My Green Broke Heart

“Allison, maybe you should try to get some rest. You look like hell, hun.”

My eyes lift to find Connie’s. She’s trying to smile at me, but it isn’t working. I shake my head adamantly, “I can’t leave her.”

“You’ve been in this freezing cold barn for 36 hours straight, living off nothing but black coffee and adrenaline.” My lips thin, and I nod, but make no move to leave. “Allison, as a doctor, I’m ordering you to go get some sleep.”

“Connie, no offense, you know I love you, but you’re a Vet.” I stroke the coarse hair on the side of Sable’s neck, feeling the heat of her fever and her racing heartbeat. Two days ago, I noticed she had a slight runny nose, and now...now she’s...

“Still enough of a doctor to know what you’re doing is reckless. I’ve known you since you were knee-high to a tadpole. I know you’re worried. I know you’re stubborn. But you need sleep!” Her Tennessee drawl is thick. I can’t help but chuckle. Connie's always had a way with words. “Please, Ally. I know it’s hard, but you’re not doing either of you any favors wearing yourself this thin. Sable’s gonna need your strength. She’s stable right now. Go up to the house and get some sleep. I’ll call you if anything changes.” She’s right. I’m beyond tired, but I’m that ‘so far beyond tired’ I can’t even remember what sleep is. I sigh and shake my head.

“Child, I swear to God, if your momma...” My head jerks up; anger and grief in my eyes. She sighs and backtracks. “At least go into the tack room and lie down on some saddle blankets, or something. A cat nap's better than nothing.” The mention of my mother added to my fear. Associating her death with what's happening to my yearling foal is not helping the anxiety surging through me.

After a long moment, I give up and nod. The tack room is maybe twenty feet away. That should be close enough to hear if anything changes. I grab my gloves from the hay-covered ground next to me. I brush my fingers over Sable’s tan jaw one more time before I pull my stiff, aching body off the packed dirt. My joints are frozen, partly from the Montana winter just outside, and partly from having been in that cross-legged position on the hard ground for the last three hours without moving. I groan as my body fights me.

“Jesus, girl, you’re only 25. Too young to be aching and creaking like that.” Connie lifts her watch in front of her face as she takes Sable’s pulse again. I pat her on the shoulder as I take the first few shuffling steps, willing my legs to start working again.

The tack room's a little warmer than the rest of the barn. The heater in here has far less space to work on than the three we have out there. I sigh, heading to the little half bathroom in the corner and taking care of long overdue business, before pulling the blankets from the racks and laying them out in a little pallet on the floor. I don’t really believe I’m going to fall asleep, but lying down will help me think. Not to mention getting Connie off my back.

I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose Sable. She’s been my main focus for the last year. Her mother, my mother’s favorite mare, Sunset, died just a few days after her birth from complications. I bottle-fed her for weeks. I slept with her in the barn on stormy nights, talked to her, and let her follow me in the yard like a dog. She’s more like a pet than a horse. More than that, it feels like she’s the last gift my mother managed to give me after I lost her to stomach cancer two years ago.

Crawling onto the little makeshift bed, I pull my phone and text Dalton. I don’t expect him to respond; it is almost 3 AM after all, but to my surprise, he immediately calls. “Hey,” I sigh wearily as I answer.

“Hey, baby. How’s Sable?”

“Connie says she’s stable. That’s the best I can say.” My voice is small and weak. Tears begin to sting in my nose. I shouldn’t have answered his call. Talking to him is just going to make me break down and cry. I wish he were here.

“She’s strong, she’ll pull through.” I nod. “Are you in bed?”

“Sort of.”

He chuckles, “What does ‘sort of’ mean?” He sounds awake. Not like ‘he just woke up’ awake, but like ‘he’s been up for hours’ awake.

“I’m laying on some saddle blankets in the tack room. Where are you?”

“Allison, you need to get some real sleep. And I was asleep until you messaged.” He sounds annoyed. For a second, I bristle, but then I think I’d be annoyed too if someone woke me up in the middle of the night. For a long moment, we're both silent, and then he groans. “Get some rest, Ally. I’ll be over after work tomorrow to see you, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Goodnight, baby.” I open my mouth to respond, but the line clicks dead. My face pinches as the tears begin to flow. I tell myself that all I was going to say was goodnight, and he has to be up for work in 2 hours. It didn’t mean anything. I put my phone by the head of my little bed, lift my hood, and lie back on the blankets. I pull my coat a little tighter and strain my ears to hear what’s happening out in the stalls. All I can hear is the wind.

“Ally? Ally, honey, you need to wake up.” Connie’s voice finds its way into my dreams, and I bolt upright.

“I’m up...I’m up...” I mumble as I rub the salt off my cheeks.

“Honey...I’m so sorry, but...”

I’m wide awake instantly. She's sitting on the boards at my side, tear streaks covering her weathered cheeks. Her eyes are puffy. I scramble to my feet. “No!”

Rushing for the door on sleep-weakened legs, I stumble and lose my balance. My body slams into one of the saddle racks, sending tack falling everywhere behind me, but I don’t stop. I yank the door open and turn to find my father standing just outside of Sable’s stall. I run the few feet between us.

“Allison, sweetheart, don’t...” He mutters, trying to grab my shoulders, but I dodge him and turn into the familiar space. My knees slam into the dirt next to her, my hands hovering over her. The world blurs as tears flood my eyes. My fingers shake as I touch her neck. She’s still warm, but the unnatural stillness lances through me. I can’t hear my own wail; my brain goes blank, my body goes numb. I don’t feel the arms that wrap around me. I don’t hear the hollow words of comfort. Sable was the last thing I had of my mother. The last living piece of her, her memory. I let her slip away while I slept.

“I never should have left her...” I whisper, barely able to make coherent sounds.

“Ally, honey, we need to--” My father’s soft, sad voice slips through the emptiness.

“No. We don’t need to do anything. I need to take care of her. I’ll do it.”

“Allison, you don’t have to--”

“Yes, I do.” I sob into her mane, resting my face against her neck. It’s the closest thing I can manage now to one of our hugs. She used to hug me constantly. She would wrap her head around my shoulders, pulling me against her neck.

For over an hour, I sit with her. She's gone cold before my father finally picks me up. I step out of his arms and take a deep breath before sliding on my gloves and hat and leaving the stable. He follows me until I turn from the path and head toward the big barn. “Allison, it can wait, sweetheart. You don’t have to--”

“Yes. I do.” My voice is even colder than the frigid early morning wind slicing us. The soft glow of sunrise behind the barn casts it completely in shadow, a massive black shape looming before me. My feet crunch through the snow. This path hasn’t been plowed in a couple of weeks. We don’t use the tractors in the winter. Not unless we absolutely need to.

I would give anything not to absolutely need to.

Today is Wednesday, February 14th, 2024.

The second-worst day of my life.

Happy Valentine’s Day to me, I guess.

It takes the better part of the day to dig a deep enough hole in the frozen earth. I stall the tractor twice, and the bucket loses a tooth, but I manage to do what needs to be done. My father watches me from the cab of his truck, giving me a ride back to the house when I need to use the bathroom and trying in vain to talk me out of going back out each time. He thinks I need to eat and get a little sleep, but I have to do this.

Once the trench is dug, I use the tractor to drag Sable out of the stables and lift her onto the trailer, moving her to the grave waiting at the edge of the west field woods. I feel so disgusted with the way I’m forced to treat her that I vomit, but that doesn’t stop me. This is life on a farm. Death, and dealing with it, are part of the package, even if that death is soul-crushing.

I wail as I roll Sable’s tan body into the waiting pit. When I can’t pick myself up off my knees, my father climbs into the tractor’s cab and begins pushing the frozen dirt over my precious yearling. I sob beside the grave as, foot by foot, the hole is filled. It should be me taking care of her, repeats in my head, but I just can’t move anymore. The grief is too thick and the exhaustion too deep.

After the job's done, my father joins me for a bit before lifting my weak, trembling frame from the ground. He wraps a strong, consoling arm around my slumped shoulders and turns us toward the truck. The sunset behind the trees cast a strange red-orange light over the blanket of snow, marred by the massive grooves left by the tractor’s winter treads.

“What about the tractor?” I mumble, barely audible.

“It’ll keep until tomorrow. I’ll come get it in the morning. Right now, it’s more important I get you out of the cold and put a bit of food in your stomach.” His warm voice near my temple makes the tears more urgent.

“I’m not hungry,” I whisper into the dimming evening light.

“I know, sweetheart, but you haven’t eaten in almost two days. Like it or not, you need to eat something. Then you can go to bed, okay?” His grip tightens, then releases so he can open the door for me.

“Dalton’s supposed to come by after work tonight.”

“Well, if he does, he can sit with you for a while, but you need to get some sleep, Allison. I don’t need you getting sick, too. You understand?”

His voice takes on a slightly stern tone, and I nod, mumbling “Yes, sir,” as I crawl into the cab, the door closing beside me. On the slow, slippery ride back to the house, Dalton messages me.

Dalton: Hey, baby. I just got your messages. I’m really sorry about Sable. I know this is really hard for you. I love you, and I’m here for you.

Dalton: I’m so sorry, baby, but I’m not going to make it over tonight. I know I promised, but I got held up at work, and it’ll be too dark to get out there by the time I leave. I’ll try again tomorrow. I miss you.

Me: k

I know I should say more, but I don’t have it in me. New tears form, and suddenly the only thought in my head is crawling into bed.

True to his word, my father makes me eat at least a little. A small bowl of tomato soup and half a grilled cheese sandwich later, I close my bedroom door and pull layer after layer off as I move to my bed. I barely make it under my covers before I’m out.

It’s late afternoon the next day, before my dad wakes me for another small meal of soup and half of a sandwich. I have another message from Dalton waiting for me, but it says the same thing he sent yesterday. Am I repeating the second-worst day of my life over again? If so, no thanks. I’ll pass on round three of this ultra-cursed Groundhog Day nonsense. After a hot shower and putting on actual pajamas, I crawl once again into my bed, praying tomorrow feels different. I desperately need it to be different.