the pillow in a stolen moment
of quiet after Dad had arrived – Ian had sent him down in the jet while Emmie
stayed behind on foal watch – and before her next round of poking and prodding
had begun. Dry-eyed now – if wincing as Abbie attempted to comb her hair into
some semblance of order – she said, “I’m okay.”
She wasn’t,
in more ways than one, but in her world of horses and horse people, okay
was eloquent of many things.
Emmie, the
barn wall serving as backdrop behind her, dashed quickly at her eyes, took a
breath, and was then her normal, no-nonsense self. “Did Daddy get there okay?”
Vi had no
doubt they’d already spoken with one another, but she said, “Yeah, a few hours
ago. He said Ian already had a car waiting for him at the airport.”
“At first
he said he was gonna drive down.” She rolled her eyes. “When I reminded him you
wouldn’t enjoy twelve hours in a pickup truck on the way home, he took Ian up
on his offer. Is he harassing the doctors yet?”
“No, that’d
be Tenny,” Abbie said, separating Vi’s hair in sections so she could French braid
it into pigtails. “He’s got everyone terrified he’s going to sue, or go the
press. Uncle Walsh hasn’t had to lift a finger.”
“That’s
probably because he explicitly threatened to go to the press,” Vi said,
sighing.
“Oh, God.
Any particular reason?” Emmie asked.
“No. He’s
enjoying himself.”
Emmie shook
her head, but cracked a grin.
“It’s
hilarious,” Abbie said.
Emmie’s
look said, your cousin isn’t right, and neither is your uncle. It might
have also cast loving aspersions on all of other uncles, too. One had birthed
Abbie, after all.
“So how’s
Luna?” Vi asked, to change the subject.
“You mean
aside from keeping me from my baby’s bedside?”
“Mom.”
She made a
sad face again and smoothed the flyaways from her ponytail – but then she
shifted into Horse Mode, and was all business, her eyes dry. “She’s doing good.
The foal’s shifted back, and she’s only picking at her hay today. Fred and
George both think it’ll happen tonight.”
Emmie flipped
the screen on her phone and gave them both a shaky, Facetime survey of a
very-pregnant Luna, swishing flies and stomping unhappily, ears back and lip
curled.
“Oh, yeah,”
Vi said. “She looks miserable.”
They ended the
call with a little more maternal angst on Emmie’s part, some bitten back sighs
on Violet’s, and promises to check in again soon, and tell Walsh that she’d
called. By that time, Abbie had finished her hair, two tight plaits that pulled
painfully at her scalp, but which Vi was determined to endure.
A swift
knock heralded a nurse’s arrival, and she carried in a vase of flowers. The
first of many, it turned out.
“Holy shit,”
Abbie said, unselfconscious and too loud, as vase after vase was brought in.
There was a
delicate purple orchid from Ian and Alec.
An
arrangement of pink and white lilies from Millie, Lainie, and Lucy.
Sunflowers from
the brothers Lécuyer, with an accompanying message that read Glad you didn’t
die, signed Remy, that made both girls laugh.
Mom had
sent a rabbit’s foot fern and Maggie had sent a huge arrangement of eucalyptus,
lavender, and purple roses that filled the room with heady scent. Every family
in the club was represented, sometimes twice over.
They were
just about out of table space when Walsh walked in carrying a clear vase of
nothing but pink peonies. Vi perked up, surprised her dad had remembered her
favorite flower – but when he set them on the last bit of room on her
nightstand, he said, “The nurse handed me these in the hall.” He cast a glance
around the room and let out a low whistle. “Well. That’s something.”
“I’m so
jealous,” Abbie said. “If I ever get runover by a track full of horses, I’d
better get as many flowers as this.”
Walsh said something
dry in response, but Vi wasn’t listening. She’d reached over, with some effort
and a teeth-gritting amount of pain, to pluck the card from the vase. The
message was typed.
I
remembered these are your favorites. Get better soon.
Ash
She set the
note facedown on the table. Despite all the competing floral perfumes around
her, she could still detect the peonies’ soft scent when she took a deep
breath. When she glanced up, Abbie was staring at her, while Walsh fiddled with
the TV remote. Behind his back, Abbie mouthed Was it him?
Vi nodded
and glanced away before she had to witness her cousin’s doubtless shit-eating
grin.
