Dark Horses

by Susan Mihalic

  Once again, he was sedated.

  Kelly joined me. “It must be hard to see him like this. But he’ll get better.”

  “He’s a quadriplegic. That’s not changing.”

  “His outlook will improve, his speech, even his memory.”

  “His memory?”

  “Speech and memory can improve with time and practice.”

  His memory was already better. That was why he looked at me with so much sadness and confusion and wondered why I was here.

  I should have kicked that plug out of the wall when I had the chance.

  * * *

  “I THINK HE remembers,” I told Will that evening when he turned off the shower.

  The shower curtain whisked back, and he stuck his head out of the bathroom, his hair dripping. “What?”

  “I think he remembers what I did.”

  “Between the accident and the coma, he’s pretty fucked up.”

  “He knows something. I can tell from the way he looks at me. Today he asked why I was there. Why would he ask that?”

  Will was quiet for a moment. Then, his face grim and reluctant and determined, he said, “What if I go with you tomorrow?”

  Will could barely tolerate being in the room when my father had been comatose. He’d deliberately stayed away since my father had regained consciousness.

  “It’s up to you,” he said, “but I think we should find out what we’re up against.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly. “But if I’m right and—”

  My father’s cell phone beeped rapidly. I didn’t recognize the number, and Vic was still taking most of the calls, but I answered. “This is Roan.”

  “This is your mother,” said Mama.

  * * *

  SHE MET WILL and me in the lobby of the hospital the next afternoon, tall and slim in high heels and a wraparound dress. She’d clearly been spending more on antiaging treatments. She was almost unrecognizable, her face as smooth as a mask. Her hair was still long, still glossy black. Life without my father and me suited her.

  She moved to embrace me.

  I could have used that hug the day after Thanksgiving, but I didn’t want it anymore. I remained stiffly by Will’s side, holding his hand, and Mama dropped her arms. She flushed. “You must be Will.”

  “I must be,” he replied.

  “Is there somewhere the two of us can talk?” she asked me.

  “I thought you were here to see Daddy.”

  “I’ll see him, but I want to talk to you first. Will, if you’ll give us some privacy—”

  I gripped his hand. “No. He’s part of this, too.”

  The three of us sat in a small grouping of chairs, Mama across from Will and me.

  “Are you still riding?”

  “Are you still drinking?”

  “As a matter of fact,” she said, “I’m forty-two days sober.”

  “How’s John Dashwood?”

  “Learning to windsurf.”

  I envisioned him braced on the board, holding the sail steady, toupee flapping in the breeze. He’d been worth coming back for. I hadn’t.

  It was my turn to say something, but my jaw was locked. She’d called me. She’d come to Sheridan. She could do the talking.

  “The hospital wouldn’t give me any information. How is he?”

  “Paralyzed. Get to the point, Mama. What do you want?”

  I hadn’t let go of Will’s hand. I could feel his discomfort, but also his resoluteness. He wasn’t going to bail on me, no matter how uncomfortable this conversation became.

  “I called so many times to hear your voice,” she said, “but you always hung up. Then the landline stopped working. I didn’t want to call your father’s cell, but since he’s so badly injured, I didn’t think he’d be using it.”

  My heart took up all the space in my chest. I’d been right. Mama was Anonymous.

  “You hung up, too,” I said. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I wasn’t ready. But… I want to tell you I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “The day I left, all I could think about was getting away. I was too beaten down to care who or what I left behind.”

  She was apologizing for not caring. How could I forgive that?

  “When I said I had to take care of myself, I didn’t know whether I could. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

  “Eleven million dollars must have made it easier,” I said.

  She pressed her plump, sculpted lips together. Fillers had reshaped her mouth. “You’re not going to give me a chance, are you?”

  I hated the part of myself that would have taken her back in a heartbeat just so I’d have a mother. But Mama had never been the mother I needed; she never would be. The only thing I’d ever needed from her was protection from my father, and now I’d taken care of that myself.

  “Let’s go see Daddy,” I said, “and get this over with.”

  In his room, my father was sleeping.

  There wasn’t nearly as much equipment in his room as there had been initially, but he still wore the halo, still had a catheter.

  “Oh, my God.”

  The horror in Mama’s voice was only an initial reaction brought on by shock. She raised her chin and her voice. “You fucking bastard. You deserve this.”

  “And what do you deserve, Mama? You never stopped it. You never protected me.”

  She hadn’t come back to Sheridan to see me. She’d come back to gloat at my father’s condition, and I wouldn’t let her do it.

  She managed to narrow her eyes. “Unreal. You’re still choosing him.”

  I shook my head. “I’m choosing myself.”

  * * *

  AFTER SHE LEFT—and there were no hugs, no I love yous or Come see mes—Will and I waited for my father to wake.

  After a while, he said quietly, “We can do this another day. It was a lot, seeing your mother.”

  “No, you were right yesterday. I need to get in front of this.”

  Eventually, my father stirred—not a movement of his body, of course, but his eyebrows drew down, his forehead creased, and he opened his eyes.

  “Hi, Daddy,” I said.

  He glanced toward my voice. “Hey, darlin’.”

  He sounded strained, but I went on. “How do you feel?”

  “Pins and needles.” The words were fairly clear. Pins and—raspy inhale—needles. The feeling was nerve-related. The neurologist said it might fade, or it might always be present.

  I stood up, took the two steps to the bedrail. “I’ve brought a visitor.” I glanced at Will, who joined me by the bed.

  My father’s expression grew wary. “Will Howard… from lit class.”

  That was how I’d introduced Will to him. Uneasiness crawled around inside me. “Do you remember anything else about him?”

  “Supper.”

  I took Will’s hand. “Right. He came to supper. He’s my boyfriend. Did you know that?”

  Tears filmed my father’s eyes. “Hurt.”

  He could have meant anything, but I had a feeling he was referring to what he’d seen between Will and me in the barn—what I’d seen in the photos.

  I steeled myself. “We told you Diva hurt you. Do you remember it?”

  He struggled to hook words together. “You hurt.”

  Will tightened his hold on my hand.

  My mouth was dry. “What do you mean?”

  My father rolled his eyes to prevent tears spilling over. Had he learned that from me? His mouth turned downward. “I hurt you.”

  My face prickled. “What?”

  “I did bad things. Why are you here… after I did bad things?”

  He was saying something else, which I couldn’t understand. I was already pulling my hand free of Will’s.

  “Jesus,” Will said. “He’s asking you to forgive him.”

  “Please,” my father said, as if Will hadn’t correctly relayed the message.

  How many times had I said “p
lease” to him? Please don’t. Please do. How hard had I worked my whole life to please him in every conceivable way?

  I turned and walked away.

  * * *

  WILL CAUGHT UP with me by the elevator. “You all right?”

  I punched the button again and held up my hand, indicating that I couldn’t talk.

  “I’ll take you home,” he said.

  In his truck, I leaned my head against the doorframe and listened to the tires sing on the road. My emotions were colliding, but I held on, visualizing my fingers clawing into the earth, afraid the grief would swallow me.

  But I could hold on only so long. At home, I went upstairs and curled up on my bed in crash position, protecting my heart and covering my head with my arms, but my grip slipped, and the tears came hard for the mother who didn’t love me, for Bailey and Jasper, for the things I’d done and lost, the choices I’d made and never had.

  Will spooned around me, holding me.

  When I finally stopped crying, I felt like I’d been bled. I was clenched into such a tight ball that my muscles were stiff when I uncurled.

  “Sorry. I don’t know where all that came from.”

  Will gave a short laugh. “If anyone ever had reason to cry—” He kissed the back of my neck, a gentle, nuzzling kiss.

  I turned on my back. He kissed my cheeks, my eyes, my mouth. His lips tasted salty from my tears. After four or five kisses, I became aware of a current beneath the gentleness, not only in him but in me, too.

  He wiped my cheeks with his thumbs. “Okay?”

  “Okay what?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I thought you meant is this okay.” I glanced down. He was practically on top of me.

  He didn’t move. “Is it?”

  “Yes.” I took his face in my hands and kissed him.

  - epilogue -

  I REINED IN at the crest of the hill. Vigo mouthed the bit. He was always ready to give more, but it had been a hard season. We’d qualified for three-star next year. My career was on track. All of us—Vigo, my team, and I—had earned a rest.

  Below me, Jasper’s grave had grassed over. So had the one next to it. Diva, who had fought to the end, had deserved to be buried whole, too. In the summer, Will had laid sod on the graves to cover the barren mounds of earth. The grass, tall, waving in the breeze, looked like it might have grown wild.

  Below the graves, the oak trees lining the driveway were brilliant with copper and crimson. The fall nights brought frost, but the days were blue-sky perfection, warm with a crisp edge.

  My father sat in the sun that slanted under the roof of the front porch. On the footrests of his wheelchair, his feet skewed inward. I was sure that behind his sunglasses, his eyes were on me. He liked to watch me ride and offer notes on my form or observations about Vigo or Pocket, the gelding I’d bought from Frank. There was much he didn’t remember about riding and horses, but I pretended what he said was relevant.

  “Why are you good to me?” he’d asked once after he came home from months in rehab.

  I wasn’t, particularly. I chose not to hate him, but I also chose not to forgive him. He’d done something unforgiveable, but I was safe now, and I couldn’t bring myself to be cruel.

  “You’re not who you were,” I said.

  He knew that, because he knew who he’d been. He knew what he’d lost. Above all, he knew what he’d done. That knowledge had broken him. There were no words that would take away his pain, and even if there had been, I wouldn’t have said them.

  It would have been easier, tidier, if things were all good, all bad, all one way or another. But they weren’t. They never had been.

  My whole life, he’d watched me. Coached me. Controlled me. Violated me. Made me his trophy. And now, his punishment was to continue to watch me: Watch me be free. Watch me be in love. Watch me hold the reins. Watch me make my own legacy. Watch me—and never have me again.

  - acknowledgments -

  AS NOBEL LAUREATE Orhan Pamuk said, writing is spending time alone in a room. While that’s true, Dark Horses wouldn’t have made the transition from manuscript to book if I’d been left strictly on my own.

  Many thanks to the members of my critique group, No Coast Writers, who heard every word of Dark Horses in first-draft form and offered invaluable feedback: Mary-George (Bunny) Eggborn, Martha Grossman, Janet Majerus, Emily Mell, Kyra Ryan Ochoa, Penny Simi, Brian Tacang, and Susan Washburn. Thank you with sugar on top to Penny and Susan, whose backgrounds in psychology enabled me to validate my characters’ motivations and actions. And thanks again to Penny and Janet, who talked me off the writerly ledge more than once. Thank you to Lauren Bjorkman and Eileen Wiard, who as newcomers to NCW beta-read the millionth draft.

  Thank you to my former agent, Emma Sweeney of Emma Sweeney Agency, who saw the potential in my story, understood why I wrote it the way I wrote it, and supported me through numerous revisions.

  My thanks also to my current agent, Margaret Sutherland Brown of Folio Literary Management. Margaret’s keen editorial sensibilities helped me polish the story until it shone.

  Alison Callahan of Simon & Schuster’s Scout Books/Gallery Press imprints, you are my dream editor. Thank you for sharing my vision for this book and for taking a chance on me. My thanks, too, to Alison’s assistant, Maggie Loughran. You rock.

  Thank you to Layne Dylla, eventing groom extraordinaire, who vetted the eventing sections of the manuscript. Any errors that might have crept in are solely mine.

  Thank you to Dr. Bessie Babits, DVM, with whom I discussed Diva.

  Thank you to A. J. Calhoun, the critical care tech who advised me on how Monty’s injuries would be treated.

  My deepest thanks to Nancy Glasgow and the late John Glasgow for their generous support. Equally generous are my mother-in-law, Gloria E. Aragón, and sister-in-law, Cecilia Aragón. Thank you.

  It’s hard to find words that can adequately express my appreciation of and love for my husband, Frederick Aragón, who supported me in every way possible and always had time to listen to me hash out a problematic scene or character. You’re more than a husband. You’re a creative force, a fierce advocate, my forever partner, and my soft place to land.

  And finally, my thanks to you, the reader. I wrote Dark Horses for myself, yes, but I also wrote it for you. Thank you for your time and attention. I hope you found the journey worthwhile.

  More in Literary Fiction

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  The Lake House

  Manhattan Beach

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  - about the author -

  Susan Mihalic has worked as a book editor, curriculum writer, writing instructor, and freelance writer and editor. She has also taught therapeutic horseback riding. She graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi and now lives in Taos, New Mexico.

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  SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Susan-Mihalic

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  Scout Press

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products o
f the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Susan Mihalic

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Scout Press Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Scout Press hardcover edition February 2021

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  Interior design by Jaime Putorti

  Jacket design by Grace Han

  Jacket photographs by Getty Images

  Author photograph by Frederick Aragón

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  ISBN 978-1-9821-3384-9

  ISBN 978-1-9821-3386-3 (ebook)