The Eighty-Dollar Champion - Elizabeth Letts [86]
Later that day, Harry sat in the stands and watched his beloved horse face off against Andante with Dave Kelley in the saddle. Snowman gave a flawless performance and took home the blue ribbon.
Harry chafed in the stands, frustrated that he could not ride.
A week passed. It was almost time for the next weekend’s show when Harry got a phone call from the doctor’s office. The lab results were in.
Harry drove through St. James, his mind full of other concerns. It was hard for him to take time out to go to the doctor on the day before a big show. He would have to be up early to get prepared to drive to New Jersey. Snowman was now leading in the points for the Horse of the Year award, and Dave had agreed to show him again.
The hamlet of St. James was just a village then: a church, a general store, and a fire station clustered around a V-shaped green. A blinking yellow light sat at the quiet intersection of Moriches Road and Lake Avenue. Small farms and tradesmen were mostly clustered around St. James, and the big estates led out to Long Island Sound. From the Knox School, you could look out over Porpoise Channel, a small coastal inlet that bordered the school’s grounds on one side. Life here was peaceful; it seemed so far removed from the hardships of the war years. It was a safe, tranquil place.
Harry swung left toward Smithtown. The cheerful yellow plaster exterior of Saint Philip & James Church was just a couple of miles down the road. Here, Lake Avenue was lined with small shops and businesses, a diner, a hardware store, a liquor store. A few people were out and about, people wearing summer clothes, enjoying the nice weather. He was impatient and wanted to get this visit over with and get back to work. In spite of his weight loss, his frailty, and his fatigue, his mind was fully occupied with all the tasks he had left half done at home.
He pulled his truck into a parking slot and went into the office.
When the doctor greeted him, his manner was grave. He ushered Harry into his office and gestured for him to sit down. The doctor’s look and tone gave Harry pause.
When the news came, it was sudden and shattering.
The slide had shown a malignancy: oral cancer. The only treatment possible was to remove his entire tongue. He would lose his ability to talk, and he would still be fighting for his life. This diagnosis came with no guarantees for a happy ending.
Harry sat in the doctor’s office, trying to absorb the news. The weakness, the weight loss—he had attributed it to his inability to eat because of his sore tongue, not to any severe underlying cause.
Harry was a man of faith, and clearly his faith was being tested. On the ride back up Moriches Road toward home, he thought about his wife, Johanna, and the children, Chef, Harriet, Marty, Billy, and Harry junior. And he thought of the big horse Snowman, who did everything with all of his heart. Compared to his family, compared even to his love for his hardworking horse, all of the ribbons and trophies and write-ups in the newspapers, the sudden look of respect on people’s faces, the cheering of the crowd—none of that mattered now.
As a young boy, Harry had thought life was heading him down a pleasant and predictable path, until the goose-stepping Nazis had intervened, catapulting life in St. Oedenrode into a completely unexpected chaos. And now, once again, Harry’s life had taken a tumultuous turn. By the time he arrived home, he was already determined to bear it with grace.
He did not even need to confide in Johanna—she could see trouble from the look on his face. Johanna had gone through hard times with him before. This was an unexpected blow but they would get through it together.
The following day, Harry drove to Branchville, New Jersey, to watch Snowman