Chapter 13
Josephine kept the broken horse.
At first, I wanted to throw it away.
Lena advised me not to decide for her.
“It belongs to the event,” I said.
“It also belongs to Josephine now,” she answered. “Ask what she wants.”
Josephine placed the horse inside a desk drawer.
Months passed.
One Saturday, she brought it to the kitchen.
“Can we fix it?”
“We can try.”
The missing leg was never found.
We visited a repair workshop run by a retired model maker named Samuel Ortiz.
He examined the toy.
“I can make a replacement,” he said.
“Will it look the same?” Josephine asked.
“No.”
“Can you hide that it broke?”
“I could paint the whole horse.”
She thought about it.
“No.”
Samuel created a new leg from pale wood.
He attached it with a small brass joint, sanded the black marker from the horse’s face, and left several faint lines along its side because removing them completely would damage the plastic.
When he returned it, the wooden leg looked obviously different.
Josephine made the horse stand.
“It works.”
“Yes,” Samuel said.
“Is it worth more now?”
He smiled.
“To sell? Probably not.”
She looked at me.
“Then what kind of worth?”
“The kind determined by what it means to you.”
Josephine began riding lessons at a modest stable near our home.
Not Blackwood Academy.
No designer uniform.
She started on a patient brown mare named Maple who ignored most drama and stopped whenever Josephine became tense.
During the first lesson, Josephine asked whether adopted children could become veterinarians.
The instructor said:
“Adoption has nothing to do with learning animal medicine.”
Josephine looked toward me as if confirming the world could occasionally provide straightforward answers.
She saved the riding certificate her instructor printed at the end of the first month.
May you like
It cost less than one of her cousins’ shoes.
It meant more than everything beneath my parents’ tree.
