The drive to All Hands Farm usually takes twenty minutes.
I make it in ten.
As I drive up the long driveway toward the barn, an ambulance passes me and the fear running through me intensifies, makes my blood run cold.
When I got the call that I needed to get out there ASAP because Oli was involved in a major incident, I didn’t stop to ask questions. Granted, they didn’t offer me any; they only said to hurry and hung up, so my mind has been reeling on the entire drive about what he could possibly have done.
Did an animal get hurt? Was there a fight? A fire?
Now that I’ve seen the ambulance, I’m more frightened than ever.
Pulling up to the side of the barn, I throw my car in park and jump out the car door.
“Oli! Ace!” I yell, feeling like I’m halfway to hysterics from the anticipation of what’s coming.
Ace appears somehow, but I don’t know from where. I know I’m wide-eyed and disheveled in front of the man I have a huge crush on, but I can’t make myself stop to care.
“Where’s Oli? Is he in that ambulance? Is he okay?”
Recognizing my emotional state, Ace immediately comes to me and pulls me to him. “Oli is fine, okay? He’s fine.”
I breathe a sigh of relief, but quickly realize if he’s not in that ambulance, then who is?
Pulling away, I regard Ace. For the first time, I realize he’s as ruffled as I am. He’s not wearing his normal baseball cap, and his hair is sticking up in all directions, like he’s been running his fingers through it. “Oli’s fine,” he reiterates. “He’s in big trouble. But he’s fine.”
“But the ambulance… What happened?”
He doesn’t back away from me, but starts running his hands up and down my arms in comfort. “Take a deep breath.”
I follow his instructions and realize how badly I need it. I guess I was shallow breathing the whole way here.
“Oli is fine. We had a little problem though, and we’re gonna need to figure out how to fix it.”
The words Oli is fine register, so my heart rate starts to return to normal. But that doesn’t eliminate my fear.
We’ve had a little problem, and we’re gonna need to figure out how to fix it.
I know what those words mean. They mean Oli did something to cause a really bad chain of events. I know it without him explaining, and my heart plummets.
“Do I want to know?” I ask Ace, hoping he’ll say it’s not a big deal, but I know he won’t.
He gives me a sad smile. “You need to know.” He grabs my hand and pulls me into the barn. Oli is sitting on the floor, a scowl on his face and arms crossed over his chest. “He won’t get up.”
“Why not?”
“I just wanted to pet the horse,” Oli grumbles.
Turning to Ace, I know there is question in my eyes. What could possibly have happened?
“Oli broke into the pen with our wild mare.”
“What?” My head swivels around to stare at my son again.
“We have talked to him multiple times,” Ace continues. “He’s been warned about the danger and told he is not to go near her.” He lowers his voice and leans in to speak quietly enough that Oli can’t hear him. “Greer, I’m sorry. I thought his fixation with her was over, and we wouldn’t have any more problems. I feel so guilty that I didn’t see it.”
“Don’t talk about me!” Oli yells, startling a chicken that wandered in with us.
I close my eyes and swallow, trying to get myself under control. I can’t look at Ace when I ask, “Who got hurt and how bad is it?”
He sighs. “Pedro tried to calm the mare down, so we could get Oli out of the pen. She reared up and kicked in the chest, knocking him out cold.”
I gasp and throw my hands over my mouth. “She kicked—that could have killed him.”
Ace nods. “Could have, but didn’t. His vitals were good once the ambulance got here. He’s heading to the county hospital where they can run some tests on him. Maybe keep him overnight. But he was awake when he left. Chances are he’ll make a full recovery. Brittany on the other hand—”
I groan. “Oh, please tell me she didn’t see her husband almost die.”
“She saw. But she’s okay. She’s going with Pedro, and I asked the EMTs to check her blood pressure every once in a while, just in case. They’ll probably want to monitor the baby for a bit.”
A myriad of emotions runs through me. Part of me wants to yell at my son for being selfish and stupid. Part of me wants to cry.
This is why he’s hard to live with. He doesn’t get cause and effect. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell him touching an outlet is dangerous or not wearing your seatbelt can hurt you. Until he experiences the consequence for himself, there’s a disconnect. He doesn’t know how to take anyone’s word for it. Not even mine. And because of that disconnect, this kind of thing happens. Only this time, it wasn’t him who got hurt, it was someone else.
Ace seems to recognize my struggle and grabs my hand. I want to lace my fingers through his, but I can’t. There’s too much unknown now. My son almost got Ace’s best friend killed because of his disobedience and his defiance and his fixations. Yet, I’m the one who’s feeling guilty. Not Oli. Me.
I take a breath to steel myself, drop Ace’s hand, and turn to look at my son.
“I just wanted to pet the horse,” he repeats angrily.
Standing in front of him, I cross my arms and make the only threat that seems to work these days. “Oliver Declan, I have a spoon with me and you have three seconds to get off that ground and in my car. Three… two…”
As soon as I start counting, he starts scrambling to his feet. “I’m going! I’m going!”
“You’re not going fast enough. One…”
Before I can get to zero, he runs out the barn door. I listen until I hear the slam of the car door behind him. Somehow, in the middle of all this, Ace starts laughing.
“Did you just threaten him with a wooden spoon?”
My lips quirk to the side. “Yeah, one time when he was eight, I spanked him with a wooden spoon, and he hated it. I have threatened hundreds of times, but I’ve never once had to follow through since then. It’s the one thing that seemed to make an impression, so I try to use it only in extreme circumstances.”
Ace belly laughs, and I don’t understand how he can find humor in all this. Normally I can see the funny side of things, but this is too much.
“If I had known it was as easy as that, I would’ve been threatening with a spoon too. Especially if I don’t have to follow through.”
I smile at him, my arms crossed, knowing there is more seriousness to be addressed.
“What happens now?” I’m not sure what I’m asking. Or maybe I’m asking about it all—Oli’s enrollment in the program or Pedro and Brittany.
Or us.
My brain is trying really hard to wrap around all of this, but it’s a lot to process at once.
Ace loses his smile and looks at me. I know I’m not going to like his answer. “I don’t know. Mrs. Johnson shuffled the kids out of here before the ambulance came, so I haven’t had a chance to talk to her. I think we’re going to need to sit down and discuss things before we know where to go from here.”
I nod and clear my throat from the lump that’s formed. I guess it stands to reason that the number one question on his mind is whether or not my son is too much of a danger to be here. I don’t know what I’ll do if Oli is kicked out of this program. It’s the first time he’s seemed to have found purpose. It’s the first time he’s been excited about going to school and doing manual labor and learning a skill.
But I don’t tell Ace all that. It wouldn’t be fair to him to try and cloud his decision-making process. Instead I blink back the tears trying to form and say, “I understand. Let me know what you guys decide. I’m assuming he’s suspended for the next couple days at least.”
“I don’t know that either. That would be Mrs. Johnson’s call. But I assume she’ll reach out to you within the next couple hours to discuss the immediate plan.”
“Mom!” Oli yells from the car. “Mom, I’m ready to go!’
I close my eyes and shake my head, frustrated that my son created all this chaos and yet he still can’t see past his own boredom.
I’m so angry. I’m so tired from being his mom. I’m so tired of feeling guilty for feeling this way. He’s not like this on purpose, but that doesn’t change how exhausted I am and how defeated I feel. What am I going to do?
“I better go.” As I start to pass Ace, he grabs my arm, stopping me.
A single tear slides down my cheek. I wipe it away, embarrassed that it’s there at all.
“Greer, none of this is a reflection of you as a mom.”
I nod, even though it’s hard to believe him in this moment. “That doesn’t change that I still have to deal with the situation this time. And next time. And every other time he defies the people in charge. This is every day of my life.”
Ace looks back and forth between my eyes, trying to find the answers to something, but I don’t know what. Finally, he nods once and lets me go.
Climbing into my car, I back out and drive away.
“I just wanted to pet the horse,” Oli says again. “I didn’t mean for anybody to get hurt.”
Those simple words from my simple child are my undoing. That’s when the dam breaks and the tears come flooding out.
I cry the entire twenty-minute drive home while Oli pats my arm trying to comfort me, still not understanding he’s the reason I’m crying in the first place.