Wild Horse Spring Read Online Free PDF Page A

made me feel happy in my skin. Birds sang loudly, though I couldn’t see them. From below, strains of classical guitar floated up from one of Daddy’s CDs. A breeze threaded through my hair.
    Through the sliding door to her room, I could see Diana lying on her bed on her stomach, on top of her clothes.
    She had to be mad at Daddy for yelling at her. “Hey,” I called, “it’s cool that we have this porch to ourselves.”
    Diana didn’t answer. She remained on her bed without moving.
    There were a lot of times when the three of us—Daddy and Lynn and I—were all working to get Diana to cooperate. It reminded me of when we were at the ranch last summer, and one of the horses was running around the ring bucking, and three wranglers were trying to lasso it all at the same time.
    Maybe if I were bad, Daddy would pay me attention, like he did with Diana, or like Mama and Barry did with Matt. How is it fair that Diana gets to live with Daddy all the time, and I only see him every other week? He’s not even her father.
    One of the only times I’d been by myself with Daddy since he married Lynn was last week at Easter, when we went to the Methodist church at the last minute. My friend Colleen had told me the youth group was fun, and she’d invited me to come before the church service on Easter.
    Daddy had come to pick me up, and when we passed the church, he got a funny look on his face. He turned to me and said, “Hey, Steph, want to go? Just you and me? Lynn took Diana to the barn, and they won’t be back until later.”
    When I was little, I used to go to church with Daddy and Mama, but we hadn’t been in a long time, since before the divorce. “Okay,” I’d said.
    The service was more modern than our old church, and had a band with guitars and microphones instead of a choir with robes. In her sermon, the preacher talked about how Jesus’s resurrection can bring about a resurrection in each one of us. A whole new life. Daddy had taken my hand and squeezed it, and suddenly I realized there was a tear rolling down his cheek.
    After the service, we went to lunch. “I didn’t realizehow much I missed going to church,” Daddy had told me while we ate.
    It had been a beautiful, warm day. The daffodils and dogwoods were blooming everywhere. I watched a family of four walk by outside the restaurant, with two little kids in their pastel Easter outfits. The boy had on a pink bow tie.
    “Diana doesn’t believe in God,” I had told Daddy. I turned to watch his face. He wiped his mouth with his napkin before saying anything. “Did she tell you that?” he asked. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking from his expression.
    “Yes.”
    “Did she say why?”
    “She said one time she heard a story about a barn catching on fire. All the horses inside died. She said how could God let such a thing happen? He could have stopped it. So she decided there was no such thing as God.”
    “I see,” he had said, turning his coffee cup around in his hands. “Well, what about you? Do you believe in God?”
    I watched Daddy’s face while I considered. “What about
you
, Daddy? Do you still believe in God?” Had Daddy stopped believing in God? Maybe because God didn’t prevent the divorce?
    Daddy blew out a heavy breath. “I can see why you might wonder,” he had said. “I guess I’ve been angry with God. But yes, I believe in him.”
    “Me too,” I said. And that was all we had said about it. I was surprised he hadn’t seemed shocked about Diana, and it made me want to open up more. I wanted to tell him about what had happened with Matt. I really wished Matt wouldn’t live with Mama and Barry and me anymore.
    Matt and his friends were always on the computer, going on Facebook and laughing. Once I tried to see what they were doing, and Matt said, “Get out of here, you little twerp!” I was so shocked and embarrassed, tears came to my eyes and I could hardly see where I was going when I left the room. I had tried not to