NO SECRET SO CLOSE is the story of a the most unthinkable betrayal humanly possible — at only 24 years old, Claire Dorotik’s father has been murdered, her mother arrested, and now, in a sinister twist of fate, Claire’s mother points the finger at Claire, accusing her of killing her own father. Battling the feelings of loss, abandonment, terror, and dissociation, and also learning about them, Claire struggles to stay in her master’s program for psychotherapy. However, when Claire’s brothers also betray her and side with her mother, Claire is left all alone to care for the 18 horses she and her mother owned. As the story unfolds, what is revealed is the horses’ amazing capacity for empathy in the face of human trauma, and the almost psychic ability to provide the author with what had been taken from her. Arising from these horrifying circumstances, the most unthinkable heroes — the horses — show Claire that life is still worth living.

Excerpt #20 from NO SECRET SO CLOSE:

“I only know one. But he’s very good.” Two years before I had been sued. I was trying to sell my first horse Cheers, when a woman and her daughter saw him at a horse show and asked if they could take him on trial. I was naïve, and they seemed nice. We wrote a contract on the back of a show entry and shook hands. “The buyer will have two weeks to try the horse, at the end of which time she can either purchase him for the agreed price of $10,000, or give him back.”  That’s what it said, word for word. It didn’t say that if I took my horse back when they didn’t buy him that it would result in “emotional damages” to her daughter. When the woman chased the hauler down the freeway in her Range Rover, honking and swearing at him, I thought he was the one who would suffer emotional damages. She wanted longer than two weeks, but didn’t want to pay for the horse. I just wanted my horse back. But she sued me anyway and hired a prestigious attorney. I had no money. I couldn’t even decipher the papers I had been served with. When I showed it to the trainer I was riding for at the time, she said, “You gotta call Mike, he’s the best.” I took the number and the papers and went to see him. When he saw the name of the woman’s attorney, he told me I was in trouble. But he took the case for $500. It was a pro-bono for him. I thought it was an act of sympathy.

Continue reading NO SECRET SO CLOSE excerpt #20, by Claire Dorotik →