The Distance Home Page 9

  “Don’t let Jillian hear you say that.”

  “Ha. Good point.” He pulls a serious face that crumbles into a grin when he catches my eye.

  Tony walks by with a saddle on his forearm and a bridle looped over his shoulder. He’s still singing quietly.

  “I never understood the people who came for lessons and arrived just in time to get on the horse, then bolted immediately after the lesson. Tacking and untacking were always my favorite parts.”

  “Mine too.”

  “Not that I’m complaining. Because of them I had summer and after-school jobs. And I got to enjoy that special time with the horses. But I always felt a bit sorry for those people. They never realized what they were missing out on.”

  I realize he’s staring at me. “What?”

  “Why did you stop riding?”

  There it is, the question no one in my other life knew to ask. And that suited me just fine. But here, it was only a matter of time before someone asked.

  “Long, ugly story.” The truth of that muddies my voice.

  Ben steps down and moves the step stool out of the wash stall, positioning it next to an overturned bucket. “Pick your throne, m’lady.”

  I pick the bucket. Not that it’s cleaner than the step stool, or sturdier. For old times’ sake I guess. Ben folds his lanky body onto the step stool, our shoulders almost touching as we watch Wally grab at the crossties with the side of his mouth.

  Before he can poke at my history, I ask, “How long have you worked here?”

  “Four years, give or take. Simon lured me here when he stopped teaching.”

  I twist to look at Ben, almost tipping off the bucket. “He’s not teaching anymore?”

  There’s an odd crease between Ben’s eyebrows and I can’t tell if it’s surprise, confusion, or concern.

  “He’ll do the occasional clinic but no, he stopped teaching. He’s not running the stable either. Gave it over to Jill two years ago.”

  I swat at a fly that’s been buzzing around my head since we sat down. “She goes by ‘Jill’ now? She hated that name when we were young.”

  “She still does. But it’s fun egging her on.”

  The image of the two of them as a couple flickers through my mind, surprising me with a sudden jolt of something suspiciously close to envy. Envy at a life that wasn’t mine. She’d stayed, continued riding, made this her career, and had a nice guy in her life.

  “Are you two…” The rest of the question fizzles on my tongue.

  Ben tosses his head, his shaggy hair flopping into his eyes. The human, dark-haired movement I’d seen his horse make. They say married couples start to look and act alike after years together. I always believed the union between rider and horse was similar.

  “Oh hell no. I like my balls right where they are. Jillian would hang them over the rearview mirror of that ridiculous car she drives.”

  Tony walks by leading a chestnut gelding. Both horse and groom have their heads down, the reins loose in Tony’s right hand. Neither seems overly enthusiastic.

  Ben nods as the twosome passes. “Even her horse knows she’s a pill.”

  A snorting laugh escapes and I slap my hand across my mouth.

  Ben laughs. “That I didn’t expect coming from you. Don’t.” He pulls my hand from my mouth. “Don’t be embarrassed by an unguarded response.”

  My insides tighten. An unguarded response. Not something valued in my corporate world. Not even in my private world.

  “I’ll try to remember that.”

  “You shouldn’t have to try. It should be natural.”

  “I guess.”

  Rena’s voice echoes down the aisle. Ben and I watch as she walks beside a black-and-white pinto being led by a man wearing breeches and boots, the hard hat still on his head but the chin strap flapping with each stride.

  They pass, the man smiles, but the only acknowledgment from Rena is a fly swat of her right hand.

  I twist on the bucket to watch them. There’s an electric presence to the man, a weary restlessness. And yet the horse beside him is relaxed.

  “That’s Michael.” Ben answers my unasked question. “He’s one of the therapeutic riding clients. Hell of a guy. Rena has worked a small miracle with him. And with so many of the others.”

  “I’m glad she’s still running the program. She was such a different person when working with the therapeutic clients. She was patient and caring. Not that she didn’t care about her other clients, but there was something soft about her with the program folks.”

  “Don’t let her hear you say she’s soft.” He laughs.

  “She certainly isn’t that any other time, is she? Anyway,” I add after a too-long pause, “I always loved helping with those lessons.”

  “How were you and Jillian ever friends?”

  “We had the horses.”

  “Still not buying it.” He shakes his head, hair flopping onto his forehead. Wally mimics the move.

  We’re silent for a few minutes, watching Michael untack his horse and chat with Rena. Their voices are too low for us to hear, but by Rena’s expression, it’s serious. Michael mostly nods in response, one hand on the pinto the entire time.

  “How long has he been in the program?”

  Ben twists his mouth in thought. “Maybe a year.”

  “Do you know what brought him here?”

  Ben shakes his head. “I help when needed but I don’t ask questions. Some of the clients are open about what brings them here. Most don’t talk much. Although Rena somehow gets them all to open up.”

  “There’s something about her that makes people trust.”

  “As opposed to her granddaughter.”

  “What do you mean?” I shift to get a better look at Ben.

  “She’s managed to piss off a few boarders. One moved her two horses out and told Simon he’d lose more clients if he didn’t muzzle Jill. Another client switched from jumping to dressage because of her. She’s pretty good, actually. I should probably thank Jill. Another boarder refuses to talk to her, just leaves notes pinned to the bulletin board about what needs to be done for his horse. Even Rena almost throttled her after a very public and nasty tirade about the therapeutic riding program. In front of a couple of clients.”

  Jilli never had much of a filter between her thoughts and her mouth. “Guess time hasn’t mellowed her mouth.”

  “Nothing can mellow her mouth.” There’s a heaviness to his tone, a there’s-more-to-this that he attempts to hide with a stiff grin.

  “Then why are they having her manage the stable?”

  “Because she’s the heir apparent. She may not be a people person, but she does have a decent head for numbers. And she’s no pushover. She’ll bust anyone who tries to overcharge or underdeliver.”

  That doesn’t surprise me. She was always a sharp negotiator. She’s the only one who could talk a teacher out of giving homework on a Friday afternoon or because the weather was too perfect to be cooped up inside. She was always working out “deals” with the school kitchen staff for extra helpings. And she got the fancy show horse when she decided that was her next must-have.

  “Why isn’t Simon teaching anymore?”

  “You need to have that discussion with him. Him and Rena.” Something about Ben’s expression prickles up my neck.

  I shake my head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Anyway, I’m only here for a few more days.”

  “Then what?”

  I hesitate for a fraction of a breath. “Go home.”

  Ben catches the hesitation. I can tell by the lift of one eyebrow. I hold my breath waiting for him to ask but he doesn’t. I allow the air to slide out the corner of my mouth.

  “Okay.” He unfolds from the step stool and extends a hand to help me up. “I need to get this old boy exercised but I’m not done with you, Miss Emma. Before you ‘go home,’ I’m getting you on a horse.” He winks and walks over to where Wally is playing with the crossties.

  With a fin
al rub for Wally and a good-bye to Ben, I walk down the aisle in the direction of the office. I came to talk to Rena. It’s time to saddle up and ride in.

  She’s not in the office or the indoor arena. I wander to the end of the aisle and squint through the bright light to the jump ring. A figure on a chestnut horse is cantering around the arena. Rena could be out there, and if she is, our talk will have to wait. As much as I want to hear about my mom’s involvement with the therapeutic program, it’ll have to wait until Jilli moves to the moon. Or at least leaves the stable for a few hours.

  I take my time walking up the aisle, reading the nameplate on each stall. Some stalls are occupied, the tenants munching their hay. Others are open, blankets neatly folded on the chain across the front, a neat flake of hay waiting for the occupant to return. Why am I surprised that none of these names are familiar? After all these years, did I really expect the same horses to be occupying the same stalls?

  Jack Flash.

  Different stall but still here.

  Jack takes the couple of strides from the hay pile to the door. His warm eyes watch me, head straight, waiting for me to make the first move this time.

  “Hello, handsome.” The fingers on my left hand drum a silent beat on my thigh. I didn’t hesitate walking up to Wally. Yet I can’t bring my legs to take the final couple of steps to Jack. Jack, the horse that was my life for so many years.

  He tilts his head to the right, stretches his neck over the half door, and flaps his lips hello. He’d started doing that as a foal, his I’m-so-cute-give-me-a-treat signature move. And it still melts my insides.

  Before I make the conscious decision to move, my arms are locked around Jack’s neck, hands buried in his mane, face pressed into the soft indent between his head and neck.

  “Not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought of you.” I inhale the perfume of my childhood—horse, hay, sawdust. We’ve both aged, yet in this moment, nothing has changed. “Will you forgive me?” I whisper into his neck. Jack wraps his head around me in an equine hug.

  I slide the latch up and slip into the stall, securing the door behind me. I take a hesitant step toward the huge horse, so much larger than in the memories I’d tucked away, so much smaller than the legend I’d built him up to be.

  My hands move from his neck to his shoulder, his back, stomach, flank. Around to the other side and I reverse the search. What am I looking for? Scars? Evidence of the damage I caused? Or confirmation that he’s perfect?

  I find both.

  A scar runs down his chest, disappearing between his front legs, like a river disappearing over a waterfall.

  “Oh, Jack.” The words scratch my heart and tears burn my eyes.

  I squat to get a better look and trace the line, a gray reminder of a lapse in judgment that can never be erased.

  My hands travel back to his neck and he nudges my shoulder.

  “You are still magnificent.”

  “He’s always been a stunner.”

  I start at Rena’s voice. I’d been so engrossed in Jack that I hadn’t noticed her leaning against the half-door of the stall.

  “Perfect. Aren’t you?” I kiss his velvety muzzle and laugh when he flaps his lips at me. “And still a flirt.”

  “You know I don’t spare my thoughts, Emma.”

  I tense, waiting for her to tell me to get out. Her hands are grasping the top of the half door, her knuckles and joints gnarled like misshapen tree branches. She never had beautiful hands. It was one of the first things I’d noticed. They were calloused and bent from numerous breaks, the nails chewed and cracked. So unlike my mom’s hands. Even when she was sick, Mom had taken care of her hands. She’d always said you can tell a lot about a woman by her hands. I shove mine into the pockets of my jeans.

  Rena doesn’t open the stall door. She wants to keep me trapped until she gives me a healthy dose of those thoughts.

  My eyes flicker from her hands to her face. She looks far more relaxed than I feel.

  “Why did you wait until now to come back?”

  Because my father waited until now to die.

  “Would you have come back if your father hadn’t died?”

  My head snaps up. I hadn’t said that out loud, had I?

  “Don’t look so shocked. I knew your father wanted to keep you away.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Because we argued about it.”

  “When? Were there more letters? Recent ones?”

  “Only a few months before his accident.”

  I want to call her out on the letters I’d found, the letters she just avoided in my question. But it’s the invoices that brought me here. They’re connected, but which line of questioning has a higher probability of not seeing me slapped with a trespassing arrest?

  “Why did my mom come here? Why was she in the therapeutic program? The people who come to the program have mental or emotional or physical issues. She had a heart condition.”

  “Your mom needed an outlet.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question. Why was it a secret?”

  “Your father insisted.”

  I grind my back teeth. This is worse than pulling answers from Bruce. “Why?”

  A flicker of unease crosses her face and the left corner of her mouth pulls in. I brace for her response, for the confirmation. “Your father didn’t care much for horses. Or horse people by association.”

  “Then why bring her—us—here? I know you were in contact before we moved here.”

  She avoids my eyes. “Your father was not my concern. Your mom was. And then you were.”

  “Why get in touch with him again after all those years?”

  “Age gives you new insight. And loosens the censor in your brain. It was time to put the past behind us, before it was too late.”

  “Does it have anything to do with Simon handing over lessons and management of the barn?” That prickle from my discussion with Ben returns, fast-forwarding up my spine.

  Rena tilts her head and I can almost see the question scrolling through her mind like a news crawler. “It had more to do with lowering the drawbridge for you to return.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Sensing tension, Jack gives me a gentle push, then shuffles through the disheveled hay pile to the opposite side of the stall and sticks his head over the half door to the outside.

  “Your father thought he was protecting you.”

  “Protecting me from what? This place was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “Life isn’t as straightforward as that, Emma. There were things you didn’t know about. Things your dad wanted to spare you.”

  “You mean like the fact that my mom was a client of the therapeutic riding program?”

  “Among other things.”

  “What other things?”

  “People. Heartbreak.”

  “Because I didn’t know about heartbreak? I lost my mom, remember?” My breath catches. “He was protecting me from you, wasn’t he?”

  Rena winces as though slapped.

  “That’s it, isn’t it? You guys cut me out of your lives.”

  I’d been unconscious for two days after the accident. When I came to, there was a nurse checking my vitals. She’d smiled, said welcome back, and that she’d go get my father. When I asked for Jillian, her smile had widened and she told me to rest while she went for my father. I’d asked for Simon or Rena. Her smile had disappeared. She told me she’d be right back with my father. And a sedative.

  The police had been there. My driver’s license was being suspended. Drinking. Drugs. People were talking.

  It wasn’t me! I’d cried. The blood tests proved I was clean. But a horse had been killed, another badly injured, and two teenage girls were in the hospital. Accusations were flying. But worse than that, the whispering had begun—was I destined for the same end as my mother? Was it really an accident? He wasn’t going to allow that. Why the whispering that I’d end up like my mom? Her heart c
ondition wasn’t hereditary.

  My father had shut down all of my questions. He’d made arrangements at a boarding school and I was leaving as soon as the doctor cleared me. I would be taken care of at the school. I would be safe there.

  It’s what my mom would have wanted, he’d said.

  “Why was she a client here?” I force the quiver out of my throat. It’s the question I came here to ask, the question she clearly doesn’t want to answer.

  The fight with Jillian echoes in my brain.

  I will find out at least one truth.

  “Was my mom a client because of her heart condition?”

  “No.”

  “Did my mom commit suicide?”

  “Yes.”

  13

  “She was right.” The words ooze from my mouth like blood from a freshly opened wound.

  “Who was right?” Rena’s brows reach for each other.

  All those years of “give your mom space, Emma, she has a heart problem,” and “your mom is feeling weak today, Emma, you need to be extra good and quiet.” Even after Mom died the lies continued. Especially after Mom died.

  I force eye contact. “Why did she commit suicide?”

  Rena visibly deflates. “This isn’t a discussion you and I should be having.”

  Heat builds in my chest and flames up my throat, threatening to trigger the fire sprinklers behind my eyes. “Then who should I be talking to? My mom? I tried that. If she answered my questions, I couldn’t hear her through the six feet of dirt between us. My father? I’ll go knock on the Johns Hopkins morgue door.”

  Her mouth pinches, the lips pull in, causing lines to spread like cracks from a pinpoint hole in glass. And just like the horror of watching glass crack, I watch the strongest person I’ve ever known fight for composure. “Rena?” I take a step forward but she puts up a hand in warning.

  “I have a class to teach. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe your father was right about keeping you away from here, away from the truth.”

  Behind me, Jack snorts. Is he agreeing with Rena or supporting me?

  “Why did you want me back, Rena?”

  She looks fragile gripping the top of the stall door. What could have changed to make her reach out to my father after all this time? And why the change of heart now that I’m here?