Mercury (18 page)

I
NEVER DID TELL YOU
what happened with Nutmeg. After my first year at Yale I came home for the summer and, to my mother's dismay, got a job at the stables. “How is this going to help your résumé?” she asked. But I had a different résumé in mind. I was going to train Nutmeg and enter him in a three-day event in early August. We didn't have to win first prize, but if we placed, it would be a sign. After I graduated, I'd figure out how to ride full-time.

Claudia was studying in Spain that summer, and I had no one to talk to about my training program. Nutmeg was very flexible, good at dressage, and a bold jumper with plenty of stamina, but he was erratic. The owners of the stables, Elsa and Harry, gave me pointers—several times Elsa warned me not to ride him too hard—but mostly I worked on my own. I read books about champions, watched films, kept notes on each day's training. We won rosettes in a couple of small dressage events; we placed in show jumping, Nutmeg learned to go into a trailer and grew used to crowds. I was training myself too. In the evenings, when it was cooler, I went running. My friends complained they never saw me.

The three-day event was thirty miles from Ann Arbor. The first day Nutmeg and I were on the road by five. Just outside
town a rabbit darted in front of the truck. I remember the scene so clearly. I didn't want to hit it, but I didn't want to brake in case Nutmeg lost his footing. I was still hesitating when, at the last second, the rabbit swerved to safety. From then on, everything flowed. I found a place under a tree to park the trailer. Nutmeg wasn't spooked by the journey, and he stood quietly while I braided his mane and brushed his tail. We rode twelfth, and placed first. Riding him into the arena to collect the rosette was one of the great moments of my life. Elsa had said, more than once, that events are won on dressage. Driving back to the stables, I wondered if there was any way I could bring Nutmeg to New Haven.

The next day was the cross-country. I'd worked hard at the precision of dressage, but this was what I loved, galloping at top speed, jumping the different kinds of jumps. It had rained in the night, and the course was sloppy, but Nutmeg's boldness served him well. Mine too. We were both covered in mud as we crossed the finish line with a clear round and no penalties. I rubbed him down, singing his praises. Next day's stadium jumping seemed like child's play. Victory was so close I could taste it.

Back at the stables, Elsa was waiting. “Hurrah for you,” she said when I told her about the cross-country, but as I backed Nutmeg out of the trailer, her eyes narrowed. “Stand still,” she said. She ran her hands up and down his legs. His near foreleg was hot. Maybe he'd fractured the pastern.

“But he's not lame,” I protested. “He cleared every jump.”

“Hopefully I'm wrong. Cold-hose his leg tonight, and see how he is in the morning.”

I kept protesting. How could this have happened? I had taken the best possible care of him.

Elsa gave a pinched smile. “It's probably been coming on for a while,” she said. “You've been training him awfully hard.”

I ran cold water over his leg for half an hour, bandaged it, and sprinkled bute into his grain. That night I hardly slept. In the last few weeks Nutmeg had had a couple of off days, but there'd always been a reason; he was stiff from the previous day's training; he'd hit a rail. Now I remembered those days, and I remembered the hill where he'd stumbled in the mud and I had urged him on. Perhaps it was then that he had hurt himself? Or at the last jump, where he'd taken off awkwardly and landed hard.

I was back at the stables at 4:00 a.m. His pastern was cool to the touch. It was nothing, I told myself; a passing tenderness, a little bump. I drove north as if he were made of glass. I mustn't push him, I told myself. Better to be a few seconds slower than to knock down a rail.

But when I led him out of the trailer in broad daylight, he was walking gingerly. I ran cold water over the leg again. I borrowed a bandage. If it hadn't been illegal, so close to the event, I would have given him more bute. I only needed to ride him for ten minutes.

“What's up with your horse?” the woman in the next trailer asked.

“He bumped himself,” I said. “He'll be fine.”

By 9:00 a.m. there was no doubt: Nutmeg was lame. I tortured myself by watching the jumping—we would have won easily—and spent the rest of the day loitering around the show. I brought Nutmeg back after dark and left a note for Elsa: “I quit.” If I saw her, I knew I'd start yelling. Why hadn't she saved me from overtraining Nutmeg? Spelled out the dangers? We'd been so close. I'd rather we'd fallen at a jump, gone down in a blaze of glory, than this pathetic mishap.

The next day I got a job at the photocopy center. I spent the last weeks of August running machines and flirting with students. The next summer I followed Claudia's example and went to Spain. I was in a library in Barcelona when an e-mail came from Elsa. “We put Nutmeg to sleep yesterday,” she wrote. The fracture in his pastern had worsened until they'd had no choice. “I'm sure you weren't to blame,” she added, which could only mean I was.

For more than a dozen years I kept my failed ambitions in a tightly sealed box, like your box of Robert's letters. But when we moved out of Boston and I started working at Windy Hill, the box began to open. I gave up on becoming a CEO and once again pictured myself training horses, winning competitions.

T
HE WEATHER GREW A
little warmer, the days a little longer. I began to train Mercury in earnest. He learned quickly but was easily bored. I had to vary our routines, to surprise him with different challenges. More than six weeks had passed without a break-in, but I didn't believe that the intruder had lost interest. I wished I could follow Michael's example and sleep at the stables. On several occasions I came home for dinner and made up an excuse to return: I'd forgotten to check the office radiator, a horse needed medicine. One evening I told you I was going to Pilates and drove to the stables. I sat in my car, holding the gun, watching until I was sure everything was safe.

The week after Claudia's announcement, I took Mercury to New Hampshire. I was determined not to repeat my mistakes, to get the best advice about training him. Garth was just finishing another lesson when we came into the arena. Mercury was cold from the journey, and jumpy. Horse trailers had always meant huge changes in his life: Kentucky to Ontario, Ontario to Massachusetts. Perhaps he thought he was moving again? I stroked his neck. “I'm right here,” I said. At the far end of the arena we started cantering.

“So this is the horse you've been telling me about.”

Garth was walking toward us. I muffed the change of leads, jerked the reins. Mercury, too, was distracted and kept looking at this strange man. And Garth, who normally kept up a stream of advice, said nothing, although I knew he saw every misstep. Then Mercury stumbled, and I pulled myself together. I shifted my grip on the reins, patted his neck.

“Let him go,” Garth called. “Circle the arena.”

I lost count of how often we passed the mounting block before Garth said, “Now you're ready to listen to each other. Do a figure eight. Nice tight circles.”

From then on he directed me and I directed Mercury, until at last he called, “Let's talk about balance and position in the halt.” For ten minutes he described how my balance affected Mercury's. “Can you feel it?” he kept saying. “Can you feel the difference?”

I couldn't. And then I could. My commands were flowing into Mercury, and he was moving with a new precision. When Garth told us to stop, I was suddenly aware of the people in the viewing area. We had never had an audience before.

“Get down,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

In an instant he was in the saddle. “Your hands and your legs are only part of the picture,” he said. “What you want is for your whole body, starting at the top, to be in control.” Inch by inch he demonstrated how he aligned himself with Mercury. Then he let Mercury walk forward, his hindquarters squarely under him, his stride long and fluid.

“You're almost there,” he said, “but getting beyond almost means watching yourself every minute. We all learn to ride in a less than ideal way, on a less than ideal horse.”

Sometimes at the end of a lesson a student asks me if she's getting better. She's embarrassed, almost ashamed, but she has
to know. Now I couldn't leave without Garth offering some confirmation. “Should I book another lesson?” I said.

He swung himself down from the saddle and stood, one hand resting on Mercury's withers. “If you don't,” he said, “I'll hunt you down. People often make their horses sound like the second coming. I've learned to be a tad skeptical. But you underplayed this one. He's a great horse and a quick learner. I don't know what you have in mind, but if you're asking is he worth the trouble, the answer is a hundred percent yes.”

“And me,” I persisted, “what about me?”

His broad face broke into a smile. “That's always the question. There are no guarantees but yes, I think you've got what it takes. And he likes you; he listens to you. You won't hold him back.”

I held out my hand as if to seal a bargain.

As I led Mercury to the exit, a woman asked what prizes he'd won, another wanted to know his age and pedigree.

All the way back to the stables, I kept repeating Garth's words, and as soon as I had Mercury in his stall, I wrote them down. I longed to share them, but who could I tell? You'd listen politely and say “That's nice.” Claudia and Hilary were out of the question. Peggy and Anne, like you, wouldn't understand. Helen was too close to Claudia. The only confidante who came to mind was Charlie. Next time we were alone at the stables, I thought, I'd tell her about Garth. Magic, she would say. Cool. We would sit in the office, looking over the schedule of shows. Perhaps she could be my groom.

I was still fizzing with excitement when I met Hilary that evening. The bar was crowded with young people, but we squeezed into a booth. She ordered a cosmopolitan; I did too. Later I regretted the choice, but at first the sweet, icy drink seemed perfect. She was taking her real estate exam next month.
An older agent at the office was coaching her. “She's like you,” she said. “Kind and super efficient.”

“I wish,” I said, pleased that she saw me that way. I told her how we'd marked Edward's anniversary, and she said it sounded beautiful. Maybe she could do something similar for Michael. Her parents had asked several times what she planned to do with the ashes. She was taking Jack to meet them in April.

“He claims he's a much nicer person since he went blind,” she said. “Do you think that's true?”

I said I didn't know; I'd met him only after he stopped being your patient. Then, despite my earlier concerns, my firm belief that I should not confide in Hilary, I found myself describing the master class, what a great teacher Garth was, how he'd praised Mercury.

“You took Mercury to New Hampshire?”

“Yes. Garth couldn't get over how well trained he is.” Still in the grip of my day, full of enthusiasm and alcohol, I barreled ahead, describing the shows we planned to enter.

When I fell silent, Hilary said, “I thought our arrangement was I pay to board Mercury, you exercise him. I don't want you driving him here and there, putting him at risk.”

For once she was not smiling, not even about to smile. If only I had kept quiet. Carefully I explained. Michael had been training Mercury to compete. He had died training him. All his work would be in vain if Mercury just trotted around a field. I would pay the entry costs. We'd share any prize money. The easy road of our friendship was suddenly slick with black ice. Didn't Hilary remember the conversation we'd had in her living room? Then I recalled how, just as I began to explain my plans, Diane had asked about supper.

“Viv, calm down. All I'm saying is I need to figure out what's
best for Mercury. Competing is dangerous. A woman I met suggested I lease him to keep down expenses. If you want to compete, why not ride another horse? You've got plenty to choose from.”

Both ideas—her leasing Mercury, my riding another horse—were so preposterous that I couldn't speak. Our server came over to ask how we were doing. I held out my glass. Hilary said no thanks and excused herself. In the empty booth, I sat very still, my mind racing. A month before, when you suggested I get my own horse, I'd been furious. Mercury was the only horse I wanted. Now I understood that you and Claudia had been right: Hilary could take him away on the slightest whim. All these months I'd thought I was doing her a favor: training her beloved horse as her beloved brother would have done. But some stranger had turned everything upside down. I'd been riding Mercury for free. I'd been putting him in danger.

I had almost finished my second cosmo when Hilary returned, smiling. She'd run into a woman who was interested in one of her houses.

“Great,” I said. I was desperate to get away, to figure out what to do next. I drained my glass, waved my credit card. We parted with kisses, good wishes to you, love to Jack. The four of us must have dinner soon.

As I reversed out of the parking lot, a voice shouted, “Stop! For Christ's sake, stop!”

I stamped on the brake; the car fishtailed to a halt. I was looking over my shoulder, trying to find the owner of the voice, when a man tapped on the window.

“You nearly hit me.” He was about my age, bundled up against the cold, his eyes bright with anger. “You could have killed me.”

“I'm so sorry. I didn't see you with all the snow.”

“You could have killed me,” he repeated. And walked away.

I drove home, still shaking. After the crises of the New Year, I had thought I was finally doing everything right. Taking care of the stables, training Mercury, giving more lessons to pay for extra babysitting, keeping you, and Hilary, and Claudia happy. Now I had nearly run over a man, and Hilary had got it into her head that competing was dangerous.

Do you remember when Jack reenacted Roman battle formations with Marcus and Trina's toy animals? There was one called the quincunx in which gaps were left in the lines so that the first warriors could retreat after throwing their javelins. Another, the Cannae, had a weak center—Jack lined up four sheep—and strong flanks: Marcus and Trina arranged their lions and tigers. The sheep collapsed while the big cats circled the enemy. For years Claudia and I had guarded each other's flanks. But not now.

I was so upset I pulled over to reread Garth's words. I sat there holding the piece of paper, reminding myself that nothing terrible had happened. I had taken too much for granted, but I would explain to Hilary. If she needed to lease Mercury, then of course I'd lease him. And when he won a couple of events, she'd begin to understand that together we could fulfill Michael's dreams.

When I got home, I tried to talk to you. Perhaps you were right, I said, about my arrangements with Hilary. We ought to have something in writing.

“That's a good idea,” you said. “Then you'll both know where you stand.”

“But what if she won't let Mercury compete?”

I was voicing my worst fear, the thing I couldn't bear to contemplate, that would make a mockery of all my hopes and hard work, and what did you say? You probably don't remember.

“That is her prerogative,” you said.

Do you wonder that I felt alone?