A Gentle Rain

  The mare drew back, blowing. But as I stood there, she sniffed the hat again, lipped it, then relaxed. I eased alongside her and whispered, "You and I need to show everyone we're not a ... a one-trick pony. Agreed?" I grasped her mane and swung up on her back.

  Thank goodness, she only jumped a little.

  And I didn't fall off

  I nudged her, she walked, and we made a slow, triumphant journey to the fence. I slid off My legs shook. I led her to her stall, removed the lead, and closed the door behind her. She turned around gracefully, hung her head over the door, and looked at me. "Well done," I told her.

  I turned, wobbling a little, and Ben was there. He took me by the elbow. "Well done, there," he agreed gruffly.

  I looked up at him from under the brim of his hat. It was too large for me and sank so low I could barely see out. He thumbed the brim up. "You wear it well."

  "Thank you."

  "For what? Being the reason you got thrownl?"

  "Giving me a chance to prove myself."

  "You got nothing to prove to me."

  "I'm not the person you think I am. I've had things far too easy."

  He frowned when I said that, and the magic moment faded. Lily, Miriam and Joey arrived beside us. Lily clasped both hands to her heart. "No one will ever call our mare Dog Food again."

  I nodded. "She needs a name. Have you got any ideas?"

  Lily shook her head.

  "You name her," Ben said quietly. "You've earned the right. You understand her."

  Joey nodded. Miriam, too. "She listens to you," Miriam said. "Anybody else names her, why, she'll just bite a hunk out of `em. Maybe you ought to name her `Killer."'

  I looked at Ben. "You could suggest a Seminole name. Something that honors her native personality."

  He arched a brow "What? `She Who Bites Hats?"'

  I turned and looked at the gray mare. "She needs a name she can live up to. Something inspirational. Something that speaks to her inner self."

  "Jaws," Miriam grunted.

  "Something pretty," Lily urged.

  The gray mare studied me, her eyes dark and hopeful. The terrible scar stood out, obscuring what had once been a lovely equine face. She was damaged, but she was a survivor. She belonged to my birth mother and birth father; they had rescued her, with Ben's help. They believed in her. She was special.

  "Her scar is no longer a scar," I said. "It's a star." I reached out carefully. She drew back a little but let me rest the tip of my finger on the raised flesh. "I christen thee, Estrela. `Star,' in Portuguese. Estrela."

  "Estrela," Lily whispered. "Now, she's beautiful."

  Estrela blew warm, soft air on my hand.

  Even Ben smiled.

  Ben

  What I saw that day in the ring was a born horsewoman. Karen was small enough to fit the mare, agile, and filled with the kind of language horses understand. On the sly, observing from around barn corners and going by reports from Miriam and the rest, I'd catalogued her talking at least six different tongues to the mare. Portuguese, yeah, that one mostly, but then, too, Spanish, French, German, something from Scandinavia, and the occasional chung-po-pau of one or more Asian lingoes. Shoulda named the mare Babel.

  But whatever Karen said to Estrela was fine by me. Thanks to Karen, a hundred dollars of dog food had been transformed into a ridable member of the Thocco Ranch Cracker herd.

  Also thanks to Karen, Mac and Lily had a pretend-daughter. That's how they treated her. Like she was theirs.

  "She's what we need around here," Miriam kept saying with her drawn-on eyebrows raised. "She's an able-minded can-do gal. When Rhubarb farts, she doesn't even blink."

  Because of Karen, Joey's heart condition had stabilized. She and Mr. Darcy gave him plenty of entertainment to look forward to every day. You can't tell me waking up eager doesn't make a heart better. Karen had the same effect on me. My heart and other regions, too. Not being coy, here, just gallant.

  This isn't the sweetest comparison but it's all I've got: Watching a sexy woman ride a horse is like watching a stripper dance. It's the rhythm, it's the rockil' motion, it's the soft-thighed, muscular power. It hypnotizes men so they just stand there, like I did, hat in hand. What Karen did later with my hat-putting it to her face, inhaling my scent, then setting my hat on her head-would live in my mind like a pulsing red light and a gyrating pelvis from then on.

  Look. This is just how men see things.

  I mean it in a good way.

  When I tucked Joey in that night, before going to sit in the recliner near his bed, he draped one arm around Rhubarb and Grub, who were snuggled alongside him. Then he looked up at me with a little frown and said, "Don't you want a girlfriend?"

  Trick question. This was one of the reasons I'd always limited my love life to Saturday nights at the lake cabin. I didn't want to make him feel bad. Joey might not be "normal," but he was a ball-bearing grown man, like any other man in the basic ways. I knew he wanted a girlfriend. I knew he fantasized about having sex. We'd talked about it a lot over the years. I'd taken him to events for Down Syndrome people, trying to matchmake, but his romances never got beyond hand-holding and kisses.

  "Well, sure, some day," I said, sitting on the edge of his bed. "What's put this worry into your head?"

  "I don't want you to be lonely, if I ever die."

  My blood chilled. "What makes you say a thing like that?"

  "I can't wall,, anymore, Benji. I don't breathe as good as I used to."

  "That don't mean nothing."

  He took my hand. "Benji, you remember when Riley the cow dog got old and sick? And when my pony got to where he couldn't wall,, right? And you ... you put them to sleep so they wouldn't suffer, anymore? Benji, if I get like that, will you put me to sleep? You won't let me suffer, will ya?"

  I thought the misery would burn holes in my skin. "What makes you talk like this?"

  "I don't like not bein' able to walk. I don't like using a wheelchair."

  "You know I'll push you anywhere you want to go. You know I'm glad you're here. Aren't you happy to be here?"

  "Yeah, but maybe someday I'll be too sick to be happy."

  "Naw. I'll make sure you're always happy. What can I do to make you happier right now?"

  "I like watching TV. And Star Wars movies. And the new video games comin' out."

  "I'll get all of `em for you."

  "Yea!"

  "And what else?"

  "I like Karen. I like her a lot."

  "You want her to be your girlfriend?"

  "No! I want her to be your girlfriend."

  "Well, now, Joe-boy, there's just no way to promise that. You just leave that be, okay?"

  His eyes drooped. He was getting sleepy. "Okay. But I don't want . you to be ... lonely ... if I die. Benji? It's okay for you to love Karen. It's okay ... for you to have a girlfriend ... even if I don't."

  He dozed off, holding my hand.

  Kara

  I hadn't had a date, as such, in at least two years. I'm not bragging about that fact, nor am I compelled to fly the flag of chastity or be anyone's role model. I'm just stating my circumstances. It had never been easy for me to act upon my desires. I had been raised in the most powerful church of chastity: the real world.

  Mother and Dad did not lecture me fervently about sexual responsibility. Since they had led freewheeling lives themselves before marrying, they didn't want to appear hypocritical. So, instead, they let the world lecture me.

  Mother took me with her when she toured clinics she sponsored for poor women in Brazil's major cities. Thus, by the time I was a lustful teen I had seen more stillbirths than I could count, more festering female orifices and lesioned vulvas than a career gynecologist. In short, by the time I was old enough to crave boyfriends I viewed every penis as a potentially infected wand capable of transmitting the ruin of womankind at the drop of a single sperm.

  I was well into my college years before I tempered that phobia with careful adventure. In the years t
hat followed, I never quite got over the feeling that men should be swabbed with antiseptic on the first date.

  But this time, I felt reckless. In some cultures, when you put a man's headdress on your head, you marry him.

  I did not mention this fact to Ben, after I wore his hat.

  But I thought about it.

  And not in an antiseptic way.

  Chapter 10

  Kara

  I loved the island in the middle of the Little Hatchawatchee. When I wasn't cooking, experimenting with bits and saddles to see whether Estrela would accept them (snaffle bit, yes, English saddle, no) helping with ranch chores that ranged from advising Lily on environmentally sound laundry detergents to helping Dale feed sickly calves by bottle in the cattle barn, I crossed the narrow footbridge with my camera and sketchbook to face the breathtaking vista of forest and cypress marsh. I wanted to record the sheer, mystical beauty of Ben's world view.

  Deep in sketching mode, I looked up one afternoon to find him crossing the bridge, dusty boots scuffing softly on the old planks. I won't use some tired cliche and say he moved like a panther or the mystic stereotype of his father's Native American ancestors, but I will say he walked gracefully. There was always something about him that made me think. of ballet, making a strange analogy indeed, since I'd never seen Baryshnikov costumed in boots, faded denim, and Lily's bleach-dappled t-shirts with logos for chewing tobacco and trucks. And I had seen Baryshnikov in person.

  "I'm just nosy," he said.

  "No problem. Art is meant to be shared. And it's your island."

  "Lily says you're a real artist. If I could have a look-see, I could put the word out. Maybe get you some payin' work."

  "You're paying me quite enough, thank you."

  "As hard as you work, you more than earn your keep. I notice. That's all I'm saying."

  "All right, I'll take a bonus. Not in money, but in trust and information. Agreed?"

  He squinted at me, sank his callused fingers into the front pockets of his jeans, and chewed his lower lip. How a grown man approaching forty could look both as inscrutable as some ancient Hindu deity but also boyishly vulnerable was beyond me. "Go ahead and ask your question. I'll decide once I hear it."

  "Miriam says both ofyour parents died by the time you were sixteen. Your father in a ranching accident and your mother of pneumonia."

  "Yeah." A grunted response. He didn't like the subject.

  "Do you still miss them after all these years? And if so, how do you deal with that sorrow?"

  He blinked. Clearly, the question was not what he expected. His broad shoulders relaxed a little. He lifted his chin. "You snuck up on me with that one."

  "Do you mean that in a good way or-"

  "Sometimes it still feels like yesterday. I can be watching some show on TV, and I'll think, `They'd have liked this. I wish I could watch them watch this show.' I see people my age takin' their folks out to dinner or shoppin', and I envy them so much. I see a new color of azalea and I want to buy it for Mama, because she loved azaleas. I want to tell her about it, just to see her eyes light up. I buy a new horse and I think, `Would Pa have had a soft heart for this one?' That's the worse thing, see. Wantin' to talk to `em but not even knowing if they can still listen."

  My eyes filled with tears. "Yes."

  Ben's throat worked. He jerked his head toward the marsh view. "I look out yonder, and I'd give anything if they were here to see that sight. To have what they always wanted-a ranch like this. Land. A place all their own. I try to think of them in ... heaven, or whatever you want to call it ... enjoying fine worlds and looking down on me and Joey with happy wisdom. I tell myself it don't matter to them that they never got to own a ranch like this.

  "That they're beyond all the petty need and want of flesh and blood. But ... there's a part of me that hates what they missed out on, and what me and Joey missed by them dyin' young, what I couldn't give `em until after they were gone. I'd give anything just to hear `em tell me I've done good. They didn't live long enough for me to live up to them."

  "Yes. Yes. To live up to the legacy you were given by them, simply for being born." My voice broke. A tear slithered down my cheek. To my astonishment, he pulled a white handkerchief from his jeans' pocket. It was so old the hems had frayed. He handed it to me. "Something to dab with."

  "I've never known a man who carried a handkerchief as anything other than a decoration."

  "It was my pa's. It comes in useful, lately."

  I wanted to know what he meant by that, but I'd spent my bonus question. His tone was guarded; I doubted he'd tell me more. I wiped my eyes and held out the frail square of cotton. "I'm honored."

  He folded the handkerchief and held it carefully in one weathered hand, his fingertips pressing into the heirloom material dampened by my tears. The deliberate intimacy of the gesture made me weak-kneed. He looked at me somberly. "You still got a mama and a daddy?"

  I shook my head. "No."

  "Died not long ago?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm truly sorry. Is that why you cry at night?"

  "One of the reasons."

  "Will you tell me more?"

  I shook my head gently.

  He nodded. "Awright. I'll leave you to draw your pictures. He nodded at the sketch pad on my lap. I can see you're what Lily said. A real artist."

  "I want another bonus question."

  "Aw "

  "What else can you tell me about Mac and Lily?"

  "What do you want to laiow?"

  "Their diagnoses."

  "You mean why they're the way they are?"

  "Yes."

  "Lily was made, Mac was probably born."

  "You mean-"

  "Mac's mama was a drinker. Just one of those things."

  "Fetal Alcohol Syndrome."

  "Yeah. `Course, the Tolberts aren't the kind who air their dirty laundry. If there was something that happened to Mac in the womb, his brother Glen sure isn't gonna let it be known."

  "I see. And Lily?"

  "Dirt poor. Daddy ran off. Mama died when Lily was still a baby. Her granny raised her. Granny worked as a maid for the Tolberts. Left her with a babysitter during the day. Sitter's boyfriend shook her. Shook Lily as a baby. Hurt her."

  Shaken baby syndrome. Lily's family had worked for Mac's family, with Lily left to the attention of a careless sitter. Lily had been born healthy. I thought of the person she might be if a stranger hadn't brutalized her. The loss. The waste.

  And yet her fate had drawn her and Mac together in a special way. I would not have been born if an act of cruelty hadn't damaged Lily forever.

  "You all right?" Ben asked.

  I must have looked stricken. Existential dilemmas will dram the blood from your face. "I ... thank you. I was just curious."

  "You've really gotten close to Mac and Lily. And them to you. I guess I see why, now. Your folks died not long ago."

  "Don't tell them. I don't like to talk about it."

  "I won't. But they'd be honored if they knew you're sweet on them because they remind you of your own mama and daddy."

  Oh, God. "My parents were very different from Mac and Lily."

  "Not simple minded, you mean."

  "It wasn't an insult."

  "None taken."

  Mac calls me `baby girl.' Lily calls me `poor baby.' They seem ... lonely ... for someone to pamper."

  "You should know."

  "You think I'm lonely?"

  "You draw sad pictures."

  I jiggled the sketch pad. "This isn't sad. This is your gorgeous marsh."

  "You don't draw people. Just places."

  "There's beauty and profound meaning in visions of refuge."

  "Look, I'm not judging."

  "Yes, you are."

  "Awright. Are you running from bad memories of your folks?"

  "I'm not running. I'm ...exploring."

  "Don't take this the wrong way, but `Bullshit.'

  I stood. "You have no girlfriend, no
wife, no social life. No children. What are you running from?"

  "No woman in her right mind would take on Joey's care, this ranch, these people, me. I've never met one crazy enough. Or tough enough."

  "But perhaps you worry that-despite all the scientific reassurance that the gene is random-ifyou married and produced children you might father a Down Syndrome child like your brother?"

  He sagged. "Yeah, God help me. Cause one angel is enough for me. I'm not a saint. So I'll tell ya. Angels. They'll give you a view of heaven, but they'll break your heart, too."

  Ben

  No woman had ever got me to talk that way. To talk about Joey, and angels, and Pa and Mama. Karen made it so easy to just ... say things. She got me between her teeth and wouldn't let go.

  But the funny thing was, I came out of it feeling like we were best friends.

  I never should've let Glen Tolbert get near Karen. She wasn't the type to take his browbeatin' without a fight, and he wasn't the type to stand back in awe of her. I wasn't the type who liked being caught in the middle. Plus that Sunday was Mother's Day. That Sunday in May. Not a good time for folks like Karen who don't have mothers. Living or dead, either way, her mother wasn't around. After you lose your mother, you've got a lot less left to lose. Makes a person testy.

  Glen Tolbert ain't the most soothing substitute for a mother.

  "Satan just drove up in his Hummer," is how Miriam put it.

  A little of Glen went a long way. Mac's brother was in his early sixties, a good ten years older than Mac. Glen was everything Mac wasn't: Smart, sarcastic, and full of himself. Glen always came to the ranch dressed like he'd just walked off the eighteenth tee at some fine golf course, which he probably had. You didn't need to know brand names to figure the watch on his wrist hadn't come from a discount store with concrete floors. Plus he drove the latest eye-catching wheels: a Cadillac SUV or a tricked-out Hummer. Nothing says `I got money and you don't,' like a Hummer.