Riding Tall (16 page)

He stopped and pressed his cheek against Flower’s warm golden side. The animals. The farm in general. It was important to him. He loved the lifestyle and the satisfaction of providing food for his family and the wider world, but maybe the farm was what had to go. If Kami stayed,
something
would have to give. He looked around the barn. The beef cattle were how he made his living. They should stay. But the chickens, the milk cattle, the vegetable garden and fruit trees in the summer—that was all optional. He could buy all those things at the store, and maybe they wouldn’t taste quite as good, but he wasn’t in a position to be too picky.

The horses…. He looked over at Misery as she grumpily chewed her hay, waiting to be put outside. Joe liked working from horseback, but lots of guys used ATVs and did okay. Misery was well trained and had great instincts. She’d be a valuable animal, if he could find the right buyer for her. And the other horses were just pets, really. Ally had her quarter horse, but she’d been talking about selling him when she went away to school anyway. Will or Sarah might go for a ride a few times year, but that was about it. Joe had put Austin on Devil’s back once or twice, but the kid wasn’t too interested in sitting still when there was running around to do, and his legs were still too short for much active riding. The horses were pets that took a lot of time to take care of, and time was something Joe didn’t have.

Damn it. He didn’t want to sell the horses. But he couldn’t be selfish about it, couldn’t send a girl back to an unhappy life just because he wanted his ponies.

It wasn’t the solution he wanted, but at least it was
a
solution. Better to have an unattractive plan than to be faced with something that seemed completely impossible.

So he should have been happier as he walked down to the house after finishing in the barn. He saw Jean’s car parked beside his truck and made himself walk a little faster. Maybe there was some medical reason Kami
couldn’t
be in a private home. He felt selfish for wishing for it, but it sure would solve a lot of problems.

“Joe,” Jean said with a gentle smile when he opened the mudroom door. She was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, surrounded by all the kids. Kami was beside her, playing with a collection of beads on a string. “Thanks for calling me.”

“Sorry to interrupt your vacation.”

She shrugged. “I got two days off; that’s more than I usually manage. Christmas is a stressful time for a lot of people.” Another smile as she said, “Including you, I imagine.”

“Is Kami okay without her meds?” Maybe he should have made small talk a little longer, but there was no point pretending this was a social call.

“She only takes them once a day,” Jean said calmly. “I stopped by the facility and picked them up, and she’s taken them now. So it was really only a few hours late—that shouldn’t be a problem.”

Well, that was something at least. Joe’s stomach reminded him that he’d missed breakfast, but he needed to get some things straightened out before he ate. “And the staff at the facility—the people who wanted to put her in restraints—has that been sorted out?”

“Sorted out? Well, they confirmed that it’s their policy to use restraints whenever a staff member feels that the patient’s actions are a risk to the patient or to others.” Jean frowned gently in Kami’s direction. “Apparently there have been a few incidents in the past when she got upset and tried to hurt herself, then lashed out at others when they intervened.” She leaned over and patted the table in front of Kami, trying to get her attention. “That’s what they say, Kami. Does that sound right?”

Kami didn’t respond, or show any signs that she’d heard Jean at all.

Lacey was ready, though. “But did they say
why
she got upset in the first place? I mean, she gets frustrated. I can see why. Maybe if they were better at giving her what she needs, she wouldn’t get upset!”

“Maybe,” Jean said noncommittally. Then she looked across the table at Joe. “Last time I was here you said there was a spot with a nice view of the lake, not far from the house. I wore my warm boots—any chance we could go for a little walk?”

“Oh, the
grown-ups
are going to go talk in private?” Lacey asked bitterly.

“Yes,” Jean said calmly as she stood up. “I’ll come back and talk to you privately too. But I’ve already heard quite a bit from your perspective today, so I’d like a chance to talk to Joe for a while.”

It was hard for Lacey to argue with such a reasonable answer, and impossible for Joe to ignore Jean’s request. So he turned back toward the door, but stopped when he heard Mackenzie say, “Joe.”

He turned, and Mackenzie quickly stood up from the table. “While Jean’s getting her coat and boots on…,” he said, and he gestured toward the oven. “Your breakfast.”

“I can wait,” Jean said, but Joe shook his head. He wanted to get this over with. He’d been wearing gloves in the barn, so his hands weren’t too dirty. He pulled the oven door open and reached inside to snag one fluffy pancake. Two bites and it was gone.

“You are not a gentleman,” Mackenzie scolded. He pulled a silver travel mug out of the cupboard, then headed for the coffeepot. A bit of sugar, a dollop of milk, and then steaming coffee—just what Joe needed.

He smiled as Mackenzie handed the mug to him. “Thanks for looking after me.”

“Take another pancake for the road.” Mackenzie pulled the oven open, and Joe obediently reached inside and snagged a pancake.

“Breakfast of champions,” he said as he and Jean headed out the door.

“Breakfast of busy parents,” she countered. They walked in silence for a while after that, Red scouting the path ahead of them, until Jean said, “I’d thought about asking you to take Kami. But I’d decided against it. Not because I took pity on you, but because I didn’t think it would be best for her.”

There was a little bit of hurt pride, maybe. Jean didn’t think Joe could take good care of Kami? That was insulting. But mostly he felt relief. This would be the easiest solution—freedom without guilt, if he wasn’t
allowed
to bring Kami into the family. But he needed to be cautious. “That’s still how you feel?”

Jean sighed. “I’m not sure. I’ll tell you the facts, Joe.” She waited as if expecting him to argue, then said, “Physically, Kami has some challenges, but not enough to keep her from living in a family setting. Mentally, more challenges, but again, nothing that many families aren’t dealing with. Emotionally? Well, that’s a whole other set of challenges. She’s lost a lot of her ability to control her impulses. Her emotions are pure, and she acts on them. But again, there are lots of kids living in families while dealing with that sort of thing. If Kami’d had a family and home to go to, she would have been released from the treatment facility some time ago.”

“There are foster families that take on special needs kids, aren’t there?”

“There are some,” Jean admitted, “but not many. And we were trying to keep the girls close enough that they could stay in contact with each other, so that cut down the options some more. I couldn’t find anyone I thought would be a good match for Kami.”

“Including me,” Joe said, and again he felt that little niggle of injured pride.

Jean smiled. “Including you. Not because of anything innate, just because you had too much on your plate. For a special-needs child, we usually try to find a foster home with two parents in a settled, long-term relationship. We hope that one of the parents doesn’t work outside the home, and we look for a home without many other children in it. Does any of that sound like you’d be a good fit?”

Joe thought about arguing that Mackenzie was only marginally employed, but he shouldn’t be dragging the guy into any of this. And their relationship certainly wasn’t long-term, and probably wasn’t all that settled, really. “Technically, you could say that the whole farm is my home, so that’d mean I don’t work outside it.”

“You weren’t a good fit,” Jean said firmly.

“You’re using the past tense for all this,” Joe said. He didn’t want to ask but knew that he had to. “Has something changed?”

“Not really. I’ve just gotten a little more desperate.” They reached the top of the hill then, and took a moment to look out over the icy scene, white snow drifted across smooth ice, dark pine trees framing the brightness. “There’s no one better. And Kami’s not doing too well in the rehab center. It’s a sign of her improvement, really. She’s getting more confident, expressing her needs more clearly. No one was really sure what to expect from her. Brain injuries are tricky at the best of times, and especially with children, recovery can be unpredictable. When Kami entered the institution we thought she might be there for life. But now, we think she’d do better elsewhere.”

Joe stared at the snow, the reflected sunlight glaring deep into his head. “Lacey was talking about getting her own place and trying to make that work.”

“We both know that’d be a disaster,” Jean said. “For Kami
and
for Lacey.”

And if she came to the farm, it would just be a disaster for Joe. The math was simple, really: two disasters against one. He tried to smile. “There’s no third door? No hidden solution you’ve got worked out?”

“I’m hoping you’ll say no,” Jean admitted with a strange smile. “My duty is to Kami, so I need to do what’s best for her. I need to try to find her a home. But I’ll feel really guilty if you take this on. So if you say no, I can know that by asking, I did what I needed to do for Kami, but not feel guilty for having added another responsibility to a young man who already has too many.”

Joe looked at her in surprise. “I was hoping
you’d
say no,” he confessed. “So I wouldn’t have to do it, but wouldn’t have to feel bad about turning you down.” He waited for a moment. “Don’t suppose you could do that, could you?”

She shook her head sadly. “I’m sorry, Joe. I think you’re the best person for the job, considering that I haven’t been able to find anyone else. I think Kami would be better off in a slightly unstable environment with an overworked but incredibly conscientious caregiver than she’d be in an institution.”

Joe turned back to the scene in front of him. So calm and peaceful. As a boy he’d been almost hypnotized by winter. He’d find a soft snowbank and flop down on his back, the snow puffing up around him to provide a windbreak, the weak sunlight giving him at least some warmth as he stared at the sky. The light blue of the sky and the bright white of the snow made the horizon indistinct, so heaven and earth blurred together into one endless circle of nothingness. It had been fascinating, then, but now Joe saw his future the same way, and it was oppressive. He was a caregiver. No beginning, no end. Ally was almost grown. Savannah and Austin would mature eventually. But Kami? Kami was forever.

As she should be, he reminded himself. It was his fault she’d been hurt. Kami was blameless in all of this. She’d gone to bed one night, her dog beside her, her parents drinking downstairs, and she’d woken up to pain and fear and confusion that never seemed to end. If Joe had just… if he’d just been
better
.

He shook his head, trying to dispel the useless thoughts. “Okay,” he made himself say. “I’ll need information, I guess. She should still get some sort of rehab, right? Some of that can go through the school? Is there somewhere else I’ll need to take her? And the medications, and whatever medical stuff there is. I need to know about that.” He should probably stop talking, but then he’d have to think, and he didn’t want that to happen. “I think she shared a bedroom with Savannah last night. The queen bed in my old room, I guess. We’ll maybe need to get two twins.” What else, what else? “I need to talk to the kids. And maybe get some counseling for Savannah. She’s
acting
fine, and maybe she really is, but it’d be good for someone to check in on her, right? And Austin seems okay, but this is a lot of changes for the little guy. Is there a test? Like, a way to tell whether a five-year-old is stressed?”

“What about Mackenzie?” Jean asked gently.

But Joe shook his head.
Mackenzie
was what he wasn’t letting himself think about. “Lacey wants to quit school. I think she was almost using Kami as an excuse. I need to figure out a way to keep her there, at least until the end of the year. If she can just graduate, she’ll have a better chance of—” Of having a life. Of course, Joe had graduated high school, and look what had happened to him. Fuck, he needed to get himself under control.

“Red!” he called, and the dog looked up from the tree he’d been sniffing and came bounding through the snow toward his master. Joe crouched down and let Red lean into him. He reached down and found a handful of snow, hoping Jean didn’t notice as he rubbed it over his face. The cold helped him regroup, and his voice was controlled as he said, “New family member, Red. No biting, okay?”

Red wagged his tail in agreement, and Joe gave himself a moment to bury his face in the dog’s warm fur. He needed to not think. As long as he didn’t start thinking, he’d be able to make it through.

He stood up and dusted off his pants. “We should get back to the house,” he said to Jean. “Start figuring things out.”

She didn’t argue, and they started back down the hill together. It felt like Joe was walking to his appointment with the gallows.

Chapter 12