I mentioned here that the sound of Jenna's head hitting the concrete, the thwack, was a sound I remember from my younger days. In fact, confession be told, today stirred a trauma memory in me I had all but forgotten, or at least had forgotten the sound of. It's so real to me again tonight, I can't quite get it out of my head, so, I figure, I'll let it out my fingertips, here.
I was about 14, 15 maybe, at the barn where my friend kept her horse. I had been forced to give up my horse a couple months earlier when my parents decided not to pay the board for him. A whole other story. But don't let me hyperlink back too far. The farther I jump, the odder it gets. So anyway, my best friend and I were at the barn, doing what we'd done every day for years, riding and grooming, daring and laughing.
My friend decided to let her horse out in the paddock after we were done riding. He was an old thoroughbred. She'd had him for several years by then. A remarkably skitzy breed thanks to man, the thoroughbred can be a handful. Especially the ex-racehorse variety, which this gelding was. But he had age on him, and he was calm as thoroughbreds get. Mostly because he loved his owner. Very much.
I see the day so clearly now, sun shining, a cold western new york early winter day, and I see my breath in the air, I see the light rays breaking through the leaves of the trees all around us, I smell the hay, manure, wood chips, and I see her walking out into the padock with a lead line to get him.
I see him looking playful, breaking into a proud trot, she stops, hands on hips, and decides okay, boy, let's play, and the two begin a game of chase until he forgets she's not a horse and kicks up his back feet, and I see them come up and I see them thrust back and I hear them connect with her head, with her face, and I hear that thwack that echos then and doesn't stop echoing ever.
thwack. and the collapse, and the screams. those screams.
I'm closer to the main house than I am to her, so I fly to the door, but no one's home, so I fly to the long driveway, see a couple walking a dog, and scream like crazy, echoing my best friends' screams, someone help us please!
I can barely make my knees bend to take them quickly behind the barn to show them where she is. Why won't my legs work? And I take off my ski hat and do my best to keep up with them, but my legs aren't bending, they stiffen with each step, and I'm lagging behind them, but we reach her finally, and we lift her, me under one shoulder, the man of the couple under the other, and we walk her down the hilly driveway to a neighbor's house, and as we walk I see the bloody ruin that was her face, and I put my ski mask up to her face to try to stop the bleeding, and I tell her she'll be okay, just a few stitches, and she says no I don't think so, and I say it happens all the time, you'll see, the doctors will know how to fix this.
And I'm the one left to go see the horse, catch him, put him back in his stall, and take her dog home once the ambulance drives her off, and I'm the one standing inside her house when her father races in the front door after hearing there's been an accident, and I'm the one who says, "They took her to the hospital, sir," as I watch him begin to crumble and then gather himself in his race back out to the car.
She spent weeks in the hospital, with plastic surgeons rebuilding her eye sockets and nose out of new material, removing the mass of shattered bones from her nose, around her eyes, up to her forehead. They gave us the news that 1/2" difference in the landing of his kick would have meant certain blindness and perhaps death; if he'd have had his back shoes on, she would have been dead without a doubt.
I digested this.
I don't know how many surgeries she had over the next several years. A lot. Coming home from college on vacation meant going into the hospital for another surgery. I do know that when I got home from the barn the day of horror, when I told my mother what had happened, she gave me a drink. Of whiskey or something. To calm my nerves. I do know that I didn't ride for a dozen years after that. My friend did though. She loved that horse, knew it wasn't intentional, that he was playing, except that he had a 1000 pound and four hoof advantage. She has horses to this day.
The event left me with lots of emotions that never really found a home. Guilt over not running to her first; instead I ran for help. Guilt over not being able to warn her that his feet were coming. Fear of animals near my face. Wonder at how the alcohol made me feel so warm in a moment when I felt so cold inside.
