Excerpt From Jo Grant’s Journal:
…I don’t know whether I was in the hospital, or if it was the next day, so I don’t know whether it was drugs or not, but I had another dream I don’t expect I’ll forget.
I was at home, trying to walk out onto the porch through the front doors, but they were hanging almost off the hinges, and I could hardly move them and wedge my way through without them falling and crushing me.
There were boards torn up on the porch floor, and holes in the walls behind me. And when I put my head up and looked at the sky, there wasn’t one bird, or the sound of a squirrel, or the whine of a car on the road.
I looked down the hill all along the drive, and across the pastures toward the barns on my right, and toward Buddy’s house on the other side – and there wasn’t one single living thing as far as I could see, except grass and shrubs, stunted in the winter, with the wind blowing through. Not one horse. Not one dog, or barn cat. Not one person to be seen.
I let myself down onto the porch step, and it was hard going, getting myself down there, like every bone and joint in my body had seized up over night. I called out and no one answered. I hollered for Jed, and Sam, and Emmy, and heard no sound in reply. I called for Daddy and Mama and Tommy. And I set my hands down on my thighs – and saw right then they weren’t mine. Not the hands I’d grown with. They were blue veined skeletal claws bunched up and attached to ancient arms thin as withered sticks. I was old, and dying, and sitting alone with not one single living thing to care if I lived or died…
Betts came into Jo’s hospital room just as Jo had begun to show signs of coming around so she and Alan were standing at the side of Jo’s bed watching her together, when Jo opened her eyes and gazed at Alan as though she couldn’t figure out how to focus.
She said, “Tara,” in a tight parched voice.
Betts smiled and squeezed Alan’s arm, then walked out the door as he said, “The Sheriff’s got her in custody.”
Jo faded away again.
By eleven-thirty that night, Alan had told her about Alice’s Dictaphone. That the Sheriff’s woman dispatcher had found keys to Alice’s and Spencer’s houses hidden in the lining of Tara’s purse. That Tara had parked at the abandoned farmhouse on the old Clay farm just south of Jo’s and walked to Jo’s through the fields. That they assumed she’d been the person who’d left the cabinet door open the night before, and that she’d picked the time of her attack on Jo then, when she’d read Toss and Buddy’s schedules on the blackboard in the feed room.
“She was raised around horses so she understood about tractors and manure spreaders, and how horses get tranquilized, so—”
“Was she trying to kill me with anesthetic?”
“Nobody knows. Tara’s not talking, so all we’ve got is conjecture. Did she try to pull you toward the manure spreader?”
“The whole time we fought.”
“Peabody and I thought that might’ve been the case, and that maybe she intended to just drug you enough that you’d be easier to muscle into the blades or onto the P.T.O. shaft. That way it’d look like a farm accident, and there wouldn’t be an autopsy that would find the Acepromazine. Does that make sense to you?”
“I guess so. Sure.” Jo was holding a hand above her eyes as though the ceiling light hurt.
“Buddy said there wasn’t much Ace missing from the bottle. Maybe half a cc, and we doubt that that much got injected. The syringe had broken on the floor, and some was spilled there. You want me to turn off the ceiling light and turn on the bedside lamp?”
“Thanks. She kept dragging me toward the spreader, and she was strong. Stronger than I ever would’ve thought.”
“Adrenaline can do that.”
“Did Tuffian hurt her?”
“He broke some ribs and landed one heck of a kick on one of her thighs. She’s got a huge hematoma. And you hit her pretty good with the sprayer too. She needed quite a few stitches.”
“I tried. I was getting woozy, and I knew I had to stop her soon. The sprayer head’s got a pretty sharp edge.”
“She went berserk when I told her about the Dictaphone. She actually tried to tear the feed tub off the wall and kept kicking the walls and screaming.”
“She looked totally deranged when she attacked me. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I haven’t either. Well, that’s not true. I saw crazy things in the war. Even weirder, in a way, was that when the cops drove up, she stopped screaming and kicking. She wouldn’t make a sound after that. She crouched down in the back of the stall and held her arms clenched tight against her body with her hands balled up in fists. From then until they took her away, her eyes kept jerking from one side to the other really fast, time after time. I think she was trying to act normal, trying to hold it all in, but she was absolutely enraged and completely off the edge. It was very peculiar. Very strange.”
“Yeah, and very scary. I don’t want to see anyone like that ever again.”
“No. How do you feel now?”
“Rubbery. I’ve got a headache but it’s not too bad. How are Booker and Spencer?”
“Stunned. Angry. Grieving badly. It’s hard enough to lose someone unexpectedly, as you know from Tom. But to have it be murder too, that makes it even worse. You’ve got hatred, and forgiveness, and everything that’s a part of both of those to cope with. I only talked to Spence for a minute on the phone, but he told me to tell you he was sorry you got hurt. Jack was here earlier. He stayed as long as they’d let him.”
“Thank them for me. Please.”
“I will.”
“So was that Tara Toss heard in the drive the night before she attacked me?”
“That’s what we think.”
“Was that last night? Or the night before? Time’s not like normal right now.”
“Last night.”
“So why did she come to the barn then?”
“Casing the joint, I suppose. Looking for a place to attack you. She could’ve already planned to use the manure spreader, and come to find it too. And then she saw the Acepromazine and the syringes. Though it could’ve been the other way around. She would’ve figured they’d be somewhere, but having them in the same barn, farthest away from your house, might’ve made it easier.
“We’ve got meds in every barn.”
“I didn’t think to ask Buddy that. But the one thing we know for sure is she parked next door tonight.”
“You think she filled the syringe last night?”
“She could’ve. If it was ready to go, there was one less thing she had to make happen when you were in the barn with her.”
“When was she at Alice’s house the day she killed her? Mary was there, and Richard, and Jack too, so—”
“Right around five. Peggy found out from someone in accounting that Tara left about twenty of. She said she was going to the restroom, but didn’t come back. Maybe figuring no one would notice, when they were getting ready to go home.”
Jo nodded, propped up on pillows, then took a sip of water. “Is Sam okay?”
“Oh yeah, he’s fine.”
“Emmy! Is anybody taking care of her?” Jo pushed herself up higher on her pillows, and her dark blue eyes looked strained and tired. Her eyebrows seemed to be protecting them too, pinched down around them, as though her head really hurt.
“Yep. Buddy and his wife moved into your house to stay with her. We haven’t been able to reach Toss. He’s still in the woods with his buddies.”
Jo nodded, and was quiet then, as a new night nurse came in and checked her vitals, and told Alan that the head nurse had made an exception for him to stay until Miss Grant regained consciousness, but now he needed to go. She’d be back in five minutes, and he’d have to leave then.
Jo looked wan and weak and exhausted. Her hair was tangled across a shoulder in a clump she would’ve hated, and her eyelids were starting to droop.
Alan stood and watched her for a minute, before he started toward the door. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“I guess I’m lucky to be alive. Right?” Jo’s eyes were open again and as serious as Alan had ever seen them, and she’d pulled her lips in, and tucked them tightly together. “I mean with the injection, not just escaping the manure spreader.”
“Yes, I think you are.”
“Thank you for what you did.”
“You’re welcome. You would’ve done it for me.”
“Probably.” Jo laughed then, weakly, and smoothed hair off her forehead. “I hallucinated some strange things. Sam turned into an elephant.”
“Did he?”
“I remember more than you might think, too.” She smiled at Alan, as though she were teasing him, waiting for him to react.
He looked as though he’d been stabbed for a second, before he recovered and smiled back. “Good. Well. We’ll talk more tomorrow. I’ll call you in the morning and find out when I can pick you up.”
Sunday, June 10th, 1962
Not quite three weeks later, Spencer walked into the plant at Blue Grass Horse Vans and saw his dad standing by the open side door of a big custom van they were building, looking into the space behind the cab where a bed and storage chest had been built in. Booker was measuring the walking space, with a clipboard under his arm.
“I thought I’d find you here.” Spencer walked up behind him, before Booker turned around.
“What’s up?” Booker was even thinner than he’d been, the tendons in his throat standing out like metal bands, his jeans sliding off his hips, though the arms that grew up on a Lexington farm still looked thick and muscled.
“I came to get you.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“It’s Sunday. It’s two-thirty. You’re working too hard.”
Booker looked over Spence’s shoulder, as he slipped his measuring tape in his back pocket. “There’s work that needs to be done.”
“Yeah. And there’re horses that need to be worked. I’ve been riding Mom’s and yours, but Buster needs more attention. And he’d rather have it from you.”
Booker stared at Spencer for a minute, and saw everything Spence had gone through living right there on his face – the love, the loss, the regret, and the worry. And Booker said, “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll be there about four.”
They rode together through the woods behind Spence’s land, walking, trotting, cantering when they could. Not talking much, not thinking either, just riding and paying attention – fine-tuning aids, adjusting gaits, talking to horses they knew really well with legs and hands and words they understood.
When they came out into a field that sloped down to Clear Creek – a wide, shallow, wandering stream with a hill starting up on the other side – they let the horses drink first, then tied them to two small saplings, while the two of them sat on the bank.
It was the perfect height for sitting – knees bent, boots on the creek bed four feet from the stream – and they sat and watched water roll over rocks, and splash across stones in the shallows, rippling into white lace edgings, sliding smooth over terracotta bottom ground, making sounds that soothed the soul.
Spencer leaned sideways and picked a piece of clover, then chewed it before he spoke. “I moved one of Mom’s paintings in the living room today. I wanted to put it where it’d get better light. And guess what I found underneath?”
“What?”
“A ten inch hole hammered in the plaster.”
“Son of a pup!” Booker was staring at Spencer, his face looking set and stiff. “Tara?”
“Nobody else would’ve done it.”
“Nuts. Guess she wanted to let you know she got the message the marriage was off.”
Spencer smiled cryptically, and picked up a pebble. “Yeah, and Mom paid the price.”
“Now, wait—”
“There were holes under all my paintings, so a lot of the house’ll have to be re-plastered.”
“Damn, Spencer. That woman is nuts.”
“Vicious and vindictive might apply too.”
“You planning to tell the sheriff? Let ’em fingerprint and photograph and all?”
“Yep. I’ll give him a call in the morning. Makes you kinda wonder what she had in mind for me if she hadn’t gotten caught with Jo.”
“She’d know better than to mess with you.”
“Physically, yes. But she used drugs on Mom and Jo, so having been in combat wouldn’t necessarily help.”
Booker shook his head as though understanding Tara was beyond him, then leaned back on his elbows. They were both silent for a minute. Before Booker changed the subject. “It was sure good to see Martha.”
“It was.”
“I wish she could’ve stayed longer. But she’s mounting a new exhibit, and the deadline’s coming right up.”
“She’ll come home more now, and bring the kids with her. Hal will think she should, and Charleston’s not that long a drive.”
“I’m glad Allie got to see Martha’s museum. It gave them a lot to talk about. I’d hear them on the phone lots of nights just chatting and carrying on.”
It was quiet then for a minute, except for the sounds of horses cropping grass and water sliding by – till Booker cleared his throat and spoke more quietly than normal. “It’ll be three weeks tomorrow that your mother was murdered.”
Spencer nodded, but didn’t say anything.
Booker’s hands were holding each other between his knees as he sat bent forward with his elbows on his thighs, and his eyes set on the stream. “We had forty-one good years together. I don’t have a right to complain. But I don’t know how to go on without her, without filling every minute with work.”
“Why would you? Nobody ever does. And not too many husbands and wives have been as close as you two. Besides, working hard makes more sense than a lotta things people do when they’re learning how to adjust.”
“You know what the hardest part is?”
“Nope.”
“Not having your mother to talk to. She was the one person I ever did talk to. Completely. Confided in, I guess you’d say. I mean, I can talk to you more than anyone else. And Martha some, when she’s here. And Richard about certain things. But it’s not like talking to your mother.”
Spencer nodded, but couldn’t think of a thing to say.
“I couldn’t have done the business without her. You know what I mean. I relied on her to set me straight on the things she saw that I didn’t. She never could’ve started the business. She’s wasn’t an inventor, or an engineer. She wouldn’t have beaten the bushes for investors, or hounded the folks at the bank. But she understood people and how to structure an organization better than I ever will, and the advertising and PR too.”
Spencer nodded again, before he picked up another pebble and lobbed them both in the stream.
Booker closed his eyes for a second. And then changed the subject. “So Tara’s still in the hospital, is she? Under ‘observation’?”
“Far as I know. They’re deciding whether to try her as a criminal or deal with her as a mental case.”
“They better never let her out, that’s all I can say!”
“I can’t even think about that. But it’s my fault too that she killed Mom. If I hadn’t been blinded by the—”
“Your mom and I hired her! None of us saw what she was like.”
They were quiet again. Staring straight ahead. Till Spencer sighed and shook his head. “And then there’s Gigi. Her Aunt Betts’s got her now, and that’s good. But I hope she gets to go to her dad. I don’t know what kind of legal obstacles there are, because of him hitting Tara. But if he can’t have custody, I hope she stays with Betts. She’s kind and reasonable, and she trains and cares for horses really well, which means something, as you know. She’ll help her grow up to be strong and independent, and give her a stable place to be.”
“Was that intended as a pun? ‘Stable?’”
That was the first time Booker’d made a joke since Alice died, and Spencer smiled, but decided not to say anything stupid like, It’s good to see your sense of humor’s coming back. “She’s better off anywhere than with her mom. But now everybody knows her mother’s a murderer and a nutcase, and that can be hard on a kid.”
“Kids can get over a lot, though.”
They both threw stones in the water, skipping some, dunking others, till Booker said, “You know, someday I’ve got to get to the place that I can forgive Tara. You and I both do. But God’s going to have to do it for me. Because I can’t get there myself.”
“I know. Me neither. And then there’s Richard. He must be feeling awful about what he said to Mom.”
“Interesting you should mention Richard. Because just this morning…” Booker stopped and swallowed, and tossed another stone. “I went into your mother’s study. It was the first time since we got back from England. And I found a letter, sealed, with my name on it, that she wrote me that afternoon after she and Richard talked.
“She told me everything that got said between them, and boy, was she right. She looked him in the eye and told him what she thought he needed to hear, whether he wanted to or not. I know why he was angry with her. But I hope what she said does him some good. He’s apologized for what he said to her, of course, and I accepted it. I just hope he makes some changes. If he doesn’t, I may have to make them for him, and I’m not looking forward to that.”
“No.”
“I love Richard as much as I love you and Martha. It’s not a matter of love.”
“I understand.”
“You don’t, really. I don’t think you can till you have kids of your own. But he doesn’t have the interests, or the temperament, to be content working in the business, or make a real contribution.”
They both stood up and stretched a minute later, then checked bits, and tightened girths, and swung back up in the saddle.
Halfway home Booker said, “Something else I meant to tell you. I took your advice.”
“About what?” Spencer looked over at his dad, who was sitting tall and relaxed like he always did, as though he’d been born on a horse.
“I told Fred Heffner we have to part company. That we appreciate what he’s done, but it’s not a good situation. That we need a Marketing Director with a different approach.”
“How’d he take it?”
“Not well. But we’ll give him a good severance package. I wish Allie were here to put the package together, though. It’s the worst part of being in business, letting people go.”
“You can say that again.”
“I’m sure glad your mom wrote the note to Peggy about wanting to bring Michael Westlake back.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Do you s’ppose she wrote it that same day, and the letter for me too, ’cause she knew she had physical threats to face with the blood clot and all? I’d hate to think she was afraid of Richard, or thought that—”
“She documented everything having to do with personnel.”
“That’s true. And she was prompt about it too.”
“She’d be really relieved to see Michael doing as well as he is.”
Booker nodded, as he rubbed both sides of Buster’s neck.
Spencer watched, and waited, before he changed the subject. “When do you think we should go back to England and finish what we started?”
“Doesn’t seem so important now. Not like it did.”
“No. I know what you mean. But someday, we ought to work on it again.”
They rode on in silence till they climbed off by Spencer’s barn, and Spencer watched his dad hitch up the riding britches that had fit a month before. “Are you eating okay? Are you cooking for yourself?”
“Sure. I’m okay.”
“How ’bout staying for chicken on the grill tonight?”
“Thanks, Spence, but no. Not tonight. I’ll give Buster a bath, and head home.”
Alan picked Jo up about two on his Triumph Bonneville. He’d asked if she’d wear riding chaps and a leather jacket, because rode-rash was no fun at all. She was waiting in both when he got there. And he handed her a helmet before she climbed on.
“Hold on tight.”
“I can’t believe you got me to do this after Tom died on a bike. I rode with him as a kid, but—”
“It’s not any more dangerous than riding a horse. With a bike you’ve got other people to worry about. With a horse you’ve got the horse, who can spook at something you can’t see without any warning.”
“Yes, but you aren’t doing sixty when you hit the concrete.” Jo wrapped her arms around Alan’s waist and looked around his left shoulder.
“We don’t have to go sixty. I will ferry you along with absolute circumspection.”
They were gone for an hour and a half, gently sweeping around curves and hills, stopping once at a country cemetery to stand and stretch their legs.
They played with Emmy when they got back, and walked with her to give Sam an apple, and found Toss in the second broodmare barn. The doctors had taken the cast off his right leg, and put a much smaller cast just below his left knee, and he was on crutches, swinging up and down the aisle-way, filling water buckets and whistling to himself, but glad to see Alan and Jo.
When the two of them were walking back to Jo’s house, Alan said, “I’ve been meaning to tell you. Brad wanted me to remind you—”
“Brad?”
“Bob Harrison’s son, Brad. My boss’s son who—”
“I know who you mean. But not why I couldn’t place him.”
“Could be the Acepromazine maybe. A residual effect, like with anesthetic. Though I did change subjects out of the blue.”
She grinned and said, “True. And I’d rather think it’s you, not me.”
Alan smiled and tossed Emmy a stick. “Just like everyone else.”
“Exactly.”
“Anyway, Brad wants me to tell you again about the toe space in the lab being too low and make sure you make it higher.”
“He’s sent me that message twice before.”
They both laughed, before Alan shook his head. “Bob Harrison’s great. He’s incredibly competent and creative, and he has a realistic long-term picture of what Equine Pharmaceuticals should be. Brad isn’t. And definitely doesn’t. And I have no idea what Bob will do about succession. I can’t work for Brad, I know that.”
“You don’t have to decide today, do you? What you’ll do when Bob retires?”
“No. But if Bob got hit by a truck tomorrow, nobody knows what would happen. It’s a small company trying to get established, and it needs world-class research and a lot of inspired direction. I’d like to work there for a long time, if it goes in the direction it’s going now. And I’ve never felt that before anywhere I’ve worked.”
“Then it must be a good feeling.”
“It is. One other thing I wanted to ask. What’s Toss going to do about Tuffian?”
“Toss claims he’s got a soft spot for Tuffian now, since he kicked the stuffing out of Tara, but says he’s too much of a liability to keep him on here.”
“I see.”
“He thought about giving him to a friend of his who’d know how to handle him. But he’d breed his mare to Tuffian. And Toss doesn’t want to risk passing on his temperament, and having to feel responsible if Tuffian or one of his foals hurts somebody else. So the vet’ll put him down on Tuesday.”
“I can understand that.”
“I know, but it’s never easy. Did I tell you Buddy’s mare is definitely pregnant by Mercer’s stallion? The vet confirmed it Thursday.”
“Great.”
“Buddy’s so excited he can hardly talk.”
Jo led Alan around the left side of the house to the back terrace under the arbor her mother had built and covered with wisteria. It was green and cool and shady underneath it, and they sat down, with Emmy between them, and stared silently for half a minute at sparks of sunlight skittering across the pond beyond the huge old willow – till they heard a car drive up in the drive and park on the left of the house.
Alan walked over into the drive, and waved to someone, before he told Jo it was Jack.
“Good. I’ll go get us some tea.”
When she came back, Jack and Alan were laughing about something, while Alan held a stick for Emmy, who tugged as though life itself were at stake.
Jo handed them both a tall cold glass and sat down in the director’s chair on Alan’s right.
“I told Alan I bought a secondhand car. So if he’ll drive me back to his house, I’ll leave you your truck.” Jack was tanned now, and healthier looking.
And Jo thought he seemed more settled in himself. More content. And calmer. More sure of who he was. “Thanks, Jack. That’d be good. It won’t be long till Toss is driving. At the rate he’s doing the exercises they’ve given him, it’ll be sooner than the doctors think.”
“Also, I’m looking for an apartment that—”
“You don’t have to. It’s no big—”
“No, Alan. I do.” Jack looked quietly determined.
And Jo said, “You know, if you wanted to, when Toss is better and Buddy moves over to Mercer’s, you could rent our tenant house. It’s very small and plain but it’s in decent condition, and it’s good for us to have someone in it. The last foal was born this week, so I imagine Buddy will move sometime after the sales at Keeneland. Maybe the first week of August.”
“Thanks, Jo. I’ll let you know. And…” Jack said it portentously, and Alan and Jo both turned to him. “I think it’s about time I went to see my parents.”
Jo said, “Good for you.”
“It won’t be pleasant. My mother’s highly eccentric. And I almost wish there was someone to take with me to act as a kind of buffer. But I’ve put it off long enough. I’ll write them before I show up, though, to give them some warning.”
“She’s not like Tara, is she? Please, tell me she’s not like Tara!”
“No. Nothing like that. Safe, in the extreme. She’s a musician who can’t play anymore, and she’s filled the emptiness with a strange obsession. I’m planning to stay around here, by the way, for the foreseeable future. I like the countryside, and seeing the horses. I like the work I’m doing because…” He stopped then and looked shy and embarrassed, pulling at the collar of his shirt and staring out at the pond. “I’m beginning to write poetry again. Terrible poetry, but that’s to be expected. And the work for Booker helps me concentrate. Being outside. Working on my own. Doing mindless tasks that let me think.”
Alan asked, “Any chance you’ll use your law degree?”
“None whatsoever. I have no desire to take it up ever again.”
They all sipped their tea and watched Emmy run around, then throw herself down on her back in the shade beside the willow.
Then there were boots tramping fast up the drive where Jack had parked Jo’s truck. “JO? You in back?”
It was Buddy, red-faced and sweating, as though he’d run the whole length of the lane from his house to Jo’s. “Couldn’t make ya hear up front.”
“What’s wrong?” She knew there was something. His eyes were furious and wounded too and his bare arms looked ready for battle.
“Frankie D’Amato. ’Member the sleaze-ball at Mercer’s who said he’d breed my mare without Mercer knowin’?”
“Yeah.”
“He called sayin’ he come here this mornin’ when me and the wife was at our church, and you and Toss was at yours. Says he was real glad we got names on the halters, ’cause it made it easy to find my mare and shoot her up with Prostaglandins!”
“Oh, Buddy! I’m so sorry!” Jo was walking toward him, when Jack asked, “What does that mean?”
Buddy wiped sweat off his face before he started to answer. “It’s a drug that’ll get a mare in heat. So if you give it early on to a pregnant mare, it’ll make her abort right quick. The baby just kinda withers up and gets sucked back in the mare’s tissue, like it was never there.”
Jo said, “What a jerk!” And squeezed Buddy’s elbow.
“Told me I better git used to it. That he’s my ‘enemy number one for life.’ Damn, Jo! What a bastard!”
“I bet Mercer’ll let you breed her again. But—”
“Frankie must have somebody at Mercer’s who’s feeding him information. And here too. How did he know for sure you’d be gone?” Alan was standing now, his hands on his hips, staring across at Buddy.
“Yeah, I wondered ’bout that myself. The wife says somebody called yesterday doing a poll on church attendance. I reckon that couldda been him.”
“Maybe we ought to put a gate at the road. We figured as far back as we are, and up the hill too, where you can’t even see the barns, that that made us safe enough. But now, I don’t know.”
Buddy nodded and watched her for a minute, then lit a cigarette and took a deep drag.
“Still…” Jo stopped looking at Buddy, thinking maybe she ought to keep her mouth shut.
“What?” He was staring at her, fury and anger and some kind of hope on his face, vying for the upper hand.
“Better to be you than Frankie. I wouldn’t want to be living in his head. Any more than I would Tara’s.”
Alan said, “You and me both.”
And he and Jo smiled at each other in a way that made Jack look from one to the other, then smile a half-surprised smile himself.
Buddy leaned against the arbor’s corner post and hooked his thumbs in his belt. “I know what ya mean, and I reckon you’re right. But him and me, here, in the horse business, it ain’t gunna be pretty.”
Alan said, “Maybe Mr. Tate will have some idea who could be talking to Frankie, and figure out how to help.”
“Maybe. I sure hate to bother him none, with the Keeneland Sales and all coming up, when he’s done so much already. Anyway. I gotta go help Toss. I’ll see you folks later on.” Buddy disappeared around the corner of the house, his boots crunching gravel till he cut off across the lawn.”
Jo said, “Poor Buddy.”
“He’s tough, though. He’ll get himself through it. He’s overcome a lot already. So…” Alan stared intently at Jo, until she looked at him. “You want to get dressed up and go out to dinner? We could drive Jack home, and you could talk to him while I change.”
“Sure. Where do you want to go?”
“Would you want to try the Lafayette one more time? See if we can eat there just once without some kind of emergency?”
“Sure. I’d like that a lot.”
“Good.”
“I’ve got to grab Emmy, and get her in, and make sure she’s got food and water in the pantry, before I can—”
Alan said, “I’ll do that. You go ahead and get dressed.”
“Thanks.”
Jack had stood up and was grinning at Alan. “So you don’t want me to come with you? I mean I could. I don’t have anything else planned.” He looked at the badly disguised disappointment on both faces and laughed out loud. “I’m kidding. Trust me. I’m not without some observational abilities. Three, in this case, is a crowd.”
They did get through dinner at the Lafayette Hotel without being interrupted while they talked about life in the large world, and the small. They started with politics and the state of the Cold War, with Khrushchev and Kennedy, and the Berlin Wall that hadn’t been up a year.
They talked about what Tommy had meant to both of them, and what Alan’s family had been like growing up. What Jo was doing at White Hall, and the kind of research Alan thought Equine Pharmaceuticals should pursue. What the sales at Keeneland would be like, and how Jo had seen the horse business change in the last ten years.
They moved on to the books they were reading, and their all-time favorites. And how Jo felt about Tara, and what it’d been like to be attacked.
Then Alan asked about Buddy, and what she thought Mercer would do.
“I bet he’ll let him breed his mare again, and make sure it stays a secret. And figure out where the information leak is too, and make it go away. But that doesn’t mean that Frankie D’Amato won’t be an enemy forever.”
“I’ve never met Mercer, but I’d like to.”
“You think Jack’ll go to France and try to figure out how he was framed?”
“He hasn’t mentioned it recently, but I’d be surprised if he didn’t sometime, even though he seems calmer and noticeably more resigned. Did you think he was kind of asking if one of us would go with him when he goes to see his folks? ’Member how he said he wished he could take someone who’d act like a buffer?”
“I wondered about that too. But he’s come farther than I thought he would. It’s like I’m waiting for a relapse, or some kind of alarming behavior.”
Alan nodded, and said, “I know. It seems almost too good to be true.”
“Would you go with him to Detroit?”
“Maybe we should flip for it. Heads you go with Jack, tails I stay here.”
“Very amusing.” Jo smiled, and ate a first bite of strawberry shortcake. “You know, one good thing about me not going East, if I hadn’t stayed home I might not have had the guts to try to start my own practice. Certainly not yet. It’s your lab work and the White Hall job that have made me think I should take the risk.”
“It makes sense. You can work at home, with no overhead to speak of.”
“And develop it from the relationships with all the folks I know around town, even if it starts slowly.”
“You’ll still go East, and to Europe, though, won’t you, sometime later?”
“I’m dying to go. It’s just when, I don’t know.”
A storm was blowing in when they were on their way back to Jo’s farm, and the night hung dark and heavy – till lightning shattered the sky in front of them, lighting up the rack of hills that rippled and rolled away. Jo sighed slowly, bracing herself for the next strike, then leaned her head against the seat. “You know, one thing this whole experience with Tara taught me is how much I’ve got that I don’t look at the way I should.”
“Like what?”
“Every day, for instance. Having one. Getting up and starting again, no matter what comes by the end of it. It’s a gift, having that chance. Even to do boring things. Cleaning stalls. Paying the bills. The fact that I’m here and okay means a lot more than it did.”
“I think I can understand that.”
“The farm too. Being able to live here where it’s beautiful. Where there’s a business for Toss doing horse work he loves, that enables me to keep the house. That’s an amazing opportunity I’ve almost been too close to, to see for what it is.”
“Getting to wake up in a hospital with all my body parts attached got my attention the same way.”
They were both quiet for a minute, after Alan had turned off the engine up by her front porch. But when Alan looked at Jo he saw something was wrong. Her face looked stiff and embarrassed, as though she was preparing herself for something painful. “What is it? You feel okay? Is it something I—”
“No. I’m fine. It’s just that I was thinking about my Mom. You know what bothers me most?”
“No.”
“The last time she could say something… Well, it wasn’t that it was a surprise. She’d said it a lot, and I knew why. It wasn’t her anymore. It was the brain tumor changing her whole personality. But she said, ‘I hate you! I hate you!’ And I answered back. I said, ‘I’m not so fond of you either!’ And I knew better. How could I let that be the last thing I said that she could understand?”
“Do you know that is the last thing she understood? She might’ve understood a lot more after that, even if she couldn’t speak.”
“And Tommy. The last time we talked, I asked him to come home for a few days and spend some time with me and help me sort through Mom’s stuff, and he said he would but he wasn’t sure when. And I said, ‘It’s a lot easier from a distance, isn’t it? You only have to do what you want to do.’ How could I let that be the last thing I said to him?” Jo was looking down at her lap and her hands were gripping her purse as though something important depended on it.
“You lived under a lot of stress for a very long time. And you couldn’t have known it’d be the last time you spoke. And besides—”
“What?”
“You’re human. You can’t see the future. You’ve got to be fair to yourself.”
“What I said was mean. He would’ve come home and helped. I knew that then, when I said it. I just lashed out because—”
“You know what else?”
“What?”
“They both understand now.”
Jo leaned her head back on the seat again. But didn’t look at Alan. “I believe that. When I remember. It’s just the curse of being so blasted blunt. I hate hypocrisy, and any kind of phoniness, and people saying flattering things they don’t mean. So I say exactly what I think, and wake up in the middle of the night and wish I could take back a lot of it.”
They were both quiet then. Alan reached over and pulled the purse out of Jo’s left hand so he could fit his fingers into hers.
Then Jo laughed softly, and left her hand in his. “There is something else I’m glad about. I’m glad I didn’t go East. Not just because of my practice.” She looked painfully self-conscious, as she glanced at Alan out the edges of her eyes, in the light from the two brass carriage lamps Toss had lit on the porch.
“I’m glad you didn’t too. I wouldn’t have gotten to know you nearly as well as I have this soon.”
“Good.”
The lightning had moved north, taking the rain shower with it, and they sat with their windows rolled down letting the wind blow through.
Alan said, “May I ask you something?”
“Sure. You know the worst about me. Almost.”
“May I call you Josie sometimes? It makes me remember Tom. And I also like the name.”
“Okay. I guess. If it’s that big a deal.”
They both laughed, without knowing why, before he put his arms around her and kissed her long and hard. Then they got out and walked up on the porch and stood gazing at each other in front of the white double doors.
Jo slipped her arms around Alan’s waist and leaned her head on his chest. “Do you ever have the feeling that Tommy’s done this to us? Put us together somehow, before he was killed?”
“He did talk about you even more after I told him I was considering taking a job here. He was careful. And clever. And I never felt pushed. But looking back, he got me interested long before I met you.”
“It was him talking about you on the tape that made me start to pay attention and see how much there is to you. And when you lectured me, it made me furious. Because I knew you were right.”
“You mean my obvious charms didn’t do the trick?” Alan slid his forefinger down the scar along his jaw and rubbed the leg that made him limp.
“That doesn’t matter. You’ve got great shoulders.”
They both laughed, and he kissed her again. And then the front door opened and Emmy flew out, leaping up and down around them. Toss was standing there staring at them in faded red pajamas with his hair sticking straight up on top of his head. He tapped one of his crutches on the floor, as though it were an impatient foot, and said, “If you two don’t want to get some sleep, I do! Some of us have work to do first thing in the morning!”
He smiled then, and winked at Alan, before he clumped across the dining room toward the bedroom that had been Jo’s mom’s.
Jo said, “He claims he’ll be moving back to his house early next week.”
“You think he should?”
“I don’t know. I guess whenever he can drive.”
Alan wrapped his arms around Jo again and kissed her on the forehead. “He’s making me feel like a teenager.”
“I expect that’s what he intended.”
“May I come and ride this week?”
“Sure. You can ride Sam instead of Flicker too. You know, when I think about how I almost sold him, it makes me sick to my stomach. What was I thinking?”
“You weren’t you right then. You’d lost Jed and your mom and Tom. You couldn’t face getting close or taking care of anyone. I’ve been there. And stayed there too many years.”
“Maybe that’s what Tommy saw. We were both walking around wounded in our own ways. Not unlike him.”
“I suspect he saw more than that.”
“True. Tommy was very perceptive. My whole life, I think he was consciously helping me grow up. Talking to me. Explaining what went on. Setting me obstacles too, and watching how I got over.”
“I wish you’d seen him one more time, knowing he’d be gone.”
“I do too, let me tell you.”
“Anyway. I guess I better go.”
Jo kissed him one more time, and started to step away.
“Josie…” Alan was looking at her with shyness and determination and an anxious sort of seriousness, but he didn’t finish the sentence.
“What?” Jo was close up against him again, leaning back to study his face.
“I want to get to know you better, and have it happen fast.” His face had been sliced into shadow and light by the carriage lamp beside him. And he looked sadder and more uncertain than Jo had ever expected to see him, when he swallowed and said, “I just turned forty. You’re thirty-two. I don’t want to waste any more time. If that makes sense to you.”
Jo kissed the side of his neck, and nodded her head against his chest.
Emmy jumped up and put a paw on both their knees, and Jo looked down and shook her head. “No jumping up. You have to get down.”
Jo and Alan both leaned over and patted her when all four feet were on the floor. And Jo whispered, “You’re a very good girl,” and kissed her on the forehead.
“She is, isn’t she? She’s going to be a great dog. Anyway, I better go. You’ve got to work on the toe space.”
Jo laughed, and said, “Family business! It brings out the best and the worst.”
“Like war. Don’t you think? The War of the Roses? More than a few similarities there with family business. Sibling jealousy. Political maneuvering. Family members taking the easy way out, when—”
“’Course the stakes are smaller in a family business. Other than with the Rothschilds. And there aren’t as many assassinations.”
Alan smiled and said, “Maybe kings and entrepreneurs don’t make the best dads.”
“Maybe. What kind of dad would you make?”
“I don’t know.” Alan didn’t look at Jo. He kissed her forehead and stepped off the porch, heading down the path toward his car. “That remains to be seen.”