If Wishes Were Horses by Curtiss Ann Matlock

friendly and hopeful.
    She said, “It’s here, I guess.” She felt sorry for being so sharp with him, yet irritated that he could be so pliable that he never let her sharpness bother him.
    “And I thank you,” he said, opening his thermos. “How’s Miz Etta doin’?” he asked, his expression getting serious.
    “She’s not awake yet, but when she does get awake, I imagine she’ll be havin’ a hard time.”
    Obie nodded and said, “I imagine.”
    Latrice thought that he might as well not have said anything at all, although she bit her tongue on this observation. She knew she was in a bad mood and being overly critical. He cast her another hopeful look—trying to wrangle an invitation to breakfast, she knew.
    She said, “I have things to do,” and went back into the house.
    At the door she sipped her coffee and watched Obie walk back to his truck, slumped over as if she had shot him.
    Each morning she felt a silly expectancy in her chest, for what she didn’t know, but she would look for Obie, and he would come with his own hopefulness, and whatever it was she expected from him, he never did, because then he would go away, and she would feel disappointed.
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Chapter 6
    When Johnny got himself awake enough to sit up, he saw a man off to the right, hefting a feed bag onto each shoulder and toting them past the pickup. The man was one tall drink of water Negro, a lean pole topped by a blue ball cap.
    "Mornin’,” the man said to Johnny, as if he saw a stranger wake up in the back of a pickup truck in this very barn every day.
    “Mornin’,” Johnny returned with equal politeness.
    Realizing he was scratching his head, he stopped, not wanting the man to think he might have bugs. He knew he looked pretty poorly. He watched the tall man continue out and dump the sacks of feed in the back of his own truck.
    Despite wanting to do better, Johnny sank back against his saddle. His head was pounding like a jackhammer. The tall man came three more times for feed sacks, while Johnny tried to get his head to quiet down. He listened to the red horse’s hooves gallop around in the corral, listened to the morning birds, listened to the tall man drive off in his truck. It gave a few good pops, which didn’t help Johnny’s head.
    Suddenly he realized he smelled coffee. He thought he had to be dreaming, but he sat up again and saw a steaming enamel cup sitting on the edge of the tailgate. He had not heard the tall man’s footsteps, but he knew it had been him that had brought the coffee.
    Johnny eased gingerly to the tailgate, dragging his boots along, stuck them on, and reached for the cup. He curled both hands around it, savoring the warmth and the aroma of the dark brew before tasting it. It was strong enough to open his eyes wide. Coffee warming and easing his pounding head, he sat and gazed at the house out across the yard. It looked silent.
    After he drank the last drop, Johnny went and snaked the hose connected to the outside spigot into the barn, secured it over the partition of a stall, and took himself a shower. He cursed a couple of times, splashing on the icy well water and watching goose bumps grow and parts of him shrivel in the cold water and air.
    Johnny had always been particular about keeping clean. He felt it came from his mother being somewhat of a fanatic about keeping him clean as a boy. He had been raised around a lot of women early on, his mother being a whore in a house in Fort Worth. All the women there had mothered him. They’d wanted so much for him, as mothers tend to do for their sons, and they had insisted he always be exceptionally presentable.
    Even when down on his luck, Johnny always managed to find a way to wash himself, but sometimes washing his clothes was a bit more difficult. It did seem, though, that things always turned around for him just when all his clothes got dirty. He found either a job or a woman. As he slipped into his last clean shirt, he figured things were due to turn