Riding Lessons, Page 9

The article ends with "Our sincerest condolences go out to Ian McCullough, whose career with the great Hanoverian was unrivaled, and whose life will never be the same."

  I grow murderous as I read this. This was Harry's brother. This was a horse who--had the cosmos not been torn asunder--would have been mine. A horse who ended up dying in the most horrifying circumstances because some mental deficient forgot to put the truck in gear. He died, in other words, because of some idiot who is too stupid to live, and even if it wasn't Ian himself, it was somebody hired by Ian, and that makes him culpable.

  I stare at the screen for what seems like forever, my heart pounding with anger and grief. Hating and mourning and wanting to scream, I stare at the tiny pixilated picture as though I might understand better if I looked at it long enough. With my hand on the mouse, I move the cursor idly around the horse's outline, tracing his hooves and ears onscreen, circling the cowlick I know is on his chest. And then, before I know it, I'm leaning forward and typing again, desperately searching cyberspace for another picture, any picture, of Highland Hurrah. In order to mourn his death, I need to reconstruct his life.

  Chapter 8

  Pappa is deteriorating quickly, falling straight off the edge. Eva and I have only been here for six weeks, but the difference is striking. He is skeletal, so thin it is painful to take it in, skin stretched over bone. His nails are yellow and ridged, his hair white, combed sparsely across his scalp.

  He hardly eats anything, at least in front of us. Everything Mutti serves--invariably from one of her new vegetarian cookbooks--can be scooped with a spoon or fork, and when it can't be, she precuts his portion in the kitchen. Even so, it's such an effort, and often the food falls off before it reaches his mouth. When that happens, he rests before trying again. He probably manages half a dozen bites in the course of each meal, and he's literally wasting away. Mutti still helps him with his drink, but never with his food. I'm sure it's because he doesn't want to be spoon-fed in front of the rest of us, as though it's somehow a reflection on him as a person.

  That's ridiculous, of course, but I also understand it, having been in the position of not being able to do anything for myself. And like Pappa, I hated asking for help. There were many, many times when I resisted asking someone to scratch my nose, or move my hair so it wasn't tickling my neck, or lift a glass and place the end of the straw in my mouth so I could take a drink. Although it's not the same, of course, because my helplessness came upon me with crashing suddenness, and his is encroaching slowly. His very life is slipping out from under him.

  His head now leans against the back of the wheelchair, usually at an angle that suggests he can't hold it upright. Soon there will be wings to the side of the headrest to give him support, or else he'll have to wear a back and neck brace, as I did in the early days of my recovery. His speech is slowing, too, and when he tries to smile, he usually only manages to pull his face into a grimace that is so terrible I try not to look. It's the same with eating, but even though I avert my gaze, I'm aware of every failed attempt, every morsel that tips off the side just as his fork reaches his mouth. I am gripped with sadness, desperation, and anger, too. I don't know where to direct this, although Mutti makes a fine substitute most of the time. And this is grossly unfair, because it is I who am failing, not her.

  She spends all of every day with Pappa. Brian comes in the morning and then again at night, but that is only because Mutti can't do the lifting required to get Pappa in and out of bed. Other than that, she is at his side all day. If she works in the garden, he parks beside her in the shade of the patio umbrella. If she's cooking, he reads at the kitchen table. They rent movies, they listen to Wagner, they do jigsaw puzzles--an agonizing pursuit, but unlike with eating, he doesn't seem to mind dropping the pieces and trying again.

  There is only one thing Pappa does alone. Every afternoon, just after the horses come in, Mutti opens the back door and Pappa steers out to the porch. Then he drives down the ramp and across the gravel, his head bobbing with each dip in the surface. When he gets to the stable, he stops in front of Razzmatazz's stall.

  As soon as he arrives, the nearest stable hand comes and immediately, wordlessly, slides the door open and puts up the stall guard. Then Tazz, an impossibly tall half Percheron, half God-knows-what, with hooves the size of dinner plates, lumbers over and extends his neck into the aisle. He sniffs Pappa's face, his hands, and searches his lap for treats.

  Pappa always has carrots for him, never an apple, and I'm sure I know why. Unless a horse takes an apple in one bite, you have to give him something to push against, some counter-pressure while he sinks his teeth into it. And Pappa doesn't have the strength for that anymore. Instead, he comes armed with sections of carrots, which he feeds to Tazz, one by one. Even when the carrots run out, Tazz remains at the stall door, nosing my father and sniffing his chair while Pappa murmurs to him, occasionally bringing a bony hand up to touch the horse's grizzled face.

  I find this both fascinating and heartbreaking. The old Pappa would never have shown such softness. The old Pappa would have considered this coddling.

  I watch the nightly pilgrimage religiously, but am careful to stay out of sight. Usually, I hang out around the corner, or just inside the wash rack, but always I make sure that he can't see me without turning his chair. And when he does, the sound of the motor gives me ample time to grab a shovel or a pitchfork from the wall and stride past with a jolly "Hi Pappa," as though I'm terribly busy and can't possibly find the time to stop.

  It's mean, it's stupid, and it's immature, but I don't know what to say to him. I can't say, "Hi Pappa, how are you feeling today?" because I'm afraid he might tell me. I can't approach him and talk about other things, because that reeks of cowardice. So instead, I pretend that nothing is out of the ordinary, ignoring the physical reminders that are everywhere: the track in the ceiling that leads to the bathroom, the fact that we take all our meals in the study, the terrible, familiar sounds that emerge from the dining room as Brian gets Pappa up for the day.

  Eva seems to have accepted Pappa's decline and coming death as a natural part of life, and I admire and despair her attitude in equal parts. Death may be natural, but surely not this death. This death is a theft, an abomination, and too close to a palindrome of my own experience for me to be able to cope with it.

  This is not a good night. I got caught by Pappa in the stable today, and did my usual "no time to talk" routine, and now I feel terrible about it. But short of seeking him out for a conversation, I can't think how to rectify it. So instead, the second dinner is over I make my way outside with Jean-Claude. I climb the fence with a bag of apples, and he goes to the stable to get Bergeron.

  His devotion to the white stallion is touching. He spends at least an hour in the field with him every evening, talking to him, grooming him, running a finishing brush over his smooth coat. Sometimes he combs Bergeron's long tail while he grazes, holding it off to the side with one hand and detangling the luxurious white length with the other. He's a man who understands long hair. It makes me wonder about the women he's known.

  I go and sit in the grass, as close to my horse as he'll let me come. He's a tough nut to crack. It's been weeks, and I'm still bowling apples across the pasture at him. This amuses Jean-Claude no end, but what else can I do?

  It's not as though the relationship is entirely one sided. We're making progress, even if it is slow. When he sees me, he pricks up his ears. He knows who I am. I'm the lady who rolls apples at him.

  Tonight, though, he is being particularly standoffish. Our usual routine is that I roll an apple, he goes to get it, and then while he's eating it, I inch a little closer. Tonight, he takes the apple, and then flattens his ears against his head at the first sign of movement.

  I turn to go back to the house. From the corner of my eye I see Jean-Claude approach the fence. This is an invitation for me to do the same. I walk dejectedly. I'm not in a mood to talk, but I don't want to be rude.

  "Don't let it get you do
wn," he says when I come to a stop. "You know how horses are. Maybe it's something in the wind."

  "Or maybe he hates me," I say, leaning against the whitewashed boards.

  "No. He will come around."

  "You think?" I ask, looking back at my horse. He's munching the last apple fragment, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  "Without question. Already, he lets you get closer, no? You should have seen Bergeron in the early days. A real wild man. Crazy."

  "What, him?" I scoff, looking over at the white stallion. "That marshmallow?"

  "Yes, that marshmallow," says Jean-Claude.

  "When was this?"

  "Eight years ago. I was at a barn outside of Montreal looking at a different horse, perhaps to buy, and this guy was chained in a stall at the back. They'd labeled him as vicious--they were going to put him down, but I saw something in him. They didn't want to sell him to me, but I persisted. And now look at my Boo-Boo, my beautiful boy. Eh, Boo-Boo?" he says, raising his voice.

  Bergeron lifts his head briefly, his lower jaw moving from side to side. Before long, he returns to grazing, rhythmically ripping grass from the ground and swishing his elegant tail.

  "You'd never know," I say. "How did you do it?"

  "Love, patience, and time. There is no shortcut, no magic. But it will happen. You will see."

  We both look at my horse, who has moved as far away as possible. He is flush with the fence, pretending not to look at us. His ears are plastered back.

  "Something has happened to your boy, that is all. You must give him time to trust you, to want to dance."

  I've watched Jean-Claude give enough lessons to know his vernacular. "It's not going to happen, Jean-Claude. I'm not going to ride him," I say.

  "Well, we shall see," he says. "We shall see. But for sure, you have a nice-looking boy there."

  There's something so charismatic about Jean-Claude's manner that I think he could say anything and I'd believe it. But in this, there's no question. This horse, such a wreck when he came to us, is looking good. Astonishingly good, in fact, and there's a whole lot more to it than just a return to a healthy body weight. With some flesh on his bones, his conformation is beginning to show itself. More and more, he looks Hanoverian. More and more, he looks like Harry.

  The similarities in coloring were there in the beginning, as was the shape of the face, but it wasn't until he started to put weight on that the familiar shape began to emerge, like a statue from a hunk of stone.

  The change was so gradual that the idea it spawned never hit me in a single moment of recognition. It wormed its way into my head so slowly, so quietly, that I didn't even know what was happening until it was already there. It was probably lurking for weeks, but chose not to reveal itself until it had staked its turf and set up ramparts.

  The first time it crossed my mind, I dismissed it as crazy. But as many times as I slammed the lid down, it rose again, seeping around the edges like steam.

  Finally, one night, I could ignore it no more. After I was sure that everybody else in the house was in bed, I snuck down to the study and spent the entire night going through back issues of magazines until I found a photograph of Highland Hurrah. I needed a paper one, one I could take with me.

  Then, by the light of the rising sun, I took it out to the pasture and held it at arm's length, comparing it to the horse who stood in front of me, desperately searching first the horse, and then the picture. Then the horse, and then the picture. Picking out a single marking on one, and matching it on the other.

  Highland Hurrah is dead. I know this. I also know that he is grazing in my field. I wonder if the wishing of it could make it so, if somehow, mystically, I've caused the lost brindled horse to coalesce, forming him like a diamond by the weight of my heart. I've heard of faith healing, of how concentrated mental energy can cause inoperable cancers to retreat into nothingness--is it really so outrageous to believe that I caused the reincarnation of the lost Hanoverian simply by wanting it so badly?

  I know better than to tell anyone about this. They already think I'm crazy. Not Eva, of course, who has thrown herself into her work at the rescue center with a zeal I didn't know was in her, but certainly Mutti does, and Dan. They don't know exactly what's going on, but they suspect I've gone a little off. I can see it in their faces, in the veil of patience that drops across their faces when I'm talking. The sad nods of understanding from Dan, and the hard, sideways glares from Mutti.

  It started with the fact that I wouldn't name the horse. At first, this manifested itself with gentle teasing, an amusement at how long it was taking me to get around to it. After several weeks, though, it became obvious that my reluctance was something more, something pathological. Dan, polite and kind to the bone, simply stopped asking. Mutti stopped asking, too, but with a kind of judgmental abruptness.

  Of course, I have named the horse--or at least, have given him back his old name--but I can't tell them that. They'd think I was nuts. Even I think I'm nuts sometimes. And yet I can't get beyond this belief. It looms as solid as an obelisk.

  But eventually even I have to admit that I could not have formed this horse from thin air.

  There's a click and a crackle on the other end of the line as I press the phone to my ear. I know I shouldn't do this, but I'm powerless to stop. When Dan answers, I'm shaking.

  "Dan?"

  "Yes."

  "It's me."

  "I know," he says.

  Suddenly I am unable to find the words to start.

  "Is everything okay?" he asks.

  "Yes, fine. It's just...I've been...Listen, I want to ask you something."

  "What?"

  "My horse, how old are his injuries?"

  "I don't know. It's hard to say exactly."

  "Guess."

  "Four or five months, maybe. Why?"

  "Are they compatible with a trailering accident? And a fire?"

  Silence from the other end.

  "Dan?"

  "I'm here."

  "Are they?"

  "I guess. They could be. Why are you asking?"

  "I think I know who he is."

  "You do?"

  "I think he's Harry's brother."

  "Annemarie--"

  "No, I'm serious. I've seen pictures of him--he's a dead ringer."

  "Annemarie--"

  "I know this sounds nuts, but think about it. How many brindled horses have you come across in your lifetime?"

  I pause for him to answer, but he doesn't. There's palpable disbelief in the silence. I think he's trying to decide whether I've gone off the deep end.

  "I know this sounds crazy, but it's not. I've downloaded lots of pictures. It's not just the coloring, it's the markings. The markings match. I mean, exactly."

  Again, an awkward pause. "Annemarie, I really don't think that's the case."

  "I know how it sounds," I say, barreling on, and aware that I'm starting to sound hysterical. "I really do. But you have to see the pictures. It's the same horse."

  "Why would someone fake his death?"

  "I don't know. Insurance money."

  "Why would anyone rather have the money than a world-class eventer?" he says.

  "Because Hurrah is seventeen, which puts him at about the end of his eventing career."

  Silence.

  "You think I'm nuts," I say finally.

  "I don't think you're nuts."

  "You do. I can tell."

  "I think you've been under a hell of a lot of pressure."

  "No. You have to look at the pictures."

  "Annemarie, he's not Harry's brother."

  "But what if he is?"

  "If he were, he'd have been microchipped. Not only that, insurance companies insist on a vet identifying the body, especially for a big claim."

  I hadn't thought of that. My burgeoning faith sags like a souffle.

  "Look," Dan continues gently. "I understand why you want to believe this. I know--"

  "No you don't," I snap. I know it's irratio
nal, but the microchip thing seems like his fault.

  "I do. Believe me, I do. I was there, remember? It was always Harry for you. Always. My God, Annemarie--even your dog is named Harry."

  "She is not," I sputter in protest. "Her name is Harri--" And then I stop, frozen, stunned by my lack of self-knowledge. "Oh God, I'm nuts. I've actually gone off the deep end."

  "Maybe you just need to get out," Dan says. "You know, get your mind off things."

  "No, I'm just nuts."

  "You have every reason in the world to be stressed out. You're surrounded by reasons." Another pause. "Look, do you want to do something tonight? After I drop Eva off? I'm not talking about a date. Just a movie and maybe a bite to eat. Just to get you off the farm for a while."

  "Um...Yeah, okay. Why not."

  "Okay then. Good."

  I hang up, strangely disappointed that it's not a date.

  Okay, so I'm nuts. On this, everyone seems agreed, and for a few minutes after I hang up, I agree.

  I'm not blind to the obvious. I know how irrational this seems. Ian McCullough is a respected sportsman, and what I'm suggesting would make him a felon. But then I return to the pictures, and there's no getting around the fact that this is the same horse. I don't know whether this shows great faith or pitiable delusion.

  Standing at the wooden fence, I look from the picture in my hand to the horse in the field and decide that no, it isn't pitiable delusion.

  For two decades, I've felt like a lab specimen in a jar. There's been a murkiness over everything, a feeling that I somehow skipped a groove and couldn't get back in. But lately I've been seeing flashes--tantalizing glimpses of what's beneath the veil. I'm starting to feel again in a way that I haven't in twenty years, and I can't let it go.

  However irrational it seems, I know the truth, and if it has to be mine alone, partaken in secret like an alcoholic slurping wine in a closet, so be it. I won't let it go.

  Dan picks me up at five, and we go to a movie. It's the most popular of the summer, but I find it distracting because the actors keep taking flight and bounding across the tops of trees. But what I find most distracting is Dan.

  True to his word, he is acting entirely platonically toward me. I wonder what he'd do if I just reached out and took his hand. I don't, because it would probably shock him. A woman as recently single as me probably should not be making moves on ex-boyfriends on explicitly declared non-dates. But still, it would be nice to feel the warmth of his hand on mine, or his thigh under my palm.