Horses

Horses are the focus of one of Brett Bohlinger’s inherited life-list goals, a goal that becomes concrete when she and Brad Midar encounter Lady Lulu, a retired racehorse available for adoption. The possibility briefly opens onto a future Brett can imagine, but the costs, distance, and continuing responsibility of horse care make her question whether fulfilling the goal would be fair to the animal or compatible with her life in Chicago.

The Goal and Its First Practical Test

Horses first become more than an abstract item on Brett’s list when Brad notices a photograph in a flyer at the Chicago Animal Rescue Shelter and asks whether the organization adopts them. Gillian confirms that it does and offers to show them the available horses. Brett immediately objects that they are not getting one, while Brad says the question is for the two of them, at least for now. Their exchange makes the possibility personal without turning it into a settled plan: Brett imagines, for a fleeting instant, her future child riding, then returns to the present and says she cannot care for a horse.

Gillian presents Lady Lulu from a three-ring binder, tapping the horse’s photograph as she describes her. Lady Lulu is identified as a fifteen-year-old Thoroughbred gelding who raced earlier in life. Arthritis and other issues have led her owner to give her up; Gillian suggests that she could still be suitable for pleasure riding or light trail riding and describes her as gentle. The adoption prospect is therefore not simply an opportunity to acquire a horse. It concerns an aging former racehorse whose circumstances and needs shape what responsible care would require.

Care, Cost, and Distance

After they leave with Rudy, Brad brings the horse back into the conversation. Brett argues that the goal should be exempted from her list and explains why: she has called around about boarding, and the expense of boarding, feedings, supplements, and grooming would add up to more than most people’s monthly mortgage. The arithmetic matters because Brett has another use for her limited resources. She asks Brad to consider what Joshua House could do with the same money, turning the decision from a question of personal ambition into a choice between a costly commitment to one animal and support for people at the shelter.

Brad counters that the expense would not break the bank and points out that Brett has recently sold her car. Brett rejects that calculation: the proceeds are meant for Steve Pohlonski, and her savings are already dwindling. Money is only one constraint. The closest boarding facility she found is an hour away, and she says she does not have the time. Taken together, the expense, travel, and regular care make ownership a sustained obligation rather than a single achievement that would complete a line on the list.

Lady Lulu and the Meaning of the Goal

Brad’s interest presses against Brett’s resistance. He asks whether she would really let Lady Lulu go to the glue factory, giving the horse’s uncertain future an immediate emotional edge. Brett does not dismiss that concern, but neither does she let sympathy settle the question. She distinguishes a horse from a dog, insisting that the two are not equivalent responsibilities and that she will not take on an animal she cannot care for properly. Her hesitation thus concerns capacity as well as desire: the prospect of helping Lady Lulu does not erase the demands that would follow adoption.

The conversation also exposes a tension within Brett’s inherited challenge. She wonders why her mother retained such an absurd goal when she knew Brett loved city life and Chicago. Yet Brad urges her to trust her mother’s judgment because the other goals have not let them down so far. The horse stands at the point where loyalty to the list meets Brett’s obligation to make an independent decision. Its presence tests whether completing a goal is sufficient if the means of completion could leave a dependent animal without the time and care it needs.

An Unresolved Possibility

Brett does not adopt Lady Lulu in this encounter. She tears off the check for Rudy, thanks Gillian, and says they will think about the horse; Gillian adds that Lady Lulu is stabled at Paddock Farms in Marengo and encourages them to visit. Later, when Brad raises the subject in the car, Brett proposes that she should be exempt from the goal. Brad does not force a decision: he agrees to put it out to pasture for the moment, while suggesting that she may need time to rein in her fears.

The exchange ends with postponement, not a definitive rejection or adoption. Brett’s imagined picture of a child riding remains years in the future, while the practical questions—where the horse would be boarded, how often Brett could travel there, and how she would pay for care—belong to the present. Horses consequently mark a limit within the life-list structure: a goal can be emotionally appealing and still demand a form of ongoing responsibility Brett is not prepared to promise.