Remember by Eileen Cook

wasn’t the same. I missed Harry, but I wanted to ride again. I felt more like myself when I rode. It sometimes felt that if I could only find the trail that led back to my life before Harry died, then everything would work out.
    I walked in the house for dinner with a bunch of printouts about the different horses, but as soon as I saw my parents, I knew showing them would be a bad plan. My mom stood in a corner of the kitchen, twisting a towel in her hand, and my dad paced back and forth in front of the granite island. I could see the vein in his forehead throbbing. He had that look that screamed, Now is not the time to ask me to buy you an expensive horse. I started to turn around to head up to my room when he spotted me.
    “Where do you think you’re going?”
    I didn’t get in trouble often. Growing up I wasn’t prone to meltdowns, and I didn’t push other kids down on the playground. I didn’t sneak out of the house or steal money from my mom’s purse. I’m not saying I’m perfect; there was the time Win and I drank my parents’ Malibu rum when we were supposed to be babysitting her younger brother. That didn’t end well for a whole number of reasons, not the least being that the smell of coconut now made me want to throw up. I couldn’t even use most suntan lotions. I’d never be able to live in Hawaii. Based on my parents’ expressions, this was going to make the Malibu rum incident look good.
    “Anything you want to tell me?” Dad tapped his foot on the floor. “Or should I call you Emily Ludka?”
    Uh-oh. It felt as if my body had suddenly fallen through the ice into a frozen lake, cold and painful. “I can explain.”
    “Really? I can’t wait to hear this.” Before I could open my mouth to give it a shot, he cut me off. “Do you realize what you did is insurance fraud? If I hadn’t been the one in the billing office when the question came in, if I hadn’t been the one to check with Josh about what happened, we could have taken this to the cops to investigate. How would you like to be having this discussion at the police station?” My dad’s nostrils flared in and out, and his entire face was turning red.
    I felt like kicking myself for being stupid. I should have realized that there would be a claim. Emily Ludka’s family must have prearranged payment through her insurance company.When she didn’t show up, but I still had the procedure, the bill went through.
    “How did you know it was me?” I asked.
    “When we realized there was fraud, the security guard pulled video from the clinic. If he hadn’t shown it to me first, it would have gone to the police.” My dad’s jaw thrust forward. He looked like he wanted to throw a punch.
    “Harper, separate from the insurance, the point is that you had a medical procedure without our consent,” Mom said.
    “I know.” My voice came out small and squeaky.
    “Can you imagine if this had come out publicly? You made a liar out of me, too. I told the insurance company that it was a billing error to cover up what you did. They’ll now be reviewing the past three months of invoices to make sure that was the only one. You’ve caused a lot of headaches for a lot of people, young lady.” Dad put his hands on his hips.
    “I’ll pay for the procedure,” I offered. “And I’ll volunteer in the office if you want. I can make copies, or do data entry, or help with the billing.” I scrambled to think of some way I could make it up to my dad.
    “I think you’ve done plenty to ruin my company without messing around with the billing department.” He noticed the papers in my hand. “Oh, and in case it wasn’t clear, you can forget about getting a horse. And you’re grounded.” He searched for something else he could do to me. “And you’ll be spending your weekend cleaning the bathrooms. And the garage.”
    I took a deep breath. “I know what I did was wrong. And I’m not arguing about my punishment—”
    “I should hope not,” Dad