Just After Midnight

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

pretend that the world could not—would not—strike with no notice, offering up a loss that could take a person’s breath away. Of course it can, she thought, and you know it better than just about anybody. We only pretend it can’t, a minute or two at a time, to help us get up and out of the house in the morning.

“Here’s the thing about horses,” he said. “They’re like people in one respect—that each one of them is a complete and total individual. People who are just looking at horses from a distance might not see that. But once you get in and work with them, you find out fast. They have their own likes and dislikes. They have people and horses they like and others they don’t, and it might not be clear why. It’s just a preference.