It’s five miles to Presqu’Ile, the farm where Callie works. The wheels of my bike creak faster than usual. She’s leaving for Boulderbrook, to train with the U.S. team. She didn’t tell me herself, I heard it elsewhere. We haven’t spoken since I took Unusual back.
A low-lying fog scarfs the dips in the Trappe Road. I can’t really see where I’m going: I get off the tarmac when car lights come. It must be almost midnight, I forgot to wind my watch.
The road to the mouth of the Choptank runs straight into the driveway. Callie has a bungalow near the barn. I haven’t been inside it, I’ve only seen it from the road. She’s never invited me in.
There’s a light on at the stable, but the horses are gone from the stalls. I dump the bike in the hedge where it won’t be seen. Callie’s door is slightly open, the room looks empty. Maybe she left on the lorry, travelled with the horses. I feel for the switch on the wall, but there isn’t one, so I pull the drapes to let in the light from the barn. The wardrobe is open but there’s nothing inside it. The bed is in the corner, in the shadows. Callie’s lying on it, her hands are behind her head.
“What are you doing?” I say, as though she’s the one who’s broken in.
“Waiting till morning,” she says.
She wears a knitted cardigan and tartan pants. Her good pants. She doesn’t seem surprised that I’m there.
“How did you know it was me?” I ask. I walk around the room as if I’m looking for something.
“You have a loud bike,” she says.
I don’t know whether to sit or stand. It’s stuffy, so I open the window. The air makes the hangers tinkle in the cupboard.
“Your room has nothing in it,” I say. I wish I’d seen it with her things. I sit on the end of the bed. The mattress is bare and uneven, no blankets or sheet.
“Everything went with the horses,” she says.
“How come you didn’t tell me you were leaving?”
“I thought it would be better if I was just gone.”
On the wall beside the bed there are jumping pictures, plastered from horse magazines and books she shared with me before she cut them up. She’s made a sort of collage. At the edge there’s a small black-and-white photo. It’s me on Jinglebob at Wangaratta, a picture I gave her from Hoofs and Horns. I reach over and unpaste it, slowly so it doesn’t rip. I fold it in half.
“Here, take me with you,” I say. I put it in the pocket of her pants. “I might not be in a magazine again.”
“You’ll never be as famous as me,” she says. “You’re not as hard on horses.”
I lie down on the bed beside her. The ceiling slants low above our heads, the rain has made patches of damp in the plaster like imaginary countries.
“When I sleep on my back I have nightmares,” I say.
She turns on her side and faces me. Her knitted cardigan smells of straw, it has some seeds from feeding hay. I pull a prickle from the wool.
“I thought you had already left,” I say.
“I don’t like driving in the dark,” she says. Her hands are cold, I rub them. She usually tells me the truth.
“Did you know I would come?” I ask.
I unbutton her cardigan deliberately, she neither helps nor hinders me. She has nothing on underneath it, the scratchy wool against her skin. I trace my fingers on her stomach, slowly making shapes. She looks into the darkness where the rafters meet the floor. She doesn’t answer my question.
I lean over and kiss her, softly like I don’t mean more. She touches my hair, her fingers more certain than when they’re on my skin.
“Can’t we just stay here?” I ask.
She looks out of the window, as if there’s something to be seen. There’s just the black night sky, the glare of the light outside.
Her eyes tighten as I move to lie on top of her. For a moment I lie still, my hands along the bottom of her back. Her skin is soft and cool, her mouth slightly open. The feel of me against her makes her shudder slightly, a quick breath in her throat. She moves out from under me.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, reaching to her.
She starts to say something but doesn’t. She shakes her head in a way that makes her look older.
“Can’t,” she says. She stands and buttons her cardigan, flattens the front of her pants. “You can stay here if you like,” she says.
“Will you take me back in the morning? We can put the bike in the car.”
“I won’t be here in the morning,” she says.
She goes outside as if to get some air, but keeps on walking through the trees to the car. I get up and follow, call out after her, but her head is low, she doesn’t look back. The car door closes in the dark, then the lights come on and she drives away. The back seat brims with luggage.
I stand barefoot in the cold, dark branches, my breath out in front of me, and watch the car fade into the fog. I know that I am sorry, I just don’t know what for.