Flying Changes

  I look guiltily at my lap, because of course I also had no intention whatever of letting Eva complete the course.

  "And she most certainly did bail," Nathalie continues. "She bailed on the rest of us. I made it very clear that if she didn't show up to support the others the next day, she was out. And guess what? She didn't show up."

  This is the moment for the atomic bomb. I open the hatch and let her fly--

  "Nathalie!" I say sharply. She looks startled, and I let my eyes bore into hers for a moment because I believe this is the first time I've ever had the upper hand. "Eva didn't bail on you. She didn't show up the next day because we learned that her father and his wife had been in a horrific car accident and we had to rush to the hospital in Lebanon. Her stepmother was killed on impact. Her father was in grave condition and died shortly after we arrived."

  Nathalie's face morphs completely. I experience a tiny twinge of post-Catholic guilt because I'm fully aware that we didn't find out about the accident until after Eva had already blown off the rest of the show, but I saw an opportunity to flush Nathalie's ultimatum down the toilet and I ran with it. Any mother in my situation would do the same. If it turns out I'm wrong about the God thing, surely he'll consider it a venial sin.

  Nathalie leans slowly back into the depths of the couch. It's a long time before she speaks. "I'm so sorry. How's Eva?"

  "As well as you might expect. I don't suppose I'll really know for a while."

  Nathalie sits with both hands pressed to her cheeks. After a while she gets up and goes to the coffee machine. She pours herself a Styrofoam cup of something that looks more like molasses or tar than coffee, and then lifts the pot by way of an offer.

  I shake my head.

  She wanders over to the window of the lounge and stands watching Danielle put her horse through his paces. Horse and rider have now come to an understanding. He's regal and flashy, but he's no Hurrah--and he's certainly no Joe.

  Nathalie sips her coffee with her other hand on her hip. She stands like that for ages, drinking her coffee and staring into the arena. Eventually she turns around and comes back. She flops back down onto the couch and puts one boot up on a nearby chair.

  "Are you sure coming back here is the right thing for her right now? I mean, wouldn't it be better to be with her family?"

  "I'm not at all sure it's the right thing. But I found her crying in the barn last night, wracked with guilt because she misses Joe but figures she shouldn't be thinking about anything other than her dead father."

  "Aw, Jesus."

  "She also says if she can't ride Joe, she'll never ride another horse as long as she lives."

  Nathalie sips her coffee silently. Then she says, "Well, if it's any consolation, Joe seems to share that sentiment. He's been sulking since she left, jumping every damned thing in sight. Paddock fences, that is, because of course nobody else can get on his back."

  "Even you?"

  Nathalie throws me a look. "Annemarie, he'd throw even you."

  We're both silent for a minute. "You can tell me to shut up if you want," I finally say, "but if you can't ride him, why did you buy him?"

  "I bought him because I've never seen a seven-year-old horse that can do one-tempi changes, and because Joe can and will jump anything. I saw Yvonne Richards ride him at Fairhill and bought him on the spot. Sometimes you just have a feeling about a horse, and I had it about Joe. In spades."

  "So why was she selling him?"

  "Because even though he let her ride him, he made it pretty clear he was merely tolerating her. And when he didn't feel like tolerating her, he threw her. And she's in her fifties and getting tired of hitting the ground. It's funny--hubris, I guess. I've known Yvonne for many years, but I didn't believe her when she said he wouldn't let anyone ride him. But he didn't."

  "Until Eva."

  "Until Eva," she replies.

  "Would you consider selling him to us?"

  Her face swings around. "I thought you said Eva wanted to come back."

  "No. Actually I just asked if you'd consider it." I lean forward, pleading with my eyes. "I'm in a real pickle here."

  Nathalie turns away in disgust.

  "What? What did I say?" And then I realize. "Oh jeez--no pun intended. Honestly. Look, I don't know what's best here. I'm just trying to assess the options. What I haven't told you is that Eva's four-month-old baby half brother was orphaned in the accident, and now he's living with us. He means the world to her, so I'm not at all sure she should be away from home six days a week. If Eva doesn't come back here--and she really does refuse to ride any other horse--she's just going to rattle around at our place until she gets into trouble. And that's a guarantee. And the only other option I could come up with was buying Joe."

  There's a moment of surprised silence. Then she says, "I'm sorry, but that's impossible. He's not for sale."

  "But...Will you at least consider it? Eva will come into a considerable amount of money. It will be in trust, of course, and I still have to find out the details, but you can pretty much name your price--"

  "Money is not an issue. I haven't seen a horse like this since Beauregard, and Beau is seventeen and ready to retire. Joe is clearly my best prospect, possibly my next Olympian. I'm sure you understand."

  "But...but..." I stare at her for a while, feeling all hope drain from my body. Then I rise to my feet, listening as my forty-year-old knees crack.

  "Hold on," says Nathalie. "Where are you going?"

  "Home, I guess."

  "Don't you want to discuss this?"

  I stop, confused. "Do you?"

  "Yes, of course. Joe's not for sale, but there's no point having him in my barn if I don't have anyone who can ride him. Let's think about this for a minute."

  I plop back down.

  "You're only an hour away, right?"

  "Right."

  "Are you fairly flexible?"

  "With regard to what?"

  "With regard to bringing her back and forth. Like maybe instead of spending six nights here and one night at home, maybe she could arrive on Mondays and go home Fridays. Or alternate three days here, then two days at home. Or something like that."

  "Really? You'd do that?"

  "Yes, of course. I think the circumstances call for a bit of flexibility, don't you?"

  I stare at her in astonishment. "Yes. Yes, I do." A tear slides down my face. I wish it didn't, but I can't help it. "Thank you, Nathalie. Thank you very much."

  Nathalie stands up and comes over to me. After a moment, she lays a hand on my shoulder.

  "So," she says gently, "why don't you discuss it with Eva and let me know what she decides?"

  I sniffle and nod.

  "Give her my love. Tell her Joe misses her."

  Four days later, Mutti, Dan, Eva, Jeremy, and I fly to Minnesota to attend Roger and Sonja's memorial service. It's a shared service, which strikes me as unusual but makes sense considering their instructions were identical, neither had families, and the attendees would have been the same since they both worked at Aldrich, Scoville, and Gaines.

  The coffins are closed and the service dignified and short. Both Eva and I cry throughout. I hope this provides some closure for her. I think it probably will--at least she isn't burying her father with unresolved issues, as I did mine. Hell, I'm also burying my ex-husband with unresolved issues.

  Roger and I were not meant to be married and both of us deserved better than what we had, but he was a good man and my God I'm sorry he's dead. I'm also grateful that Dan seems to understand exactly what I'm going through, and instead of feeling threatened by it, just keeps his arm firmly around me.

  Then the coffins disappear, rolling in unfollowed hearses to the crematorium. The interment of the ashes will happen later, quietly, and a year after that, when the ground has had a chance to settle, a small square of marble will sit on top of each.

  We go to Lawrence's palatial home to eat canapes, drink, and reminisce. His house is so conspicuously adorned with
the trappings of success that it's pathetic, particularly since I know that Peggy is gone.

  Is this what she was fleeing? Is she happier now? Did she and I have more in common than I gave her credit for way back when? I entertain the possibility--and not for the first time--that maybe, just maybe, I really have been an unbearable cow for most of my adult years.

  As I look around the mirrored rooms at the expensive paintings and sculptures and couches whose fabric matches the curtains exactly, I can't help wondering what Roger's final house looked like. If he hadn't left me, we'd still be together and I'd still be researching the perfect faux finish, still fussing over dichroic glass sinks, still trying to make my home a showpiece suitable for the lifestyle Roger and I were trying to maintain.

  And then--even though I'm fully cognizant that I've been through the wringer and also think that maybe I'm on my third glass of dry sherry--I'm overwhelmed with relief that this is no longer my life.

  As it turns out, I won't be living in a moldy trailer with Dan. But I'd choose a moldy trailer with Dan over this with Roger any day. And then I feel guilty and have yet another cry over poor old Roger, who was what he was and couldn't help it.

  Dan and I are married ten days later. Mutti wanted us to be married at her church by her priest, but even though I know how much it means to her, I just can't go along with it. For one thing, I'm so lapsed I doubt the priest would agree to it (although Dan is arguably salvageable). For another, I can't in good conscience receive communion even if I don't believe that there's a God somewhere up there reading my mind. But considering everything that's just happened, I'm hedging my bets just in case.

  And so we are wed in Mutti's garden under an apple tree that blossoms most gloriously for us. The other benefit of this arrangement is that I can have Hurrah present--something I doubt very much the priest would have agreed to in the church.

  The only people there (besides Dan and me, of course), are Mutti, Eva, Jeremy, and the judge. Eva holds Hurrah, who is bathed, spiffed up, and unbearably bored. Just as the service begins, he trumpets a mournful call to his friends out in the pasture, waits for their response, and then, when he gets it, snorts and falls silent with a great sigh.

  The ceremony--only seven minutes long--proceeds with great dignity until the moment Jeremy spits up copiously onto the shoulder of my new blue dress. I should have known better; I was jiggling him on my hip even though I knew somewhere in my brain that his tummy was full and he hadn't yet burped. So I suppose it's a self-inflicted wound.

  The dress is similar to my other blue one but a size larger because Mutti's gift to us is a wedding reception at Sorrento's, and I want to be able to enjoy it without worrying about splitting a seam. And since I still don't want to worry about splitting a seam, I decide not to try to squeeze myself into my original blue dress, choosing instead to mop up the milk from the new one and throw a square cloth diaper--which I should have been wearing in the first place--over my shoulder to cover the wet patch and prevent any new ones that might occur over the course of the evening.

  The reception is perfect, despite one moment right at the beginning when I wonder whether everything's going to go terribly wrong. It's the moment Luis steps out from behind his uncles--who happen to be our stable hands--and I hear Eva gasp. Dan and I exchange quick glances and I brace myself, because at this point anything could happen.

  What was Mutti thinking?

  The room falls so silent I hear dishes clinking from the kitchen. The moment stretches on so long that I begin to wonder whether I should hand Jeremy off to Dan in case I have to chase a fleeing Eva. Then she bolts across the room and throws herself into Luis's embrace. His arms close around her and he lifts her from her feet, twirling around as they press their heads together.

  I gasp, perilously close to tears, but there's no time for that because it's like someone flicked a switch and the party is back on. Dan, Jeremy, and I are surrounded by noisy well-wishers. The baby is plucked from my arms, and we are hugged, kissed, slapped on the back, and shaken by the hand. In addition to Luis and our stable hands, all of Dan's volunteers are there, along with some of Mutti's friends from church, Joan, and Walter.

  Luis and Eva take a table in the back corner and spend the evening canoodling. They lean toward each other, all four hands clutched in the center of the table. She nods a lot, listening. Occasionally she gets teary and drops her head, and when this happens, he raises a hand and wipes her face with his thumb. When I watch what's going on with them, I am grateful that Mutti invited him and embarrassed that I doubted her. I should know better by now--as infuriating as it is, she is almost always right.

  The piece de resistance occurs when the maitre d' stands in the center of the room and clinks a glass with the edge of a spoon. The room falls silent. I look around, wondering if someone is going to toast us, but then the double doors to the kitchen swing out and Gerard--our waiter from the night of the disastrous nonproposal--marches across the room and presents me with a chocolate souffle with a plastic bride and groom planted on top.

  I stare, shocked, and then look up. Everyone in the room roars with laughter. I look at Dan's smiling face, and then I look at Mutti's, and then I look at Eva--who may well be smiling but I can't tell because she is forehead to forehead with Luis. I feel the solid warm weight of Jeremy against my hip, and experience an up-swelling of joy so overwhelming I wonder if it's possible to float right out of my chair.

  Naughty Nathalie. It seems she was not entirely forthcoming with me during our last meeting. She had ulterior motives for wanting Eva back at her barn--or at least even more immediate ones than those to which she was admitting.

  A week after Eva returns to training (three days on, two days off), she mentions quite casually that she is competing in the Rochester Invitational Sporthorse Tournament in August--in the jumper division, naturally. It appears that she and Joe were chosen as one of the five "wildcard" invitees on account of what two of the committee members who were at Strafford saw--specifically, Joe and Eva taking the in-and-out as a single jump, and Joe's brave attempt to take the canoe despite sliding into it chest-first.

  Eva is over the moon.

  I am terrified.

  Pappa is probably dancing a jig in his grave.

  The invitational has traditionally been a feeding pool for the various equestrian teams that represent the United States at the Olympics.

  The family dream may have a pulse yet.

  Chapter 20

  August 18. Rosemont Stadium, Rochester, New York.

  I'm sitting on a hard bench in the stands, one leg jiggering like it's having a seizure all by itself, although my heart is threatening to join in. Dan is perched on the very edge of the bench because he's wearing Jeremy in a Kelty backpack. This gives Jeremy added height, and he reaches out with his little fists and grabs everything, including other spectators' hair, glasses, and hats. Most are good-natured about it. Some are not. When no one else is within reach, he grasps Dan by the ears or tries to stuff both fists in his mouth at once. At one point he has a finger up each of Dan's nostrils, trying to rip them asunder.

  We're in a section of the stadium that is unofficially reserved for riders and relatives, although no one says anything to the other spectators who wander in by accident. They quickly realize they're out of place when they hear the conversations going on. Some gather their things and move; others settle back against the hard wood of the benches and listen with greedy ears, hoping for gossip.

  We're waiting for the announcer to call Eva. The announcer, in turn, is waiting for some of the jumps to be reassembled. Out of twelve riders in her class, Eva and three others made the jump-off. She's the last to ride, and no one has gone clear yet. The last rider was going too hard for speed, knocked down four rails, and is now--depending on how Eva does--in either third or fourth place.

  I'm in the stands rather than at Eva's side for two reasons. The first is that I suddenly understand Nathalie's outrage over Eva's snit at Strafford. Nathali
e takes moral support extremely seriously. Although Eva is the only rider from her barn competing, twelve other girls are here, all in matching crimson-and-silver Wyldewood jackets and hats. Seven are up here in the stands--directly behind us, as it happens--and five are down with Nathalie, Mutti, and Eva.

  The other reason I'm here is that my therapist suggested that the less similar I made this to my own experience, the better. Ergo, instead of standing at the entrance to the arena and watching from ground level as the horses pass me, I sit perched up here and look down on things; a bird's eye view that is, indeed, new to me.

  "Are you okay, babe?" says Dan, squeezing my hand.

  I nod.

  The PA system screeches to life. "And now for our final contestant in the jump-off for class ninety-two, Open Jumper Division, Eva Aldrich on Smoky Joe, a blue roan Nokota gelding owned by Nathalie Jenkins of Wyldewood Farms."

  Eva and Joe canter into the arena, and my heart leaps into my throat. His neck is arched impossibly, his low-set tail streaming behind him. He throws his head and >dances a bit, but I can see from both his and Eva's body language that there's no problem here. He's raring to go and just making sure she knows it.

  She canters in a small circle, passing the electric eye that starts the clock. As soon as the red numbers flash on the screen, a ticker tape gone berserk, Joe explodes into a gallop.

  Jesus, Eva, a gallop? You can't approach a jump like that. Oh God, oh God, I can't take this. I squeeze my eyes shut and slam a hand over them.

  Dan continues holding my other hand. He knows the drill--each time she comes down safely, he squeezes my hand to tell me it's okay. Although this coping technique is of my own devising, my therapist has sanctioned it. She says that when I'm ready to watch, I'll know--and that in the meantime, there's no reason in the world not to close my eyes.

  I have the course memorized--of course I do, how could I not, especially when it ends with a double oxer? So when I hear a deep horse grunt and Dan squeezes, I know she's cleared the brush box and is headed for the brick wall. I can hear from the hoofbeats that they've slowed to a canter.

  A sharp yell from Eva--an aggressive noise--and they speed up again, approaching the brick wall.