The sound of the wind, the horse’s hoofs and her heavy breathing blocked her thoughts.  Sometimes she screamed her anger and disappointment into the wind.

She had been excited when she called to her father’s office.  She was waiting for college acceptance letters and thought that one had arrived.  She found both parents waiting. 

“Lee?” her mother had prompted her father, who seemed unable to look at Tina.

When his silence continued, her mother sighed and began.  “Your father and I have disappointing news.  Our financial circumstances have changed, not for the better, and, well, we won’t be able to send you to college,”

Tina had stared, her mind not yet adjusted from her expectation that their news was that she had been admitted to Vassar.

Her parents looked at one another, confused by their daughter’s reaction. Her mother then continued “Please understand that we are that we are as unhappy about this as you are.”

Tina stood in silence, blinking as she began to understand what she had been told. “Please tell me that you are teasing,” she begged.

“Your father and I are sorry, but it can’t be helped.”

Tina glanced at her father and could see his humiliation but, for the first time ever, she did not care if she caused pain. “But grandmother told me, she said she was leaving me money for college?” Tina had yelled at her parents, confusion and anger mixed in her words.

“There is no money.”

Tina looked back and forth between her parents.  Her father continued to look down and her mother would not meet her eyes.

“You spent it!  You spent the money that was supposed to be mine!” Tina screamed as her disappointment began to spill out of her eyes. “You took my money!”

“TINA VICTORIA KENNARD, you apologize right now for speaking to us that way.”

“NO!”

Tina had run to the stable for the first of her many crazed rides on the chestnut stallion.

She graduated from high school, telling surprised friends and disbelieving teachers that she had decided that she wasn’t interested in college.  The lie was essential to preserving what remained of the family reputation.

She rode again and again.

She almost always rested and watered Argo at the same pond before her frenzied ride home.