Joy, Hope, and Other Lost Causes
an excerpt

Once he was gone, I started walking around my room, looking at the empty surfaces. The walls were bare of pictures, except for one or two pictures of my high school friends. The shelves were empty of books, except for a textbook or two that I had saved, a dictionary, a thesaurus, and a closed box I knew was full of unopened horse magazines.

All of my horse things, my books and pictures and ribbons and the artifacts from my former life, were locked away in my closet in the hardest corner to reach. Three days after Rave died – as soon as I felt like I had use of my arms and legs again – I roamed around my bedroom like a caged lion – like a stalled chestnut mare – tapping pictures and ribbons and trophies as if they were foreign to me. My hands regained their ability to grasp and the next thing I knew, my walls were empty.

I don’t think I ever saw my mother so frightened as when she walked into my bedroom and discovered it transformed. She enrolled me in dance club that very day. I had no particular interest in dancing, and my body and mind weren’t ready yet to work together. I didn’t last a week, and Mom’s mission to reintroduce me to life began in earnest.

At her urging, I tried bowling. Golf. Gymnastics. Gardening. I had lasted almost three days at creative writing club. Less than an hour at step aerobics. I refused to crack my book club book and my karate skills were compromised by muscles that refused to cooperate. Now that yoga had failed, Mom had almost nothing left except for horses.

“So, who was that woman who brought her mare by for the night?” she asked at breakfast. I had managed to eat the middle out of an entire piece of toast, quite a feat since I had barely eaten anything of late. I lost my appetite when I recognized Mom’s tone of voice – her “Save Rain” tone.

“Her name was Joy Hilton,” I offered. “I don’t know anything else about her. Well, I’m off to –“

But it sounded forced, even to me, and it ended before it began, because I didn’t have any place to go.

“Off to …” Mom echoed, and waited. After a minute, she continued her previous thought. “You know, that old woman might be someone who needs some help.” I braced myself for what I knew she was going to say next. “Maybe you could volunteer.”

I was pretty sure it wasn’t called volunteering if your mother made you do it under duress. Still, it beat therapy, yoga, step aerobics, gardening, creative writing class, book club, gymnastics, golf, bowling, and karate. It also beat laying around in my room, waiting for the day to be over. Almost without meaning to, and in a very disinterested voice, I said, “okay.”

For some reason, this made it possible to eat my toast crust. Mom seemed happy.