Somber
“Tell me your pushy friend won’t be there,” Robyn said, looking out to the horizon. Kristine had talked her into accompanying her to Clam Beach for a ride. Robyn had just offered to make supper for the exhausted family, and Kristine had accepted on the condition that Robyn join them this time.
“I have pushy friends?” Kristine sounded puzzled.
“The one who attempted to feed Bean,” Robyn said. She could have used her name. She saw it often enough on the card Grace had given Robyn at the barn. Her name and the title that afforded her the audacity to insist that Robyn do more to promote her bowls. “I told her I wasn’t interested in her showing my bowls at some gallery, and she refused to drop it. Refused to accept that I wasn’t interested.”
And then refused to stay for dinner for which Robyn was both grateful and disappointed. She had cooked to Grace and Jen’s chorus and would have enjoyed hearing about her experience playing the cello. Then again, she didn’t need to spend time with another woman who thought of who she could be, not who she was. Even if she did make the blood hum through her veins more rapidly.
Kristine gave a knowing nod. “I don’t know that she has an off switch when it comes to work. She might be getting some help with that now,” she said cryptically. “But I can promise you will be our only guest. Caemon would sure love to see you. He wanted to come today, but…” She paused and looked guilty.
Her attention shifted to the area ahead, and her shoulders slumped. She sat heavy in the saddle, slowing Bean’s stride. They pulled up their animals at the tributary that flowed into the ocean and Robyn remembered. “This is where she was riding,” Kristine said somberly. “I should have said. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to bring Caemon. I don’t want to be reminded about how I can’t always protect him.”
“So many things can be taken from us,” Robyn agreed. She thought about how her relationship with Barbara was like that too. They had been two people with something, not another little human, but definitely something, growing between them. As hard as she’d fought, she couldn’t keep what they had once had from dying.
Kristine turned her face away from Robyn.
“Are they taking her off life support?” Robyn asked.
Kristine nodded, her shoulders shaking as she raised a hand to her face.
Robyn tipped her head back, feeling her own tears threaten. She reined Taj toward the sea and scanned the horizon past the waves and the vast ocean in front of her, the hoof prints in the hard-packed sand disappearing under the next wave. She put Taj into a trot and then to a canter, at first thinking that she was giving Kristine some privacy. Taj’s stride opened up something inside her that urged them both forward, and she opened up the reins, letting the mare move into a full gallop, stretched out beneath her in a stride that evened out from the rocking rhythm of a canter into something that felt like full throttle over a calm sea.
When she realized how far the gallop had carried her, she looped back around, pulling Taj back to a trot that she posted, rising out of the saddle on every other stride.
“She’s such a beautiful animal.” Kristine smiled when they met back up. “I’m so glad that you…” Her eyes scrunched up to pinch away more tears.
“I know. Me too. She’s done a lot for me. Got me thinking about life again.”
“Sorry about…”
“No. Don’t apologize. Death is a part of life. I saw enough of it in the coast guard, and I thought that by retiring, I’d be able to keep my failing relationship alive. I spent too long tiptoeing around the edges of our breakup trying to delay the inevitable. My partner and I broke up a few months ago after eight years. I finally learned that even if it’s harder, facing tough stuff straight on is more productive.”
“That takes a lot of strength,” Kristine said. “Strength I’m sure you have.”
Robyn thought to argue that she was only physically strong, but something in Kristine’s level gaze forced her to reconsider before she spoke. Kristine saw something more in Robyn. The affirmation made her throat constrict, but she accepted Kristine’s assessment, nodding her thanks because she could not trust her voice.