High Hurdles (44 page)

Chapter
•
6

“I think you should see your father,” Lindy said two evenings later.

“You gotta be crazy! Why would I do that?” DJ could feel her jaw hit her chest. “You said I wouldn’t have to.”

“I know. I’ve changed my mind.” Lindy sank back against the sofa as if she could no longer hold up her head. She rubbed her forehead, and the telltale gesture warned DJ that her mother was bordering on a migraine.

DJ watched her mother, hoping for a change of heart. “I talked with him on the phone. Wasn’t that enough?”

“For thirty seconds?” Her mother’s eyebrows lifted slightly, and she gave a minute head shake.

DJ clamped her mouth shut on all the things she wanted to say. Granted, she’d prayed for
him
, but only because the Bible said to. After all, she’d told Gran, wasn’t she supposed to pray for her enemies? Gran had chuckled when DJ turned that verse on her.

But was Brad Atwood an enemy?

“So, will you?”

“Will I what?” DJ brought her mind back to the present.

“Darla Jean, please pay attention. This is extremely important.”

DJ nodded.

“I am asking you to agree to see your father. He would like to come here to visit.”

“I don’t have to go to his house?”

“No, not until you want to.”

“What if I don’t ever want to?” The urge to chew her fingernails made DJ bite her bottom lip instead.

“I don’t know yet what the legal ramifications might be. The way the laws read today, Brad could force the issue.” Lindy rubbed her head again. A lock of hair swung forward on her left cheek, and she absentmindedly pushed the wayward hair back over her ear.

“Mom, he never paid any attention to us all these years. How come he can just drop in and make me see him?”

“I don’t know.” Lindy looked her daughter full in the face. “DJ, have I ever said anything to make you hate your father?”

DJ shook her head. “We never even talked about him. I guess I figured he died or something. I liked our life the way it was—Gran and you and me. I never needed a dad.”

“But didn’t you question why we never mentioned him?”

“Once or twice I wondered, but it was no big deal.” DJ sank into the soft wing chair that had always been Gran’s. “Guess I thought more about getting a horse than getting a dad.” She studied the cuticle on her right forefinger.
I will not bite it off. I can do all things
. “What does Robert say about all this?”

“He’s the one who suggested you see Brad.”

“Tell him thanks a big fat bunch. I thought he wanted to be my dad.”

“He did and he does. Nothing has changed there. He and the boys are coming over for dinner tomorrow as a matter of fact.” When DJ groaned, she added, “Robert’s bringing the dinner.”

“Oh, good, then. I don’t have time to cook and neither do you. And if this rain doesn’t let up, I’ll be so far behind in jumping Major, I’ll have to start all over again.”

“So you’ll see Brad?” Her mother hung on to the subject like a starving dog to a bone.

“All right!” DJ wrinkled her forehead and thumped her hands on the arms of her chair. “But I don’t have to like him.”

“But you’ll be polite.” It wasn’t a question.

DJ stuck her finger in her mouth and bit off the troublesome cuticle snag.

“DJ.”

She made a face. Now her finger stung, and she could see blood rising to the surface. She sighed. “Yes, Mother, I will be polite. When is he coming?”

“Sunday afternoon.”

“Sunday afternoon! Why didn’t you check with me first? If it’s not raining, I want that time to work Major.”

“This is slightly more important than one workout.”

“That’s what you—” DJ clamped her mouth closed.

“I’m not asking you to sell your horse, for crying out loud. As important as this is, it will only take a couple of hours to do. Gran and Joe will be here, too.”

“So Joe can beat him up?”

“Darla Jean Randall, if you would be so kind—”

“I’m leaving. I’ll be in my room studying if you decide this is all a horrible mistake.”

“Good night, DJ.”

DJ climbed the stairs, feeling like she was dragging the world behind her. She glanced out her bedroom window and grew more discouraged. Rain pocked the miniature lake in their backyard and roared in their downspouts. Was this what Noah had felt like? How’d he handle forty days and nights like this?

She thought of an idea and barreled out of her room and down the stairs. “How about if I just call and talk with him? I could do that.”

Lindy nodded. “That’s a start. Then you can decide if you want him to come on Sunday or not.”

“No question there,” DJ muttered under her breath.

The next afternoon in English class, DJ groaned along with the rest of the kids.

“You want us to do what?” one of the boys moaned.

“You are all going to begin keeping journals. The purpose of this assignment is to write something every day to get in touch with what is going on inside of you.”

“My insides want food.”

The class snickered.

DJ felt like putting her head down on her desk and groaning, too. How was she going to write in a notebook every day? She had too much to do already. She tuned back in to what the teacher was saying.

“There are many ways of keeping journals. Famous people all through history have kept journals—it is one of the ways we know what life was like way back when. Thomas Jefferson kept a journal, as did Ben Franklin.”

“How about some women?” asked a girl.

“Many did. There are collections of journals kept by the women who traveled the Oregon Trail. Abigail Adams never failed to write in hers. However, the one I want you all to read is more current than those and was written by a young girl about your age. When you read her journal, you will get an intimate picture of a Jewish girl hiding from the Nazis during World War II. There’s a new version out now that contains entries not published in the earlier. Have any of you read
The Diary of Anne Frank
?

DJ raised her hand. Not too many others did.

“How many of you have seen the movie?”

DJ kept her hand up.

“Good.” Mrs. Adams turned to the board to add some more instructions. “You will need a three-ring binder or a spiral notebook. I prefer to use a binder because I can add more pages as I need them, but a spiral-bound notebook is fine. Put your name on the front of the book and date each entry. I’ll expect an entry for each day.”

“How long do they have to be?” someone asked.

“As long as you want, just so you write more than one sentence a day. It’s important that you write down how you feel about the day’s events or anything else you might be thinking about.”

“Right now I feel tired,” the boy behind DJ whispered.

“But what if someone reads what I wrote?” another student asked.

“Hey, yeah. Are you going to read them?”

“Only if you want me to. I’ll have you turn in your journal once a week at first, then if all is well, twice a month. All I am interested in is making sure you wrote every day.” She looked at the girl who had brought up the privacy issue. “A journal is a very personal thing. I would not leave mine out for anyone to read, and if that’s something that worries you, you may store your journal here in the bottom drawer of my desk and insert your pages as you go.”

Great, how am I ever going to keep up with this assignment? I don’t have anything to write about.
DJ propped her forehead on her hand. What a bummer.
I can’t keep track of all I’m doing already.
She swapped looks of disgust with the girl across the aisle.
What a stupid assignment.
She broke into her internal complaining long enough to listen to what the teacher was saying.

“I have copies of the older edition of
The Diary of Anne Frank
, but if you want to read the new one, you’ll have to buy that for yourself at the local bookstore.”

Fat chance
. While DJ enjoyed reading, it usually took a backseat to riding and drawing. While other kids read, she drew horses.

“Now, I’d like you to take out your notebooks and begin your first entry. Place the date in the left-hand margin and your name up in the right.” Groans echoed around the room, but the class did as asked. “Good. Now, think of something that’s been bothering you today. Did you have a fight with your brother or sister? Someone say something that ticked you off? Bad hair day?”

Giggles and raised eyebrows greeted her small joke.

“Whatever you feel like writing about, start in.”

More groans.

DJ stared at her paper. What to write about? Her pencil began to move as if it had a mind of its own.
Last week I heard from my dad. I never even knew his name before, and now he wants to see me
. Before she knew it, the teacher called time. DJ looked down—she’d written three-quarters of a page.

By the time DJ turned her lights out that night, she’d covered four pages, both sides.

She didn’t need her mother’s questioning look to remind her that she’d said she would call her father. Every time she decided to pick up the phone, the butterflies in her midsection would go into a grand free-for-all. About the time she felt them halfway up her throat in a full-blown flight for freedom, she’d chicken out and they’d go back to roost.

What would she say?
Hey, come on down and let’s be best buds?
Or
You come down, but I’ll be gone
. Or better yet,
Gee, been a while since I saw you—if I ever did
. DJ knew none of those would earn points with her mother. Or Gran, for that matter. When she tried praying about it as Gran suggested, it was like talking into a phone when the other person had already hung up. There wasn’t so much as a dial tone.

“Just do it and get it over with,” Amy said, hands on her board-flat hips.

“Easy for you to say, you saw your father this morning.” DJ held out a carrot to Josh, who took it daintily, as the sorrel Arab cross did everything. He and Amy were just right for each other, both small and neatly put together.

“What’s that got to do with it?” Amy stopped brushing. “My mom says to just do the hard stuff first and get it over with. Then you’ll like yourself better.”

“At least your mom is married to your father.” DJ rubbed the spot near the tip of Josh’s ears that made him act half asleep.

“Yeah, I know.” Amy started brushing again, the dust flying as she used both hands. “But you’ve been snorting over this for what seems like forever. Wouldn’t it be easier just to get it over with?”

“What do I call him? Mr. Atwood? Bradley? Brad? And what if his wife answers the phone—if he even has a wife.”

“You could call him Dad.”

“He’s
not
my dad.” DJ’s raised voice made Josh pull back against the crossties.

“Oh, really now?”

“Come on, Ames, Dad is for someone you like.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “I’d rather say, ‘hey you.’ ”

“DJ, I don’t care what you call him, just do it quickly so you can concentrate on riding again—and school and drawing and anything else but this.” Amy threw her brushes into the bucket. “Major’s waiting for you.”