Leap of Faith by Fiona McCallum Page B

much choice right now.
    She finished her sandwich and poured herself a cup of coffee from the thermos. As she sipped, a strange calmness came upon her. What if Tiffany was right, and everything – good and bad – happened for a reason? Could her accident have been a way for the universe to stop her in her tracks?
    Both Tiffany and Steve had been worried that she hadn’t grieved enough for her father. They’d now stopped saying anything about it, but Jessica had detected odd glances between them since. She wasn’t sure what they expected her to do. Carrying on was what she knew – Collinses didn’t drop their bundles and sit crying in corners. Jeff Collins hadn’t when he’d lost his wife, and Jessica had followed his lead. She’d simply and silently sobbed in the confines of the loo for a few nights before firmly telling herself tears didn’t solve anything.
    It was something her father had driven home plenty of times since she’d started riding, after every fall, after every poor dressage test, cross-country and show jumping round. She’d be upset and he’d say, ‘Just get back on’, or ‘You’ll just have to do better next time’, depending on the situation. He would have been furious with her at losing concentration this time and presenting Prince at the fence so badly. Forget her injury, Jeff Collins would probably only have let her off the hook if she’d ended up in a wheelchair for life.
    Jessica tried to tell herself she was being too hard on him, and heard her mother’s voice clear in her head: ‘Don’t speak ill of the dead.’ But a newsreel of memories of minor injuries began rolling in her mind, starting with the time she’d fallen while training over the huge Irish bank he’d put in.
    She’d known her arm was broken when she’d hit the ground – the snap had been so loud she couldn’t believe her father hadn’t heard it too. She’d screamed in agony, but what had he done? Thrown her back into the saddle and told her to do it again – properly this time. And with the pain and shock making tears stream down her face, blinding her, she had done as she was told.
    Twice more she’d had to go through, and could barely stand when she’d finally got back to the stables and dismounted. She shook uncontrollably. She was twelve. She’d felt her ‘snivelling like a girl’ had been vindicated later that night when her mother brought her home from the hospital in plaster, but there was no apology from her father. ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,’ he’d said with a shrug more times than Jessica could ever have counted.
    It had been his mantra. He’d also been fond of regularly reminding her about each of the Olympians who had gallantly carried on with their cross-country rounds while seriously injured. And of course he’d been right. Jessica Collins was well known for her robust, fearless nature out on course. She’d learnt, thanks to her father’s tough love, to rise above the pain. And to conquer the fear, after being made to go around their course of jumps at home plenty of times with her eyes closed, without stirrups or without reins.
    He’d been a hard taskmaster, but he’d got her to where she was. Jessica couldn’t help thinking, though, that she wouldn’t have a busted leg if he was still alive – she probably would have been more focussed.
    At least she hadn’t been part of a team and hadn’t let anyone down but Prince and herself. Well, and her father. She wasn’t at all religious and didn’t really believe there was a heaven where everyone who had died was lying about stretched out in deck-chairs like at a resort, watching the goings-on down below on earth. But she did have the uneasy feeling that Jeff Collins would know she had let him down. He had always seemed to know everything.
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