I had begun to recognize the difference between waiting and worrying.
For most of my life, I had treated them as the same thing.
If something mattered, I worried about it.
If I couldn't solve it, I worried harder.
And if somebody told me to be patient, I usually took that to mean I was supposed to worry quietly.
Patch had given me plenty to worry about.
His injured foot.
His poor condition.
The difficulty he had chewing.
The money it took to feed him.
And the questions Silas had raised about his earlier training.
I had spent so much time thinking about those things that sometimes I forgot to look at the horse standing in front of me.
He was improving.
That was the fact that mattered most.
His right front foot no longer caused the same obvious pain.
He could walk across the yard without the terrible hesitation I'd once watched in every step.
And when Maggie approached, he still raised his head as though her arrival was the most important event of his day.
I watched that happen one afternoon.
The school bus stopped at the end of our driveway.
I was standing near the kitchen window.
Patch was in the pasture.
He lifted his head before Maggie came into view.
Then he made that soft calling sound.
I smiled.
A moment later, Maggie appeared.
She walked toward him.
He waited.
It was such a small thing.
A horse recognizing a familiar person.
A girl coming home from school.
But after the months we'd lived through, small things had become important.
I remembered the way Maggie used to enter the house after the accident.
Quietly.
Her shoulders low.
Her answers short.
Sometimes I asked how school had gone, and she looked at me as though I had asked her to carry something heavy.
I hadn't known what to do.
I still didn't know whether anything I could have done would have made those days easier.
That was difficult to admit.
I was her grandmother.
I wanted to protect her.
I wanted to make the house feel safe.
And I wanted to take away the pain of losing her father.
But I couldn't.
No one could.
What I could do was make breakfast.
Keep the house warm.
Listen when she wanted to speak.
And learn when to leave her alone.
Patch had taught me something about that last part.
He never asked Maggie to explain herself.
He needed ordinary care.
She could give him that care without finding words for her grief.
Sometimes I wondered whether that was why she had become so attached to him.
Then I reminded myself that I didn't need to explain every feeling she had.
She loved the horse.
That was enough.
I watched her reach the pasture.
She put a hand against his neck.
He lowered his head slightly.
I couldn't hear what she said.
But I could see the way he stood beside her.
Quiet.
Comfortable.
Attentive.
I thought about the day Silas asked her to lead him across the driveway.
Patch had followed her instructions carefully.
When she stopped, he stopped.
When she turned, he turned.
Then came the movement that had surprised Silas.
The old horse gathered his hind legs beneath him and shifted around the corner with remarkable balance.
I had seen Silas remove his hat.
I remembered the silence afterward.
And I still wanted to know why it had affected him so strongly.
But I had stopped asking Patch to provide the answer.
He didn't owe us a performance.
His foot had been injured.
We had worked to relieve the pain.
I wasn't going to treat his recovery as an opportunity to satisfy my curiosity.
Maggie came inside later.
She washed her hands.
Then she sat at the kitchen table.
"Patch looks good."
I smiled.
"He does."
She looked toward the window.
"He's walking better."
"I noticed."
She nodded.
Then she grew quiet.
I waited.
"Grandma?"
"Yes?"
"Do you still think about what Silas said?"
I considered pretending I didn't.
But Maggie knew me better than that.
"Sometimes."
She smiled faintly.
"More than sometimes."
I laughed.
"All right. Quite a lot."
She looked down at her hands.
"Does it matter?"
I wasn't sure how to answer.
Of course it mattered in one sense.
Silas had spent more than forty years working with horses.
He had recognized something unusual.
I respected his judgment.
But Maggie wasn't asking whether his observation was interesting.
She was asking whether it changed anything important.
I looked toward the barn.
"I suppose it doesn't change what we need to do today."
She nodded.
"He still needs his water."
"Yes."
"And his feed."
"Yes."
"And his foot checked."
"Absolutely."
She looked at me.
"Then he's still Patch."
I smiled.
"He's still Patch."
That seemed to satisfy her.
But her question stayed with me.
I had become so interested in the possibility of his earlier training that I sometimes looked at him as though there were another horse hidden beneath the one we knew.
A better horse.
A more valuable horse.
A horse with some important past waiting to be discovered.
I didn't like admitting that.
It made me feel as though I had started measuring him again.
Not by thirty-one dollars this time.
But by what he might once have been worth.
I had promised myself I wouldn't do that.
Yet the temptation remained.
It was easy to think that suffering became more meaningful if it belonged to someone or something extraordinary.
I didn't believe that was right.
Patch's pain had mattered before Silas recognized his movement.
It mattered when he was standing at the auction with his ribs showing.
It mattered when his twisted shoe pressed against his hoof.
And it mattered when he struggled to chew because his teeth made eating uncomfortable.
None of those things became more serious because somebody might once have trained him well.
I looked at Maggie.
She was getting up from the table.
"Where are you going?"
"Back outside."
"You've only just come in."
"I know."
She smiled.
"I want to check him again."
I nodded.
"All right."
She went toward the door.
Then she paused.
"Grandma?"
"Yes?"
"Are you coming?"
I looked at the notebook lying beside my checkbook.
The figures were waiting.
They always were.
I had planned to look at them before supper.
But the light outside was pleasant, and Maggie was standing at the door with an invitation I didn't want to refuse.
"I'll come."
She smiled.
We crossed the yard together.
Patch lifted his head when we approached.
Maggie reached for the brush.
I took another.
We began working along his coat.
His ribs were less startling than they had been in April, although he still needed good care.
I could feel the shape of his shoulders beneath the brush.
He stood comfortably.
Every so often, he shifted his weight.
I looked toward the right front hoof.
The habit hadn't left me.
Maggie noticed.
"You're checking again."
"I am."
"He's all right."
"I believe you."
She laughed softly.
I looked up.
That little laugh still had the power to stop me.
I remembered standing at the kitchen window with the dish towel in my hands.
The floating cap.
Patch looking pleased with himself.
Maggie laughing until she leaned against the fence.
I had cried that afternoon.
I hadn't known what else to do.
Now laughter appeared in our days more often.
Not constantly.
Not as though everything had become easy.
But often enough that I no longer froze every time I heard it.
That was a change worth noticing.
Maggie finished brushing Patch's neck.
Then she stepped back.
"He's handsome."
I looked at the horse.
His black-and-white coat was cleaner.
The crooked white marking on his hip stood out clearly.
I remembered Silas looking at it.
I had spent days wondering whether it meant something.
Now I simply saw a familiar part of Patch.
"He is," I said.
Maggie looked pleased.
She returned the brush to its place.
Then she checked his water.
I watched her work.
She had become confident.
Not careless.
Confident.
She knew where things belonged.
She noticed what needed doing.
And she seemed comfortable with the responsibility.
I thought about her father.
He had taught her the beginnings of that confidence.
I wished he could see how she used it now.
I wished he could see Patch.
But wishes were all I had.
I had learned that grief could make me overlook what remained because I was staring so hard at what was gone.
I didn't want to do that with Maggie.
Her father was gone.
She was here.
And she was becoming someone who could care for a suffering animal with patience and attention.
I was proud of her.
More proud than I knew how to say.
When we finished, Maggie led Patch toward the barn.
I followed.
His footsteps sounded steady.
I listened until they stopped.
Maggie turned toward me.
"Grandma?"
"Yes?"
"Do you think he'll always remember us?"
I looked at Patch.
I couldn't know that.
I couldn't explain what memories a horse kept or how he understood them.
But I could see that he recognized Maggie now.
He knew her footsteps.
Her voice.
The routine of her care.
"I think he knows you very well."
She smiled.
"Good."
Then she gave him one last scratch.
We went back toward the house.
I thought about her question.
Would Patch remember us?
I didn't know.
But I knew we would remember him.
Not because Silas had been surprised by his movement.
Not because he might once have received expensive training.
Because he had arrived when our house was painfully quiet.
And he had given Maggie a reason to step outside each morning.
That evening, I opened the black notebook.
The expenses were still there.
I checked them carefully.
Then I closed it.
I wasn't finished worrying about money.
I probably never would be.
But for once, I didn't turn the pages looking for a reason to regret buying Patch.
I knew why we had kept him.
And I knew what we had gained by taking care of him.
The rest could remain unanswered.
Source: news1.shoptonytv.net
