By late May, the numbers in my black notebook were becoming difficult to look at.
I had spent more than forty-four dollars feeding and caring for Patch.
That was on top of the thirty-one dollars I had paid at the auction.
I knew exactly where the money had gone.
I had written down every purchase.
Nothing fancy.
Nothing wasteful.
Just the ordinary things a hungry horse needed.
But the total kept increasing.
And the money available to me did not.
I began opening the refrigerator and studying its contents longer than necessary.
There wasn't much in it.
I could make things stretch.
I had been doing that for years.
Still, there is a difference between being careful and wondering whether you've made a serious mistake.
I was beginning to wonder.
Patch looked better than he had when I brought him home.
He was eating more consistently.
His coat looked cleaner because Maggie brushed him every day.
He no longer seemed like an animal nobody wanted to touch.
But his right front foot still hurt.
That was the part I couldn't ignore.
I had tried to give him food he could manage.
I had kept him comfortable as best I knew how.
Maggie had worked without complaint.
Yet every time Patch walked across the yard, I saw the same uneven movement.
One step.
Then another.
Then that careful shifting away from the painful foot.
He was still suffering.
And I didn't have enough money for a full veterinary examination.
I hated admitting that.
A person who brings an animal home takes responsibility for it.
I believed that before I bought Patch.
I believed it even more afterward.
But believing something didn't put money in my purse.
I was standing near the house one day when a truck came up the driveway.
I recognized it.
Frank Tally.
He was a livestock buyer, and I knew him from the auction.
I watched him pull in and stop.
He got out and looked toward the pasture.
Patch was grazing.
Frank leaned against his truck.
For a few moments, he simply watched the horse.
Then he looked at me.
"He's filled out a little."
"He's eating better."
Frank nodded.
His attention returned to Patch.
"That front leg hasn't improved much."
"No."
I didn't see any reason to pretend otherwise.
Frank had seen the horse when I bought him.
He knew exactly how badly Patch had been limping.
And I knew he wasn't standing in my driveway just to compliment the feed.
He took out his wallet.
"I can give you seventy-five for him."
I looked at him.
"Seventy-five dollars?"
"Cash."
He held the wallet in his hand.
"You could be done with it today."
I didn't answer immediately.
Seventy-five dollars.
I had paid thirty-one.
Even after accounting for the feed and hay I had bought, it was an offer I had to take seriously.
I knew that.
I looked toward the pasture.
Maggie stood next to Patch.
She had one hand against his neck, scratching near the white marking.
She wasn't looking at us.
She was paying attention to him.
I watched the horse lower his head a little under her hand.
And I remembered the cap in the water trough.
The laughter.
The sound that had brought me to the kitchen window with a dish towel in my hands.
Frank followed my gaze.
"You'd be getting more than double your purchase price."
He wasn't wrong.
That was what made his offer difficult.
I could have taken the money.
I could have written the sale into the notebook.
I could have watched him lead Patch away and told myself I had made the sensible choice.
There was no shortage of reasons to do it.
The horse remained lame.
The food was costing more than I had expected.
The refrigerator was nearly empty.
And the electric bill hadn't disappeared.
I was an old woman trying to manage a household and care for a grieving granddaughter.
A horse with a painful foot was not the responsibility anybody would have recommended adding to that situation.
Frank waited.
I looked at Patch again.
Then I thought about something Maggie had said while examining the shoe.
Somebody should have checked.
Those words troubled me.
They had troubled me since the morning she first noticed the twisted iron.
I still didn't know what was wrong.
I had not found someone qualified to examine the hoof.
And selling Patch without knowing whether the problem could be treated felt like giving up before I had really tried.
Frank shifted his weight.
"Well?"
I turned back to him.
"I'm not selling him."
Frank looked disappointed.
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
He put the wallet away.
"You're making this harder than it needs to be."
I didn't argue.
He shook his head.
"Still as stubborn as ever."
"I suppose I am."
He didn't press me further.
A short while later, he climbed back into his truck.
I stood near the driveway while he left.
The sound of his engine faded.
Then the yard became quiet again.
I watched Maggie scratch Patch's neck.
For a moment, I felt relieved.
I had said no.
The decision was made.
Then I went inside and opened my checkbook.
The relief didn't last.
There was still the matter of what I could afford.
I sat down at the kitchen table.
The black notebook was beside me.
I opened it.
I looked over the entries again.
April twenty-second.
Thirty-one dollars for the horse.
April twenty-fourth.
Four dollars and ninety-five cents for hay.
April twenty-seventh.
Three dollars and seventy cents for feed.
Then the other expenses that followed.
I added the amounts again.
The figures hadn't changed since the last time I counted them.
I knew they wouldn't.
But I kept doing the arithmetic as though I might have overlooked something.
At the edge of the table lay the electric bill.
It was unpaid.
I picked it up.
I studied the amount.
Then I put it down.
I thought about the examination Patch needed.
I thought about what it might cost to have someone investigate his foot properly.
And I felt that familiar, sickening uncertainty that comes when every sensible solution seems to require money you don't have.
I wasn't angry at Patch.
He hadn't asked me to buy him.
I wasn't angry at Maggie.
She was doing more than her share.
I was angry with myself.
I had taken responsibility for a suffering animal without understanding how expensive even basic care might become.
I had refused a cash offer.
And now I couldn't explain how I was going to solve the problem that mattered most.
His pain.
That was what kept me staring at the checkbook.
Not whether I could sell him for a profit.
Not whether somebody else might think I had made a poor investment.
The horse was still hurting.
I knew it.
And I didn't know what to do.
That evening, Maggie came into the kitchen.
I heard her approach but didn't look up immediately.
The electric bill was still on the table.
My checkbook lay open beside it.
She stopped in the doorway.
"Grandma?"
I raised my head.
"What is it, honey?"
She looked at the papers.
Then she asked something I had been trying not to think about.
"Are you going to let that man buy Patch?"
I closed the checkbook.
"No decision like that has been made."
She watched me.
"Would you want to sell him?"
I asked.
She shook her head at once.
"No."
Then she looked down.
"But I don't want us to lose the house."
I stared at her.
She was young.
Too young to be carrying that fear.
I wanted to tell her she had nothing to worry about.
I wanted to say we had plenty of money and everything would be fine.
But she had been watching me count pennies.
She knew the refrigerator wasn't full.
And she had seen the bill on the table.
There was no point treating her as though she couldn't notice what was happening.
"The house belongs to us, Maggie. We don't owe money on it."
She lifted her eyes.
"I didn't mean it exactly like that."
"I know."
And I did.
She was afraid that caring about Patch would cost us more than we could afford.
She was afraid of becoming another problem for me.
That realization hurt.
Maggie had lost her father.
She shouldn't have needed to worry that loving a horse might make her grandmother's life worse.
I reached across the table.
She gave me her hand.
I held it.
For a little while, neither of us spoke.
I wanted her to understand that I hadn't bought Patch expecting her to carry the burden.
I hadn't known whether she would take any interest in him at all.
And I certainly hadn't expected a thin, lame horse to become so important to our days.
But he had.
And now there were decisions to make.
I thought about Frank's money.
Seventy-five dollars.
Cash in my hand.
Enough to ease some immediate worries.
I thought about the way Patch had learned to listen for the school bus.
I thought about Maggie coming downstairs before sunrise.
Then I thought about that twisted horseshoe.
The pressure against the hoof.
The unsupported heel.
And the possibility that Patch's condition wasn't simply something we had to accept.
We had not answered the question Maggie asked.
I couldn't keep putting it off.
After she went to bed, I sat in the kitchen again.
I didn't make any more calculations.
I looked at the telephone.
There was a man I could call.
Silas Boone.
He was seventy-three years old.
He had spent more than forty years shoeing horses around central Kentucky.
He wasn't a stranger to my family.
He had known my husband.
That mattered to me.
My husband had trusted people who knew their work, especially the kind of work that couldn't be learned from simply watching somebody do it once.
Silas had made a living understanding horses' feet.
If anyone I knew could look at Patch's shoe and tell me whether it was making things worse, it was him.
I should have thought of him sooner.
Instead, I'd spent days staring at the expense notebook and wondering how to afford answers.
I sat with that thought for a long time.
There are times when pride disguises itself as being practical.
I had been so worried about asking for help I couldn't afford that I had almost stopped looking for help at all.
I didn't know whether Silas would come.
He was retired.
He had no obligation to drive out and examine a horse I had bought at auction.
And I didn't know what he would be able to do even if he agreed.
But I knew I needed to ask.
The next morning, I picked up the telephone.
I reached Silas and told him about Patch.
I explained the limp.
The shoe.
The way Maggie had noticed that it didn't sit properly.
And the fact that the horse remained in pain.
Silas listened.
He asked about the foot.
I answered what I could.
When I didn't know something, I said so.
There was no use pretending I understood more than I did.
Then he agreed to come.
Two days.
That was when he could make the trip.
I thanked him.
Afterward, I stood in the kitchen holding the receiver for a moment before putting it down.
I hadn't solved anything yet.
Patch still needed attention.
The bills were still there.
And I had no idea what Silas would find.
But I had finally taken a step toward answering Maggie's question.
I went outside.
She was brushing Patch.
I told her that a man who knew horses' feet was coming to look at him.
She stopped moving the brush.
"Will he know what's wrong?"
"I hope so."
She looked toward Patch's front leg.
Then she nodded.
"Good."
And she went back to brushing him.
That was when I understood why I had refused Frank.
I hadn't been holding on to Patch because I believed he would become valuable.
I hadn't been waiting for some miracle.
I simply couldn't sell him while there was still a chance we could find out why he hurt.
And Maggie, who had already watched one person she loved disappear from her life, deserved to know that I wasn't going to give up without trying.
Source: news1.shoptonytv.net
