Such a symphony of amplified noise: never has cream glugged so loudly, nor spoon tinkled so shrilly. I swear I can hear each grain of sugar as it melts into the liquid. When I’m finally finished, I set the spoon on the bottom of the sink—with a deafening clink—and retreat upstairs.
I haven’t looked at Mutti, but there’s no doubt in my mind she’s sitting with arms crossed and mouth pressed into a thin line. And shaking her head.
I climb the stairs, muttering to myself but being careful to keep it under my breath since I know Eva is holed up in her room on high alert. Since I’m at a clear disadvantage—I have no idea what I’m going to say to her and she’s had ample time to frame her arguments—I decide to take my shower while I consider my approach. Besides, letting her stew a bit longer might be helpful, might soften her up. Of course, it might also have the opposite effect. One never knows with Eva. I thought fifteen was difficult, but sixteen is shaping up to be at least as volatile. It’s been a hard year for us both.
I stomp past her door and march to the bathroom, grumpy at both daughter and mother. Daughter, for reasons that were more obvious before I talked to my mother; and mother for being painfully astute about some things and hopelessly obtuse about others.
I can’t move back into the house. There are only two bedrooms, and with Eva occupying my childhood room, that leaves only my parents’ upstairs bedroom and the dining room, which my parents converted to a bedroom when my father became ill and could no longer manage the stairs. My father’s life ended in that room, and because of that—even though Mutti was practically mule-like in her determination to continue sleeping there—I finally reached the point where I couldn’t stand it anymore. The thought of her spending her nights alone down there where he died was keeping
me
awake. I considered the possibility of sleeping there
myself for all of twelve seconds, but that was also out of the question. Too much of Pappa remains in that room, and although changing its configuration back from bedroom to dining room obscured that cosmetically, we all feel it keenly. It hasn’t escaped my notice that Mutti now serves dinner in the kitchen even on formal occasions.
But if I’m really honest with myself—and I’m trying hard to do that these days—that’s not the only reason I started sleeping out at the stable. Because if it were, I could have just taken up residence on the lumpy foldout couch in the study, in spite of the metal bar that runs across the middle of my back.
I know that I’m thirty-nine and divorced and entitled to sleep with whomever I like, but somehow the idea of making love with Dan in a room above, below, or even down the hall from either my mother or daughter has the same effect on my libido as a raging case of cholera. We tried on several occasions, and despite heroic effort on Dan’s part, it just didn’t work. And so for the two months before I finally upped stakes and started sleeping in the stable, we snuck around much like we did as teenagers. This worked fairly well—and even added a certain
je ne sais quoi
to the mix—until the night my dachshund decided I was an armed intruder.
I knew Dan was coming, so I was waiting by the window in my parents’ old bedroom. When he flashed his headlights, I rushed silently down the stairs.
I had the routine down pat—tread lightly down the left side for the first three steps, skip the fourth entirely, cross over to the right for the next five, skip the tenth, and then tromp down the rest of the stairs however I want because none of them squeaks.
I was wearing a thin cotton nightgown with small blue flowers—an ankle-length, blousy thing with no waist in the style of Laura Ashley, which I thought was romantic in a Victorian type of way. It was entirely unsuitable for the weather, which was already below freezing, but I knew that if I hurried down the drive, Dan would be waiting for me in the stable lounge with the heater going and a down comforter.
I swung by the fridge, grabbed the bottle of champagne I had hidden under a plume of collard greens, pulled my rubber boots over my bare legs and feet, and opened the back door as quietly as I could.
At this precise moment, Harriet—my thirteen-year-old selectively deaf dog, who slept like a top through my departure from our shared bedroom—came tumbling down the stairs snarling and yapping like Cerberus using all three heads. Since Mutti was still sleeping in the dining room at this point, it took her only a few seconds to appear and flick on the kitchen light. And there I was, busted, in my blue-flowered nightie and rubber boots, holding a bottle of contraband bubbly. Harriet shut her snout so quickly she left teeth outside her lips and assumed an expression of great confusion. After a moment she wagged her tail uncertainly.
Mutti scrunched up her face to adjust to the light, ran her eyes over me, and said, “What in heaven’s name are you doing?”
“I’m, uh,” I said, flushing from my head to my toes. Then I glanced behind me.
Mutti cocked her head to see around my blousy self, caught sight of Dan’s truck through the screen door,
laughed uproariously, and disappeared back into the dining room.
I moved out to the stable the next night.
On second thought, I decide to deal with Eva before my shower. What’s the point in leaving everybody miserable? I put my coffee on the antique dresser in the bathroom—setting it on the white lace runner only after first checking that the bottom is dry—and then go back to Eva’s room. I stand outside her door with my hand raised, hesitant.
“Eva?” I say without knocking. “Honey?”
There’s a muffled response from the other side of the door. Since it didn’t sound like “Go to hell,” I push the door open.
I pause in the doorway. Eva sits at her vanity, her muck-caked boots up on its surface, crossed at the ankle. Beside them is a silver-framed picture of Jeremy, her shiny new half brother. He’s nestled in a molded car seat under cheerily patterned baby blankets, beaming at the camera with fat round cheeks and toothless gums.
Eva leans back so her chair is balanced on two legs. This is entirely for my benefit, and is incredibly effective: in my mind’s eye I’m already watching her fall backward and crack her skull open.
I press my lips shut and perch behind her on the bed—close enough to intervene if she topples over.
As the mattress sags beneath my weight, our eyes lock in the mirror. Hers are fierce and bright and peer out at me from under a fringe of straight blue-black hair. It’s been a couple of months since she dyed it, so
the hair next to her scalp is blonde again. Left to its own devices, which it never is, her natural hair color is one countless women spend hours and fortunes to achieve. But I don’t argue hairstyles. Unlike the Hated Tattoo, hairstyles grow out.
As Eva glares at me, I drag one foot up over my opposite thigh and then try to do same with the other. I was aiming for the lotus position, but my hamstrings immediately suggest that cross-leggedness would be a more practical choice.
How depressing. I used to be able to put both my feet behind my head at the same time. Of course, I also used to be able to do the splits and back walkovers.
After trying in vain to arrange my folded self into a comfortable position, I give up and set my feet back on the floor.
“So what do you want?” says Eva, glowering at me from the mirror.
“We need to talk.”
“So talk.”
I draw a deep breath and let my cheeks inflate. “Okay, fine,” I say. “I need you to promise me that you’ll never do that again. You know the rules—no riding without a helmet, ever.”
“Like that’s what you’re mad about.”
I stare at her for a moment, rubbing my chin. “It’s a large part of it. Hurrah has one eye. What if he refused? Or slipped on takeoff? Or missed the landing? My God, even if he took the jump perfectly, you were completely unprotected! You didn’t even have stirrups!”
Eva blows a raspberry. “He’d have cleared it. Easy.”
I lean forward, speaking urgently. “Eva! Honey.
Please listen to me. I know you think you’re invincible, but what you did this morning was incredibly stupid.”
“Thanks, Ma.”
“I’m not trying to insult you. I’m just trying to make you see things from my viewpoint.”
She raises her eyes to mine. “Okay fine. So you wanna try to see things from my viewpoint for half a second?”
I blink at her image in the mirror for a few seconds. “Uh…okay. Yes. Sure.”
“I worked my butt off all winter. I got my grades up. I did really well at Canterbury, and now, for no good reason at all, you’re pulling the plug.”
“Honey, I…” I stare at her for a moment, and then drop my head into my hands, wanting to cry. I’m utterly exhausted, and I’ve already run out of arguments, which strikes me as a singularly bad sign. “Look, I know it seems like I dangled a carrot, and I’m so sorry. It’s just…I really appreciate all the work you’ve done—you have no idea how much—and I knew how badly you wanted to go to Canterbury. I thought I could deal with it. But my heart was in my throat the whole time.”
“This is all because of your stupid accident, isn’t it?”
“Eva!”
“Oh please, Mother. It happened in the Stone Age. Besides, it was freakish. It’s time to let it go.”
Her words cut deeper than she can imagine. Yes, it was freakish—it was completely inexplicable. But what the people around me don’t seem to understand is that this is precisely what makes it so scary. Neither Harry nor I did anything wrong. When we came over
that jump, his left foreleg blew apart for no reason whatever, sending both of us crashing into the ground. I nearly didn’t make it. And Harry? Well, they shot Harry.
I pause, reflecting. “Would you consider doing just dressage?”
“No.”
“Because if you did, I’d let you go. I’d even let you ride Hurrah.”
“No!” she says in exasperation. “I want to jump! Why is that so hard for you to understand?”
Why indeed. I am silent, drumming my fingers against my lips.
“I want to do this,” she says, her eyes burning into mine.
“I know you do.”
“I want it more than anything I’ve ever wanted before,” she persists. She drops her feet from her desk and swings around to face me.
“I know.”
“So let me ride at Strafford and just keep shutting your eyes.”
“I beg your pardon?” I say feebly.
“In Canterbury. You closed your eyes every time I took a jump. Just keep doing it.”
I am speechless with shame. How did she find out?
Other parents. Other parents sitting in the stands must have told their kids, who in turn told Eva. I’m a freak and my kid knows it.
“Eva, I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
“Yeah, whatever. So are we done here?”
I blink.
“I said, are we done here? Or am I supposed to try to
make you feel better and pretend we’ve shared a ‘moment’ because you’ve admitted that it ‘seems’ like you dangled a carrot? Because you know, maybe it makes you feel better, but it sure doesn’t help me.”
“I…uh,” I say, straightening up and trying not to blink because if I do I’ll set free the tears that quiver along my lower lids. “Yes. I guess we’re done.”
She turns to the window, folds her arms across her chest, and then crosses her legs. One foot bobs violently. “Figures,” she says.
As I reach the door, she calls after me. “And by the way, Ma, it doesn’t ‘seem’ like you dangled a carrot. You did. A big fat one.”
I head back to the bathroom, fighting tears, and having accomplished absolutely nothing.
I slug the rest of my now-tepid coffee down like bourbon—indeed, wishing it were—and undress.
As I stand naked in front of the tub fussing with the taps, I ponder in a dispirited fashion about how low my breasts hang when I’m bent at the waist. I’m not exactly falling apart, but I’m well aware of what side of the mountain I’m on. I’m melting like a candle. I weigh exactly the same as I did four years ago, but everything’s sliding downward.
Our house was built in 1843, and the pipes moan and screech like the innards of a tanker. One second the water is too cold; the next, it’s hot enough to blanch a peach. I finally lose patience and just stick the plug in the drain. Why shouldn’t I take the time for a bath? Joan, our other trainer, is doing today’s lessons, and Dan won’t be back until at least tomorrow, so I can wait
another day to wash my hair. Besides, a bath might help me decompress.
After the tub fills, I turn the taps off and lean over, swirling the fingertips of one hand through the water. It feels good, so I climb in.
As soon as my feet and lower legs are submerged I realize I’ve seriously underestimated the temperature. I stand perfectly still, debating whether I’ll be able to get used to it or have to do something.
After a couple of seconds, the answer is clear. I shuffle forward so my feet are directly under the faucet and turn the cold on full blast. The relief is instant. I allow the cold water to pool around my stinging legs, and then crouch down to mix it into the rest of the water.
I should know better than to test a bath like that—one of the permanent souvenirs from my accident is a slight decrease in sensation at the very ends of my fingers. But my legs seem happy now, so I lower my body into the tub and lean back until my head rests against its rim.
I love this tub. I don’t think it’s original to the house, but who knows? New England houses have their own secret histories. Whether original or not, it’s an antique claw-footed beast of a thing that’s long enough for me to stretch out completely and is sloped at such a forgiving angle I can lie comfortably back.
I grab the facecloth from the towel rack above me and drop it into the tub. As it saturates and sinks, its corners spread like a manta ray, I sit forward and splash my face repeatedly. Then I lie back and drape the washcloth across my forehead and eyes. Water streams over my mouth and chin, drips from the end of my nose.
Poor Eva—she has every right to be upset with me. Since even I don’t entirely understand my reactions,
how can I possibly expect her to? And why shouldn’t she think that being allowed to compete at Canterbury was the start of something larger?