Mercury (13 page)

But the next time Tiffany came with a friend, and the lesson after that, her father brought her and knew nothing about any check. For the fifth lesson she once again came with a friend. When I said we couldn't keep teaching her on account, tears spilled down her cheeks. I handed her a Kleenex and relented. It was a quiet, hot afternoon, and by the end of the lesson she was riding Sir Pericles in graceful circles. Her friend had already left, and I gave her a lift home. As I pulled up outside the ramshackle triple-decker, I offered to talk to her parents. She was out of the car before I finished. “See you next week,” I called. But I didn't.

“Good riddance,” said Claudia. “We can't do battle for every payment.”

“But she's really talented,” I said. “It doesn't matter if we don't get paid once in a while.”

“Viv, she got five free lessons. You see our cash flow.”

She was right—everything about the stables cost money—but I couldn't get Tiffany out of my head. She was my younger self. I had failed her, and somehow that failure connected with all my other failures. At my job. With Nutmeg and Dow Jones. With various men. Even with my Little Sister Jade. I had failed my second life. You were in the grip of your grief, and I was in the grip of mine. When we went to Wellfleet, we hardly spoke to each other, but you didn't seem to notice.

Back at Windy Hill I found we had a new contender for our worst rider award. Week after week Diane slouched around on Samson. So when her mother asked if she could board a horse, our expectations were low. I was walking back from the paddocks when the trailer pulled up outside the barn. From it emerged the most amazing horse I'd ever seen: a dapple-gray Thoroughbred, almost seventeen hands, five years old. Mercury backed out of the trailer, tail clamped, legs ready to kick, ears pinned, nostrils wide. Given half a chance, he would have galloped back to Ontario. The driver held out the forms for Hilary to sign, but she simply stood there, frozen. I stepped forward to take delivery.

Hilary didn't come by the next day, or the next. Between giving lessons, I brought Mercury up to the stalls and brushed him using the softest rubber curry. Claudia appeared while I was picking burrs out of his tail.

“I thought you were checking the supplies,” she said. “It's not our job to groom him.”

“I'll get to them. I don't think anyone's been near him in months.”

This brief conversation set the pattern for our exchanges about Mercury: my enthusiasm, her disapproval. The next day, when Claudia had to go to Boston, I phoned the one person
who I knew would appreciate him as much as I did. Helen said she would love to see him.

I went to fetch her at lunchtime. When we pulled up beside the paddock, he was grazing in the far corner. “Help me out,” she said. I hovered, worrying she'd lose her footing as she moved her walker over the rough ground. Mercury had caught sight of us and was trotting toward the gate.

“Good shoulders,” Helen pronounced. “Good pasterns. Good suspension. The last time I saw a horse like this was when my first husband took me to the regionals.”

At the gate Mercury fixed his large dark eyes on me and nickered softly. Then he scraped the ground, twice, with his right front hoof, choosing me.

S
UDDENLY
I
WAS FULL
of hope. Think about the best thing that ever happened to you, not counting Marcus and Trina. That was how I felt during the days following Mercury's arrival. Even simple things—cutting the crusts off Trina's sandwiches, putting gas in the car—were filled with meaning. But he was Hilary's horse. Without her permission I could do little other than feed and groom him. She came to ride him once when I was supervising the stable girls. Then nothing. Eight days passed before she phoned to ask if she could visit Mercury after work. She hadn't boarded a horse before and didn't know the rules. That afternoon, the minute Claudia left, I went to get Mercury from the paddock. Walking up the road, he pulled like a yearling. When, instead of fetching his saddle, I cross-tied him outside a stall, he snorted.

“I can't,” I told him. “Your mistress is coming.”

As soon as I saw Hilary heading our way, wearing a flowery skirt, carrying a bag of carrots, I knew she wasn't planning to ride, but I gave no sign. “Mercury's waiting by the stalls,” I said. “Do you need help finding his saddle?”

“Oh, I'm not riding him again.” She was startled but quite definite. “I'm too out of practice, and he's too strong. I'm just here to pet him.”

“He really needs to be exercised,” I said.

“Why can't he just run around in a field?”

I explained that he was a Thoroughbred; besides, we didn't have a large enough field. “I'd be happy to ride him,” I said, “as part of your boarding him here.” I could hear my voice cracking with casualness.

She started to smile—you know how Hilary nearly always looks as if she's about to smile—and asked if we could discuss the arrangements over dinner. Diane was away. Now she was the one trying to sound casual. I phoned you, and you said, “Fine.” My absence made no difference.

At the sight of me, Mercury stamped the ground and tossed his head. Where had I been? He danced from hoof to hoof as I saddled him. Normally, riding a horse I didn't know, I would have walked him around the arena, letting him get used to me and his new surroundings, but as soon as I mounted Mercury, I could feel the energy coursing through him. He was ready, eager, unafraid. I decided to break my own rules and take him out to the large field. As we stepped onto the grass, his ears came forward. We walked two sides of the fence. Then I let out the reins, and that was that. All I had to do was push my hands into the crest of his mane, and his body unfolded beneath me. He had been cooped up for much too long. And so had I. Do you remember the picture you showed me of the Roman god with his winged shoes? Riding Mercury, it was easy to believe his hooves had wings.

Afterward, as I followed Hilary's rear lights down the road and back to town, even my car seemed different, the steering more sensitive, the accelerator more powerful. How many horsepower was it? A hundred and fifty? Two hundred? I imagined a cavalcade of horses, like Mercury, galloping before me.

In the restaurant we took turns telling our life stories. Hilary had met her husband in Toronto, buying Gouda at Kensington Market. Franklin was a computer programmer who loved to cook. They'd married after three months and moved to Providence, where they bought a ramshackle Victorian. For nearly a decade they'd been absorbed in wainscoting and moldings. But after the house was finished, Franklin just wanted to get stoned and play guitar. Or so she thought.

Then some elderly neighbors asked Hilary to stage their house. It sold in a weekend. The next day she quit her job, technical writing for software manuals. “Once I started earning decent money,” she said, “I was even less patient with Franklin. He wasn't interested in my houses, didn't like my new friends. One day he forgot Diane's school play. I said maybe we should try living apart. I thought he'd argue, promise to change, but he said not a bad idea.”

Two days after she moved out, her friend Beth had moved in. She couldn't stand it. Beth enjoying the window seat she'd built in the kitchen, Beth getting Franklin to do the things he'd never do for her. Hilary hadn't planned to leave Providence, but one weekend she'd been visiting a cousin in Lincoln and driving around, she'd seen a cute house for sale in our town. Diane still hadn't forgiven her.

I nodded, asked questions, waiting to ask about what really interested me: Where did she find the amazing Mercury? When I did, a shadow fell across her face. “He belonged to my brother,” she said. “I'll tell you another time, when I'm not going home to an empty house.”

To our left, a couple was holding hands; to our right a couple was studying the menu. I remembered all the empty rooms I'd gone back to, before you, and apologized for prying.

“You're not prying. I just hate Diane being away. You understand I can't pay you for riding Mercury? I can only manage the boarding fees because Michael had life insurance.”

She was very firm about this point. I said she was providing me with a mount, which meant there was one more horse we could use for lessons. My jumbled logic seemed to satisfy her. We each had an agenda. Then I gave the quick version of my life story. When I mentioned you, she exclaimed that she'd seen you at the stables and assumed you were just another parent. You'd been great with Diane. I said I was glad you were doing a good job with your patients. At home, since your dad died, you'd been MIA.

Hilary shook her head. “I'm not sure grief has a timetable,” she said. “Just when I think I've come to terms with Michael's death, I find myself spiraling down again, braking at a green light, wearing odd socks.”

We split the bill and promised we'd do this again soon. Driving home, I thought how long it was since I'd made a new friend, not as a parent, not as a wife, but as myself. I'd forgotten the pleasure of revisiting my past with another person. It wasn't only Mercury that filled me with hope, but Hilary too. When I told her how I used to work in mutual funds, she said, “Viv, you're a Renaissance woman.”

The next day, as we brought the horses up from the paddocks, I told Claudia about the arrangement. She was leading Sorrel and Dow Jones. I had Mrs. Hardy and Nimble.

“Lucky Hilary,” she said, “finding a free groom. What time is the hay arriving?”

“You were the one who said we needed more boarders,” I persisted. Three owners had taken their horses to North Carolina last winter and never returned, and we'd had a run of bad
luck with our own horses: a mare with colic had to be put down, a gelding was lamed by a split hoof, another gelding kicked in the face, his tear ducts damaged. Five of our twenty-four stalls were empty. And Matheus and Felipe had asked for a raise.

“Not boarders like Mercury,” said Claudia. “He doesn't belong in our cozy, second-rate stables.”

As she spoke, Sorrel and Dow Jones crowded forward, objecting to her description. I did too. “We don't have to be second-rate,” I said. “He can help us attract better horses, better riders.”

“I'm not saying we have to be.” She tugged at the reins. “But I like the stables the way they are. I like that anyone can come here and ride. Of course, I'd love to have prize-winning horses, stellar riders, but I'm satisfied with what we do have.”

And Mercury, I tried to explain, was a way for me to be more satisfied. “He's been so well trained. I'm hoping to take him out to a few shows.”

Claudia gave me a quick, sideways glance, but all she said was, “Okay, I'll stop being a Grinch. I just want you to be happy.”

I would have said the same. We were both nearly thirty-eight, but Claudia was childless, living with her great-aunt, dating a married man. In her twenties she'd gone out with a series of willowy, Frisbee-playing boys. I'd thought their youth mere coincidence until one night I made a joke about cradle snatching, and she said, “But you know I like younger guys.”

She was my closest friend, and I had had no idea. When I asked why, she said, “They're cute, and they don't think I'm a failure.”

“You're not a failure,” I protested.

She laughed. “Come on, Viv. I love my job, but there's no ladder to climb, no glass ceiling. I can't afford to do the things you and your fancy friends do.”

Suddenly I recalled all the times she'd claimed she wasn't interested in a play, didn't feel like going out for tapas, and I'd taken her at her word. I felt dumb as a post. A few months later Helen asked her to run the stables. Then she met Rick; he was taking photographs at a horse show. The good news was, she'd overcome her ageism. The bad news was, he had a wife and three sons, the youngest still in college. His wife used to teach nursery school. Now she raised money for her church and had migraines. It wasn't a question of if they got divorced, Rick said. Only when.

Claudia was incandescent, but as the months passed, his divorce seemed permanently on hold. One son was depressed, another got sick, the dog had cancer, his accounting firm was restructuring. Rick was doing his best, she told me, seeing a therapist, but there was always a good reason why it was a bad time to leave.

The afternoon he came to photograph Mercury for our website, Claudia had a dentist's appointment. I spent an hour grooming Mercury—washing him with whitening shampoo, oiling his hooves. I had just finished combing his tail when Rick arrived.

First he photographed Mercury grazing with Sorrel and Sir Pericles, then on a lunge line. At last I rode him. For the final shots Rick suggested a couple of jumps. We hadn't jumped before, and as we approached the first pole, I felt him hesitate. Then he gathered himself, and we were flying. By the third jump I knew what Mercury was born and trained to do.

Back in the barn, while I rubbed him down, Rick set up his tripod. “It's so quiet,” he said. “Don't you ever get frightened, being here alone?”

“It's safer than walking around downtown at night,” I said.

“That's what Claudia says. I told her she should get a gun.”

Had I heard him correctly? I turned to look, and there he was, frowning slightly, gold-rimmed glasses glinting as he adjusted the camera. “I have a pistol at my cabin in New Hampshire,” he went on. “I take it out once a year to oil it, but just knowing it's there makes me feel safer.”

“You own a gun?”

“I know, it surprises me too, but in Franconia no one gives it a second thought. It doesn't mean I've turned into a redneck.”

Suddenly I couldn't stop myself from asking, “Are you ever going to leave your wife?”

It was his turn to be surprised. “The answer is yes. Believe me, I don't like having to lie. I don't like Claudia having less than she deserves. I don't like Nan having less than she deserves.”

“So what's stopping you? Thousands of people get divorced every year.” I moved to Mercury's off side.

“I don't know,” he said, and I could hear that he didn't. “Three months after I met Claudia, I was all set to leave. I'd had a good day at work, and as I drove home I was sure I could find the right words. Our marriage had run its course. We'd both be happier apart. Nan would have the house, money, etcetera. But when I stepped into the kitchen, she was waiting with a bottle of champagne. Her church had gotten planning permission for their extension.”

“I can see that was a setback,” I said, “but there can't have been good news every day.”

He clicked his fingers along the bars of the nearest stall. “All I can say is that looking after Nan has been my job for nearly thirty years. If I die tomorrow, that'll be my epitaph: ‘He was a good husband.' Everyone will hate me for leaving her.”

I asked what his therapist thought, his sons.

“My sons are devoted to the status quo. My therapist thinks I should shit or get off the pot, but being a polite woman, she says we should try couples counseling.”

Nearby a horse whinnied. “Claudia loves you,” I said. “She deserves a chance to have what you have: a partner, children. If something doesn't change”—I was amazed at my boldness—“I'm declaring war.”

Rick stepped over and placed his right hand on Mercury's neck. He was swearing an oath on what he knew I held sacred. “I am trying,” he said. “If I can't, then I promise I'll break up with Claudia.”

“Soon,” I said. “Not years from now. Months from now.”

Mercury, with a fine sense of timing, let fall a stream of droppings. As I fetched a shovel, Rick asked if I'd tell Claudia about our chat. “Will you?” I said, trying to sound as if I didn't care.

He wasn't fooled for a second. “What good would it do? She'd just be mad at you, and she wouldn't break up with me.”

When I began to apologize, he started to laugh. “You're a scary woman, Viv. I'll send you the photographs by the end of Sunday.” Then he looked up from folding his tripod and said what I'd been hoping Claudia would say ever since Mercury emerged from the trailer: “That's a horse in a thousand.”