Seven Sisters - Earlene Fowler [25]
“Your great-grandma is certainly a famous person in this county,” I said to Bliss. “They practically have a shrine to her down in General Hospital’s children’s wing.”
“She raised most of the money that built that wing,” Cappy said. “And she started both the candy striper volunteer group and the home nurse program. Health care in this county, especially for children, owes a lot to Mother.”
We went into the tack room and working office, and I couldn’t help but admire the rich assortment of shiny, well-cared-for tack. As Cappy listened to her answering machine messages, I walked past the long row of photos of winning horses on the panelled wall. In the center was a large, expensively framed photograph of Seven B winning a race by a length. A photo underneath showed a younger Cappy and a bunch of other people posing in the winner’s circle with the horse and his trainer, a strong-looking blond man with a thick, reddish mustache. Everyone wore wide smiles.
“That was taken fifteen years ago,” Bliss said. “When Seven B won the All-American Futurity. That’s the biggest quarter horse competition in the world. It’s a million-dollar purse.”
“How exciting that must have been,” I commented.
Cappy came and stood next to us. “Yes, but like anything else this competitive, you’re only as good as your last win. Seven B hasn’t even produced a stakes winner in a few years. We’re hoping that will change soon. Believe me, when you aren’t winning at the track, only the feed man knows your name.” She checked her watch. “We’d better get back and see to our guests. They’re probably ready for dessert about now.” At the Jeep Bliss hung back.
“I think I’ll walk,” she said. “I need the exercise.”
Cappy, her face aggravated, started to say something, but I broke in.
“Want some company? I could use a walk, too, after that fabulous spread.”
Bliss shrugged. “I don’t mind.”
“Okay,” Cappy said. “I’ll see you two in a few minutes.” She reached into the glove compartment of the Jeep and took out a small flashlight. “Take this. There’s lots of holes in the road.”
“Oh, Grandma ...” Bliss started.
“Don’t you, ‘Oh, Grandma’ me,” Cappy countered. “I’m only—”
“Thanks,” I said, breaking into her sentence and taking the flashlight. “We’ll be careful.”
“She’s already driving me nuts,” Bliss complained as we watched her grandmother drive up the road, a small cloud of dust trailing after her. “She’s the last person I expected to be treating me like I was a piece of expensive crystal.”
“She’s just concerned,” I said, falling in with her irritated strides.
“She was breaking green horses when she was pregnant with my mom. Great-Aunt Willow said they considered locking her in her room the last three months.”
“Maybe that’s why she’s so concerned about you. ‘Do as I say and not as I do. If your friends wanted to jump off a cliff, would you? Don’t make that face, young lady, or someday it will freeze that way.’ All the things mothers and grandmothers say to us to try and keep us from being hurt. What they’re actually saying is—‘I’m afraid the world will hurt you the way it did me and I don’t want that to happen.’ Of course, they can’t stop it and they know it, so they tell us dumb things and for the moment they’re saying it, they feel better.”
She was silent, and I thought I’d gone too far in my mini-lecture. “Then again,” I added, bumping her shoulder with mine, “they could be just trying to keep us from having any fun at all.”
She laughed and bumped me back. “I think that’s it.”
We continued walking up the gravel road toward the house. The flashlight illuminated the path as we looked up to the September sky, wild with stars, trying to remember constellations we’d learned in science class.
“Too many years ago for me,” I said, after only being able to find the Big and Little Dippers and Orion and the planet Venus. Bliss picked out Aries the Ram and Aquarius the Waterbearer.
“Did you know that there is a cluster of stars called the Seven Sisters?” she asked.
“No, I didn’t.”
“My dad showed