The Gift Horse

Chapter II

Meredith is awake and fully alert when her alarm goes off. She brushes on a basecoat of make up and puts on jeans and a sweater. Her Yorkshire Terrier's nails scrape along the wooden floor as she walks down the stairs to the kitchen.

The terrier was Olivia's 10th birthday present. She named her Lemon and dressed her up in pink, carried her in a bag to show all her friends. Olivia doesn't even feed Lemon now and Meredith is so tired of asking her that she just does it herself. Meredith never liked small dogs. Her parents didn't have dogs, but Mr. Jack had two German Shepherds and if Meredith wasn't brushing horses, she was running around in the field with the two dogs barking playfully at her heels. Little dogs are loud and spoiled, but Meredith doesn't let Lemon get that way. She sprayed water in Lemon's face with a squirt bottle as a puppy whenever she barked. Now she just has to show Lemon the squirt bottle and the dog will clamp her mouth shut.

Lemon sits patiently as Meredith treads down the stairs. She knows not to move until she's beckoned. Meredith kneels down, stretches out a hand, and the dog sprints to her, attacking her face with quick little licks.

Meredith goes into the kitchen and sees the unopened can of dog food. Swearing under her breath, she begins preparing Lemon's breakfast.

"RJ forgot to feed you again?" She looks down at Lemon, who tilts her head and blinks back at her.

Meredith feeds her and lets her out, then makes scrambled eggs for Olivia. The eggs are cold by the time Olivia comes downstairs and Meredith and Olivia have got to get going if they're going to make it to school on time.

"I'll just grab something at Starbucks," Olivia says.

Meredith tips the plate over the garbage can and scrapes the untouched eggs into it. They don't taste good cold, anyway, she thinks.

When they get to Starbucks, Meredith sits in the car while Olivia goes in and comes back out with two drinks but no food.

"What about breakfast, missy?" Meredith lifts her eyebrow as her daughter climbs into the car.

Olivia groans, "I have protein bars in my locker." She holds her iced latte in one hand while the other cradles her phone and her thumb taps furiously against the screen.

"Watch that drink," Meredith warns as the liquid laps around the edges of the cup. A coffee stain on these leather seats would never come out.

Olivia giggles at the screen, ignoring Meredith.

"What's funny?" Meredith asks.

She shakes her head. "Nothing."

Meredith sighs and grips the steering wheel, feeling the tiny holes in the leather around her fingers. She wonders if Olivia was this cold to Tripp when he gave her rides to school last year. She must've relished in the fact that, as a freshman, she got driven to school by a senior and knew all of his senior friends. In the beginning of this year, Meredith started taking Olivia to Starbucks before school to make up for his absence. She always hoped it would earn her brownie points, but she knew better.

The drop-off lane into Greens Farms Academy is half a mile long and it moves at two miles an hour. A lot of mothers drop their children off on the side of the road and have them walk into the grounds, but Olivia insists that her ballet flats will get soaked in the dewy grass.

"What if you wear boots and carry the flats in your bag?" Meredith asked once.

"Boots look stupid with a skirt. Besides, there's no room in my locker to put them in," Olivia responded.