by Tish Cohen
Dedication
For Lucas and Max
Epigraph
I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded;
not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering
its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced
in the middle of the night.
—KHALED HOSSEINI, THE KITE RUNNER
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue: New Jersey
Chapter 1: Greenville, North Carolina
Chapter 2: New Jersey
Chapter 3
Chapter 4: Lake Placid, New York
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
New Jersey
2006
It was one of those things that never should have happened—the kind you turn over, splay open with pins, and examine at intervals for the rest of your life because it will never, ever cease to matter. Any little interruption could have changed the timing: a slice of bread in the toaster too long, a stalled van on the 287, a song on the radio you just had to hear to the end.
Elise Sorenson stepped outside to a frosty October morning. The frenzied weekday choreography of grave-faced commuters marching to the train and parents stuffing schoolchildren turtled by backpacks into SUVs had finally given way to quiet. The odd yellow leaf spiraled softly earthward. She could see her breath as she climbed into the car.
No riding in the third trimester had been her husband’s only request. Her obstetrician’s advice was straightforward: any sport you are already proficient at is safe to continue, especially at Elise’s level of experience. Dressage riders competed at the Olympics while pregnant, for God’s sake. The doctor had left it up to Elise to determine when to stop, and when she reached twenty-eight weeks—her belly the size of a domed screen that keeps flies off a picnic ham—it felt right to stay on the ground.
Anyway, her horse was young. It wasn’t a bad idea to have her coach train him for a few months.
It had been three weeks since she’d stopped riding, and having nowhere to go every morning still felt strange. Lonely. You couldn’t spend five days a week debating cloth diapers versus disposables. More often than not, habit drew her back to the stable. The place was more than just a barn for Elise; it had been her home for the last part of high school.
She arrived that day to find Ronnie Goodrich schooling her horse in the arena and slipped behind the low, dust-covered wall of the viewing area to watch. Steam puffed from the animal’s nostrils as he cantered around the far end. The only sound was the powdery thud of hooves and the familiar waxy squeak of good saddle leather.
It was still pretty outside. The arena doors and windows were flung open to the quivering riot of scarlet, mulberry, and gold in the woods beyond. Another month or two and the place would be sealed up tight, heaters on the ceiling glowing like embers.
A somersault in her abdomen and Elise’s hand instinctively went to her stomach. This baby was an acrobat. Over three pounds now, a recent ultrasound showed. And already sucking its thumb. Her thumb. The baby’s position had finally allowed for a peek.
Soon Ronnie’s working students filed in—three moon-eyed, flat-bellied girls who floated along the barn aisles like cult followers, armfuls of freshly laundered saddle pads and flakes of sweet hay offered up in exchange for lessons and board from the great man. Elise had done the same at their age. Lara, Amy, and Kirsten. Amy waved excitedly, gestured toward Elise’s stomach, whispered, “So cute!”
Too soon, the ride was over. Elise wasn’t ready to leave this haven yet, she thought, as she stepped into the soft give of the arena footing. Indie hadn’t had a thorough brushing in days. His hooves needed polishing. Besides that, she’d give his silver bit and the fittings on his bridle a good scrub with a toothbrush. Lanolin balm over the stirrup leathers with a damp sponge, reach farther under the saddle flaps than usual.
As Ronnie loosened the girth, he raved about the horse’s unusual combination of enthusiasm and absolute calm. The animal was kinder and more tranquil than most humans. As if embarrassed, Indie gently tugged on Elise’s sweater with his lips. It made the students laugh. Swoon, even—teenage girls are always horse-sick. Elise had started to lead the gelding back to the barn when Amy asked if anyone had taken a photo of Elise atop her horse the day she’d stopped riding.
“Seriously, how darling would that be with your baby bump?”
Very, was the squealed consensus.
Still, Elise hesitated. But Indie was so gentle and trustworthy, Ronnie’s preschool-age nieces and nephews had been led around the arena on his back. Ronnie had given a rider with autism from Colorado a lesson on the horse that summer. He was, as they say, bomb-proof. Besides, it would be just for a second.
Kirsten held the reins while Elise stepped up onto the mounting block and, with some difficulty balancing, swung her leg over the saddle.
The little gray dog came out of nowhere.
Chapter 1
Greenville, North Carolina
June 2015
Even with the flight’s fifteen-minute delay and the half-hour drive from Newark to Montclair, she’d still make it to the school on time, Elise thought as she tightened her seat belt and forced herself to slow down and breathe. She checked her watch—1:15 p.m. There wasn’t a lot of wiggle room.
A striking woman with flippy black hair and a breezy linen shirt over white jeans paused in the aisle, her destination clearly the window seat. “Sorry. That’s me over there.”
Elise shifted to allow her seatmate to pass in a moneyed jingle of bracelets and the faintest waft of perfume. Once the scent dissipated, Elise realized that, in the confined space of the 747, in her breeches and sweatshirt, she smelled vaguely organic. Bestial, even, covered as she was in sweat, sunscreen, and show-ring silt.
After three weeks in North Carolina and, ten weeks prior to that, three months in Florida, Elise Sorenson was finally on her way home. She’d been at the Tryon horse show in Mill Spring that morning with a very late test time—9:45—for a woman who needed to be in another state by afternoon. After her ride, without taking the time to change, she raced back to the house she’d shared with six other international riders, most of whom she didn’t know; one of whom (the one who did jump squats after midnight and, she was nearly certain, helped himself to her protein powder) she wished she’d never met; and all of whom were fighting for the same thing: better scores than they’d earned in Florida so they could be long-listed for the U.S. equestrian team in
Rio next year.
She’d thrown her bags into the back of her coach’s rented Land Rover, left Ronnie to accompany the horses back to Newark, cleared security in record time considering it was the first real weekend of the summer, and made it, breathless and glowing with anticipation, to seat 19C.
She checked her watch again. 1:25. I’ll be there, she’d promised her daughter last night on the phone.
Thumps came from beneath the floor as luggage was heaved into the belly of the plane. Then the breathless pong of the flight attendant call button. She reached up to blast the overhead vent in case her seatmate noticed the eau de cheval, then glanced around at the other passengers. Some of them must be horse people, she thought. Anyway, she was probably being paranoid.
With a mother who worked part-time as a doctor’s receptionist and a father whose John Deere salesman-of-the-year dreams never materialized, Elise Bleeker had grown up in a depressed neighborhood. It lay along the western border of Lower Vailsburg in Newark, New Jersey, and was not-so-lovingly dubbed “the Coop” because it wasn’t uncommon for people to keep a backyard chicken or two. The Trumbulls, who lived directly behind the Bleekers, kept hens in a converted shed along the property line. On a hot day, the caustic smell of excrement drifted through Elise’s window, permeating every soft surface. You couldn’t get it out of your nose. She was certain it attached itself to the clothes her mother hung out to dry. It might have even clung to her hair. Her suspicions were confirmed on the bus one day when a young boy held his nose and told his father something stunk. Elise slipped off at the next stop. That shame never fully leaves a person.
Now, movement beside her caught Elise’s attention. With every click of an overhead bin being pushed shut and every thump of a passenger rushing past, Elise’s seatmate braced for impact. The woman pulled the safety card from the pouch at her knees and stared at it, hands shaking.
Elise leaned close. “If it helps at all, I’m on my way to a very important event back in Montclair, something I—one hundred percent—must attend. And if I arrive safely, you arrive safely.”
The woman’s fingers went to her necklace; she was clearly embarrassed. “Ridiculous to be such a baby. I’m forty-five years old.”
“Nothing ridiculous about being afraid of something and going ahead and doing it.” Elise realized her paddock boots were smeared with barn dirt and tucked them beneath her seat. “Maybe more ridiculous to board a plane covered in mud.”
“You’re Elise Sorenson. You can be forgiven.”
Elise searched her memory. Was this someone she was supposed to know?
“I’m not a stalker.” The woman held out a manicured hand for Elise to shake. “Laurel Sabados. Getting my girls to and from barns and horse shows and tack shops has been my full-time job since they were old enough to talk. My eldest, Jessa, had a photo of you on her corkboard. From Dressage Today magazine, I think?” When Elise didn’t correct her, Laurel continued. “You were her idol.”
Were.
Admittedly, Elise had taken a risk that morning. Dressage is all white gloves and tails, top hat and hair twisted into a netted bun. The one event set to music, the Grand Prix Freestyle, is typically done to Bach, or Gershwin, or “A New Argentina” from Evita, perhaps. But Tamara Berlo-Chang had just scored 73.39. Elise needed to make a statement and switched her music to something decidedly more edgy at the last minute: Lil’ Kim singing an expletive-spackled song called “Lighters Up.” The judges were in such a fluster, they’d held off scoring. “Sounds like you saw my test.”
“I loved it.” Laurel paused, then added, “I don’t care what anyone said.”
Wait. “What did they say?”
“Oh, you know how people are.” Laurel raised the window shade with the tip of a finger, peering at the ground traffic, then snapped it all the way down. “Doesn’t bear repeating.”
“Don’t tell me. Tamara Berlo-Chang is your daughter’s new idol?” Elise sighed nervously. “Deservedly, without a doubt.”
“No. You remained her heroine to the end. Jessa died last year.”
Elise’s stomach dropped. For all the guilt she lived with, things could have turned out far, far worse. “Oh . . . god. I’m so sorry.”
“Drunk driver—another teenager, actually. Home from Pepper-dine for the summer. Out there on a baseball scholarship.” Laurel held a deep, bolstering breath. “He lived. Jessa didn’t.”
“God.” Elise sat with the weight of this woman’s tragedy. “That’s . . . I don’t know what to say. How on earth do you go forward?”
Laurel pulled a folded tissue from her sleeve cuff and refolded it. “Minute by minute.”
“And the driver?”
“He’s in prison. Two young lives destroyed.”
A passenger leaned over Elise to stuff his bag into the overhead bin with enough force that it rocked her seat. His tie swung into her space and she leaned away.
“I’ve wondered many times since whether I am supposed to forgive him,” Laurel said.
“And do you?”
“Jessa deserved more.” Her eyes searched the chair back in front of her for answers that weren’t there. Then Laurel made a deliberate shift in body language: she pushed her fists into her lap, fixed her gaze on Elise, and smiled through eyes now tinged with pink. The moment had passed. “Enough about my life. What takes you to New Jersey on such an important mission that you’re going to keep the plane up in the air for it?”
It was like coming out of a darkened movie theater, surprised anything exists beyond the story you were engrossed in. Elise blinked hard. “Gracie, my eight-year-old, is in her first play tonight.”
“How lovely.”
“I’ve been home less than three months total this year. This will be my longest stretch back with her and my husband. So it’s a bit of a reunion.”
For a Grand Prix dressage rider with Olympic dreams who lived in the snow-covered tundra that was the northeastern United States, it simply was what it was. Elise shipped down to Wellington, Florida, in late December with her Hanoverian gelding, which meant the family spent many Christmases beneath palm trees. She flew home for family time as her competition and training schedule allowed, and Matt and Gracie drove down for the odd long weekend. This season, however, Elise’s scores had been all over the place—concerning with Rio only one year away: the 2016 games were the reason they’d bought Indie all those years ago. And for Tokyo in 2020, Indie would be nineteen. There was no way to know if the horse would be up to it. Maybe with the sale of Matt’s family cabin there would be money to buy a youngster, but to have another horse ready? Possible, but only if everything went smoothly.
Once the shows in Florida ended, after a couple of well-earned months at home, she and Ronnie had trekked down to North Carolina. Trouble was, her scores there were up and down as well. It had gotten to the point where, Elise could tell, Matt was afraid to ask during their bedtime phone calls. He asked about the weather. Her workout schedule. How she slept.
All the money Elise had spent this past season, all the time away, may have been for nothing.
“Tough on a family, this lifestyle, I suppose,” said Laurel. “Lots of Skyping.”
“Every day, if we can. And Matt is a rock. But, believe me, I face a whole lot of judgment from the moms in the schoolyard.”
Laurel tsked. “The choices mothers make are so under the microscope, aren’t they?”
After the accident, Elise didn’t allow herself to ride again for nearly three years. It took Matt and Ronnie sitting her down for an intervention at the Tiny Rhino Café in town to get her back on a horse. “Sometimes deservedly.”
“And sometimes not.”
Flight attendants and stray passengers busied themselves with overhead compartments and seat belts that needed fastening.
“It’s not the traditional way to parent, but you have to believe your child will learn by example, right? How to really go for it,” Elise said.
As for her own drive, she certainly had
n’t learned from example. While her father, Warren, with his twinkling green eyes and his politician’s smile, had always taught her she could accomplish whatever she set her mind to, his own methods were sorely lacking. “What you have to do is believe, princess,” he used to say. “Because if you don’t believe, they don’t believe.” And there her large-framed mother, Rosamunde, would sit beside him, ever hopeful that the big-talking man who’d swept into her life to woo her away from finishing her college degree had been the right choice.
Elise had had many a long, lonely flight to think about what drove her to fight this hard. It didn’t come from Warren’s encouragement at all. Her fire came much later, from the shock of his betrayal—an act that cost her mother her life. But Elise couldn’t think about that now. Sorrow was an indulgence she didn’t have time for.
Laurel was staring at her. “You’re one of the most talented riders in the country, Elise. Being traditional is never really going to be an option. Nor should it be.”
Elise glanced down at the Summerhill Prep program in her lap. The Blossom King was the end-of-school-year play and Gracie had been selected to draw the cover illustration: a frowning cherry tree next to a vain monarch. He had in his possession three things: the desire for a robe made of petals, a newly sharpened axe, and a henchman willing to use it. What he didn’t see was the morality lesson charging at him like an invisible freight train.
The curtain would go up at five. Hopefully, Matt would score two front-row-center seats so their daughter could feel her parents’ adoration from the stage, where she was to play a baby koala waiting for a breakfast of ripe cherries. That the freckle-faced joey had been born in Branch Brook Park, New Jersey, hadn’t struck the drama teacher as remotely improbable. Nor had it worried her that said marsupial insisted upon wearing a tiara. It was, after all, as Gracie had pointed out the previous evening on the phone, in the froggy voice that had earned her the nickname “Little Green,” her stage debut.
Awkward for Elise’s reunion with her husband to happen in front of every parent and teacher in the school, but after a self-conscious embrace, Matt would pull her hand onto his lap, fold her fingers into a ball, and cover it with his own. It was the hot little stone of their love. From this pip sprang their life together.
