Vander rode one while leading the other to the meadow, at a swift pace most of the way with slowing only once or twice to let onlookers have an eyeful. These beautiful horses were the envy of the entire village. The sound of their hooves on the lane sometimes made Piper sad as she fondly remembered the two horses her family had kept when her mother was alive. Inka and Vilho were their names, and they had carried her father and his wares from village to village in the heat of summer and the snows of winter, surefooted and loyal, wanting only to please. Piper and Marek would take turns brushing their manes, picking briars and burrs from their tails, and fetching them water, hay, and sometimes a handful of oats, so that their father could sit and watch his wife sip broth or pray with her that God would spare her and allow her to watch her children grow.
Piper’s father could be heard from out in the stable yard, singing softly at her bedside, a sad sweet song about a girl who caught a young man’s eye at a village dance. But far from his home, he had tried hard to find her in someone else and spent his life searching and searching. When the songs were done and the summer’s harvest was put up in the lofts to keep, Piper’s mother’s time on earth ran out like a dropped coin on a floor-board, rolling, teetering, circling, and finally tipping, rattling as it finds a place to rest. It was a cool evening in October when the last breath escaped her parched lips, her hand falling from her bosom to her husband’s lap, eyes rolling heavenward.
These were the darkest of days. Little Marek would not be comforted, would not be quieted. He cried and screamed and pounded his fists on the bed where his mother once lay, accusing his father of putting her in the dirt. This little lost boy wanted to spend his days at the mound of rocks where his mother was laid to rest but his father forbade him, sometimes striking him out of frustration and ordering Piper to lock him in the chicken coop. Knowing what her mother would think about this, she instead would take him gently by the hand and walk with him down to the harbor and there they practiced skipping stones.
But times were hard and when the snows blanketed their village much sooner than usual, Piper’s father, having so little money put by, was forced to trade the horses that winter for food and clothing for his children. He never told a soul, but he was tormented by the idea that he might have to use the horses themselves for sustenance and never wanted to be faced with such a choice, such a betrayal. He felt it was better to trade them while they were still well cared for. They had indeed served him nobly for more than twelve years. And when the early yellow and purple crocuses pushed their way through the soft and melting snow, Piper and her father and brother bade farewell to their home and prayed as they traveled long and far into their future that sadness and despair would not greet them wherever they may land.
Piper was a girl through and through and was given to fits of passion and impatience. She wanted to follow Vander and ask him about his horses and if the stories about where they came from were true. She didn’t like the fact that Lyska thought she was worthy of a boy like Vander. She realized, though, that she was a disheveled and dirty mess. She could not run to the meadow pretending to chase a butterfly, and just happen upon Vander on his way home. She wished with all her might that she had a mother who could set things straight for her, too. Instead, Piper was faced with something she was loathe to do: wait patiently.
When she saw him next, Vander was offering to help her skip stones and that had not gone as she might have liked. But days later, Piper saw an opportunity to get a closer look at Vander’s horses in the meadow behind her lane. She climbed a tree and jumped onto a giant boulder that looked out over the meadow. Pieferet and Henk grazed on the darker green clover, never far from one another, avoiding the milkweed and sumac that had sprung up in the late summer meadow. She was settling herself on the warm rock as she had done dozens of times before when hiding from her brother and her chores, wanting only a little time alone with her thoughts. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of a silky gull feather on the edge of the boulder, fluttering in a light breeze that threatened to blow it away. She knew she could reach it, and so she stretched out her hand and, leaning a bit too far, tumbled to the ground, scraping her knee on the way down.
She hit the lush pasture without a sound, and it took her a few moments to realize that not only had she fallen far, but her knee was gushing bright blood, the skin having given way in a sickening tear, loose edges of flesh suddenly a bright crimson. She cried out for her mother, whom she always tried hard not to think or talk about. Her father was always so sad when Marek asked about Mere, and Piper made a promise to herself that she would not cause her father pain in that way. She never spoke of her mother, not to her father and not to Marek. What made her cry out to her mother who had been dead and buried for so many years now? Why would she not call for Marek or her father? She wanted her mother, needed her. She realized at a very tender age that mothers can never be replaced; she understood, too, that those who still have their mothers don’t know the meaning of loneliness.
Her knee hurt, but there was a greater hurt that she had been hiding for so very long. Most nights, she lay on her bed of goose down and straw in the loft next to Marek, swallowing tears and screams in the night, denying that her mother was truly gone forever, while below her, by the fire, her father prayed aloud that his wife was resting at last and that God would give him the strength and the wisdom to do right by his children. Piper screamed for her mother; she screamed so that her father would not have to cry, screamed so that Marek would not call her “Mere” by mistake when his eyes were heavy with sleep. She cried that her mother would comfort her from her place in Heaven. She hollered over and over, not believing that it was her own voice she heard in her ears, so angry and raw.
“Maman! Maman! Maaaaaamaaan! I need you, where are you? Please! Please come back! Why did you leave me here?”
She sobbed and prayed that somehow God would let her mother down from Heaven. Just this once. She promised that she would never ask for anything else so important ever again if God would just let her mother hold her and whisper that it will be all right. If God could do anything, as she had been taught, why couldn’t He do this? She fell back exhausted against the boulder, chest heaving, and stared with utter hatred at an ant crawling up her shin toward her bloody knee. She flicked it away and hoped the ant would suffer terribly before it died. She closed her eyes and hoped that when she opened them her mother would be there. After taking several deep, whimpering breaths, she slowly opened her teary eyes and, sniffling, looked up.
A hand was reaching down toward hers. She thought she must be dreaming. Blinking, her eyes searched upward, the sun shining in them making it difficult to see who was there. And then she heard the most beautiful voice say, “Give me your hand.” As she shifted her weight up onto her good knee, she could see that it was Vander, his smile a beautiful sight that calmed her, his blue eyes searching hers. And as she touched his warm hand for the first of a thousand times, she was filled with a warm feeling of absolute love and light.
Chapter 7
IT WASN’T UNTIL MID-MAY that Paul formally asked Piper if they were in a committed relationship. And it wasn’t until late May that she said no. The dates they had been on were easy and comfortable. No one beside Sharon knew they were seeing each other outside of work; though they spent a lot of the week working together on different policies, Piper kept him at arm’s length. Paul always needed some clarification on one thing or twelve others and from no one except the tall brunette he couldn’t stop thinking about.
“No, we’re not in a relationship.” Piper felt for the first time in her life that she didn’t need to explain herself and utter all kinds of apologies and sentiments about not mixing business with pleasure and so forth. It was also a first for Paul in that no one had ever refused a date with him; not in his adult life anyway. He seemed to Piper to be a genuinely nice guy, and very easy on the eyes she had to admit to Sharon, but she was determined to keep things professional, for now anyway. Find
ing herself in a bit of a mental fog recently and not really able to explain why, she just wanted life to be easy; for her, relationships didn’t fit in that category.
She was exceptionally good at her job; even on an offday, she was outselling anyone in the equine division, giving the impression that she was a completely put-together professional woman. On the inside, however, she sometimes felt lonely; but knew being alone must have a purpose. She trusted that it had a purpose.
Truth be told, her personal life was a mystery to most. On her desk sat a small photograph of her at six, sandwiched between her mother and father, her tiny teeth gleaming save for the one missing. Her pink tongue peeked out from the space it left. In another photograph, larger and in a beautiful dark mahogany frame, was Victory, carefully braided and tacked up for a hunter class at a local show. His eyes were open wide—the whites screaming caution, ears forward and neck craning around to look at the camera. To a trained eye, it was obvious he was posturing, protecting the girl holding his reins, standing at his shoulder, with her back to the camera. On Piper’s back, the placard read “9,” the number which always brought her luck and blue ribbons. Aside from these photos, a desk calendar, and telephone, her desk was clear.
The calendar, she was mindful, was there for anyone to view and so had only written-in business-related appointments and messages. The occasional “V” was scribbled over and over as a result of either a phone call that dragged on and on or perhaps during the occasional mid-afternoon lull when Piper took the opportunity to sit with a cup of tea and stare out her office window, daydreaming. She dreamed of a time when she might ride again. Really ride. Not just the occasional hack through the open fields of a friend’s farm or the infrequent hunter pace she was invited to ride. But really ride, out in the state forests, the old logging roads, railroad beds, and down to the shore well after Labor Day when the beaches would be empty.
She loved the call of the gulls and lure of the waves and the feeling of the salty wind sweeping all the cobwebs from her mind and sending adrenaline crashing through her veins, making her heart beat to the rhythm of Victory’s stride. To Piper, there was no sound as inviting or as exhilarating as that of hooves pounding on sand, faster and faster until the three-beat of a canter turned into a four-beat gallop. Her dad used to trailer Victory to Nantasket Beach in the old red Shoop he bartered from a man who needed a flagstone walkway installed. Piper wished away the summer for just this time, this one day each year. Horses were only allowed on the beach when the summer crowds had migrated back to school and work for another nine months, leaving the shoreline empty save for the few joggers and kite-flying children. Her mom would come along for the ride and bring a lunch for them all, including Victory.
Neither of her parents rode, but they certainly felt a deep appreciation for this animal and the wonders he had done for Piper when she was a little girl and talked nonstop of a little boy who would visit her in the night when she was trying to sleep. The doctors all agreed that it was no more than an imaginary friend, harmless and, in fact, the sign of a bright child. They tried to reassure them that Piper was a perfectly normal girl with a very healthy imagination, but Piper’s mother was unsettled by it, especially when she heard more than a few one-sided conversations through the closed bedroom door. It was equally unsettling that her daughter knew the names of flowers that certainly did not grow in their yard, neither parent having much of a green thumb. Where would she have learned all these names? How did she know so much about horses? Surely not from the Golden Books on her bedroom bookshelf. Who did she think she was talking to? And why, during these one-sided conversations, did she talk of her mother’s death? Piper never heard her mother’s terrified voice, or saw the look on her father’s face as he tried to hide his concern as his wife sobbed and insisted that there was something wrong with their little girl.
The doctors suggested a hobby or activity that might tucker their six-year-old out and give her something to focus on. Gymnastics didn’t hold Piper’s attention and swimming was something fun she enjoyed with friends only during the summer months. Piano was far too boring, and Piper adamantly refused to practice. It wasn’t until she took her first riding lesson on a dapple gray horse named London Bridge that she felt more than comfortable, more than home. A year later, her parents had tired of the constant whining and pleading, and the never-ending trips to the barn where their daughter wanted to spend all of her time. They were told by parents of other horse-obsessed girls that this was the norm, and, eventually, she would grow out of it. But Piper’s parents were worried about her, insisting in her steadfastness that she needed to be at the barn directly after school and not coming home until exhaustion demanded that she do so. On weekends, it was unheard of for her to rise, dress, and arrive at the barn later than 7 a.m. and rare if she returned home earlier than 6 p.m. This worried her mother a bit, but knowing it made her daughter happy, she went along with it, visiting the barn often to be sure that Piper wasn’t working too hard. Her schoolwork, rather than slipping, improved, bolstering her mother’s belief that it was, in fact, what she needed. But when Piper was at home she was restless, unfocused, wanting only to go back to clean a few stalls, sweep the hayloft, and breathe in the atmosphere that only a barn has. Eventually, her mother and father decided that they ought to build a small barn with a paddock for Victory out behind the house. At least that way, they would have their daughter at home with them.
Piper was startled by the phone and sat up straight, focused her tired eyes, and answered it.
“Piper, it’s me. I’m running out for coffee; want to take a walk with me?” It was Paul and to hear his cheerful voice one would not guess that he had just the day before been turned down for a date by a woman who he had been thinking about nonstop for the last few months.
She smiled as she said, “Sure, I’ll meet you downstairs.” When she got off the elevator of the Prudential building, she felt familiar butterflies in her stomach much like she had when she knew she would soon see Darrick. She missed him, or rather, missed how he made her feel and sometimes wondered if she had made a huge mistake by breaking up with him. Dating since then had not gone well and she missed that connection she had felt with Darrick, that closeness, familiarity. On the one hand, she really longed for that, and on the other, she was incredibly glad to be free of it. She just figured that everything happens for a reason and if she just let things flow the way they do, then it was just going to have to be good enough for her. When she stepped off the elevator in her gray skirt, white cami, thin pink sweater, and heels, the sunlight coming through the lobby windows shone directly into her eyes, blinding her and making her squint, wrinkle her nose, and walk cautiously forward. Paul was waiting for her at the front door and enjoyed the fact that she couldn’t yet see him. He liked to watch her when she didn’t know he was watching.
He found her more than beautiful. Paul felt that if she would just give him the chance, he could make her happy. What he really loved about her was that she sometimes seemed to be unaware of the way people noticed her. Men and women alike turned their heads, if even just slightly, to catch a glimpse of the taller-than-average, nicely dressed woman who sort of floated as she walked. When she saw Paul at last, she smiled a warm, genuine smile and said, “Looks like the sun decided it would come out after all.”
He replied with, “It saw you coming.”
She smiled. How corny, but cute just the same. Her impulsiveness getting the better of her, as it had since she decided to be born into an ice storm one January night, she decided right then that she could let her guard down with him—take a chance. What the hell. Feeling more alive now as they stepped onto the sidewalk and into the warm sun, she turned to Paul.
“On second thought, maybe it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that we are in some sort of relationship.” He smiled a beautiful, broad smile, the kind that made his skin crinkle at the corners of his dark eyes. “Really,” he said through the smile. And just then, as they turned in
the direction of the coffee shop, she stopped and took a deep breath. She said quietly, “Do you smell that? I smell something sweet. Lavender, I think.”
Paul shook his head. “No. Maybe it’s your perfume.”
Chapter 8
SOME BELIEVE THAT LIFE is nothing more than a series of random events that lead a person from one end of his or her life to the other with tragedy, controversy, and joy dotting the fabric, creating the landscape. Others believe that life is a carefully embroidered plan with intricate messages hidden among the details of a baby’s tiny fingernail, a puppy’s ceaseless love, a husband’s knowing and steady patience, a mother’s fear-driven religion. Others believe that one’s own destiny lies in free choice.
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