My ambivalence stems from what happened to me, of course, and I realized this long before my recent addiction to self-analysis. What mother wouldn’t want to protect her daughter from the type of devastation I suffered? If someone had asked me when Eva was first born whether I’d ever let her on the back of a horse, I’d have laughed. Indeed, if I recall correctly, Mutti did just that and was entirely unamused by my response.
Of course, this was back when I still foolishly believed I could control what Eva would or wouldn’t want to do. It took just under two years for my daughter to disabuse me of
that
notion. From the moment she uttered her first words, it was clear that although I had married Roger and moved to Minnesota largely to escape anything and everything to do with horses, our daughter was gravitating toward them as inevitably as a salmon to spawning grounds.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise. As far as I can tell, the only thing Eva got from Roger is her brown eyes. Everything else—from her blonde hair to her impetuous nature to her factory-installed love of horses—came from me. I could have moved her to Alaska and homeschooled her or taken her by canoe to deepest Borneo and set us up in a cave. It wouldn’t have made a damned bit of difference. She would have wiggled her way into a stable from the South Pole.
She was a barnacle. Clinging to ponies’ legs at petting zoos, kissing the television screen every time a horse appeared and then giggling at the static that zapped her lips, cutting out every picture of every
equine she ever saw—including, to Roger’s dismay—the ones from our encyclopedias, typing rope “reins” around the end of a thick branch and then skip-cantering around our backyard neighing to herself.
And so it went. The year Eva was six, the photograph on our Christmas card showed her grooming her favorite Shetland pony while wearing a tutu, fairy wings, and purple muck boots. I believe I was the one behind the camera.
It wasn’t until she was ten and began jumping that Roger had to take over lesson duty. I was happy enough doing it as long as she was riding on the flat, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to watch her jump. At first I tried to prevent it, but even at ten Eva was formidable. But it wasn’t the cosmic explosion of outrage that persuaded me, or even the long and reasoned arguments presented by my ever-patient ex-husband. When Eva realized I planned to prevent her from jumping anything, ever, I saw myself reflected back through her eyes and I hated what I saw. I never figured out what that was, exactly, but I hated it nonetheless.
And so Roger began accompanying her to lessons.
Of course, when I left Roger and returned to my family’s horse farm in New Hampshire—
Wait a minute. I’ve got to stop doing that. Why do I keep doing that? I didn’t leave Roger. He left me.
Okay. Deep breath—
When Eva and I moved
without
Roger to my family’s horse farm in New Hampshire, she found herself in hog heaven. Horses everywhere, a whole barn full, hers for the taking twenty-four hours a day.
Throw near-daily lessons into the mix and I guess it’s no real surprise she excelled. And it did pull her back
from the brink—she’s not exactly a straight-A student, but she’s a nearly straight-B student, and that’s good enough for me. One of the main reasons I fled Minnesota was that her school career was so clearly in the toilet. I got a note from the principal informing me that she was flunking spectacularly only three and a half weeks before she was expelled for truancy.
Considering that she subsequently suffered a move and parental split, it’s a miracle she’s doing as well as she is, and there’s no question it’s because she turned to riding.
There’s also no question she’s good. Scarily good. And that, of course, is the problem.
If Pappa were still alive, he’d have already taken control of the situation and put her into training. I’d have been left watching, swinging my head back and forth with horrified whiplash, as though at some nightmarish tennis match, as he orchestrated one final campaign toward his—or, as he’d phrase it, “the family’s”—Olympic dream.
But even if I can move beyond my fears, deciding to do this in any kind of serious way would require major changes to all our lives.
Just the logistics are a nightmare: Eva and me schlepping around the country in a pickup truck hauling whichever horse behind us in a beat-up slat-sided Kingston trailer is not going to cut it on the eventing circuit. To do this, we would need people, equipment, a paradigm shift. Even if I could bring myself to act as Eva’s trainer—which is a really big if, considering that my inability to watch her take a fence is the entire reason we hired Joan—we’d need to either take Joan on full-time or hire someone else to replace me while we
were on the road. And unless I want to homeschool Eva, we’d also need a tutor. Never mind that we’d spend so much time on the road I’d see even less of Dan than I already do. And poor Mutti would be left on her own for all but the off-season.
And unless we want to keep the model we used on our way to Canterbury—the one in which I sleep in the parking lot of the motel with the horse while Eva snoozes comfortably in a bedroom inside—we would also have to buy a trailer with a living area. Something like a Sundowner, with a couple of beds, a kitchen, and a bathroom. And if we bought a Sundowner, we’d also have to buy a truck with a dual axle and conversion engine to pull it. And each of those pieces of machinery costs at least as much as the horse we would have to buy to replace Malachite, and all of this would naturally translate into a closer association with Roger and Sonja, because by necessity they’d be bankrolling this whole endeavor.
I strip the washcloth from my face and, even though I’m sitting alone in a bathtub, look guiltily from side to side. And then I slide back into the water, sick with guilt and desperation.
There is another option, but neither Mutti nor Eva knows about it. And since I never followed up on that phone call, I reckon it will stay that way.
I do so want to do the right thing. I really do. I’m just never sure what that is. And the problem with the phone call is that it feels a lot like Pandora’s box—I’m afraid that once I tell someone about it, I’ll set something in motion that I won’t be able to stop.
I’m simultaneously investigating whether I can stop the faucet from dripping by plugging it with my big toe and examining my prune-wrinkled fingers when I’m interrupted by a violent thumping on the door.
“Ma!” Eva yells through the slatted wood. “Hey, Ma! Phone!”
I sit forward, sloshing water dangerously close to the tub’s rim. “Who is it?”
But she’s gone, stomping down the hall. A moment later her door slams with such force the toothbrushes rattle in the holder above the sink.
I had been considering adding more hot water and extending my bath, but since Eva isn’t giving me the option of calling whoever it is back, I pull the plug and climb out, holding the tub’s edge carefully until I have one foot planted squarely on the thick pile of the bathmat. I grab a towel and tuck it around myself.
On my way to the door, I catch sight of myself in the full-length mirror.
It’s too bad you can’t just walk around in towels, be
cause this one is the perfect length for me. It comes just far enough down my thighs to cover my difficult areas while leaving the lean parts exposed. If you didn’t know what was immediately above it, you might think I had slim thighs. I might try to find some skirts in this length, although I have almost zero opportunity to wear anything other than jeans or breeches these days. It’s not something I repine; it’s just something I hadn’t really noticed before.
Come to think of it, maybe I do repine. I can’t remember the last time Dan and I went out.
I stump my way to Mutti’s bedroom, leaving wet footprints all the way down the hall. Eva has left the door open, has tossed the receiver on top of Mutti’s bed. I pick it up and settle carefully on the edge of the eiderdown. Mutti believes in hospital corners and smooth covers, and I want to limit the repairs I’ll have to make later.
“Hello?”
“Hey, babe.” It’s Dan, his voice crackly above the static of a cell phone.
“Dan! Where are you?”
“Still in Canada.”
The smile falls from my face. “Why? What’s going on?” I try not to let disappointment color my voice, but I had figured he’d be as far as Ohio by now.
“Got hold of seven more horses and am waiting for the results of the Coggins tests, that’s all. Should be on my way in a day or two.”
Dan is a veterinarian by trade, but his passion—his calling—is running Day Break, his horse rescue center.
He’s been gone much of the winter, hauling truckloads of horses away from the hundreds of pee farms that are going defunct. Back in the heyday of hormone replacement therapy, it was the foals that needed saving. Now it’s all of them—mares, foals, and stallions—and Dan, and every other rescue operation we know, is scrambling to get them out before they end up either as dog food or on a meat counter in Asia.
“Oh,” I say in a small voice. I feel guilty for my disappointment, but I’ve been counting the minutes until his return. I had been hoping to talk to him about the phone call—to ease my conscience, to hear him tell me I’m doing the right thing. Because of course I’m not sure of this at all.
There’s an uncomfortable pause.
“Sweetie,” he says, “are you okay?”
“Yes, of course,” I say, dropping my forehead into one hand. I want to cry, and hope I can hide it in my voice. “I just miss you.”
“I miss you, too. Is something else going on? You sound funny.”
“It’s not important.”
“It’s important if you’re upset.”
“Eva’s mad at me. And I miss you. That’s all.”
“Hang in there. I’ll be back in a couple of days, tops.”
“Good.” I swallow over the lump in my throat and smile, beginning the mental adjustment.
“Listen, there’s another reason I called. I need a favor.”
“Oh?” I say. “What’s that?”
“Is there any way you can spend the next couple of nights at my place?”
“Sure. Why?”
“Maisie’s set to foal anytime. Chester was staying with her, but all three of his kids came down with strep and his wife was threatening to leave if he didn’t come home. Can you take over until I get back?”
“Um…sure,” I say, trying to keep the panic from my voice.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” I say.
“You’ve been at a foaling before, right?”
“Well, no. Not exactly.”
“Oh.” There’s a pause. “Do you want me to try to find someone else?”
“No, no! I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive,” I say, winding the phone cord so tightly around my fingers that the ends of them turn white. “Just tell me what to look for.”
“Restlessness. Discomfort. Check her vulva for swelling or discharge.”
“Okay,” I say, nodding vehemently. “Swelling and discharge. What else?”
“Her udder may leak. Or get waxy.”
“Leaking, waxy udder. Got it.” Continued bobbing of my head. “What else?”
“That’s about it. When she goes into labor she may lie down and get up a lot. And seem uncomfortable. Pawing the ground and so on.”
“Well, yes. I should think so.” I swallow hard. “And, um, if she starts? What then?”
“Well, it’s fairly straightforward. You want to make sure that two hooves are presenting, followed by a nose. If that’s not the case, call the backup vet immediately.
His name is Walter. I left his name and number in the foaling kit.”
“All right.”
“Chances are good it won’t happen until I get home, but she’s far enough along I need someone to check on her once an hour. Oh—and at night, you can use the foal-cam. I usually just sleep in front of the TV.”
“Will I be able to figure it out?”
“It’s dead easy. Ask Judy to show you.” Dan’s voice softens, turns gravelly and low. “Thanks, babe. I’ll make it up to you.”
“Sure. If you ever come home,” I say.
“I’ll be home in a day or two. We’ll catch up then. I promise.”
“Maybe I’ll cook you dinner,” I croon into the receiver.
“What? Why? What did I do?” he cries in mock desperation. “Whatever it is, I’m sorry!”
I snort. “All right. I won’t cook. But I’m warning you, I plan to be Velcro woman when you get back,” I cradle the phone in both hands, rocking it gently. “I really miss you, Dan.”
“Miss you, too. I’ll be home soon, sweetie. I promise.”
Mutti throws me a questioning look when I appear with a duffel bag. She’s wiping the table with a pink sponge. The kitchen smells of bleach.
“What’s up?” she says.
“I’m spending the night at Dan’s.”
“Is he back?”
“No. He’s got a mare set to foal, and no one else can stay.”
Mutti’s arm stops for a second—just the slightest hint of a pause, but enough for me to see. Then she continues wiping the table with wide, broad strokes.
“Schatzlein,”
she says, “have you ever seen a mare foal?”
“Er, no,” I say, dropping my duffel bag on the floor.
“And what will you do if she starts?”
“I’ll call Walter, that’s what.”
“Who?”
“Dan’s backup vet.”
“Ah,” she says. She walks to the sink, rinses out the sponge, and centers it precisely behind the faucet.
“Dan says she’ll probably hold off until he gets back anyway,” I say. “But I’m sorry to leave you with Eva in a state. Do you think you’ll be okay with her?”
Mutti turns from the sink and approaches me. She lays her bleachy hands on either side of my face and kisses my forehead.
“I will handle Eva. Don’t you worry,” she says. “Now go help your
Mann.
”
Which of course is the German word for husband. As I scoop my duffle bag from the floor, a hollow pang runs right down my middle.
The road that leads to Dan’s property is long and winding and passes through pine trees so crowded and tall the bottom thirds are scraggly and naked from lack of sun. The road is dirt, full of pot holes, and in the winter occasionally blocked by a fallen tree or branch. These have been cleared and set off to the side, where they’ll either rot or get collected at some point in the summer.
I’m driving my Camry—which has almost no sus
pension left and never really did recover from its altercation with the truck last year—and I wince as it kerthumps into yet another large hole. There’s no avoiding them. The best I can do is try to have only one wheel in one hole at a time. This isn’t the most practical car for this part of the world, but of course I wasn’t living in this part of the world when I bought it.
The property itself consists of two barns—the one in front, built in 1811, is tall and red and handsome. Not far from it stands (in a manner of speaking) the original house, which had not been occupied for probably a century before Dan bought the place, and which collapsed promptly upon his signing the papers. Fifty years of assault by carpenter ants and powder-post beetles plus one heavy snowfall did the job. The local old-timers gathered around the next afternoon muttering things like, “Aye, yup, knew it would go real soon,” puffing their corncob pipes, clapping poor miserable houseless Dan on the back, and chiding him for not having insurance.
Its fieldstone fireplace and the boards at three of the corners still stand upright, but the rest of the structure lies where it fell, a dense heap of spindly wood. It looks like the collapsed hull of a sunken galleon, the protruding rib cage of a weathered corpse. Dan has been selling the wood to local carpenters, who treasure the grain and color, which apparently only reveals itself after a clear coat of polyurethane. I wish they’d treasure it a little faster and get rid of the damned thing.
Behind these two structures is a flat concrete building with eighteen stalls that is both Dan’s quarantine barn and his surgery, although the two operating rooms at the back, with their hydraulically powered tables,
haven’t seen much use this year. The end result of Dan’s desperate scramble to rescue the PMU horses involved in the production of pregnant mares’ urine is that he’s been backing further and further away from his veterinary practice, which I can’t help finding alarming. His finances aren’t officially my business, but I’m hoping they will be soon.
Behind all of that, past a thin line of anemic trees, is Dan’s trailer. He bought it before the house collapsed, thinking that he and Jill—his late wife—would live there temporarily while he worked on the house. The trailer was used at the time, and that was eleven years ago. To this day it rests on concrete blocks with assorted garbage, junk, and God only knows how many rodents’ nests beneath it. I shudder at the thought.
I find Judy alone in the main barn with the tractor parked in the aisle, tossing steaming piles of manure into the back with a pitchfork. When I enter, she looks up, startled. I think. It’s hard to tell with Judy.
She’s a string bean of a woman, tall, with long feet and hair even more calamitous than mine. Her glasses are thick and round, which magnifies her eyes and makes her look slightly cross-eyed. She has deep creases beside her mouth and across her forehead, and squints continually.
“Hey, lady—want a hand with that?” I say, grabbing a pitchfork from the wall.
She wipes the back of her hand across her forehead, smearing it with manure. “Oh, yeah. Hallelujah.”
“Where’s Chester?”
“Gone.”
“I thought he was supposed to stay the day?”
“Teresa was pretty desperate. All three kids were up
all night, and now she’s coming down with it too. Was threatening to run away if he didn’t get home right away.”
“Well, can’t blame her for that,” I say, ducking into a stall and observing the mess with horror. The stall belongs to Ringo, who was a show horse in his previous life and never got turned out. The end result is that he never relieves himself in the pasture. He holds it all in until he comes in for the night, and then lets loose with a deluge. Then he turns circles, making sure he spreads it into every corner.
“Ugh,” I say.
“Ha,” says Judy through the stall wall. “Finders keepers.”
“Ugh,” I say again.
“Might want to get yourself a shovel. You won’t be able to save much.”
Judy and I spend the morning mucking out, scrubbing and refilling buckets, mixing feed, wiping dust and cobwebs from stall windows, dumping the contents of the tractor at the muck heap, topping up the shavings, and finally watering down and sweeping the aisle. At the end the barn looks much too clean to let the horses back in. It’s kind of like my experience with kitchens. The second you get one clean, it’s time for another meal.
When we’re finished with the chores, Judy and I sit in Dan’s office gobbling a late lunch of Ruffles, Twizzlers, pepperoni sticks, and Coke. We’re covered in filth; from manure and water-bucket slime to shavings that cling to our hair and clothing. I remove a boot and whack it against the beat-up couch, pick the remaining shavings off my sock, and then scratch the bejesus out
of my ankle. Then I plop my feet up on a tack box and lean back into the couch.
“So how’s Maisie look?” I ask around a mouthful of soda and licorice. I try to sound casual, but I’m watching Judy hard from the corner of my eye.
“Looks fine to me.” She lines up three pepperoni sticks and bites off the ends. “Say, you’re not nervous, are you?”
“Maybe a little.”
“It’s easy,” she says brightly. She points a forefinger into the air beside her head. “Just remember, the goal is a foal!”
“I’m sorry, Judy, but that’s helpful how?”
She stops chewing and stares at me, her magnified eyes enormous. She leans forward, arms on her legs. “You really are nervous, aren’t you?”
“No. Yes.” I glance up, and then down again, embarrassed. “Yeah, okay. Maybe a little.”
“You’ve had a baby. You know what to expect.”
“That’s just it. Things don’t always go as expected.”
For example, uteruses rupture. My hand moves unconsciously to my belly.
Judy’s eyes follow it and linger there. After a moment, she raises her eyes back to mine. “I can’t spend the night because the kids drive Todd bonkers,” she says quietly, “but if she starts and you get nervous, call and I’ll come right on over.”
I chew my Twizzlers in embarrassment, grateful almost to the point of tears. “Thanks, Judy. I may just do that.”
After lunch, Judy heads out to run some errands. Since it’s ages before the horses have to come in again, I hang
around the office and boot up Dan’s computer. He’s so sweet—his password is my birthday.