After a long moment, he said, “According to my file, my mother was seventeen, unmarried and alone when she died giving birth. No one came forward to claim me. My father had deserted her in the middle of the pregnancy and I guess her parents were horrified at their daughter’s indiscretions. Didn’t want evidence of a moral lapse kicking around their house.”
“Your grandparents just let you go?”
Devlin nodded.
“Once, when I was sixteen, I looked them up. An old man with eyes like mine shut the door in my face after telling me never to come back.” He leaned back in the plastic chair. “Growing up, I acted out a lot. Got arrested a few times for stealing. Never graduated from high school, and college wasn’t even on the radar screen. When I left the system, I had nothing to do, nowhere to go and was mad as hell with everyone and everything. At the age of eighteen, I was wandering around aimlessly, trying to make enough money to feed myself, when I showed up at a stable, looking to groom. I don’t know why I thought they’d take me in. I’d never been around horses before.”
Devlin’s smile was sad. “That’s when I met Ches and he saved my life. After I walked up a long, dusty drive to the stable, he was the first person I met. I don’t know what he saw in me but he took one look at me and said, ‘Boy, I’m gonna take care of you.’ And he did. He always has.”
A.J. was enthralled by what he was revealing. It was all the intimate details she’d wanted to know, all the things that articles on him hinted about but never quite got right. She felt an overwhelming compassion for him, for everything he’d been through, as she imagined how hard his early life had been. How alone he must have felt as he went from home to home, always as an outsider. How much Chester’s love must have meant to him. How incredible his journey to the top echelons of the sport was.
“When did you start riding?”
“About two weeks after I arrived. One of the Thoroughbreds, a champion jumper, was being led into the barn after a workout. I looked up from the manure I was shoveling and told the rider the horse was lame. The guy brushed me off like dirt but Chester came forward, checked the leg and backed me up. Turned out the mare had a hairline fracture in her foreleg.
“Later, Chester asked how I knew and I said I just did. Then he wanted to know if I’d ever been up on a horse. I said no but I’d like to give it a try. An hour later, I was in the ring.” He looked at her. “Everything I’ve done coaching you comes from him. He’s the master at it and could have been famous but he never was inclined to tip his hand to the talent. He’s always been a free spirit, never wanted to be tied down. I was the only one he ever trained.”
“Then he certainly was a success, wasn’t he?”
Devlin shrugged. “He taught me to channel my anger into winning. That and my natural knack for riding did the trick.”
She smiled gently. “I know it took a lot more work than that.”
“But it isn’t work to do something you love.”
“No, you’re right. It isn’t.”
They shared a moment of understanding.
“After my accident, after Mercy was put down, Ches understood that I needed to be alone. He always said he’d be back. I never believed him. That’s one of the reasons you’re so special to me,” he said, reaching out and taking her hand. “You came into my life and opened everything up. And you’re the only one other than Chester that I’ve felt I could trust.”
She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. It was a bare whisper of contact, a soft sliding of their mouths, a vow full of love.
A.J. felt him squeeze her hand and then watched as he leaned his head back and shut his eyes as if he were exhausted. She stared at him for a long time, rerunning parts of the conversation back in her head. She was deeply affected by what he’d said and had the sense that a lot of it had never been revealed to anyone before.
Eventually, she glanced up at the TV and noted the soap opera was still droning on. She tried to remember the name of the series. Wings of Faith?
No, that wasn’t it.
She watched the characters parade around in glamorous clothes, gesticulate wildly, occasionally kiss or slap one another, and found she was able to keep up with the stories even without the sound. Every now and again, she’d come back to reality as someone in a doctor’s coat or nurse’s uniform would cut through the room. Most of the time, the medical staff just walked over to the vending machine. The sound of metal clinks as change was dropped in the slot and the whirling noise as food was kicked off the reserve bench became all too familiar.
She turned back to the soap. Damned if she could recall the name.
Wings of Fortune?
After a time, Devlin stretched, got up and went to the nurses’ station like a man on an expedition into the wilderness. He returned minutes later, empty-handed. A.J. looked away so he wouldn’t see her disappointment.
Up above, the soap came to a finale, with some woman putting white powder into a man’s cocktail. The closing credits read, Wings of Fate.
Over the next several hours, she and Devlin were joined and deserted by the families of other patients. People came and went, the cast of characters in the room changing and yet remaining the same. Everyone was going through a similar loss of control, desperately waiting for an answer, some news, some kind of hope. And none of them knew who was going to get their life back and who was never going to be the same again.
Finally, after she’d decided her butt was so numb it would never regain feeling, one of the white coats called out Chester’s name. She and Devlin leapt to their feet, the room dissolving away as they searched the doctor’s face for clues.
He was too young to be making life-and-death decisions, A.J. thought at first. Then she saw that his eyes were very old behind delicate, gold-wire glasses.
“Are you the family?” the physician asked with a heavy Southern accent.
“Is he all right? What’s going on?” Devlin demanded.
“You’re Devlin and A.J.?”
They nodded.
“We think we know what the problem is. Come with me.
Following their white coat redeemer from the hell of the waiting room, they went through Star Trek doors into the real hustle and bustle of the emergency department. Rushing around, everyone seemed to know where they were going and, compared with the stillness of where Devlin and A.J. had been, the urgency was overwhelming but reassuring.
The physician led them over to one of the treatment bays, which was sectioned off by thick white curtains to provide privacy. They braced themselves for what was on the other side.