Full Hearted and Heartbroken

Chapter Five

5

            Lucas stops the horse taxi next to the biggest house I have ever seen.  I glance at the house, not wanting to pay any attention to it, but then the house grabs my attention.  It is made of red brick and has several windows.  The door is huge and made of smooth wood.  The windows are huge as well, and they reflect the light inside and outside the house.

“Well,” Aaron Louis says, getting out of the wagon and then helping my mother, “this is our stop.”

“Yes, I will help carry your luggage inside and then take Mr. Louis to his job,” Lucas states.

Lucas helps me down from the wagon, and then carries my things inside.  When I am inside the house, I see brick walls, and decorative rugs on the ground.  There are fire lamps and oak tables.  The cabinets on the walls in the kitchen are made of dark wood, and then they were drawn on with pink paint.  I hated to show how much I loved it, but this house is awesome!

I run/fast-walk to see where my room is.  Of course, I get the room in the attic.  My room is dry and the roof of my room is shaped like a V upside down.  My bed is the size of a double, and the floor is brick with a few rugs.  I like my room, and I am by myself up here.  At our old house, my brother’s rooms surrounded my room, but now I am just by myself.  My mother’s and Aaron’s room is below mine, and my brother’s rooms are next to theirs.

I run down the stairs and find that Mother, Aaron, and Lucas are in deep conversation.  I have no idea what they are talking about, so I just run right past them and explore the rest of the house.  Luckily, my mother doesn’t see me run past her, and so she doesn’t yell at me.  Lucas, on the other hand, does and just laughs.  I know that Mother will want to know what Lucas is laughing at, and so I quickly run around a corner so she won’t see me.

As I explore the house, I notice a small fence surrounding an area in the backyard, and a lean-to is inside the fenced in area.  I finally find the back door, and walk out to see what the fenced in area is for.  When I reach it, I notice that inside the lean-to there’s a door.  I walk inside the fenced in area, and walk over to the lean-to.  I open the door inside of it, and see horse halters, ropes, whips, bits, saddles, and brushes.  I walk around the horse tack and touch every piece of it.  The horse tack is, of course, very dusty and dirty.  It must have been hanging there for many months or even years.  That meant that someone who lived in this house owned a horse, but not a very big one.  The horse they owned must have been a pony; I can tell by the size of the horse tack.

I walk over to the saddle and notice a name carved into the side of it.  The name that is carved into the saddle is “Grey”.  Wait!  That’s Lucas’ last name!  I turn around and about run into a person who is standing behind me.  The person, I realize, is a man.  He stops me and steadies me so I don’t run into him.

“Whoa!  Calm down, Tammy,” Lucas says.

I do calm down because I realize it’s just Lucas.

“What are you doing in here?” he asks, not kidding around.

“I was just exploring and saw your last name on the saddle over there,” I state and point to the saddle.

Lucas lets go of my arms and walks over to the saddle.  He rubs his hands over the name and then rubs his hands on the other horse tack.  I can see he is trying to hold back tears that are pushing on his eyes.  He stops once he gets to me and looks down at his feet, sad and maybe a little embarrassed but I don’t know why.

“Are you okay?” I ask and move a step closer to him.

He nods, and then goes on to explain.  “I lived here as a child.  My parents were the wealthiest in town.  I had five brothers and three sisters.  When I was around five, my father bought me a little quarter pony.  He was so beautiful.”  Lucas was starting to cry now, and I bravely walked over to him and let him cry onto my shoulder.