Centaur Rising (17 page)

He must have thought I was still seven. Maybe in his eyes I was. But he didn't see the real me, the one who grew up when he wasn't there.

He went on without a clue. “So you see, I need to know if this pony-boy thing is the real deal. If it is, we could have a major movie here or a TV series, like
Lassie
or
Rin Tin Tin
, plus stuffed animals, lunch boxes.” He did the smiley thing at me again. The smile that never really got to his eyes. “You'd like a lunch box like that, wouldn't you, Princess?”

“I'm in junior high, Dad. We don't have lunch boxes. We have a cafeteria.”

As if he hadn't heard my answer, or didn't care, he said, “Well, maybe a breeding program then.”

“
Breeding
program? Kai's not two months old!”

He bent toward me, as if we were close. “
Is it?
” he asked.

I backed away. “Is it
what
?”

“Is it real?”

“
It's
a he,” Robbie said. “His name is Kai. And he's as real as you are.”

The wolf who was our father ignored Robbie. He was now close enough that I could smell something bitter on his breath. I wondered if he'd been drinking. Biting my lower lip, I moved away, as if whatever he had was catching. “A
lot
realer than you, Dad.”

“Ouch,” he said, and smiled again, but not as broadly. “You sure know how to hurt a guy. Like your mother that way. She broke my heart.”

“You were the one that left, Les,” she reminded him.

“Wolf,” the suit man said, “let me do the talking. I'm your lawyer. It's my job.” He turned to Mom and held out his hand. “My name is Daniel Pickens, of Pickens, Berlin, Hyatt, and Temple.”

Mom shook his hand.

Still smiling, my father took a seat at the kitchen table, looking more and more wolflike every minute. His smile was starting to turn into a snarl as he worked at it, showing too many teeth.

“Tell them,” he said to Mom, “tell them how this is
my
house and
my
land and therefore
my
little monstrosity in the barn there.”

“You gave me this place,” Mom said quietly. “Sent me a letter and said you never wanted to see it or me again. Said I was only good at making girl babies and…” She thought a minute about what to say next, then said it very quietly as if it soiled her mouth. “And monstrosities. You seem to like that word.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “As for breaking your heart, that would have been impossible. You never had one. You're as animatronic as that Abe Lincoln you sang with.”

“Nice to see
you
haven't changed, Mrs. Smart-Mouth College Girl,” Dad snapped at her.

“Wolf,” Mr. Pickens said, “let me remind you again.
I
do the talking.”

Ignoring his lawyer's advice, my father said, “I never sent any such letter.”

Mom sighed. “You have an awfully convenient memory, Les. But
I
have a filing system, something my college professor daddy taught me. You did indeed send that
lovely
note along with the divorce papers—which I read, gave to my lawyer, signed, copied for the file, and sent back.”

She glanced over at Robbie and me to make sure we were all right with what we were hearing.

I'd already grabbed Robbie's little three-fingered hand and now gave it a gentle squeeze. How could we know if we were all right? Maybe Mom didn't talk about the wolf, didn't actually say a bad word about him either to me or to Robbie, though I'd overheard her tell Martha once or twice, when the subject had come up, that “rubbing a wound only makes it worse.”

He leaned forward again and gave her a look that scared me. “I never signed any papers. You never put a penny into this place. It all comes from
my
earnings. You get a check from me every month, lady. Blood money. I'm amazed the farm's still running. You may have been well educated, Han, studying literature and all, but you never did have a lick of sense then or now about how the real world works.”

“Wolf!” Mr. Pickens said, anger in his voice. “Zip it!”

The meanness of what my father was saying just about took my breath away. I knew how hard Mom worked to keep the farm going. To keep Robbie and me safe. To teach Robbie all he would need to know about dealing with the world.

Tears welled up in my eyes, but as soon as they started, they stopped. Seems I was too mad to cry.

Mom glanced over at me again and recognized something on my face. “You've just lost your daughter for good,” she told him, “and she and your son were the only wonderful things you ever helped bring into this world.”

“I make music,” he said. “I make people happy with my songs.”

“I only have your word that you make people happy. But I do know for certain that you never made
us
happy—Ari and Robbie and me.” She stood up, went over to the desk, opened a secret drawer that even I hadn't known existed, and pulled out an envelope. She handed it to Mr. Pickens.

He put on a pair of half-glasses that made the bottom of his eyes bigger than the tops, and skimmed the contents of the envelope. Then he read the papers again, slowly this time. At last, turning, he glared at my father.

“Wolf,” he said, “you told me there was nothing in writing.”

“I didn't sign any papers,” my father said. “Just like I told you.”

Mr. Pickens shook the letter at him. “But you signed this letter
.
And here's a copy, duly notarized, of the divorce papers.”

“I didn't write any letter.”

I'm sure my mouth was gaping open. The lawyer was holding the very letter, and my father kept saying it didn't exist.

“It's got your signature,” Mr. Pickens said, shaking the letter again at him. “A signature I know all too well.”

“Then I must have been drunk at the time. Or high.”

“Legally, being under the influence of either alcohol or drugs is no excuse. Especially as the letter shows no proof of that. And trust me, you don't want to say that sort of thing in front of a judge, or—may I remind you—in front of anyone except me! Furthermore, technically, you
did
desert your wife and children.”

I'd never heard anyone use
furthermore
in an actual sentence before.

“One child,” my father said. “A girl. I couldn't possibly have fathered that other one.” He didn't look at Robbie when he said it.

Mom looked up at the ceiling. “Children. Both your children.”

He scowled. “The baby was as good as dead before I left, so technically I only deserted my wife and daughter. How was I to know he would manage to live?”

How indeed?
I thought, remembering when I first knew that he wasn't coming back, thinking it had to have been my fault, that I hadn't been good enough or sweet enough or—

“You'd seen Robbie only once in the hospital, and he was joyously alive,” Mom said. “He's still the most joyous child I've ever known.”

I gave Robbie's hand another squeeze. He squeezed mine back.

The wolf stood and loomed over her. He's five foot nine, and Mom is … well … she's not anywhere near that big. “You should have had that
thing
aborted when we found out about the pills.…”

I went cold. I could feel sweat on Robbie's palm.

Mr. Pickens came over to stand between them. “I'm not liking what I'm hearing, Wolf. There are two children involved.
Your
children. You and I are leaving right now before you make it any worse. And this letter—”

“That letter was private between me and my wife.”

Mr. Pickens smiled, one of those mouth-twisting, this-is-not-funny smiles. “There's nothing private here apart from your conversations with me.”

“Besides,
I've
been listening and heard it all,” said a new voice, very grimly. Dr. Herks was standing in the door, body taut, as if ready to explode. I wondered how long he'd been standing there.

“The letter,” Mr. Pickens emphasized, “says exactly what your wife just said.”

“Ex-wife!” Mom was emphatic.

Mr. Pickens sighed. “
Girl babies and monstrosities
. Wolf, if that phrase gets out to the press, you can kiss your career good-bye.”

“My lawyer's on her way, Hannah,” Dr. Herks said quietly, “if you want to talk to her.” He must have used the barn phone.

“Thanks, Gerry, but I think we're done talking.”

“Who's
he
?” my father demanded, looking directly at Dr. Herks.

“Dr. Herks, the vet,” I said. “The one who's been taking care of Kai.” In my head I added,
Taking care of us, too
.

“Ari, take Robbie outside,” Mom said. “There's something more I want to say to your father, and I don't want you two hearing it.”

“But, Mom—”

“Come on, Ari,” Robbie said. “Something smells awful in the kitchen. It'll be sweeter in the barn.” Which was the snarkiest thing I'd ever heard him say.

Just before we left, I turned to look back. Mr. Pickens was handing his card to Dr. Herks. Mom stood with her arms folded across her chest, stone-faced. My father was doing his wolf imitation, snarling. It was the sort of scene our English teacher calls a tableau.

As I pushed Robbie along, he made up a little song which probably comforted him, but it didn't help me at all.

My brother is a horse,

And I am a seal.

No big deal, nope, no big deal.

It's not the way you look that counts,

It's the way you feel, the way you feel.

It's what makes you real, boy,

Makes you really real.

He sang it all the way to the barn.

 

21

Monsters

W
HAT I DIDN'T KNOW UNTIL LATER
was that my father and mother argued for a few minutes more, about money and about the farm and about visitation rights. For me, not for Robbie.

He called Mom some awful names and accused her of things like having boyfriends and not declaring how much the farm made on her taxes and other things he simply made up. He even—or so I learned much, much later—accused her of trying to sabotage his career and hiring someone to kill him. Mr. Pickens finally had to drag him away, but not before my father slammed the door so hard, it almost came off its hinges.

Dr. Herks heard him say to Mr. Pickens, “You go wait in the car. I've got something to take care of first,” but by then Dr. Herks was so busy soothing Mom that he didn't get outside right away. Besides, he figured that the lawyer could handle it, since he'd already shown us how he could shut my father up.

Maybe love makes you blind to danger. Or maybe love makes all our choices hard ones.

*   *   *

Robbie and I were already back in Kai's stall. Except for the little song, Robbie and I hadn't spoken a word since leaving the house.

The familiar smell of horse brought us back to ourselves, our real lives. Not the lies that our father had made up about us. I unlocked the door, and we slipped in.

Agora was casually munching on oats, because nobody had gotten around to moving her back into her own stall that morning. Ignoring her, Kai was standing in a corner reading the George Washington book.

He looked up and grinned at us. “George Washington did
not
cut down a cherry tree,” he said. “That was just a made-up story.”

I laughed, but it quickly turned into something else when I heard noises coming from the other side of the barn—horses whinnying in alarm, someone cursing loudly.

I knew at once who it had to be.

“Robbie,” I said, “stay here with Kai and Agora. Keep the door locked. I'll see what's going on, and if I have to, I'll get Dr. Herks.”

Without checking through the blinds first, I opened the door and was about to slip through it when someone pushed past me as if he hadn't even noticed I was there.

“Where's my little jackpot?” he said. “Where's the answer to my money woes? You'd better be real.” His words were slurring, and he seemed crazed. Or drunk. Or both.

He shoved Robbie aside so hard the wheelchair tipped, and Robbie tumbled to the floor. Luckily, there was a lot of straw to cushion his fall, but the chair fell on top of him, pinning him against the wall.

“Ari! Ari!” he called out, in a panicky voice.

I ran toward him, but before I could help, the wheelchair was lifted up by Kai as if it was no more than a toy. Setting the chair to one side, he kneeled on his forelegs and picked Robbie up, cradling him in his arms, saying, “Don't be sad, Brother. Kai is here.”

Robbie was sniffling, but rubbed his eyes with the back of his three-fingered hand.

My father took in the scene and suddenly understood that it was Kai, the pony boy, kneeling before him. “My little monster!” he crowed and threw his arms wide as if to embrace both Robbie and Kai.

I started to bend over, to check that Robbie wasn't badly hurt. As far as I could tell, no bones broken, no blood. Just a little scared, and now a lot mad.

That's when the wolf man said, “So you're coming with me, monster,” as he reached down for Kai's mane.

I put out a hand to stop him. “The only monster here is
you
, Dad.”

He made a fist. I thought he was going to punch me, and I didn't know what to do. I closed my eyes and flinched.

But Agora had had enough. She trotted over, turned her back to him, and kicked up and out with all her might.

Look Out for Her Heels
, indeed!

If Agora had been a horse, she might have caught him in the chest and broken some serious bones. But she was only a pony, and her hooves hit him farther down.