Pappa is deteriorating quickly, falling straight off the edge. Eva and I have only been here for six weeks, but the difference is striking. He is skeletal, so thin it is painful to take it in, skin stretched over bone. His nails are yellow and ridged, his hair white, combed sparsely across his scalp.
He hardly eats anything, at least in front of us. Everything Mutti serves—invariably from one of her new vegetarian cookbooks—can be scooped with a spoon or fork, and when it can’t be, she precuts his portion in the kitchen. Even so, it’s such an effort, and often the food falls off before it reaches his mouth. When that happens, he rests before trying again. He probably manages half a dozen bites in the course of each meal, and he’s literally wasting away. Mutti still helps him with his drink, but never with his food. I’m sure it’s because he doesn’t want to be spoon-fed in front of the rest of us, as though it’s somehow a reflection on him as a person.
That’s ridiculous, of course, but I also understand it, having been in the position of not being able to do anything for myself. And like Pappa, I hated asking for help. There were many, many times when I resisted asking someone to scratch my nose, or move my hair so it wasn’t tickling my neck, or lift a glass and place the end of the straw in my mouth so I could take a drink. Although it’s not the same, of course, because my helplessness came upon me with crashing suddenness, and his is encroaching slowly. His very life is slipping out from under him.
His head now leans against the back of the wheelchair, usually at an angle that suggests he can’t hold it upright. Soon there will be wings to the side of the headrest to give him support, or else he’ll have to wear a back and neck brace, as I did in the early days of my recovery. His speech is slowing, too, and when he tries to smile, he usually only manages to pull his face into a grimace that is so terrible I try not to look. It’s the same with eating, but even though I avert my gaze, I’m aware of every failed attempt, every morsel that tips off the side just as his fork reaches his mouth. I am gripped with sadness, desperation, and anger, too. I don’t know where to direct this, although Mutti makes a fine substitute most of the time. And this is grossly unfair, because it is I who am failing, not her.
She spends all of every day with Pappa. Brian comes in the morning and then again at night, but that is only because Mutti can’t do the lifting required to get Pappa in and out of bed. Other than that, she is at his side all day. If she works in the garden, he parks beside her in the shade of the patio umbrella. If she’s cooking, he reads at the kitchen table. They rent movies, they listen to Wagner, they do jigsaw puzzles—an agonizing pursuit, but unlike with eating, he doesn’t seem to mind dropping the pieces and trying again.
There is only one thing Pappa does alone. Every afternoon, just after the horses come in, Mutti opens the back door and Pappa steers out to the porch. Then he drives down the ramp and across the gravel, his head bobbing with each dip in the surface. When he gets to the stable, he stops in front of Razzmatazz’s stall.
As soon as he arrives, the nearest stable hand comes and immediately, wordlessly, slides the door open and puts up the stall guard. Then Tazz, an impossibly tall half Percheron, half God-knows-what, with hooves the size of dinner plates, lumbers over and extends his neck into the aisle. He sniffs Pappa’s face, his hands, and searches his lap for treats.
Pappa always has carrots for him, never an apple, and I’m sure I know why. Unless a horse takes an apple in one bite, you have to give him something to push against, some counter-pressure while he sinks his teeth into it. And Pappa doesn’t have the strength for that anymore. Instead, he comes armed with sections of carrots, which he feeds to Tazz, one by one. Even when the carrots run out, Tazz remains at the stall door, nosing my father and sniffing his chair while Pappa murmurs to him, occasionally bringing a bony hand up to touch the horse’s grizzled face.
I find this both fascinating and heartbreaking. The old Pappa would never have shown such softness. The old Pappa would have considered this coddling.
I watch the nightly pilgrimage religiously, but am careful to stay out of sight. Usually, I hang out around the corner, or just inside the wash rack, but always I make sure that he can’t see me without turning his chair. And when he does, the sound of the motor gives me ample time to grab a shovel or a pitchfork from the wall and stride past with a jolly “Hi Pappa,” as though I’m terribly busy and can’t possibly find the time to stop.
It’s mean, it’s stupid, and it’s immature, but I don’t know what to say to him. I can’t say, “Hi Pappa, how are you feeling today?” because I’m afraid he might tell me. I can’t approach him and talk about other things, because that reeks of cowardice. So instead, I pretend that nothing is out of the ordinary, ignoring the physical reminders that are everywhere: the track in the ceiling that leads to the bathroom, the fact that we take all our meals in the study, the terrible, familiar sounds that emerge from the dining room as Brian gets Pappa up for the day.
Eva seems to have accepted Pappa’s decline and coming death as a natural part of life, and I admire and despair her attitude in equal parts. Death may be natural, but surely not this death. This death is a theft, an abomination, and too close to a palindrome of my own experience for me to be able to cope with it.
This is not a good night. I got caught by Pappa in the stable today, and did my usual “no time to talk” routine, and now I feel terrible about it. But short of seeking him out for a conversation, I can’t think how to rectify it. So instead, the second dinner is over I make my way outside with Jean-Claude. I climb the fence with a bag of apples, and he goes to the stable to get Bergeron.
His devotion to the white stallion is touching. He spends at least an hour in the field with him every evening, talking to him, grooming him, running a finishing brush over his smooth coat. Sometimes he combs Bergeron’s long tail while he grazes, holding it off to the side with one hand and detangling the luxurious white length with the other. He’s a man who understands long hair. It makes me wonder about the women he’s known.
I go and sit in the grass, as close to my horse as he’ll let me come. He’s a tough nut to crack. It’s been weeks, and I’m still bowling apples across the pasture at him. This amuses Jean-Claude no end, but what else can I do?
It’s not as though the relationship is entirely one sided. We’re making progress, even if it is slow. When he sees me, he pricks up his ears. He knows who I am. I’m the lady who rolls apples at him.
Tonight, though, he is being particularly standoffish. Our usual routine is that I roll an apple, he goes to get it, and then while he’s eating it, I inch a little closer. Tonight, he takes the apple, and then flattens his ears against his head at the first sign of movement.
I turn to go back to the house. From the corner of my eye I see Jean-Claude approach the fence. This is an invitation for me to do the same. I walk dejectedly. I’m not in a mood to talk, but I don’t want to be rude.
“Don’t let it get you down,” he says when I come to a stop. “You know how horses are. Maybe it’s something in the wind.”
“Or maybe he hates me,” I say, leaning against the whitewashed boards.
“No. He will come around.”
“You think?” I ask, looking back at my horse. He’s munching the last apple fragment, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Without question. Already, he lets you get closer, no? You should have seen Bergeron in the early days. A real wild man. Crazy.”
“What, him?” I scoff, looking over at the white stallion. “That marshmallow?”
“Yes, that marshmallow,” says Jean-Claude.
“When was this?”
“Eight years ago. I was at a barn outside of Montreal looking at a different horse, perhaps to buy, and this guy was chained in a stall at the back. They’d labeled him as vicious—they were going to put him down, but I saw something in him. They didn’t want to sell him to me, but I persisted. And now look at my Boo-Boo, my beautiful boy. Eh, Boo-Boo?” he says, raising his voice.
Bergeron lifts his head briefly, his lower jaw moving from side to side. Before long, he returns to grazing, rhythmically ripping grass from the ground and swishing his elegant tail.
“You’d never know,” I say. “How did you do it?”
“Love, patience, and time. There is no shortcut, no magic. But it will happen. You will see.”
We both look at my horse, who has moved as far away as possible. He is flush with the fence, pretending not to look at us. His ears are plastered back.
“Something has happened to your boy, that is all. You must give him time to trust you, to want to dance.”
I’ve watched Jean-Claude give enough lessons to know his vernacular. “It’s not going to happen, Jean-Claude. I’m not going to ride him,” I say.
“Well, we shall see,” he says. “We shall see. But for sure, you have a nice-looking boy there.”
There’s something so charismatic about Jean-Claude’s manner that I think he could say anything and I’d believe it. But in this, there’s no question. This horse, such a wreck when he came to us, is looking good. Astonishingly good, in fact, and there’s a whole lot more to it than just a return to a healthy body weight. With some flesh on his bones, his conformation is beginning to show itself. More and more, he looks Hanoverian. More and more, he looks like Harry.
The similarities in coloring were there in the beginning, as was the shape of the face, but it wasn’t until he started to put weight on that the familiar shape began to emerge, like a statue from a hunk of stone.
The change was so gradual that the idea it spawned never hit me in a single moment of recognition. It wormed its way into my head so slowly, so quietly, that I didn’t even know what was happening until it was already there. It was probably lurking for weeks, but chose not to reveal itself until it had staked its turf and set up ramparts.
The first time it crossed my mind, I dismissed it as crazy. But as many times as I slammed the lid down, it rose again, seeping around the edges like steam.
Finally, one night, I could ignore it no more. After I was sure that everybody else in the house was in bed, I snuck down to the study and spent the entire night going through back issues of magazines until I found a photograph of Highland Hurrah. I needed a paper one, one I could take with me.
Then, by the light of the rising sun, I took it out to the pasture and held it at arm’s length, comparing it to the horse who stood in front of me, desperately searching first the horse, and then the picture. Then the horse, and then the picture. Picking out a single marking on one, and matching it on the other.
Highland Hurrah is dead. I know this. I also know that he is grazing in my field. I wonder if the wishing of it could make it so, if somehow, mystically, I’ve caused the lost brindled horse to coalesce, forming him like a diamond by the weight of my heart. I’ve heard of faith healing, of how concentrated mental energy can cause inoperable cancers to retreat into nothingness—is it really so outrageous to believe that I caused the reincarnation of the lost Hanoverian simply by wanting it so badly?
I know better than to tell anyone about this. They already think I’m crazy. Not Eva, of course, who has thrown herself into her work at the rescue center with a zeal I didn’t know was in her, but certainly Mutti does, and Dan. They don’t know exactly what’s going on, but they suspect I’ve gone a little off. I can see it in their faces, in the veil of patience that drops across their faces when I’m talking. The sad nods of understanding from Dan, and the hard, sideways glares from Mutti.
It started with the fact that I wouldn’t name the horse. At first, this manifested itself with gentle teasing, an amusement at how long it was taking me to get around to it. After several weeks, though, it became obvious that my reluctance was something more, something pathological. Dan, polite and kind to the bone, simply stopped asking. Mutti stopped asking, too, but with a kind of judgmental abruptness.
Of course, I have named the horse—or at least, have given him back his old name—but I can’t tell them that. They’d think I was nuts. Even I think I’m nuts sometimes. And yet I can’t get beyond this belief. It looms as solid as an obelisk.
But eventually even I have to admit that I could not have formed this horse from thin air.
There’s a click and a crackle on the other end of the line as I press the phone to my ear. I know I shouldn’t do this, but I’m powerless to stop. When Dan answers, I’m shaking.
“Dan?”
“Yes.”
“It’s me.”
“I know,” he says.
Suddenly I am unable to find the words to start.
“Is everything okay?” he asks.
“Yes, fine. It’s just…I’ve been…Listen, I want to ask you something.”
“What?”
“My horse, how old are his injuries?”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to say exactly.”
“Guess.”
“Four or five months, maybe. Why?”
“Are they compatible with a trailering accident? And a fire?”
Silence from the other end.
“Dan?”
“I’m here.”
“Are they?”
“I guess. They could be. Why are you asking?”
“I think I know who he is.”
“You do?”
“I think he’s Harry’s brother.”
“Annemarie—”
“No, I’m serious. I’ve seen pictures of him—he’s a dead ringer.”
“Annemarie—”
“I know this sounds nuts, but think about it. How many brindled horses have you come across in your lifetime?”
I pause for him to answer, but he doesn’t. There’s palpable disbelief in the silence. I think he’s trying to decide whether I’ve gone off the deep end.
“I know this sounds crazy, but it’s not. I’ve downloaded lots of pictures. It’s not just the coloring, it’s the markings. The markings match. I mean, exactly.”
Again, an awkward pause. “Annemarie, I really don’t think that’s the case.”
“I know how it sounds,” I say, barreling on, and aware that I’m starting to sound hysterical. “I really do. But you have to see the pictures. It’s the same horse.”
“Why would someone fake his death?”
“I don’t know. Insurance money.”
“Why would anyone rather have the money than a world-class eventer?” he says.
“Because Hurrah is seventeen, which puts him at about the end of his eventing career.”
Silence.
“You think I’m nuts,” I say finally.
“I don’t think you’re nuts.”
“You do. I can tell.”
“I think you’ve been under a hell of a lot of pressure.”
“No. You have to look at the pictures.”
“Annemarie, he’s not Harry’s brother.”
“But what if he is?”
“If he were, he’d have been microchipped. Not only that, insurance companies insist on a vet identifying the body, especially for a big claim.”
I hadn’t thought of that. My burgeoning faith sags like a soufflé.
“Look,” Dan continues gently. “I understand why you want to believe this. I know—”
“No you don’t,” I snap. I know it’s irrational, but the microchip thing seems like his fault.
“I do. Believe me, I do. I was there, remember? It was always Harry for you. Always. My God, Annemarie—even your dog is named Harry.”
“She is not,” I sputter in protest. “Her name is Harri—” And then I stop, frozen, stunned by my lack of self-knowledge. “Oh God, I’m nuts. I’ve actually gone off the deep end.”
“Maybe you just need to get out,” Dan says. “You know, get your mind off things.”
“No, I’m just nuts.”
“You have every reason in the world to be stressed out. You’re surrounded by reasons.” Another pause. “Look, do you want to do something tonight? After I drop Eva off? I’m not talking about a date. Just a movie and maybe a bite to eat. Just to get you off the farm for a while.”
“Um…Yeah, okay. Why not.”
“Okay then. Good.”
I hang up, strangely disappointed that it’s not a date.
Okay, so I’m nuts. On this, everyone seems agreed, and for a few minutes after I hang up, I agree.
I’m not blind to the obvious. I know how irrational this seems. Ian McCullough is a respected sportsman, and what I’m suggesting would make him a felon. But then I return to the pictures, and there’s no getting around the fact that this is the same horse. I don’t know whether this shows great faith or pitiable delusion.
Standing at the wooden fence, I look from the picture in my hand to the horse in the field and decide that no, it isn’t pitiable delusion.
For two decades, I’ve felt like a lab specimen in a jar. There’s been a murkiness over everything, a feeling that I somehow skipped a groove and couldn’t get back in. But lately I’ve been seeing flashes—tantalizing glimpses of what’s beneath the veil. I’m starting to feel again in a way that I haven’t in twenty years, and I can’t let it go.
However irrational it seems, I know the truth, and if it has to be mine alone, partaken in secret like an alcoholic slurping wine in a closet, so be it. I won’t let it go.
Dan picks me up at five, and we go to a movie. It’s the most popular of the summer, but I find it distracting because the actors keep taking flight and bounding across the tops of trees. But what I find most distracting is Dan.
True to his word, he is acting entirely platonically toward me. I wonder what he’d do if I just reached out and took his hand. I don’t, because it would probably shock him. A woman as recently single as me probably should not be making moves on ex-boyfriends on explicitly declared non-dates. But still, it would be nice to feel the warmth of his hand on mine, or his thigh under my palm.
I look over at his profile, watching as he picks up a few pieces of popcorn.
I remember the first time I ever laid eyes on him—he was in a group of kids bussed over from the local high school to watch me compete. I was accepting my ribbon, and I saw him behind the boards. He was watching intently while the other kids messed around. And then he smiled at me, a huge open grin. It took my breath away.
He is still the most attractive man I’ve ever seen, with his easy exuberance and clear blue eyes. Even age is looking good on him, which isn’t fair, because it isn’t looking good on me.
Dan turns to me with a questioning look, flashing a smile. I smile in response, and we both turn back to the screen.
Mutti and Pappa loved Dan instantly. To them, he must have seemed like a gift from God—a nice, respectful Catholic boy who encouraged me in my riding. For the first time in my entire life, my parents encouraged me to have a social life. They let me go out on dates, they invited him to the house, appeared delighted when he showed up unannounced. They even approved of him traveling to Marjory’s on weekends, after I went there to train. Dan, it seemed, could do no wrong, and this was the kiss of death.
Could I really have been such an idiot? To pick up with Roger simply because I had seen the disapproval cross Mutti’s face when I introduced them? Relishing her discomfort at his Protestantism, her distaste for his flat personality? You might think that a mother would be pleased to have her daughter bring home a third-year law student, but not Mutti, and so I did the only thing that made sense to me. I dumped Dan and started dating Roger.
It’s strange how it feels as though if I just reached across the armrest and took Dan’s hand we could pick up where we left off. I don’t have any reason to believe he’s even interested anymore. Indeed, why would he be? The last time we were together, I had a hook. I was special. What am I now?
Dan shifts in his seat as he crosses his legs in the other direction, and I feel the fabric of his sleeve brush against my bare shoulder. I press into him a little, and he does not move away. For the rest of the movie, I concentrate on that little patch of cotton and the soft warmth behind it, hinting of the skin beneath.
He takes me for dinner at an Italian bistro, and over soft-shell crab linguine laced with tiny cubes of vine-ripened tomatoes, we touch on the subject of our earlier conversation. I laugh it off, trying to give the impression that I’ve realized how ridiculous it was.
“It just seems so incredible. Just for interest’s sake, you should look at the picture and the horse at the same time. I mean, you know the odds of the coloring. Can you imagine the odds of the markings being exact?”
“You’d have a better chance of winning the lottery,” he says. He turns his fork over and impales a scallop, slick with butter. A tiny sprig of dill, fernlike, sticks to its side.
“That’s why I thought…Well, you know.”
“I do.”
We eat in silence for a few minutes, because we’re treading in dangerous territory. Having him think I’m insane would be a definite impediment to resuming our relationship.
“I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon,” he says suddenly, setting his cutlery down and crossing his arms. I look up, unsure what to expect.
“In fact, I did a little research on coat color and genetics, and the odds of two horses having exactly the same brindling are just about nil.”
I stare at him.
“Do you still have that picture?” he asks.
“Of course.”
“Can I have a look when I drop you off?”
As we walk back to the car after our meal, I slip my hand into the crook of his elbow. He looks down at me, smiles widely, and places his other hand on top of mine.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he says, looking down at the picture and then raising his face to look out at Hurrah.
“See? See?” I say, my enthusiasm getting the better of me.
He shakes his head slowly. “I can sure see why you thought what you did.”
I frown. “But look at it! You said yourself that you would have a better chance of winning a lottery.”
“You would, if the markings matched exactly. But this picture is from a distance, and you can only see about a quarter of the horse. And look, this whole bit, the area under the saddle and rider, is obscured.”
“I know, but look at the shoulder, at the neck. At the star.”
To his credit, Dan actually takes the time to do so. His forehead crinkles as he studies the now worn picture. Then he raises his head to look at Hurrah, squinting as his eyes adjust to the distance.
Finally, he hands the picture back to me, nodding slowly. “It’s very similar. It really is.”
“But you don’t believe me.”
“It’s not a question of believing you.”
I purse my lips.
“Think about what you’re saying,” he continues. “I mean, really think about it.”
I stare at the grass, afraid I might cry.
“I don’t know how to explain this,” Dan continues. “It’s an incredible coincidence that they’re this similar. Perhaps they’re even related—after what I read, I’m willing to believe that these three horses share an ancestor. Maybe even not very far back. But damn, Annemarie…”
My eyes fill with tears. Dan steps forward and wraps his arms around me, pressing me against his chest. My face is buried in his shirt, the top of my head under his chin. And oh, he feels good. He smells and feels so good.
“Have fun?” sneers Eva as I come into the kitchen. She’s standing just inside the doorway, leaning against the counter with one arm. She must have been looking out the window.
“I said, have fun?” Her voice rises like a siren.
“Eva—”
“You disgust me,” she continues. “Dad’s been gone, what, ten minutes, and you’ve already got a boyfriend?”
“No, it’s not like that. Dan just—”
“Don’t even try to deny it. You’re just a horny old woman. You’re disgusting! You make me sick!”
Horny? Old? Since when was thirty-eight old? I open my mouth to respond, but Eva is gone, storming into the hallway, leaving a trail of perfumed air behind her.
“Eva!”
“What is going on?” Mutti appears in the doorway, frowning. “Pappa is trying to sleep.”
“I don’t know. Eva’s mad at me.”
“Why?”
“Because she misinterpreted something she saw.”
“And what did she see?”
I don’t really want to tell her, but if I don’t, Eva will. “Dan hugged me when he dropped me off.”
Mutti continues to stare at me. Then her expression lightens a shade. “I will talk to her,” she says.
“No, please,” I say quickly, because she’s already turning to go. “I’ll talk to her. I just…I just want to let her calm down first, that’s all.”
To my surprise, Mutti comes back. She walks to the cupboard, opens it, and removes two small stemmed glasses.
“Would you like a Jägermeister?” she says.
“Please.”
She sets the glasses on the counter, and then disappears into the hallway. A moment later she’s back, carrying the bottle. She pours a small amount into each glass.
“Do you want it here, or in the living room?”
“Uh, living room,” I say.
After we settle into the winged armchairs, we sip our drinks in silence.
“I haven’t had this in years,” I say finally, holding the little glass up to the light. The lamp shade is rusty orange, the liquid in front of it amber. “It’s good.”
“Did you have fun with Dan tonight?” says Mutti, and when I look at her to see if her choice of words matches Eva’s by choice or chance, I find her staring right at me.
“I did, yes.”
“What did you do?”
“We saw a movie and then had dinner.”
She nods slowly. “It’s good you should get out.”
“It wasn’t a date,” I say.
“So what if it was?” she says. “You need to live your life.”
I take another sip of my drink.
“If you really are finished with Roger, that is,” she adds.
“He’s the one who finished with me, Mutti.”
“I know, Schatzlein, I know.”
This unexpected endearment brings tears to my eyes. I stare at the rim of my glass, trying not to blink.
“Were things bad between you?” Mutti continues.
I sigh, and look out the window. “No,” I say, finally. “No, they weren’t. But neither were they good. They just kind of…were.”
“And then this Sonja came along…”
“And then this Sonja came along, and I guess Roger decided it wasn’t enough.”
“Was it enough for you?”
“I don’t know. I guess so. It seemed like it at the time.”
“Did you try counseling?” she asks.
I look at her to gauge her intent. “No,” I say shortly.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. It didn’t occur to me,” I say.
“Did you want him to stay?”
“I don’t think I did, no.”
It feels freeing, shocking even, to say this, but Mutti doesn’t look surprised.
“Then perhaps it’s for the best,” she says.
“I doubt Eva would agree with you.”
“It is hard for her.”
I say nothing.
“You know how it is with fathers and daughters.”
“This is totally different,” I say quickly.
“Are you so sure, Annemarie?”
I am milliseconds from saying, Yes, because Roger never drove Eva the way Pappa drove me, because Roger has never forced his own ambitions on our daughter. Because Roger actually cares what Eva wants to do, and doesn’t bully her, or make her feel like she’s ruining his life if she doesn’t devote hers to fulfilling his dream.
When I look up, Mutti is watching me. “I know you are having a hard time with this, Schatzlein,” she says gently, and I know she’s talking about Pappa, has read the rant in my face. “But don’t wait too long.”
I shake my head, my eyes once again filling with tears.
“And I know it wasn’t you who started this whole thing, but don’t let what’s happening between Roger and you get between Roger and Eva.”
“He left us, Mutti. We didn’t leave him.”
Mutti raises her glass and uses it to point at me. “He is divorcing you, Annemarie,” she says in a voice that is both gentle and firm. “Not your daughter. And besides, you are not blameless. It takes two to get a marriage into this state.”
Actually, I am divorcing him, but I don’t feel like arguing. Besides, there’s something else I want to ask her.
“So, Mutti,” I say, examining the base of my glass and trying to sound casual. “You never told me. What’s Dan been up to for the last nineteen years?”
When I look up, there’s a smile seeping across my mother’s face.
A quarter of an hour later, I go upstairs and find Eva’s room empty. As I turn to leave, I hear the click of a door, and see her slip out of my room.
“Eva?” I say, moving toward her. “What were you doing in there?”
She growls and heads for the stairs.
“Eva!” I call, but she ignores me. I hear her clomping across the main floor, and then the crash of the screen door.
I go into my room and scan it quickly. Everything looks normal. The bed is made, with the usual Harriet-shaped indentation on its cover. My computer is on, but the screensaver is playing.
I move to the window, and see her crossing the yard to the stable, with Harriet close on her heels. Then, without knowing why, I lay a hand on top of the telephone receiver. It’s warm.
I pick it up and bring it to my ear. Then I press REDIAL.
There’s a flurry of digital tones, and then a pause while the line connects. It rings three times, and then someone answers.
“Hello?”
I freeze. It’s Roger.
“Hello?” he says again, after a pause.
I open my mouth, and just as I decide that I’m going to hang up, he says, “Eva? Is that you, honey?”
Damn. He’s got Caller ID.
“No. It’s me,” I say. It never occurred to me that Eva would call Roger. I can only imagine what she told him. I don’t think I want to know.
“Oh. Hi,” he says.
“Did Eva just call you?”
“Yes,” he says.
“Did she sound okay?”
“Why? Is something wrong?”
I feel like I’m digging a hole for myself. “No. Yes. I mean, no, she’s just upset with me, that’s all. And I didn’t think she was talking to you.”
“No, she’s talking to me. She’s been calling me a couple of times a week.”
“She has?”
“Yes. Why is she upset with you?”
I parry. “She didn’t say anything to you?”
“No.”
I shake my head, relieved. “It’s not important.”
“It’s important if she was upset.”
“It’s just the usual Eva stuff. A mountain from a molehill.”
“Well, if you’re sure…”
An interminable, insufferable silence stretches between us.
“Was there something you wanted?” Roger finally says.
Oh God, of course—he thinks I called him on purpose.
“No,” I say. Good grief. Is that really the best I can come up with?
“Is everything okay?”
“Fine, fine,” I say irritably.
“I’m glad you called. Are you still checking email? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you.”
“Not really. I’ve been working at the stable, so I’ve been using my parents’ account.”
“Did you know we’ve got a court date?”
“No,” I say, feeling suddenly sick.
“July twenty-sixth.”
I sit down, slumped against the little table. That’s less than three weeks away, five days after our eighteenth anniversary. “That’s awfully fast, isn’t it?” I rub my forehead, frowning. “I mean, we haven’t actually come to an agreement on the settlement yet.”
“I was actually surprised I hadn’t heard back from you. Have you read it?”
“No,” I say. I’m embarrassed at having to admit this.
“Will you, please?”
“Yes. Yes, I will.”
We lapse into another silence, but this one feels deliberate.
“Annemarie?”
“Yes?”
“Are you doing okay?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” I don’t want to have this conversation with Roger. Roger, who probably has Sonja waiting beside him in a silky negligee right now, her smooth, young legs tucked up beside her, a hand resting delicately on his arm.
“I’ve got to go,” I say suddenly.
“Okay. So you’ll—”
“Yes, yes. I’ll read the settlement.”
Next stop: stable.
It’s completely dark now, and as I head across the yard, I am surrounded by mosquitoes. I resist the urge to break into a run, choosing instead to flap my arms uselessly around my head, and hoping that Jean-Claude is not looking out the window. On some days, there are no bugs at all, and on others, it feels as though they might carry you off into the woods.
The doors to the stable are open, and an enormous black fan, four feet tall, stands at the entrance blasting humid air down the aisles. There are no lights on, but I can see all the way to the arena by the light of the moon.
I love the stable at night. I love the stable during the day, too, but at night, when there’s no one here but the horses, it feels like a different world. The sweet scent of hay and shavings, of leather, and manure, and oats. The occasional shuffle and snort, the hissing sound as hay is pulled through nets. And best of all, the scent of horses. Unmistakable, and like nothing else in the world, is the scent of horses. I’ve been known to go into a stall and press my face up against a horse’s neck just to get a snootful. I do that now, before I go looking for Eva.
I check the lounge first, but she isn’t there. Then I check the tack room, the trophy room, and the long hallway between the aisles, the one lined with boarders’ trunks. She could be anywhere, could have slipped into one of the stalls with a horse, or knelt in the corner of a wash rack, or behind one of the trunks. She could have climbed the ladder into the hayloft, or hidden behind the couch in the lounge. If she really doesn’t want to be found, I’m not going to find her.
I slip into Bergeron’s stall and run my hand under his mane. Despite the fan, he’s sweating. I leave his stall and check a few of the other horses. They’re all sweating, and those who have windows are facing them, muzzles pressed to the screen.
I head across the arena to open the doors at the end. As soon as I step out onto the sand, I see light glowing behind me. I stop, and turn around.
The light is on in my office. Eva is sitting at my desk with her feet up. She’s facing my monitor, with her hand on my mouse. She hasn’t seen me.
I sigh, and cross the arena. At the far end, I slide the massive corrugated doors open, grunting with the effort. The cross-breeze is instant and gratifying, and I stop for a moment, savoring its coolness.
When I turn back, Eva is watching me through the window. She must have heard the doors. We look at each other for a long time, my daughter and I. Then I head back to the house.
I’m not surprised at Eva’s outburst in the kitchen. If anything, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner. And once again, it seems I’ve missed the boat.
I knew this was coming, and yet I did nothing. I could have sought her out and given her a chance to talk about it, but I didn’t. She’s always so angry, approaching her seemed pointless. Perhaps I should have done it anyway, and given her the chance to rebuff me. At least then she’d know that I wish she weren’t hurting.
She and Roger were always close, and it’s perfectly reasonable for her to miss him. What I don’t know how to deal with is her expectation that I should too. She seems angry that I’ve given up on him, although she knows perfectly well that it was he who gave up on me.
I don’t know how to make her understand that our losses are not parallel. The fact that mine doesn’t even feel like a loss is something that I don’t understand myself, so how can I explain it to Eva?
I should be devastated. I should be trying to win him back, or grow poisonous with rage, or hire a hit man, or something—something! But I’m not, and the absence comes as a shock. I’m angry—yes, of course, make no mistake. But the heartbreak never came.
I expected it—even braced for it—and I thought that the calm that settled was temporary, a way of coping until I could take the hit. But it still hasn’t come, and I’m beginning to think it’s not going to. I seem to have sloughed Roger off as easily as a snake shedding its skin.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. I didn’t marry Roger because of an overwhelming need to be with him. I married Roger because Harry was dead and I was paralyzed, and I no longer knew which way was up. Before the accident, it had been so clear, but afterward, it was as if someone had turned the pencil upside down, erased my future, and then casually brushed the crumbled remnants off the page.
We’ll still get married, he told me. If we have to, we’ll adopt. And while I didn’t remember agreeing to get married in the first place, I was so grateful that he wasn’t running away from me—me, this hideous head in a fishbowl, this brain on a platter—that I just went along with it.
As horrible as it is to say, in some ways, his leaving feels like a second chance.