Flying across a grassy field and hanging on for dear life, I didn’t cry. I loosened my grip on the reins and instinctively clenched harder with my thighs; then, and to this day I don’t know why, I let go and stretched my arms out to the side as if they were wings. I felt like an angel flying through the clouds. I never felt safer, or more free, than at that moment.
When my father caught up to me, he was amazed that I was so calm. “How did you do that, Sylvia?” I guess he meant, how had I managed to stay on the horse without falling. All I could do was shrug.
“You’re a natural, I guess,” he said, but still, he took the reins and led us back to the stables.
Since then my father and I had talked about horses, but after my mother scolded him for putting a little girl on a “wild” horse, I thought it could never be more than talk. Yet here we are, standing outside a fence looking at a horse who is looking at us.
We stand there, silently admiring the horse, who moves closer to make sure he has our attention. The suspense is killing me: Why are we here? I look at my father, who just smiles and intentionally looks away. I look back at the horse, who is now snorting, his head bobbing up and down. Is he trying to tell me something? I wonder.
Finally, the man who looks like a cowboy says to my father, “You going to let her know?” I quickly look toward my dad. He seems to be mulling it over. I can take it no longer.
“Daddy! Is he for me?”
“Hmm. Could be.”
“Stop teasing her,” said the cowboy, “and let her get up on her very own horse.”
I scream and hug my daddy. “Thank you, thank you, Daddy. What’s his name?”
“Laredo,” replied the cowboy. “He’s a quarter horse.” I didn’t care what he was; I just knew he was mine.
Daddy and the horse that got away with me on it (Sylvia Harris)
For the next few months, I couldn’t wait for each school day to end so I could bike to a stable not too far away and bond with my Laredo. I was sure he spent all day just waiting for me to show up and tell him all about my boring day at school. It didn’t hurt that I sometimes would bring carrots for him.
One day I raced to the stable, as usual, only to find that Laredo was gone. No one at the stables had an answer for me, so I biked home as fast as I could. I found my mother cooking dinner and begged her to tell me what had happened to Laredo. She wouldn’t talk about it, and told me to speak to Dad. I discovered my father had sold Laredo. It was too expensive to take care of him. My father suddenly needed the money, which I couldn’t understand. After all, my family was living the American dream on a quiet cul-de-sac in Santa Rosa. I took piano and dance lessons and went water skiing. I thought if we just got rid of all of those lessons, there would be more than enough money to take care of Laredo. I begged my father to get Laredo back, but he turned a deaf ear.
“Horses aren’t important,” he told me. “Go do your school-work and stop bothering me about this nonsense.”
I went to my mother, hoping she might influence my dad. “Can’t you get Daddy to change his mind? Please, Mom. I won’t need any Christmas or birthday presents—ever,” I said.
“Your father knows best, Sylvia,” which was code for they weren’t speaking. I may have only been twelve turning thirteen, but I knew my parents barely talked to each other. There always seemed to be something going on between them. My mother was little, like me, and hadn’t been healthy for years. She had Crohn’s disease, a chronic, episodic, inflammatory bowel disease that at times caused her great pain and forced her to undergo several surgeries. At one point, she even went down to seventy pounds and couldn’t lift herself out of the bed. My baby brother and I would try to help, but most of the load fell to my father, and he seemed to resent it.
There was nothing left for me to do about losing my horse but to cry on the shoulder of my best friend, Gidget. Yes, that was really her name—Gidget Harding—and she lived across the street from me. Where I lived was truly a slice of American idealism. And even though we were the only African American family around, everyone was friendly and supportive and race never seemed to be a factor. Not only did I cry on Gidget’s shoulder but also on her lavender-flowered bedspread and the teen magazines she tried to show me to get my mind off of losing Laredo. Before long she was crying too, and we consoled each other by promising to one day get our own horses. We then calmed down and began to think of names for the horses we would have one day.
“Alice,” she suddenly blurted out.
I told her that was kind of a plain name for a horse.
“No,” she said. “I’m talking about Alice Patterson. She lives on a farm. They must have horses. Maybe she’ll let us ride them.”
My excitement over this idea brushed away the sadness I was feeling, and we immediately called Alice. The next few months I consoled myself with visits to Alice’s farm, where there were beautiful working horses. The three of us were like Charlie’s Angels on horseback. We would ride bareback through the farmlands by her house. “I’m sliding off! I’m sliding off!” I would cry, but I never did. Riding always came naturally to me.
It was only a few times that we got to ride the horses at Alice’s. They were needed for other duties. Eventually, my parents tired of me hounding them about another horse. To divert my pleading, they made me take ice-skating, piano, and dance lessons. I enjoyed the diversions, but I never stopped longing for a horse.
I was always athletic and enjoyed sports. I became quite the star in gymnastics and track, winning meets and even participating in the state championships. The competition and success I had helped to distract me from the growing tension between my parents. The strain of my mother’s illness and her needs were taking a toll on their relationship. Always a heavy drinker, my father began to indulge more and more. Violent arguments between my parents soon became standard fare.
“Did you fall and get those bruises, Evaliene?” he would ask innocently the next morning while she cooked him breakfast. She’d nod dutifully and serve up his bacon and eggs. I sort of knew what was going on but never fully acknowledged it, preferring a loose sort of denial. As an adult, I now know that when he hit my mother, he was in an alcoholic blackout, but as a child it threw me. Not just his questions about what had happened, but the way these periodic outbursts—coming after days of binge drinking—contrasted with the life we projected to those around us … just a normal middle-class family.
We made the most of the natural splendor unique to Northern California. We would escape to the local parks and lakes for waterskiing or camping. It was hard for my mother to travel with us when she was ill, but somehow the four of us would drive to Lake Tahoe for mini holidays. On those vacations, as we sat at restaurants, we seemed like a regular, normal family enjoying each other’s company. For a few days, we would play the roles of loving husband, father, daughter, and son. But there were still few signs of affection between Mom and Dad. I rarely saw them holding hands, and hugs were not the norm for any of us.
I liked school but became a bit of a loner. Except for class or participating in school activities, like track, I wasn’t very outgoing. Even my relationship with Gidget and Alice waned. I felt more comfortable around my pets—dog, cat, whatever creature I might be befriending at the time—than around other kids. My place of choice at home was in my room, reading or doing experiments with my