Greer could have enjoyed a closeness with my mother but she could never forgive her. Someone had to be held accountable for the dissolution of the marriage, even if it had been so predictable.
Opening my tote bag, I pulled out a bottle of water, tapped Lockie on the shoulder and held it out to him. I took one for myself, uncapped it and drank. My mother always told me to stay hydrated. I tried to do everything she had told me to do. I just wished I remembered everything.
After about an hour, Don pointed out the windshield. “There’s the airport.”
It was smaller than Oxford as there was only one runway and no tower to direct traffic. We headed straight at it and Don expertly landed the plane, then we taxied to visitor parking.
Someone from the stable was waiting to pick us up and we, including Don, got in the SUV to be driven to the farm about fifteen minutes away.
It was a region of beautiful, rolling farmland, with white plank fences and large white houses. There were horses and dairy cows in the fields and I imagined that Connecticut had looked like this at one time.
The young woman turned the car up the long driveway to the farm and I could see there were horses still out in pastures on each side. She stopped in front of a large barn, easily twice the size of ours, and we all got out.
“Hi, Lockie,” a short, thin woman with close-cropped hair exited from the barn in a rush, and put her arms around him. “You’re as handsome as ever. Married yet?”
“Not yet.”
“You let me know if you want to settle down and I’ll kick Faber to the curb and we can run off together.”
She looked old enough to be his mother so I knew she wasn’t serious. But maybe she was. He was pretty cute.
“Talia, this is Marilyn Theissen.”
She took my hand and gave it a firm shake. “Glad to meet you. Lockie says you need a horse.”
“That’s what I’m told,” I replied.
“Based on what he said, I think I might have a few of interest for you. The two youngest were born here. Three others Faber found in Germany and we shipped over.”
Lockie adjusted his sunglasses and turned his back to the sun. “Is Faber there now?”
“No, he’s in Maryland today giving a two-day dressage clinic and is very sorry he missed you.”
“I’m sure we’ll catch up with each other at some point.”
“God, you look good!” Marilyn said and gave Lockie another squeeze. “I’m glad to see you.”
“I’m glad to see you, too.”
“Yeah.” Marilyn started walking to the barn. “Let’s play the Love Game and see if we can’t find a match here.”
Lockie turned and smiled at me. I didn’t feel reassured and still didn’t really want another horse. All my best riding memories had been created with Butch.
The young woman who had picked us up was in the process of putting horses on crossties on the aisle.
“Here, let me take that from you,” Marilyn said and pointed to the saddle Lockie was carrying. “Petra!”
Another young woman with light blonde hair appeared and hurried over to get my saddle.
“This is a four year old, he’s just getting into training so it’ll be a few years before you can compete on him. I don’t know how much you know about these warmbloods,” Marilyn said to me. “They’re more laid-back than Thoroughbreds and get into training later. Lockie said you have been doing the hunter seat thing. It’s a good place to start; I don’t have a problem with it. A little limiting is all,” Marilyn said, speaking rapidly. “You probably want something with a bit more mileage but he’s got all the potential in the world. This is a six year old and much farther along. Spend the winter on him and next season he’ll be ready to get down to business.”
We followed her down the aisle and she stopped at a grey horse. “This is a Hanoverian Faber picked up in Germany this spring. He’s eight and very impressive. I think we should keep him.”
“You think that about every horse,” Lockie pointed out to her.
“I do!”
“This bay mare, Karneval, is nine and is perfection. The drawback for her is that she doesn’t have a lot of speed across country.”
“I don’t think we’re too concerned about that,” Lockie said.
“She’s a nice horse if that’s not a consideration. Down at the end of the aisle we have that chestnut. Good speed, good agility. In a year or two, he can be at international level.”
No. That was too much for me. It felt like pressure.
“How about we start with the mare,” Marilyn said.
“How about the grey horse?” I asked.
“Really? Okay. Petra, would you tack him up for us?”
“What’s his name,” I asked.
“Freudigen Geist. Joyful Spirit. I’d rename him to something people can remember, but that’s his papered name and Faber didn’t see any point in renaming him since he wasn’t staying.”
Petra quickly tacked the horse and led him outside.
“You want me to ride him? You want to ride him?” Marilyn asked Lockie.
“Yes, I will. Do you have a helmet I can borrow?”
“Sure. Dori, get Faber’s practice helmet please.”
A moment later, a young woman appeared with a helmet and held it out to Lockie.
He put it on. “It fits.”
A moment later, he was on the horse and adjusting the length of my stirrup leathers. We went into their indoor arena, also about twice the size of ours, and Lockie spent the next few minutes warming the horse up. Then he began what appeared to me to be a dressage test. At the markers positioned on the wall, Lockie would transition from a walk to a sitting trot, a canter, he circled, did moves I had never seen before and definitely did not know the names of, and finished with an extended trot that was so wonderful I nearly gasped.
“Lockie is such a beautiful rider,” Marilyn said softly to me. “But you know that.”
Of course, I didn’t know that. I’d never seen him ride except to the stream and back.
“Do you want me to lower the fences for you?”
“No, I’ll just pop over that vertical a couple times to see what he’s like.”
After a few times going back and forth over the rails, Lockie pointed the horse at a plain fence followed by an oxer, a panel, an in and out. Some were just plain rails but they were all well above anything I ever jumped, most of them looked to be four feet.
He pulled up in front of us and dismounted.
“I’m going to go sit over there and you can talk about me behind my back, okay?”
“Okay,” Lockie said with a smile as Marilyn walked away. “This is a really big horse, Talia.”
“I can see that.”
“Do you want to ride him?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to ride him on a lunge line first?”
“Is he going to run off with me?”
“No. You’re going to need spurs with this guy.”
“Really?”
“Really. But he’s strong, you’ll need to use your back and your seat or he won’t even know you’re there.”
“Okay.”
“Put your helmet on.”
I pulled it out of my tote bag and put it on.
“I’ll give you a leg up. On three.”
I took the reins and Lockie boosted me into the saddle, then began helping shorten the leathers.
“Relax, he’s a nice horse. You’re safe on him.”
I urged the horse forward and we walked around the outside track.
“Let’s do a collected trot. Don’t worry about keeping your legs steady, keep your legs on him.”
What did that mean?
“Tempo.” Lockie snapped his fingers several times to demonstrate. “Push him forward. Use your seat.”
What did that mean?
I went around the ring once, then at a working trot, then we walked and cantered. Meanwhile, Lockie was lowering the plain fences to something more
my speed, in the 2’6” zone.
“Come to the center of the ring.”
I turned the horse and headed for Lockie.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Do you feel comfortable?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to try to jump him? No’s as good an answer as yes.”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Good. He’s a little bit sleepy but once you get him cranked up, he’ll be fine.”
“He’s not a Thoroughbred.”
“That’s the difference between a Thoroughbred and a warmblood. They have a different temperament.”
“I feel like I’m sitting on a skyscraper.”
“He’s a big horse.”
“But comfortable.”
“Like riding a sofa.”
“Lockie,” I protested.
“However you want do it, go jump him over those plain rails.”
“You want me to trot or canter or what?”
“I want you to do it the way you want to.”
With a shrug, I turned the horse, then urged him into a trot and headed for the fence. Working hard at it, I got him to canter and he easily cleared the fence. We kept going to the next, then the next until we had gone twice around.
Pulling him back to a walk, I returned to the center of the arena.
Looking up at me, Lockie put his hand on my knee. “So, Tali, did I find you a horse?”
I couldn’t speak. That whole thing about opening my mouth and forming words wasn’t working. Instead, I held out my hand to him and he took it.
Chapter Eleven
Sleep eluded me like a fox taunts a pack of young hounds.
I had no good memory of hospitals or doctors. It began when I was nine. I knew something was wrong. My mother smiled and said everything would be all right. For the next two years, that’s what I heard from everyone and had long stopped believing it.
My father did everything for her medically possible. He brought in the finest specialists, took her to the most revered clinics, researched experimental drugs and procedures until one day she was just too tired to keep trying.
Not long after that, she slipped away.
Everyone attempted to console me but a loss like that is too acute. There is nothing to be said or done to minimize the suffering.
After years of putting it out of my mind, the memories returned making sleep impossible and even unwanted. I was afraid of the dreams I might have.
Falling asleep after reading two books and the birds were beginning to chirp in the trees outside my bedroom window, when I awoke, my father and Lockie were gone.
I felt I failed again. Unable to offer my mother any comfort, that morning I had been unable to lie to Lockie as he left for the city. “All will be well,” Julian of Norwich had said. In what well-ordered universe had she lived? All was rarely well.
Jules greeted me with sweet melon balls sprinkled with fresh chopped mint, and a soft-boiled egg.
I had no appetite.
“Worrying won’t help,” she said sitting across from me at the kitchen table.
“How did he look?”
“Fine. ‘He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.’ How else could he be amused by Greer?”
“I wish she was...”
Jules spread some butter on a piece of raisin walnut bread she had made; excellent, but definitely improved by a good schmear of butter.
“What?”
“Nicer to him,” I finished.
“You don’t want her to be nice in her special way.”
“Of course not, but must she scream at everyone? She’s not a toddler.”
“Greer doesn’t know about his accident and I suspect she wouldn’t care. Why should she remember that other people have problems when her own seem so urgent?”
“She’s so spoiled.”
“Yes.”
“Why aren’t you like that?”
“Talia!”
“You have a rich and powerful father. You grew up in Hollywood.”
“Not Hollywood proper but yes, I know what you mean. I was always a shy, gangly girl.”
“You outgrew that phase.”
“See how there’s hope for everyone? My father is like yours, very busy and important. People come to him for advice; they admire him.”
“Is he admirable?”
“Yes, he is and so is your father.” Jules stood and patted me on the shoulder.
“Don’t say it’ll be all right.”
“I don’t think you understand what that phrase means. It’s not that everything will turn out as you wish, but that if you live with grace and dignity, you will be able to handle anything that comes your way. You’ve already demonstrated you can.”
“And Greer can handle nothing.”
“That’s true.”
Finishing what I could of the food in front of me, I went down to the barn. There was plenty to do and much to get done while Lockie was away for a few hours.
Greer was nowhere to be found, and there was no way I was getting up on her new horses, so I lunged Spare and Tracy lunged Counterpoint. By mid-morning, the stalls had been mucked and the horses had been brought in from the pastures. Right on time, 11 a.m., the morning’s work was over.
I expected to hear from Lockie any moment telling me he was on the way home.
By noon, Jules and I had lunch of a delicious mozzarella and fresh tomato salad with grilled chicken breasts in the shade of the oak trees near the terrace. There was no peace and quiet as the lawn was being mowed. I still hadn’t heard from Lockie.
“Do you want to go shopping with me?” Jules asked.
“No, thank you.”
She reached for her cotton market bag from France that hung by the door. It was never enough to hold all she bought but Jules brought it out of habit. “Things always take longer with a doctor’s visit than you imagine.”
“Right. You go. I’ll catch up on my reading.”
“If you’re not riding, you’re reading.”
“I promised myself I would read everything on the list for English lit for the fall semester. That way if I was busy, I wouldn’t get behind.”
“I’m sure Greer is doing the same thing. Not. How does some peach ice cream sound for dessert?”
“That would be fantastic.”
“I’ll go to the farm market and pick up some peaches and fresh corn and see what else they have.”
Jules left and I remained on the terrace reading an old mystery. I was nearly finished with it when my cell phone rang.
I clicked it on. “Hello?”
“Hi. It’s Lockie.”
“I know that. I recognize your voice.” By now, I would recognize his voice in a crowd of a thousand people. “Are you on the way home?”
There was a pause. “No. They want to keep me overnight and do some more tests.”
“I can be there in two hours.”
I immediately began planning the trip. We still had a car in the garage; I could take that to the city instead of my truck. Finding a garage that would accept a truck would be nearly impossible.
“Why would you do that?”
“You were alone last time. This time should be different.”
“I’m fine.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Tali, it’s okay.”
“It can’t be if they’re doing more tests.”
“They’re being thorough. I’m a new patient. You have to stay there and run the barn for me.”
“Everything has been done. Pavel can do the afternoon chores without me.”
“I don’t want the barn unsupervised. Please stay and take care of it.”
“When are you coming home?”
“Sometime tomorrow. As soon as I find out, I’ll call. Then you can go shopping or have your own pedicure.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I’m teasing you. Geez, Tali. You can’t go for the pedicure anyway
since Derry Friel is coming to ride Greer’s horses tomorrow. I take it she’s not around today.”
“She went sailing with a friend on Long Island Sound.”
“That’s a nice life she has,” Lockie replied.
“She has no idea.”
“No. Are you okay?”
“I’m not that okay.”
“What will make it better?”
“Call me tonight.”
“Fine. Before I go to sleep, I’ll call.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you.”
We hung up and I keyed in my father’s cell phone number.
“Hi, Talia, is there something wrong?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“You never call me.”
“Things change. I need you to do something.”
“Can it wait until the end of the business day?”
“You have to start now, or someone does, then yes, it can be this evening if you’re staying in the city.”
“Yes, I’m staying here. Did Lockie come back from the doctor’s visit yet?”
“No. They’re keeping him overnight. What I want you to do is take one of those iPads you have at the office and strip it of all the business stuff. Then get your assistant to load it with a variety of books and magazines for him to read. They don’t have things like that at hospital. Make sure there’s a copy of the Bible on it.”
“Did he ask for this?”
“No. Does it sound like him that he would?”
“No. He’s a true stoic.”
“After you do all that, stop at a bakery or somewhere and get him a treat. Chocolate chip cookies, brownies, cupcakes. Something soft. Then go to the hospital and sit with him for an hour so he won’t be alone.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want any company.”
“So what?”
My father paused. “Wait. This is sounding familiar to me. This is what your mother would have done.”
“Yes.”
“All right. I’ll take care of it.”
I clicked off the phone, shut off my tablet and went back to the barn to start on the afternoon chores.
***
Around ten, Lockie called. My father had arrived with some small pastries and an iPad full of books in every genre. They talked about guy things until he left a few minutes ago when visiting hours were over. Lockie grilled me about what had gone on at the barn in his absence and it seemed as though I made everything happen as he wished. After thanking me, he said he’d see me the next day.
Bittersweet Farm 1: Mounted Page 6
