I couldn't stop looking at the white marking on Patch's hip.<\/p>\n
That sounds foolish now.<\/p>\n
It was only a marking.<\/p>\n
A crooked patch of white hair against the darker part of his coat.<\/p>\n
I had seen it the day I bought him.<\/p>\n
I had seen it when Maggie brushed him.<\/p>\n
I had seen it every time he turned toward the barn.<\/p>\n
There was nothing new about it.<\/p>\n
But Silas had studied that part of his body so carefully that I began noticing it differently.<\/p>\n
I wondered what he had been thinking.<\/p>\n
I didn't know.<\/p>\n
And I wasn't going to invent an answer just because I wanted one.<\/p>\n
Still, every time Patch turned his hindquarters toward me, my eyes went to that marking.<\/p>\n
One afternoon, Maggie noticed.<\/p>\n
"Why do you keep looking there?"<\/p>\n
I felt embarrassed.<\/p>\n
"Silas was studying him."<\/p>\n
"His hip?"<\/p>\n
"Partly."<\/p>\n
She glanced at the marking.<\/p>\n
"Maybe he likes the color."<\/p>\n
I smiled.<\/p>\n
"Maybe."<\/p>\n
She stepped closer to Patch.<\/p>\n
"He does have funny patches."<\/p>\n
"He certainly does."<\/p>\n
She ran a hand along his neck.<\/p>\n
"That's why I like his name."<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
Patch.<\/p>\n
It suited him.<\/p>\n
Nothing grand.<\/p>\n
Nothing impressive.<\/p>\n
Just a simple name for a black-and-white horse whose coat looked as though somebody had put pieces together in an uneven pattern.<\/p>\n
For weeks, that was all I had needed to know about him.<\/p>\n
He was Patch.<\/p>\n
He ate.<\/p>\n
He needed care.<\/p>\n
He liked Maggie.<\/p>\n
And he had a sore foot.<\/p>\n
Then Silas came.<\/p>\n
He removed the badly fitted shoe.<\/p>\n
He found the infection.<\/p>\n
He watched Patch move.<\/p>\n
And suddenly there were questions neither Maggie nor I knew how to answer.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether there was anything more to learn from what we'd already seen.<\/p>\n
The thought followed me into the kitchen.<\/p>\n
It stayed with me while I washed dishes.<\/p>\n
It bothered me when I opened the notebook.<\/p>\n
But I kept returning to the same point.<\/p>\n
I knew where Patch had come from immediately before arriving at our house.<\/p>\n
The livestock auction.<\/p>\n
I did not know where he had been before that.<\/p>\n
I didn't know who had put the shoe on him.<\/p>\n
I didn't know who had allowed his teeth to become so troublesome that chewing hurt.<\/p>\n
And I didn't know who had trained him to respond to a person's movements with such care.<\/p>\n
Those facts were missing.<\/p>\n
Silas had asked about them.<\/p>\n
I hadn't been able to help.<\/p>\n
That bothered me more than I wanted to admit.<\/p>\n
I had brought Patch home because he needed somewhere to go.<\/p>\n
I hadn't asked many questions about his history.<\/p>\n
I had been more concerned with the poor condition standing in front of me.<\/p>\n
His ribs.<\/p>\n
His limp.<\/p>\n
His tired appearance.<\/p>\n
And the thirty-one dollars I'd paid.<\/p>\n
Now I wondered whether I should have been more curious.<\/p>\n
But even if I had asked, I wasn't sure anyone at the auction could have told me much.<\/p>\n
I refused to pretend I knew what I hadn't been told.<\/p>\n
That afternoon, I stood by the pasture and watched Patch graze.<\/p>\n
Maggie was nearby.<\/p>\n
She had finished the chores and was brushing dirt from his shoulder.<\/p>\n
I listened to the quiet sound.<\/p>\n
The brush moved.<\/p>\n
Patch shifted slightly.<\/p>\n
Maggie adjusted her position.<\/p>\n
Everything looked ordinary.<\/p>\n
That was what confused me.<\/p>\n
Silas had noticed something extraordinary in an otherwise ordinary movement.<\/p>\n
I could remember the turn clearly.<\/p>\n
Patch had gathered his hind legs under his body.<\/p>\n
He had lowered himself slightly.<\/p>\n
Then he had moved around the corner with controlled balance.<\/p>\n
It had happened in seconds.<\/p>\n
I had spent weeks seeing him struggle to take simple steps.<\/p>\n
Then, with much of the pain relieved, he had done something that made Silas stop and remove his hat.<\/p>\n
I tried to picture it again.<\/p>\n
I could remember what happened.<\/p>\n
But I still couldn't explain why it mattered so much.<\/p>\n
I had never been trained to read a horse's movement the way Silas could.<\/p>\n
That was why I had called him.<\/p>\n
There is a strange discomfort in realizing you've been looking at something without really understanding it.<\/p>\n
I felt it whenever I watched Patch.<\/p>\n
I knew his condition had improved.<\/p>\n
I knew he was more comfortable.<\/p>\n
But Silas's reaction suggested that his movement carried information I couldn't interpret.<\/p>\n
I didn't like being unable to understand.<\/p>\n
I had always been a practical woman.<\/p>\n
If something needed repairing, I wanted to know what was wrong.<\/p>\n
If there was a bill, I wanted to know how much.<\/p>\n
If a horse was limping, I wanted to know why.<\/p>\n
That last question had finally been answered.<\/p>\n
At least in part.<\/p>\n
But the question of his training remained.<\/p>\n
I looked at Maggie.<\/p>\n
"Do you remember what your father taught you about leading a horse?"<\/p>\n
She stopped brushing.<\/p>\n
"Some of it."<\/p>\n
"Did he ever talk about the way a trained horse turns?"<\/p>\n
She thought for a moment.<\/p>\n
"He showed me how to get one to follow."<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
"Anything else?"<\/p>\n
She shook her head.<\/p>\n
"Not really."<\/p>\n
I didn't push.<\/p>\n
She had been young when he taught her.<\/p>\n
Barely ten.<\/p>\n
He had been teaching her basic care, not preparing her to judge the ability of a horse whose history was unknown.<\/p>\n
I was asking too much.<\/p>\n
She returned to brushing.<\/p>\n
I stood beside her.<\/p>\n
For a while, I watched Patch's face.<\/p>\n
He looked peaceful.<\/p>\n
The tension that had once seemed part of his expression was less obvious now.<\/p>\n
I couldn't know exactly what he felt.<\/p>\n
But he was eating.<\/p>\n
He was standing more comfortably.<\/p>\n
And he no longer seemed to fear every movement of the sore foot.<\/p>\n
That was enough evidence for me to believe the care was helping.<\/p>\n
I thought about how close I'd come to accepting the limp as permanent.<\/p>\n
That embarrassed me.<\/p>\n
I hadn't been cruel to Patch.<\/p>\n
I hadn't deliberately neglected him.<\/p>\n
But I had assumed a great deal from his appearance.<\/p>\n
I had looked at a suffering animal and wondered whether age was simply catching up with him.<\/p>\n
Silas had found a badly positioned nail and a trapped infection.<\/p>\n
Those things were not the same as being worn out.<\/p>\n
I wished I had understood sooner.<\/p>\n
I looked at the dressing.<\/p>\n
Maggie had been careful with it.<\/p>\n
She knew that a recovering foot still needed attention.<\/p>\n
I was proud of her.<\/p>\n
But I also knew that pride was complicated.<\/p>\n
I would have given anything for her father to be standing there instead of me.<\/p>\n
He would have understood more.<\/p>\n
He would have answered her questions.<\/p>\n
He might have recognized the problem with the shoe much sooner.<\/p>\n
Then I corrected myself.<\/p>\n
I couldn't know that either.<\/p>\n
Grief has a way of turning the people we've lost into people who would have known every answer.<\/p>\n
My son had been knowledgeable.<\/p>\n
He had been caring.<\/p>\n
But he had been human.<\/p>\n
He might have missed something.<\/p>\n
He might have needed help from Silas just as I had.<\/p>\n
I needed to remember him as he was, not turn his memory into a standard neither Maggie nor I could ever meet.<\/p>\n
I watched my granddaughter put down the brush.<\/p>\n
She inspected Patch's coat.<\/p>\n
Then she looked at his hoof.<\/p>\n
"Think he's ready to walk around?"<\/p>\n
I hesitated.<\/p>\n
"Only gently."<\/p>\n
She nodded.<\/p>\n
"No sharp turns."<\/p>\n
"That's right."<\/p>\n
She took the lead and guided him forward.<\/p>\n
I watched carefully.<\/p>\n
His steps were better.<\/p>\n
There was still a reason to be cautious.<\/p>\n
I hadn't forgotten Silas's warning.<\/p>\n
Patch needed time.<\/p>\n
The healing foot mattered more than satisfying our curiosity about what he might have been trained to do.<\/p>\n
Maggie didn't ask him for anything complicated.<\/p>\n
She simply walked.<\/p>\n
He followed.<\/p>\n
When she stopped, he stopped.<\/p>\n
When she moved again, he moved.<\/p>\n
I could see the calmness Silas had described.<\/p>\n
Patch didn't seem confused about what she wanted.<\/p>\n
He paid attention.<\/p>\n
It was a simple exchange between a girl and a horse.<\/p>\n
Yet I had begun to understand that simplicity can come from practice.<\/p>\n
A movement that appears effortless may have taken a great deal of work to learn.<\/p>\n
I thought of Maggie's father teaching her how to clean hooves.<\/p>\n
What looked easy when he did it had required instruction.<\/p>\n
Where to stand.<\/p>\n
How to hold the foot.<\/p>\n
When to move away.<\/p>\n
What to notice.<\/p>\n
The knowledge was invisible until she used it.<\/p>\n
Perhaps something similar was true of Patch.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the ease of his responses was itself a clue.<\/p>\n
I couldn't prove it.<\/p>\n
But I began to understand what Silas had been trying to tell us.<\/p>\n
Maggie led him back toward the barn.<\/p>\n
I followed at a distance.<\/p>\n
The late afternoon light made the white markings on Patch's coat stand out.<\/p>\n
I looked at the crooked patch on his hip again.<\/p>\n
It didn't tell me anything new.<\/p>\n
But it reminded me that this horse had existed long before I paid thirty-one dollars for him.<\/p>\n
He had been somewhere.<\/p>\n
He had belonged to somebody.<\/p>\n
He had learned things.<\/p>\n
Then something had gone wrong with his care.<\/p>\n
By the time I saw him, suffering had covered whatever abilities he might have possessed.<\/p>\n
I hadn't known to look beneath it.<\/p>\n
Maggie reached the barn.<\/p>\n
She stopped and waited while Patch settled.<\/p>\n
Then she turned toward me.<\/p>\n
"Grandma?"<\/p>\n
"Yes?"<\/p>\n
"Do you think he knows we helped him?"<\/p>\n
I looked at the horse.<\/p>\n
He stood beside her.<\/p>\n
His ears moved toward her voice.<\/p>\n
I considered giving her a comforting answer.<\/p>\n
Something certain.<\/p>\n
Something about gratitude.<\/p>\n
But I didn't know what Patch understood.<\/p>\n
"I think he knows he's more comfortable."<\/p>\n
Maggie looked thoughtful.<\/p>\n
"And he knows us."<\/p>\n
"Yes. I believe he does."<\/p>\n
She smiled.<\/p>\n
That was enough.<\/p>\n
I didn't need to claim the horse understood every kind thing we'd done.<\/p>\n
His willingness to stand beside her told us something.<\/p>\n
His response to her footsteps told us something.<\/p>\n
And the way he waited for her after the school bus arrived told us something.<\/p>\n
There were forms of trust I didn't need to explain.<\/p>\n
We put Patch away for the evening.<\/p>\n
I checked his water and feed.<\/p>\n
Maggie made certain everything was where it should be.<\/p>\n
Then we went inside.<\/p>\n
The black notebook was on the table.<\/p>\n
I opened it and looked at the expenses again.<\/p>\n
I no longer expected the numbers to explain the horse.<\/p>\n
They explained what I'd spent.<\/p>\n
Nothing more.<\/p>\n
I thought of Silas's face when Patch made that turn.<\/p>\n
I thought of Frank's offer.<\/p>\n
I thought of the little girl who had first noticed the crooked shoe.<\/p>\n
And I understood that I'd been fortunate in one important way.<\/p>\n
Not because I had bought an extraordinary horse.<\/p>\n
I didn't yet know whether that was true.<\/p>\n
I was fortunate because Maggie had cared enough to look closely.<\/p>\n
Without that, Patch might still have been struggling on an infected foot.<\/p>\n
We might never have seen the movement that startled Silas.<\/p>\n
And I might have continued believing that an animal's condition told me everything about its ability.<\/p>\n
I closed the notebook.<\/p>\n
The questions remained.<\/p>\n
But I was beginning to accept that I didn't need to answer them all at once.<\/p>\n
For now, Patch was healing.<\/p>\n
And we were learning how much we still didn't know.<\/p>\n
Source: news1.shoptonytv.net<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n I couldn't stop looking at the white marking on Patch's hip. That sounds foolish now. It was only a marking. A crooked patch of white hair against the darker part … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drama-sory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11803"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11823,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11803\/revisions\/11823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nClick here to continue reading: PART 8: I Finally Understood Why Silas Had Gone Silent in Our Driveway, Though the Most Important Questions About Patch Still Had No Answers<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"