by Mary Simses
“So you’re helping Mariel with the wedding?” Tate asked as Mariel headed in one direction and we went off in another.
“You seemed very attentive to her,” I said.
“I haven’t seen her in a long time.”
“You haven’t seen me in a long time either.”
“Oh, come on, Sara, I was just being nice. What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk about it. We walked on, and I spotted his white LAMBERT VETERINARY SERVICES pickup truck parked in front of Juniper Apothecary, a store where I’d worked one summer.
“You know,” he said after we got into the truck and closed the doors, “I always felt a little sorry for your sister.”
“You felt sorry for her?” Had he lost his mind?
“I never told you because you would have gotten mad at me, but it always seemed like she was unsure of herself, like she couldn’t really find her stride.”
“Don’t tell me you really believe she’s insecure.”
“In a way I do, yeah.”
“Looks like she’s hypnotized you too.”
“She hasn’t hypnotized me. You’re just too close to the action. You don’t see it.”
I thought my vision was pretty clear. “What’s my mom been saying about me?” Maybe she’d put some of these thoughts in his head.
“Let me think. Last time I was out there…let’s see, that was a few months ago…she said you were getting ready to start your own business.”
I put the window down and rested my elbow on the open frame. The flag in front of the post office rippled in a soft breeze. “That’s what drives me crazy. I mentioned to her one time, back in the winter, that I might want to go out on my own someday. And she tells you I’m about to start a business.” It was like that game of telephone, where you had a group of people and a message that got repeated from one person to the next, and by the time you got to the last person, the message had been garbled beyond recognition. Except that you didn’t need the group of people. My mother did all the garbling herself.
Tate gave me a sympathetic smile. “Well, she’s always been a little prone to exaggeration.”
“It’s worse since my dad died.”
“Yeah, that’s true.” He slowed the truck as a black SUV pulled in front of us. “She’s never boring, though. You’ve got to give her that.”
As we headed away from downtown, Tate glanced at me, a playful smile on his face. “Remember in high school how we used to forge our moms’ signatures so we could get out early?”
I cringed and laughed at the same time. “I still can’t believe we got away with it for as long as we did. And then to get caught on the first warm day of spring.” There was nothing like the start of spring weather in Connecticut after a gritty, gray winter, that morning in April when crocuses pushed their way up from the hard ground, petals stretching for the sky, and the air felt alive again. Who wanted to sit inside a classroom on a day like that?
After a couple of miles, we turned into a driveway that sloped upward, bisecting a large field. A white, late-1800s farmhouse stood at the hilltop, and behind it was a large red barn with a gray gambrel roof that sported two cupolas. In a paddock to the side, a bay gelding watched the truck approach, his ears erect.
“That’s Shadow,” Tate said. “The mare’s inside.”
He parked and we walked around to the cargo area in the back of the truck, which was filled with bandages and syringes, medicines, salves, dressings, and equipment for ultrasounds and X-rays. He took out a hoof tester. “Do you ever get to ride?”
“Not really. Once in a while I hop on Anthem when I’m home. But that’s about it.”
“Too bad. You’re a great rider.”
He was nice to say that. “Oh, I don’t know. A long time ago, maybe. What about you? Do you still have horses?”
“No. I ride other people’s horses when I ride at all. I do have a pony, though. A Welsh gelding. For Emily and Claire.”
“They’re riding? How old are they now?” I vaguely remembered the baby pictures Tate had e-mailed me.
“Four and five.”
“How did they get to be four and five already? Has Emily started kindergarten?”
“She will in the fall.”
Tate with a daughter in kindergarten. That didn’t seem possible, especially when I realized that he and I hadn’t been much older than that when we’d met. How could all that time have come and gone? I felt as though my life hadn’t moved in the right direction at all. The only thing I had to show for it was a job. I wanted love. I wanted to be married. I wanted to have children.
“People warn you they’ll grow up fast, but you don’t believe it.” Tate leaned against the back of the truck, crossed his arms, and looked toward the field and the hills, where dozens of green hues collided. The corners of his mouth sagged. “Did your mother tell you the news?” he said in a low voice.
I didn’t like the sound of that. “We’ve only talked a little bit since I’ve been here. What’s going on?” A bee hovered over a nearby thatch of goldenrod, its gentle buzz reaching my ears.
“Darcy and I are getting a divorce.”
I must have stood there with my mouth open, that’s how surprised I felt. I’d had my misgivings about Darcy, but I hadn’t expected to hear that. Or maybe I just felt bad that my hunch about them had been right. “Oh, Tate.” I put my hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”
“I feel so bad for you.”
He looked over at the bay gelding, who was nuzzling the neck of a buckskin in the adjoining paddock. A hawk soared overhead. “I think it was inevitable. We almost split up a year ago.” This was news to me. I should have been better about keeping in touch. I’d have to do that in the future. “But we decided to give it another try.” He kicked a stone, sending it skidding down the driveway. “We couldn’t make it work. So I moved out and we’ve started the whole divorce thing.”
“That’s…I’m…” I didn’t know what to say. All I could think of were old clichéd lines. Here was a friend in a moment of need and I was coming up empty. “How are the girls taking it?” I finally asked.
“It’s kind of a mixed bag. We’re only telling them little bits, things they can digest and understand. At least, we hope they can understand.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again, wishing I had some magic words to offer him.
“Thanks, Sara. We’re very different people, Darcy and me. I just didn’t see that going into it. She’s not happy being a vet’s wife. It’s better now—with Amy in the practice, I mean. It does take some of the burden off me, but that’s not really the answer to our problems. Darcy doesn’t even like horses that much. I think she just pretended to in the beginning. But you know what? I’ve got two incredible kids, and for that I wouldn’t trade a thing. I just have to figure out how to go on from here.”
Sometimes life seemed like one big how-to-go-on-from-here. “You will,” I said. And I knew he would. He’d do a lot better than I was doing.
We walked into the barn, where the air smelled of sweat and manure, hay and leather. Three stalls were empty; in the fourth, a chestnut mare turned to scrutinize us, poking her head over the door and nickering as we approached.
“That’s Brontë,” Tate said, picking up a halter and a lead line hanging by the stall.
“How did she go lame?”
“I don’t know. Jodie, the owner, said she got on her this morning and could tell something was up. But she wasn’t sure where it was coming from.” That wasn’t unusual. It was often hard to determine the origin of a horse’s lameness, to pinpoint the exact source.
“Hey, pretty girl.” He opened the stall door, slipped the halter over the mare’s head, and led her into the aisle.
“Aw, she is pretty.” I ran my hand down her neck, admiring her copper coat, feeling her warmth, inhaling the earthy scent of animal and grain, an aroma I’d always loved. When we were kids, Mariel and I used t
o talk about creating a perfume called Eau de Horse. It wouldn’t have had wide appeal, but we were sure every girl who rode would buy it.
I followed Tate as he led Brontë through the barn, her shoes clip-clopping on the floor, and into a ring outside. “Do you want me to walk her?”
Tate handed me the lead line. “Sure, if you don’t mind. You can be my assistant.”
“You can’t afford me.” I led the mare about thirty feet away and brought her back as Tate studied her gait.
“Would you mind trotting her?”
I gave the lead line a little tug and jogged out and back again, Brontë trotting beside me.
“Looks like the right foreleg,” Tate said as I brought the mare to a stop. He ran his hands over her neck, back, and rump, then examined her legs, flexing the joints and looking for a reaction. There wasn’t one. I stroked her cheek and she snorted a puff of warm air at me.
Tate picked up the hoof tester, which I’d always thought looked like a giant pair of pliers, and examined her hoof. “It might just be a stone bruise,” he said after discovering a sensitive area. “She could have stepped on something or landed too hard going over a jump. Can you take her inside while I grab some things from the truck?”
I walked Brontë into the barn and clipped her halter to the crossties. Tate came back in with an armload of supplies, including a cloth diaper and a roll of elastic tape. He mixed some Epsom salts and warm water in a bucket and eased the mare’s leg into it.
“You know, we should go riding sometime,” he said, “since you’re going to be here for a little while.”
“I’m pretty rusty, Tate.”
“That’s okay. We could take a couple of quiet horses. Go on the trails like we used to.”
I thought about the woods, the oak and hickory trees, the red and white pines, the lichen-covered boulders that had been strewn around thousands of years ago by glaciers, how the sun flickered through the trees, creating a million shades of light. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
Brontë put her head down and exhaled, making a deep, fluttery sigh. “So tell me,” Tate said, “what’s going on with you? Is there a man in your life these days?” His impish smile reappeared. “Give me the lowdown.”
I rubbed the mare’s neck. “Oh God. It’s a long story, Tate.” I gave him the short version.
“I had no idea all that was going on,” he said when I finished. “And you’re helping her with the wedding anyway. That’s pretty big of you.” He took the mare’s hoof from the bucket, packed it with Epsom salts, and wrapped her leg in the diaper.
“Yeah, well, it’s more of a favor to my mother,” I said, leaving it at that.
He called the horse’s owner and gave her an update while I put the mare back in her stall. After we gathered up the supplies, I gave her a final scratch on her head. It was almost four o’clock, and outside the air had cooled a little, the afternoon sun losing its strength. Tate took me home, and as we came up the driveway, he eyed Anthem and Jubilee in their paddocks.
“There are a couple of quiet horses we could ride,” he said.
“Yeah, we could take them out sometime.”
“How about now? I’m done with work for the day. It’ll be fun. Like when we were kids. I have such good memories of us as kids. Maybe I’m just getting nostalgic in my old age.”
“Hey, I’m the same age as you, and I don’t consider thirty-eight old.”
“You know what I mean.” He nudged me. “Come on, it’s a beautiful afternoon. Not so hot out anymore…”
“I don’t think I have clothes. Boots. Stuff.” I looked at his jeans and work boots. “And neither do you.”
“I have some things in the back.” He shot me a look that told me he wasn’t going to give up.
“Okay, all right.” It would be pretty on the trails in the late afternoon. I wasn’t going to protest anymore.
I went into the house, rummaged through my closet, and found a pair of riding breeches. My old field boots were in there as well, covered in a haze of dust. I cleaned them off and pulled them on. As I was closing the closet door, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. It didn’t seem like that long ago when I’d stood in that same spot as a teenager, dressed in my show clothes—white shirt, navy jacket, black boots.
I remembered that feeling of butterflies in my stomach as I waited to enter the ring on Mayfair, the Dutch warmblood I rode then, reviewing the course in my head one last time while the rider before me finished up. Oxers, gates, verticals, walls, and water jumps with the correct number of strides between each one in order to take off and land in the right spots.
A part of me really missed that phase of my life and wished I’d stuck with it longer than I had. Wished I hadn’t let Mariel’s interest in riding make me feel claustrophobic, make me feel as though I had to find something else to do, something I loved as much, because I never did.
Tate and I walked to the paddocks, and I gazed at the green lawn that stretched for twenty acres around the barn and house, lines visible where the wheels of the riding mowers had driven. Where the cut grass ended, a meadow began, and where the meadow ended, the woods took over, its trails passing by a string of neighbors’ houses and barns. I knew every inch of that land, from the place deep in the trees where the stone wall marked our property’s boundary to the pond and the weeping willows and the paddocks bounded by the split-rail fence.
We brought the horses into the barn, brushed them, and tacked them up. As I slipped the reins over Anthem’s neck and slid the bit into his mouth, I remembered how complicated bridles had seemed when I first learned to ride—all the straps and buckles—but after a short time, I could have taken one apart and put it back together blindfolded.
“How long has it been since we’ve ridden together?” Tate asked as we brought the horses outside. “Ten years?”
“I think so.” Again I felt that stab of regret that I’d let our friendship wane.
We mounted, retightened our girths, and got settled. It was odd how quickly I felt at home in the saddle. Gazing at the paddocks and fields and the hills in the distance, I thought about how lovely and different the world looked from up there.
We warmed up in the ring for a little while, Anthem slipping easily into his gaits and responding well to my touch.
“How do you feel?” Tate asked as we slowed from a canter to a walk.
“He’s in good shape, but I’m not.”
Tate eyed me up and down. “You don’t look out of shape.”
“Ha. I meant riding shape.”
We left the ring and he asked which trail I wanted to take.
“How about the one that goes by the Tillys’ barn?” The Tillys moved when we were in college, but for Tate and me, the barn would forever be known as the Tillys’. “I haven’t been down there in ages.”
“Neither have I,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
We crossed the grass toward the pond, where weeping willows hung over the water on one side, looking like maidens letting down their hair. “Remember how we used to grab the willow branches and swing over the water and try to knock each other off?” Tate asked.
“You always won. I always got wet first.”
“I think you won a couple of times.”
I think he might have let me win.
We walked around the pond; blue flag irises and purple pickerelweeds bloomed around the edges, nestled among the rushes. We trotted across the field and entered the meadow, where the tall grasses swished against the horses’ legs, and wildflowers sprang from the soil in riots of color—black-eyed Susans, golden sunflowers, yellow coreopsis, purple lupine, and blue bachelor’s buttons.
We entered the woods, walking the horses two abreast where the trail was wide. The waning sunlight fell through the trees in patches as birds chattered in the canopies. The air held a faint scent of pine. Somewhere in the distance, a woodpecker tapped out a staccato rhythm.
We picked up the pace, trotting past stone walls that started and stopped
at random, marking the boundaries of farms that had once existed there. Wild turkeys with bright red necks and striped plumage stared at us; gray squirrels darted across our path. I signaled to Anthem with my legs and he cantered up a hill, his hooves pounding out a comfortable three-part rhythm. We were flying. I felt as if I’d been set free.
At the top of the hill, the trail ended, and we walked into a swath of cleared land, then stopped to take in the view of the valley below and another hilltop in the distance. To the left, farther along the ridge, stood a large, white clapboard farmhouse.
“Is that the Tillys’ house?” I asked. It looked familiar, but there was a glassed-in walkway between the house and garage that hadn’t been there before, and the woods seemed much closer to the house than I remembered.
“Yeah, that’s their house, but I don’t see the barn.”
I’d once carved my initials and Gary Decker’s inside a heart on a post in that barn. How old was I then? Thirteen, maybe?
“They must have torn it down,” Tate said.
A feeling of wistfulness stirred inside me. We walked the horses past the house and down the hill to the woods, where the trail picked up again. We hadn’t gone far when I spotted the barn. “Look, Tate.” The red paint had faded to pink; there was a gaping hole where the double wooden doors had been, and a sapling had grown through one of the window openings.
“They’ve let the woods go wild and they’ve let the barn go to ruin,” he said.
We stared in silence as if paying our respects, then rode on through the woods, letting the horses drink at a stream before we crossed it. Fifteen minutes later, at the top of a hill, we stopped on another ridge. The fields below were full of oxeye daisies and coppery goldenrod and dotted with a few houses. I was taking pictures with my phone when Tate pulled Jubilee up next to me.
“Hey, take a look behind us.”
I turned and saw that the sky had gone from blue to gray-silver, the color of an old metal saucepan. In the distance it was smoky gray.
“I don’t like the looks of that,” Tate said.
I didn’t like the looks of it either. A shower wouldn’t be a problem, but a bad storm could make the trail slick and dangerous. “Let’s head back.”
