Harvesting the Heart (54 page)

"You
lost
ten
thousand dollars,"
I
whispered. "You don't even turn a profit? Why does she keep
doing this?"

Josh
smiled. In the distance, my mother spoke softly to Jean-Claude and
then lifted herself into the saddle bound over his back. She held her
reins steady until the horse stopped whinnying and tossing from side
to side. She lifted her face to the sky and laughed into the wind.
"It's her karma," Josh said. "Why else?"

It
got easier every day. I would ride for an hour in the morning after
we'd turned out the other horses and mucked the stalls. I rode Tony,
the gentlest horse my mother owned. Under her careful direction,
I improved. My legs stopped feeling like tightly stretched bands. I
could second-guess the horse, who had a habit of ducking out to the
right of a jump. Even the canter, which at first had seemed so quick
and uncontrollable, had settled. Now Tony would take off so neatly I
could close my eyes and pretend that I was running on the voice of
the wind.

"What
do you want to do now?" my mother called from the center of the
ring.

I
had slowed Tony to a walk. "Let's jump," I said. "I
want to try a vertical." I knew now that the fences were called
gymnastics; that a straight-across bar was a vertical and an "X"
was called a cross-rail.

Because
Tony was only about fourteen hands, he couldn't jump very high, but
he could easily take a two-foot vertical if he was in the mood.

I
loved the feeling of a jump. I loved the easy lead up to it, the
squeeze of my thighs and calves pressuring the horse's hind end, the
remarkable power with which he pushed off the ground. As Tony started
to come up, I'd lift myself into the half-seat position, suspended
in midair until the horse's back rose up to meet me. "Don't look
down—look across the jump," my mother had told me over and
over, and I would, seeing the rich berry-twisted brush that edged the
stream. It never failed to surprise me that within seconds, we
actually touched down on everyday earth.

My
mother set up a course of six jumps for me. I patted Tony's neck and
gathered up my reins for a canter. My mother shouted corrections at
me, but I could barely hear her. We flew around the ring so
gracefully I wasn't sure that the horse's legs were striking the
ground. Tony took the first jump long, throwing me back in the
saddle. He picked up speed, and I knew that I should be sitting back
to slow him, but somehow my body wasn't doing what I wanted it to. As
he landed the next jump, he raced around the corner of the ring. He
leaned strangely to one side, and I fell off.

When
I opened my eyes, Tony was gnawing on the grass along the edge of the
ring and my mother was standing above me. "It happens to
everyone," she said, reaching out her hand to help me up. "What
do you think you did wrong?"

I
stood and dusted off the britches I'd borrowed from her. "Besides
the fact that he was running a hundred miles an hour?"

My
mother smiled. "Yeah, it was a little faster than a usual
canter," she said.

I
rubbed my hand over the back of my neck and readjusted the black
velvet helmet. "He was off center," I said. "I knew I
was going to fall off before it happened."

My
mother pulled Tony back by the reins and held him while I mounted
again. "Good girl," she said. "That's because when you
come across a diagonal, you've changed your direction. When you
canter, a horse should have the inside lead, right?" I nodded; I
remembered this lesson well because it had taken me forever to figure
it out: when a horse cantered, or galloped, for that matter, the leg
on the innermost side of the ring should be the first to fall; it
kept them balanced. "When you change your direction, the horse
needs to switch leads. Tony won't do it naturally—he's too dumb
for that; he'll just run around off kilter, wearing himself out until
he trips or throws you off. You've got to tell him, really, that you
want him to try a new trick in his repertoire. You break him down to
a trot and then pick up the canter again—it's called a simple
change of lead."

I
shook my head. "I can't remember all this," I said.

"Yes
you can," my mother insisted. She clucked Tony into a trot. "Do
a figure eight," she said, "and don't stop. He's not going
to do what you want him to unless you guide him into it. Keep going
across your diagonals and do your simple changes."

By
the time we turned down the first diagonal, I had Tony moving
quietly toward the middle of the jump. I looked at his hooves, and
Tony was on the same lead he'd been on before the jump, only now,
because we'd changed direction, it was his outside leg. I pulled back
on the reins until he broke his stride, and then I turned his head
toward the woods and kicked him into a canter again. "Good,"
my mother yelled, and I squeezed Tony over the next line of jumps. I
did the same pattern over and over until I thought I was breathing
harder than Tony, and I slowed him to a walk without my mother's
command.

I
leaned over Tony's neck, sighing into his coarse mane. I knew about
running fast, and knowing you were off balance, and not
understanding how to fix yourself. "You don't see how lucky
you have it," I said. I thought about how easy it would be to
take an unfamiliar course if I had someone pushing me in the right
direction; a gentle, knowing pressure that let me break down the pace
until I was ready to run again.

"When
do I get to ride Donegal?" I asked, as we led him to the field
where my mother liked to ride him. His mane whipped from left to
right as he strained against the leather lead to his halter.

"You
could sit him right now," my mother said, "but you wouldn't
be riding him; he'd be riding you." She handed me the reins
while she adjusted the chin strap of her riding helmet. "He's a
phenomenal horse, he'll take any jump you put in front of him
and automatically change his leads, but he'd just be making you look
good. If you're learning to ride, you should do it on someone like
Tony, a workhorse with an attitude."

I
saw my mother swing herself into the saddle and take off at a trot;
then I sat down on the grass and watched her ride. I opened the pad
I'd brought and took out a stick of charcoal. I tried to draw the
spirit that seemed to run straight from my mother's spine through the
flanks and powerful hind legs of Donegal. She didn't even have to
touch the horse; it seemed that she communicated her changes and
transitions by willing them into Donegal's mind.

I
drew the crimped jet mane and the arch of the horse's neck, the steam
rising from his sides and the rhythm of his labored breathing. I
sketched the rippled muscles of Donegal's legs, from the line of the
blue shin and ankle boots to the raw force that throbbed in check
beneath the sheen of his haunches. My mother leaned low over his
neck, whispering words I could not hear. Her shirt flew out behind
her, and she moved faster than light.

When
I drew her, she seemed to come right out of the horse, and it was
impossible really to tell where he ended and she began. Her thighs
were wrapped tight around Donegal's flanks, and his legs seemed to
move across the page. I drew them over and over on the same piece of
paper. I was working so furiously that I never noticed my mother
getting off Donegal, tying him up to the fence, and coming to
sit beside me.

She
peered over my shoulder and stared at her image. I had drawn her
repeatedly, but the final effect was that of motion: her head and
Donegal's were bent low at several different angles and positions,
all rooted to the same flying body. It seemed mythical and sensual.
It was as if my mother and Donegal had started off several times but
couldn't decide where they wanted to go.

"You're
amazing," my mother said, resting her hand on my shoulder.

I
shrugged. "I'm okay," I said. "I could be better."

My
mother touched her fingertips to the edge of the paper. "Can I
have it?" she asked, and before I handed it over I peered into
the hollows and shadows of the picture, trying to see what else I
might have revealed. But this time, in spite of all the secrets that
lay between us, there was absolutely nothing.

"Sure,"
I said. "Consider it yours."

Dear
Max,

Enclosed
is a sketch of one of the horses here. Her name is Aurora, and she
looks like the one in your picture book of Snow White, the one you
always tried to eat when I read it to you. Oh, I suppose you don't
know—"here" is your grandmother's place. It's a farm
in North Carolina, and it's very green and very beautiful. When you
are older one day maybe you'll come down here and learn how to ride.

I
think of you quite a lot
—I
wonder
if you are sitting up yet and if you have your bottom teeth. I wonder
if you'll recognize me when you see me. I wish I could explain why I
left the way I did, but I am not sure I could put it into words. Just
keep believing me when I say I'm coming back.

I
don't know when yet.

I
love you.

Do
me a favor, will you? Tell your daddy I love him.

Mom

At
the end of August I went with my mother to an AHSA "A" list
horse show in Culpeper, Virginia. We packed Donegal into the trailer
and drove for six hours. I helped my mother lead him into the
makeshift stalls under the blue-and-white tent. That night, we paid
to practice on the four-foot jumps, which Donegal took easily after
being cooped up for so long. My mother tacked him down and gave him a
warm bath. "We'll see you tomorrow, Don," she said, "and
I'm planning on going home with a champion."

The
next day I watched, wide-eyed, as judging went on in three rings at
once. Men and women competed together, one of the few sports where
they were equal. My mother's class was Four Foot Working Hunter,
the highest show class. She seemed to know everyone there. "I'm
going to change," she said, and when she returned, she was
wearing tan britches, tall polished boots, a high-necked white
blouse, and a blue wool blazer. She had jammed her hair into fifteen
little barrettes all around her head, and she asked me to hold a
mirror while she stuffed her helmet on over them. "Points off,"
she told me, "if any hair is sticking out."

There
were twenty-one horses in her class, the last event of the day. She
was the third rider up. While Donegal pranced around the warm-up
ring, I watched from the bleachers, keeping an eye on the man jumping
the largest stallion I'd ever seen, over fences that were nearly as
tall as me. My mother's number was forty-six, tied on her back on a
crinkled piece of yellowed card. She smiled at the man who had
finished the course, passing him on her way in.

The
judge sat off to the side. I tried to make out what he was writing,
but it was impossible at this distance. Instead I concentrated on my
mother. It took only seconds. I watched Donegal come down the final
line on the outside of the ring. As he reared up, his front legs were
tight, his knees were high. He didn't take the jump long or chip it;
it was right in stride. I saw my mother sit back, holding Donegal
slow until the next jump rose in front of them, and then she pulled
into her half-seat, chin high, eyes burning straight ahead. It was
only when they finished the course that I realized I had been holding
my breath.

The
woman sitting beside me had on a copper-colored polka-dotted dress
and a wide-brimmed white straw hat, as if she'd been expecting Ascot.
She held a program, and on the back she was writing the numbers of
the riders she believed would win. "I don't know," she
murmured to herself. "I think the first man was much better."

I
turned to her, angry. "You've got to be joking," I said.
"His horse took every jump long." The woman sniffed and
tapped her pencil against her chin. "I'll give you five dollars
if forty-six doesn't beat that guy," I said, pulling a fold of
cash from my back pocket.