Nadine

71. Torture

The next morning I am getting my hair dried by Dipak and Tre is sitting at the desk doing something. Dipak insisted I wear a human dress today because we will be outside dealing with arena stuff.

"Ok sweetheart I lied." Dipak is looking at me like he hopes I won't throw something at him.

I look right at him over by book, from my stool. Both boys are standing by each other. "What about?"

"I lied so we could surprise you with something. We're not actually doing arena stuff today."

"What are we doing?"

Tre laughs for a second. "It's a surprise baby. We can show you now." He picks me up over his shoulder and carries me out the door. He gets me half way to the entry before he puts me on my feet.

They both push me out the entry. We get outside and Butter is there. As well as a couple other horses. I look at them funny and Tre puts me on Butter. They each get on a horse and we start walking.

"What's the surprise?"

"You'll see sweetheart. We kept it a secret for this long, we are not telling yet."

"I don't like secrets."

"We know baby. But it's just 1 and it was never going to be a secret forever. Just until we could surprise you." I smile big. I love them.

We walk all the out nearly to the edge of the property. It's past the woods and everything. We get there and we walk up a little path. I'm so confused. No one talks. I just walk up the path on Butter.

There are trees on both sides of the path so I can't see far. We are walking back into the woods. It's a beautiful path. I walk around a curve and I see a building. I walk and stare at it. I get closer and look around some more. There is a barn. With a fenced in place for the horses. I see chickens and a little coup.

I stop and look back at the house. There are flowers by the steps. I start crying at this point. There's a swing on the porch. I feel something connect in my chest. There's a garden. There's a place for a fire. I lay down on Butter and start sobbing.

Tre pulls me down. I hold him and cry. He says "Take her, I'll get the horses tied somewhere."

Dipak picks me up and carries me to the garden. I hold on so tight to him. He puts me on my feet. I look at the little plants coming up in rows. I kneel down and touch a leaf. They are baby vegetable plants.

"Sweetheart we planted a few things to start. But we really didn't know what to put in here."

I touch more of the leaves. I take off my shoes and walk in the dirt between the plants. I look at the different stuff they had planted. The peppers and onions. Beans. I look up and they are both watching me. "You did perfect." They both smile.

There's a table between the garden and the fire spot. It has 4 chairs. I sit in one and try to collect myself. They both sit down with me. I sit for a few minutes. Then I start a fire in the fire spot. I move one of the chairs and sit by the fire. They move over with me.

I look at them. "This is?"

Dipak smiles at me. "Yours."

I start sobbing and put my face in my hands.

Dipak picks me up out of the chair and then sits down in it with me in his lap. "We wanted you to have a place for you to be as normal as you want. That day you and Thora were talking about it. I knew we had to make it happen." He kisses my fingers. "Your little garden. The swing. We tried to get all of it sweetheart."

Tre smiles at me. "Even the chickens you can chase around."

"So is this..."

Dipak rubs my back. "No. It's just yours baby. Thora has her own, somewhere else."