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Injury
Pat Athena had the feeling something wasn't quite right. She lay in the darkness, glancing at the clock on her nightstand; 2:54 AM. She knew all four of the kids were home and in bed—weren't they? Looking around a little as her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw the slight sliver of light coming under the door. Someone was up. Pam and Alec were down for a week or so; Alec had agreed to ride a horse in Saturday's Florida Derby for another trainer and he stood to earn a hundred thousand dollars for himself if he managed the win. He'd get ten percent of the million-dollar purse, well, less expenses like his agent's fee but still, it was a lot of money. Second place would earn him five percent of the show purse, third was also good for five percent. Finishing out of the money would gain him maybe fifty dollars. Period. The kids were staying here at the house, Alec working a good part of every day at the track, picking up a few more extra rides here and there and Pam was taking a short vacation from the cold up north. Alec was in demand whenever he made himself available to other trainers and that was what was happening this week. The phone rang for him constantly but he seemed to just roll with it and she was reminded yet again by just how firmly he was ingrained in racing's big time.
Slipping her robe on without waking Jim, she opened the door and made her way to the family room. Alec was quietly sitting alone, reading a book with just the one table lamp beside him, his injured leg propped up on the hassock and supported by two throw pillows, crutches leaning against his chair. One of the cats, black and white Sherlock was curled up next to him, Alec's fingers idly stroking the soft fur. He was shirtless and wearing what looked like a pair of gym shorts or maybe just boxers. She was a little taken aback by the sight of his chest and shoulders, the surprisingly strong arms and well defined muscles developed from years of riding race horses. He was a very strong young man.
Pat watched Alec for a few minutes. He was really quite handsome, still just twenty-one, well built but slender and small for a man—she wouldn't be surprised if she outweighed him by twenty or thirty pounds. When she'd asked his sizes for Christmas and birthday presents he'd laughed. "Pat—I'm a jockey, not a line backer. C'mon—small." Well, sometimes he needed medium for length, but those tended to swim on him. Beyond that sort of thing, he was smart, very smart—you knew that as soon as you started talking to him. He was a college grad in a business where high school dropouts were common. He worked hard and he was as decent a person as she'd ever met. She'd thought that Pam had been lucky to meet him, but she knew Alec would have been disbelieving and said he was the lucky one. She was the rock he'd tied his anchor to.
He'd been hurt yesterday morning during a training session over at Gulfstream racetrack and though he'd been a little vague about what happened, Billy Watts told her the full story when she was getting them glasses of iced tea. Evidently four or five horses were training together in a pick up race when a new jockey who wasn't even involved in the session, an apprentice riding alone, had bulled his way into the pack and gotten too close to Alec's horse, cutting him off. Because there had been horses hemming him in on three sides, Alec's horse was driven onto the rail. He had ridden at forty miles an hour with his leg pressed hard against the rail for over a hundred yards before the apprentice rider had moved his horse enough for Alec to get free. The results had been over twenty-five stitches in Alec's left leg and a thirty-day suspension for the apprentice, along with the fury of the other horsemen at the track. Billy had confided that one or two had to be physically restrained from hurting the kid when they'd seen what he'd done to Alec.
Billy, one of Alec's closest friends and another successful young jockey, had given Alec a lift back to the house after his release from the urgent care facility beside the track, leaning heavily on a pair of crutches. He'd then stayed for dinner to act as a buffer between Alec and everyone else and make sure Pam didn't, as Bill put it, 'flip out'. Finally, pleading that he was tired, Alec had made it an early night, going in to bed around nine-thirty.
He shifted his leg, making a soft pained sound.
"Can't you sleep, Alec? Can I get you something?"
He started a little as he turned his head. "No, thanks. I took something, 'just waiting for it to kick in." He put the book down, sighing and in obvious discomfort. "I only came out here so I wouldn't wake up Pam. Go back to bed, Pat. I'm all right."
She'd heard the same thing from her own sons too often after a soccer game or a rough day out with their friends. "Well then, would you like some company for a few minutes?" He smiled, probably more out of good manners than anything else. "I guess you won't be riding on Saturday." Today was Monday. She settled on the easy chair across from him and noticed the shadows under his eyes; the pain from his leg was taking a toll.
"I'll ride." He saw the look on her face. "It's my job, I'm a professional and I'm on the favorite." He shrugged. "I'll ride. Don't worry about me."
"Alec…"
"It's what I do and the race is almost a week from now; I'll be healed enough by then to work."
"Will the other jockeys go easy on you?"
He shook his head. No. They wouldn't cut him slack, any more than he would if one of them had stitches. If you weren't fit to ride on equal terms you shouldn't be out there. Period.
"Have you had many injuries?"
"A few, not that many, really. I broke a collarbone a few years ago, fractured a wrist and that fractured skull. I'm pretty careful."
Yes, he was, but there were only so many things a rider could do to prevent accidents when there were ten other riders and horses on a racetrack running dead out and all wanting to win. "What about the other races you said you'd ride this week?"
"I'll ride."
She saw some blood had seeped through the bandage and pursed her lips to keep from saying anything. After all, she wasn't his mother and he certainly knew what he was capable of better than she did. She knew he had a reputation as a complete professional but he was injured… "How old were you when you started racing, Alec? I know you must have been young…"
"I'd just turned twelve when I rode my first race; Black ran against Sun Dancer and Cyclone in a special match race. The stewards gave me special permission to ride just that once—jocks have to be sixteen to ride now, to even apprentice."
She'd known he was young but twelve? Riding in a major race at a major track against seasoned riders decades older and more experienced than he was? Good Lord. "And your parents were all right with this?"
He shifted his leg enough to ease it. "They didn't know about it and then afterwards they sort of consoled themselves that I hadn't gotten hurt and that it was just a one time thing." He smiled at that. "Then Black was claimed by his real owner and I pretty much thought the same thing."
"So what happened?"
"Abu promised me the first foal as a reward for saving Black—I thought he was lying, just trying to placate me but about a year and a half later he sent me Satan. He was just a weanling when he arrived, a baby. Things kind of snowballed from there." He shifted his leg again, disturbing the cat who gave him a dirty look before resettling against him. "Satan was a bear to train—bad tempered, violent, stubborn; you name it. One day he threw me when we were trying to get him used to a saddle and I ended up with a hairline fracture in my skull and was out of commission for about a month. After that my father threatened to sell him and if he couldn't he was going to have him destroyed. Luckily he changed his mind." He stroked the cat again. "Besides", he added as an afterthought, "it was my own fault; I wasn't wearing a helmet."
That must have been some scene. She'd known Alec long enough to know that when he dug his heels in there was no moving him. He and Pam had locked horns more than once about his racing and she worried about that with them. Pam fretted about his safety and Alec acknowledged the dangers but loved it too much to quit. "I read somewhere that you were studying for your college finals when you were in the locker room for the Triple Crown races, but—wait. Weren't you too young for college then?"
"Oh, that—kind of, but I'd skipped a couple of years and then I home schooled with correspondence and on-line courses so I finished high school early. So, yeah, I was cramming animal anatomy in the jockey room down at Pimlico before the Preakness. The other jocks were pretty good about it, though; Mike Costello and Jay Pratt quizzed me on stuff and kept the reporters away and made the other jocks keep the noise down. They were always telling them to leave me alone so I could study. It's sort of funny—now they all seem to take some credit for me getting my degree, both the other jocks and the reporters." He put the book he'd been reading on the table next to him. "Usually the older jocks make a game out of hazing the new guys—and I got my share of that, but they seemed to ease up when they found out I was racing around my class schedule." He shifted again, clearly in some pain. "I had to take some time off for the Triple Crown, though—too much travelling and I was missing too many classes."
Pat had no idea. She knew Alec was bright, but this was more than she'd expected. An old quote ran through her mind; something about children who don't have child hoods being tragic—and he'd started racing at twelve after spending months alone on that island with just a horse for company. No wonder Alec seemed so much older and more mature than his age. When had he simply played, gone to a movie with his friends, done the silly and sometimes stupid things kids do when they're growing up? And she was still getting used to him mentioning his racing friends. He wasn't name-dropping at all; he was just talking casually about his friends like anyone would discuss the guy in the next cubicle at work except that they happened to be the biggest names in the business. And Alec fit right in beside them, he'd earned his place and no one questioned his right to be there. A few of them had dropped by the house for a meal or to visit with Alec when he was here and every one of them had been unfailingly polite and pleasant people but they were figures even she knew as the best of the best. It was odd to think that her son in law, this very young man who was always so gentle with Pam was as tough and hardened as the others when he was on the back of a horse. He was respected by the best of them and was clearly accepted as their equal.
Unless something happened to him.
"Alec, do you really think you should ride this weekend?" She couldn't help it; she was a mother, even if she wasn't his.
"I'll be fine, Pat—this is my fourth Florida Derby. I've been doing this for a while now." His voice was a little pointed but he was in pain and probably exhausted as well.
"I—your fourth? But…I mean I know you've ridden a lot of big races but…." She trailed off.
"But what?"
"You were so young when you won the Triple Crown…"
"Seventeen. Cauthen was younger by a few months."
"Alec, did you ever really have a childhood?" He stared at her, not sure what she was talking about. "After you found the Black, did you ever do, well, you know—normal things?"
He was going to give her a flippant answer but stopped himself. "I always knew what I wanted and I worked to get it—whatever 'it' was at any given time…winning the Triple Crown, marrying Pam, racing Black, buying the farm…whatever. Those things always took priority over seeing a movie or a weekend at the shore." He paused. "And it's really not as bad as you make it sound, those things were all conscience decisions I made; they were what I wanted—what I want."
"Does any of it—the, I don't know—the pressures of racing ever bother you? That time we were all went to watch you race I was amazed at how many people seemed to know you and…" She paused. How could she say this without sounding stupid?
"…At the attention I get sometimes?" She nodded. "It's weird and I'm only just starting to get used to it myself. Mostly I just sort of block it out but, yeah, it's strange to have total strangers come up to me and call me by name."
"Steve googled you a couple of months ago and…" She stopped at the look of resignation on his face.
"Almost none of the garbage that's been written about me is true and I haven't cooperated with any of it." Hs leg made itself known again. "Those books and all? I refused to talk to them but they wrote them anyway and just made a lot of stuff up."
"Why didn't you sue?"
"I looked into it, tried to get publication blocked but I was told that I'm considered a public figure—which I don't agree with— and would probably lose. Even if I won and did get the books stopped it would just attract more attention so I tried to ignore them instead." His mouth tightened as another wave of pain went through his leg.
"Would you like me to get you another of those pain pills?"
He nodded. "…Thank you."
She went into the kitchen, coming back with the pill and a glass of water. "Honestly, Alec—how bad is your leg? The truth." She was giving him her 'mother' look, the one that brooked no debate. Billy had told her that it had needed over twenty stitches to close the wound.
He sighed, knowing she was on to him. "It's a tear about eight inches long and it's about a half inch to an inch deep. My leg was pressed up against the rail and it caught me about two inches above my boot. If the rail was a little lower the leather probably would have protected me, but instead it ripped through my jeans and then kind of tore my skin. There was a lot of blood, but it's fairly superficial. It's just the length of it that's a problem, that and wearing boots for a while. My leg is swollen so I may have to try to borrow a larger pair from someone."
"And it hurts."
"Pat, drop it." The cat jumped down, jostling his leg and causing Alec's mouth to tighten in pain.
"Does Pam now how bad it is?" She didn't care if he didn't want to hear it.
He shook her head. "She wanted to see it but I told her that I didn't want to remove the bandage."
He was always trying to protect Pam from things he thought would upset her and she knew that Pam relied on Alec as much as he depended on her. They were a good match.
"Did your parents ever try to stop you from doing this? I mean other than the time your father threatened to sell Satan."
He breathed out a small, almost inaudible laugh. "By the time I was sixteen I was earning six times what my father made. They worried, but they didn't try to stop me."
"Do you still? Earn that much, I mean."
He smiled at her. "Are you asking me about my prospects or were you going to try to hit me up for a loan?"
"Behave yourself—I'm bigger than you are." She yawned.
"Pat, go back to bed." She shook her head 'no' and he smiled at her; his own mother would probably do the same thing. "I do all right, if that's what you're wondering." He wasn't about to talk numbers with her. He glanced at the clock on top of the TV; it was almost quarter of four. "Pat, it's past time for both of us to be in bed. I'm fine. The pills are starting to work now and I think I'll be all right."
It was very late and they were both exhausted. "You're not going to the track later, are you?"
"I have to but I won't ride today. I have to talk to some trainers and I think the stewards want to ask me some more questions about this."
Of course they did. It could have been worse—much worse and everyone knew it. "I'll make sure no one wakes you up." He was standing, stiffly, painfully, arranging the crutches so he could make his way down the hall. "How is Pam handling this?"
"She was upset, but she's okay. She knows things happen."
Yes, she did. "Get some sleep, Alec."
"Good night. Thanks for keeping me company." He kissed her cheek, an unusual display of affection from her son in law. While he was always friendly, he was also a private young man and she felt a flush of satisfaction, knowing—or hoping—that he considered her a friend.
He went into the dark room as quietly as he could, sat as gently as possible on the edge of the bed and eased himself and his leg onto the mattress. He settled in, floating a bit from the pain pills, feeling his muscles relax against the cool sheets and close to sleep.
"Are you all right?" Pam rolled to face him, barely awake.
"Fine, I was just reading in the other room." He slurred a little from exhaustion and the effects of the pills.
"It's four in the morning."
With effort, Alec reached over to kiss her. "Go back to sleep."
"Does your leg hurt?"
"It's good, go back to sleep."
She murmured something he couldn't quite make out but it sounded like 'I love you'. He snugged a little closer to her and, finally, drifted off.
Pat was also back in bed, but lay awake for another hour thinking about some of the things Alec had said to her tonight. She liked him, in fact she liked him quite a lot but she was worried about him. Jockeys got hurt and sometimes they got killed. Yes, Alec was very good, but he couldn't do anything about a horse going down directly in front of him or his own mount breaking a leg with a field of thoroughbreds behind him. Yes, some riders rode for twenty or thirty years without major mishap. It was true, some did. It was unusual, but it happened. Maybe Alec would be one of the lucky ones.
Because if he wasn't lucky, if something serious happened to him, she was terrified about the consequences. As fond of Alec as she'd become, he had his own family to worry about him—it was Pam she was concerned about. Pam was as much invested in her new husband as he was with her. If something happened to Alec, something serious or life threatening, well…
7/1/07
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