Riding Lessons, Page 21

  Now's my chance. I run out into the rain, sprinting to the field, feeling the water splash up against my calves as my feet land in the puddles that have already formed. My canvas shoes are soaked even before I hit the long grass of the pasture, and my hair is plastered down around my face.

  No more than three minutes later, I lead Hurrah into the aisle and come face to face with Jean-Claude.

  "I thought we weren't going to bring them in unless--" he starts. And then Hurrah turns his head.

  I watch Jean-Claude's eyes. He stares at the empty socket, and then, almost as a double-take, scans the rest of Hurrah.

  I catch my breath, and close my eyes so the ceiling will stop spinning.

  "Mon dieu," he says quietly.

  I open my eyes again, searching him for a sign. I could fall on the floor and beg him not to tell anyone. I could cry and plead and hold onto his leg. I could take him to my office and explain the situation, make him understand why I need to do this. If he won't go along with it, I could sleep with him.

  Jean-Claude shakes his head, staring at Hurrah with distant eyes. Then he raises his chin, takes a deep breath, and looks at the wall. "I need a drink."

  He turns and walks away from me, leaving me standing there with trembling hands and an open mouth. I should say something, should try to explain. I can't just let him--

  Just before he rounds the corner, he stops and looks back at me.

  "Are you coming?" he says impatiently.

  Chapter 15

  I love the French. Such a civilized people.

  Not only does Jean-Claude not seem to mind that I'm sitting on his leather couch while soaking wet and filthy, he also hands me a snifter of cognac. A very large one. The cognac, not the snifter.

  "So then, Madame Zimmer. You want to tell me what is going on?" he says, sinking into the couch beside me. He turns to face me, bringing his left leg up and leaning his arm against the couch's back.

  "It's a long story," I say, sucking a fiery stream of cognac down my throat. I brace for its return. Lovely stuff, once you get used to it.

  "I can only imagine."

  I take another sip of cognac, wondering whether I really want to delve into the whole business. At this point, though, I have nothing to lose. He's already seen what I've done.

  "He's the full brother of Harry, the horse I rode in the Claremont."

  Jean-Claude's only reaction is a widening of his eyes.

  "We didn't know. I didn't know. I mean, I did know--" I'm blathering like an idiot, I know this. But how do I describe what I felt, what I believed? "He was too similar not to be, and so after I brought him here, I started looking up pictures and things. Everything I saw told me it was him."

  "He had no tattoo, no chip?"

  "He does have a chip, but it's an old technology, so it didn't show up at the auction house or at Dan's place."

  "So how..."

  "I bugged Dan until he found an old scanner, and it picked up a number."

  I look quickly at Jean-Claude to see what he thinks. He's staring intently, his cognac resting on his knee.

  "So why did you color him?"

  "His old owner tried to kill him. I think. At any rate, he reported a trailer accident and that Hurrah was dead. It was in all the trade mags."

  "Hurrah? This is Highland Hurrah?"

  "You know him?"

  "Yes, of course. Well, I know of him anyway. He was a famous eventer."

  I had forgotten that the blackout was mine alone. I sigh gloomily.

  "So you think they're going to come for him." Jean-Claude shifts around so he's facing the window.

  "I know they will. The insurance policy must have been worth a fortune."

  "But why--"

  "Degenerative joint disease. And he's seventeen."

  Jean-Claude gets up and walks across the room. Moments later he returns with a decanter. He pauses in front of me long enough to refill my glass. Then he fills his own.

  "So, I don't understand. If you knew that he was supposed to be dead, why did you want Dan to find the scanner?"

  "I don't know," I say irritably.

  "It's a reasonable question." Jean-Claude stares at me for a moment before returning to set the decanter down.

  "I don't know why I asked him," I continue. "I really don't. It doesn't make sense now, but it did at the time." I pause, trying to figure out how to explain it. "When it occurred to me that it might be Hurrah, the whole thing seemed so unlikely...and yet I absolutely felt it in my heart." I pound my chest with my free hand, looking at Jean-Claude to see if he's following my logic. At the very least, he's trying.

  "It was very important to me to find out for sure," I continue. "And I guess I got so caught up in it, I didn't think about the consequences of its being true until it was too late."

  "And Dan didn't either?"

  "Dan didn't ever believe it was Hurrah. He thought I was obsessed with the idea because of Harry. And maybe I was, I don't know. Losing Harry was..." I shake my head, unable to continue. "Dan thought that if he proved that this wasn't Harry's brother, I'd be able to let it go."

  "And instead, he proves that it is and ends up losing him for you." Jean-Claude sinks back down into the couch. He reaches his arm across its back so that his hand rests perilously close to my shoulder.

  "No," I say. "Not on purpose. He thought he was doing me a favor."

  "Some favor."

  "You don't understand."

  We are both silent for a while, and I, at least, am getting tipsy.

  "You two, you are involved?" Jean-Claude asks gently.

  "I dunno. Maybe. Not anymore." I sigh and look glumly at the wall. "Oh God, I am such a loser! Such a big fat idiot!"

  "No, you aren't."

  "Oh yes, I am." I let my head fall back against the couch, and put a hand over my eyes. "God, everything I touch falls to pieces."

  He doesn't ask for a rundown, and I don't offer, although I can't stop it from happening in my head. I'd like to, but my litany of disasters is like an Ohrwurm, to wit: my accident, my failure as a mother, my failure as a wife, my dropped-out, tattooed, belligerent daughter, my blow-up with Dan, my relationship with my parents, my single-handed destruction of the family business, the impending loss of Hurrah--

  "What is that?" says Jean-Claude. The cushions shift as he rises.

  "What?" I say, removing my hand from my eyes. From outside the window, I can see lights flashing, almost like emergency vehicles.

  Almost indeed. When I reach the window, I see an ambulance and two police cars parked in front of the house.

  I don't even rush. I know all I need to by the way they're moving. Slowly, milling around the back door and porch with their hands in their pockets, hunched over against the drizzle.

  When the black bag appears on the gurney, I'm not even surprised. I'm not feeling anything at all, although the effects of the cognac have completely vaporized.

  I've never pictured this moment, but if I had, I think I'd expect to be hysterical. To scream, and run to the body, trying to throw myself on my father's dead breast.

  Instead, I make my way slowly up the lane, stumbling because tears have clouded my vision.

  I find myself thinking stupid thoughts--like wondering if Mutti is going to want her bedroom back, and if so, where am I going to sleep?

  When I finally reach the house, I walk up the ramp, listening to my footsteps ringing hollow on the wood. The gaggle of uniformed people on the porch turns to look at me. I say nothing. I simply pass them and go into the kitchen.

  There's a policeman sitting at the table, filling out a form on a thick pad. He looks up when I enter.

  "Where's my mother?" I say.

  "In the back," he answers. "The living room."

  Afterward, on my way down the hall, I realize that I didn't identify myself.

  Mutti is sitting in one of the winged chairs. A woman in a dark blue uniform sits in front of her on an ottoman, which she has pulled up close.

&nbs
p; "Mutti," I say.

  "Liebchen," she says. Her face is drawn, her eyes red. The bags under them are so deep they look painted on.

  "Is this your daughter?" the officer says gently, rising to her feet. She's in her early thirties, freckled and pale, with a thick waist.

  Mutti nods.

  "I think we're about finished. We may need to speak to you again later, after the coroner is finished, but for now..." The officer's voice peters out. Then she turns to me. "I'm very sorry for your loss," she says.

  "Thank you," I say, staring back into her colorless eyes. Shark's eyes.

  "And I'm very sorry we have to do this at all, Mrs. Zimmer. If we had a choice we wouldn't. If you can, try to get some rest. We'll contact you if the coroner decides to pursue it."

  What the hell does that mean?

  The officer gathers her things. She leans over to push the ottoman back to its original position, and then pauses awkwardly at the doorway. She gives us one last look and disappears, clomping down the hall in her heavy black boots.

  Mutti and I stare at the empty doorway. A moment later, there is a buzz of conversation from the kitchen, some shuffling, a chair leg scraping across the floor. The door opens and closes, followed by more footsteps and then voices, hushed and respectful. A jumble of unidentified sounds, then the swishing of windbreaker material, a zipper running up. More thumps and bangs, and then the door opens again. The prolonged screeching of the screen--someone is holding it open, and it moans its dog-yawn squeak every time that person's hand moves--and then the kitchen door closes. I wait for the screen door to snap shut behind it, but it doesn't. Someone has taken the trouble to close it gently.

  I turn to Mutti. "Why were the police here?"

  She is still sitting in the winged chair, staring into the distance with one arthritic finger held to her lips.

  "Mutti?"

  "Because I told them what happened," she says after a moment.

  My eyelid flickers involuntarily. "What do you mean, you told them what happened?"

  She doesn't answer.

  "Mutti, what happened?" I say, with increasing urgency.

  And then she tells me. The police were here because Pappa killed himself. The ambulance was here because they were not taking Pappa to a funeral home. They were taking him to the morgue for an autopsy--a final indignity I cannot bear to think about.

  I listen with increasing horror as Mutti describes how they spent the last six weeks going from doctor to doctor, collecting the phenobarbital elixir prescribed for Pappa's seizing muscles, and hoarding it until they were sure they had enough. Then Mutti mixed it into vodka lemonade, and held the straw to Pappa's lips.

  When Mutti tells me this, a vision of the white pharmacy bags exploding from the cupboard flashes in front of my eyes. Brian's phone call, his canceled appointments. Mutti's face in the crack of the door, last night.

  "Oh, God," I say, trying to take it all in. "Was it...Did he suffer?"

  "No, Liebchen."

  "Was it fast?"

  An involuntary spasm wracks Mutti's body.

  "Mutti?"

  After an excruciating silence, she speaks. "It took eighteen hours."

  "Eighteen hours!"

  "And then I waited six more." She leans forward, her face contorted with grief. For the first time, I think she might cry. "I had to wait until I knew he was gone, because...I couldn't tell. I know that sounds strange, but even when he wasn't breathing anymore, I could tell he was still there. So I had to wait until he wasn't."

  I stare at her, feeling all the muscles in my face go slack.

  Oh God. Twenty-four hours. I was in the house. I argued with her about making dinner. Returned from the barn, and snuck down for Valium. Got up in the morning and made toast, while in the other room--

  I moan.

  "Liebchen, Liebchen, it was what he wanted. It was for the best," Mutti pleads, her eyes searching mine. Surely she doesn't think I blame her?

  "I know, Mutti, I know," I say.

  But do I? How can this be for the best? And yet, under the circumstances, how can it not be?

  I want another option. I want the clock turned back. I want to go back to before Pappa was sick and fend it off. And if I can't have that, I want another chance. I want to go back to that day in April when Eva and I arrived, and behave differently, responsibly, compassionately.

  But I can't. I've failed him again, and this time there's no putting it right.

  I had every chance--months' worth of chances--and what did I do? I ran like a baby, hiding in the wash rack when he came to the stable, leaving early in the morning so I'd be gone by the time he got up, coming back late so I'd only have to face him at dinner, when we were surrounded by other people.

  But what was I supposed to do? Ask his forgiveness? Give him mine? Tell him I understood why he pushed me so hard? (I don't.) Tell him I loved him?

  Maybe I wouldn't have needed to say anything. Maybe just sitting with him would have been enough. Maybe we could have come to some kind of understanding simply by being together. Then I have the most hideous thought of all: maybe we already were on the same page, and I simply never took the time to find out.

  I look over at Mutti, who is shrunken and pale. Suddenly, the need for the autopsy and the officer's parting words converge in my head. I sit bolt upright.

  "Mutti, you didn't tell them you had anything to do with it."

  "Of course I did. I have done nothing wrong."

  "My God--Mutti, what if they arrest you?"

  Mutti's lips press together. She straightens her spine, and pushes herself back against the chair.

  "We have to call a lawyer," I say, suddenly frantic. I leap up from my chair, scanning the room for a phone book.

  "We will do no such thing."

  "Mutti, for Christ's sake!" I press the heel of one hand against my forehead and breathe quickly through my open mouth.

  "I did nothing wrong."

  "That's actually not the point. It's against the law."

  "Then the law should change."

  "Yes, of course it should. But you don't need to be the one to do it!"

  "It's a barbaric law and if I can help change it, then I will."

  "And if you can't?" I stare at her, challenging her.

  She puffs up her chest and looks away.

  "Mutti?"

  She stares at the wall.

  "Mutti, could you go to prison for this?"

  "I did what I needed to do," Mutti continues. Her voice is steady and calm. The martyr, prepared for whatever comes. "I helped my husband when he needed it and could no longer help himself. I did it out of love."

  "I know that, Mutti. But why in God's name did you have to tell them about it?"

  "I will not lie about it."

  "No one asked you to lie. You could have just omitted a few things."

  She shakes her head.

  "Mutti," I say, trying desperately to sound calm. "Tell me exactly what you told them."

  "I told them what I just told you."

  "Oh, Jesus..." I swallow hard, and turn back to her. "We have to get you a lawyer. Right now. You may be in really big trouble."

  "What does it matter? Anton is gone. You are running the stable."

  I feel as though a lake's worth of water was being stored in my head, and someone just yanked the tarp out. It crashes--sloosh!--into my lower legs. I fall to my knees in front of my mother.

  "Mutti, Mutti," I cry hoarsely, clutching at her knees.

  She puts her hand on my hair. She tries to run her fingers through it, but they catch in a knot. She disentangles them gently.

  "I know, Liebchen. I know," she says. For the first time tonight, her voice cracks, and I know she's crying.

  "No, Mutti," I say, burying my face in her lap. "You don't. There's something I need to tell you."

  Mutti listens in silence as I tell her what I've done to the stable. Partway through, her hand disappears from my head.

  I know even without l
ooking up that I've driven the final wedge between us. And it took some doing, too. She tolerated my behavior toward Pappa and my obsession with Hurrah, absorbed Eva and me into her life when we landed on her doorstep. But this, this, she cannot accept, and I don't blame her.

  My final act to my father was to destroy his life's work. It seems appropriate somehow. A different, more definitive version of what I did twenty years ago, only this time I have no excuse.

  When I am finished, I keep my head on her lap. I know I'm only delaying the inevitable, but I can't look up. I'm afraid to.

  Finally I do, leaving my arms on her bony thighs.

  "Mutti?"

  She is staring at the wall behind me, pale and fragile. Except for the rapid rise and fall of her chest, she's completely still. Then her eyelids shut dramatically.

  "I'm so sorry. Mutti, I'm so sorry," I say sniffing piteously. My arms slide from her legs, aware they are no longer welcome. "Please say something. Yell at me if you want to. But please say something."

  For five long seconds, nothing. Then she opens and closes the fingers of her hand, dismissing me.

  As I retreat to my room, I pass by Eva's. Her door is open, and the light is off. I look at my watch and frown. It's just past six thirty.

  I go back downstairs. Before I step into the living room, I pause for a moment, screwing up my courage.

  Mutti is still in the winged chair, staring at the wall. She has not moved a muscle, although Harriet has laid herself across the ends of her slippered feet.

  "Mutti?"

  "What is it?" she says without looking at me.

  "Do you know what's happening with Eva tonight?"

  She closes her eyes, obviously wishing I would just go away. "What do you mean?"

  "Am I supposed to pick her up or is Dan dropping her off?"

  "I don't know."

  "Well what did she say when you dropped her off?"

  Mutti turns sharply. "I didn't drop her off this morning."

  I stare into her eyes as it dawns on me. I haven't seen Eva since last night.

  I stumble to the kitchen, blinded by fear. In my haste, I drop the telephone. When I finally catch the receiver, I grip it so tightly my knuckles are white.

  "Hello?"

  "Dan?" My voice is breathless, sharp.

  "Yeah. Annemarie? Is that you?"

  "Is Eva there?"

  "No, she isn't."

  "When did she leave?"

  "She didn't come today."

  I hear myself shrieking and then sink to the floor, each of my vertebrae bumping against the cabinet on my way down. A moment later, I'm vaguely aware that Mutti is kneeling beside me.