Renaissance Man

by M. Garzon

  We rested for a while afterward. When I tried to shift off him — not wanting to press him against the floor — his arms tightened around me, holding me in place. I raised my head to look into his eyes. We didn’t speak, but got up and moved to the bed.

  I perched on the edge and stared at the wood floor. When I glanced up Jaden’s eyes were on me. He looked devastated but made no move to touch me. In fact, he didn’t move at all, as though he was afraid of spooking me. I turned slowly and put my palm to his cheek. He closed his eyes tightly.

  “I feel like a brute,” he whispered hoarsely.

  “No.” My hands moved to his, and I gripped them tightly. “Jaden, all you’ve ever done is protect me.”

  He opened his eyes then. “I spent so many years swearing I would be nothing like my father. But I saw it in your eyes, Téa. You were afraid of me. I’m no better than he is.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said sharply. “Sure, I jumped — I was surprised. And I was surprised precisely because it’s so unlike you, my love.” I hesitated, watching doubt flicker in his eyes. “I don’t know what’s happened with us,” I said honestly. “I know you’re unhappy, and probably a lot of that is my fault.” I hung my head. “You can’t blame yourself for snapping when I keep pushing you past your limit.”

  “I don’t have a limit when it comes to you, Téa,” he said fiercely. “The very fact that we’re together is proof of that.” He took my face in his hands and made me look at him. “My dissatisfaction is not with you. If you still want to be with me, we’ll make this work. We’ll do whatever it takes.” His eyes burned into mine, scorching me with their resolve.

  I placed my hand over his. I swallowed. And then I said the words that I could barely stand to think.

  “I think you should go to Argentina.” My voice cracked on the word ‘go’.

  His eyes widened, and slowly he straightened, dropping his hands from my face. I felt suddenly cold.

  “Is this... do you feel we need time apart?” He looked away from me as he said it, as though afraid of what he’d see.

  “No, that’s not why,” I stammered, trying clumsily to explain. “You’re not happy right now, with me, with our relationship, with your new career.” The way he winced at the word “career” confirmed my suspicion. I went on quietly. “I think it would be good for you to get away from everything and do something you love for a while.”

  He ran his fingers slowly through his hair. “I’ll probably lose my job.”

  “Do you care?”

  He seemed to consider it seriously for a moment. “Not as much as I should.”

  “It’ll make your mother happy.”

  When he looked at me this time his eyes were haunted. “I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know if I can leave you.”

  Hearing the words ‘leave you’ coming out of his mouth nearly made me gasp, but the tears pricking the backs of my eyelids were from relief that he felt that way.

  “The only way I can stand it is knowing it will help you.”

  * * *

  I trudged through the following day in a funk. Not riding always made me irritable, and I vacillated wildly between confidence that I’d done the right thing and a dark dread of losing Jaden.

  He arrived after dinner that evening and announced his plans to Dec. He spent Sunday morning helping me, and in the afternoon he went to the polo club to visit his horses and friends. He strode back into the barn as we were feeding that evening.

  “Seth! Why are you letting your sister carry hay bales? Come on man, be a gentleman,” he admonished.

  “Since when do I have to be a gentleman with my own sister?” Seth grumbled. “She’s always managed those bales just fine, you know.”

  “Well, she shouldn’t have to,” Jaden retorted. His tone could have cut glass. “She’s only got one good arm, she’s going to hurt herself.”

  Seth had just finished telling me the same thing, but instead of saying so he dropped his bale and sauntered slowly over to face Jaden, frowning.

  “You know, if Téa’s got a problem with what I’m doing, you can bet that she’ll let me know,” he said slowly.

  I felt Jaden tense beside me. A glimpse of his face showed his jaw muscle bunching; I felt suddenly breathless with something akin to fear.

  “Jaden, don’t,” I pleaded. I put my hand on his chest and his eyes slanted down at me. His expression had barely begun to ease when Seth reached out and plucked me away; my brother tucked me into his side and wrapped an arm around me.

  “Seriously, Sis? You’re actually worried?” His eyes twinkled — of course, Seth would have plainly recognized the fear on my face.

  I hesitated.

  “I just want to remind this joker that I’ve been looking out for you since long before he arrived on the scene.” He gave Jaden a challenging look.

  My eyes moved to Jaden, who gave me a reassuring nod. I was starting to feel annoyed with both of them. I pulled away from Seth and crossed my arms, scowling.

  “Okay, let’s get something straight. You two are my absolute favorite people in the known universe. So you are not allowed to argue. Ever.”

  Seth snorted. “Since when do I take orders from you, half-pint?”

  “Since always,” I said in surprise.

  “Yeah, but only because it’s not worth arguing with you,” Seth muttered. He picked up the haybale as he and Jaden shared a grin. I allowed myself to breathe again now that they were back to their usual easygoing camaraderie.

  When we were done feeding I pulled Jaden up to the loft. “You can’t fight with Seth, Jaden, you just can’t.”

  His arms closed around me. “No one’s fighting, mi amor. I’m worried about what will happen when I’m gone, I don’t want you doing so much heavy work. You have a large presence, Téa; it tends to make people forget how small you actually are.”

  * * *

  Time accelerated impossibly fast, and in what seemed like seconds Friday arrived, and with it Jaden, to say goodbye.

  He hugged Gran and Seth before turning to shake Dec’s hand. “Don’t let Téa ride until the cast comes off,” he exhorted.

  Dec clapped him on the shoulder, his other hand still holding Jaden’s. “Don’t worry about anything here, son. Have a safe trip.”

  Jaden’s eyes found mine. Without exchanging a word we headed for the shed, and once there we clung to each other silently, cemented by our mutual dismay. Finally, he took my face in his hands and leaned his forehead on mine, and I breathed in his scent, committing it to memory.

  “The bond we have can’t be affected by distance or time,” he murmured. “But promise me you’ll take care of yourself.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” I said. “You’ll come back to find me as impossible as ever.” But the part that echoed in my head was you’ll come back.

  I didn’t go to the airport. He left in the middle of the night, and in any case, I didn’t think either of us could have made it through the parting. I listlessly pulled on a jacket before trudging out to the barn the next morning. The sky was colorless. Fall was early, and yellow and orange leaves fluttered to the ground, every downward spiral drawing me with it. Yet the first day wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined — we’d spent days apart before, after all, so I simply shut my mind down and functioned on autopilot. But the next day was worse, and the one after that, nearing unbearable.

  Teri was well enough to meet me at a coffee shop that evening, and she did her best to stay off the topic of Jaden.

  “Julia came to see me,” she said. “Did you know she’s thinking of moving Jasmine out?”

  I gasped. “What? No! Why would she do that?” Not only was Julia a close friend, but Jasmine had boarded with us for five years, as long as Julia had owned her.

  “It’s Al’s idea, apparently.” The distaste in her voice was apparent.

  “You don’t like him either?”

  “No, but I can’t put my finger on why. He’s pleasant enough.”

 
“I’ll tell you why, it’s because we don’t recognize Julia anymore since she’s been with him,” I said bitterly.

  I called Julia as soon as I got home. “We’ve been friends for years, and now you’re going to move your horse based on the say-so of some guy you met a few months ago? He doesn’t even like Jasmine!”

  “I don’t want to move her either,” she said uncertainly, “but Al-”

  “Never mind Al! He’s not good for you, Jules. There’s something off about him.” I should probably have kept that judgment to myself because her voice was much cooler as she said goodbye.

  I dragged myself through another week. Friday afternoon Seth found me sitting on the house’s front steps. The weather had warmed again, and the yellowing leaves seemed out of place in the balmy air.

  “Where’s Cal?” Seth looked around as though expecting Cal to pop out of a bush.

  I gave him a strange look. “In the barn. Why?”

  “I don’t know. I just kind of expected you to be with him on such a nice day. I remember you hanging with Blaze a lot more.”

  I bristled. “Well, I’m not thirteen anymore. I have more responsibilities now, I can’t be playing with a colt all day.”

  I got up and hurried into the house. I didn’t know whether to cry or scream, but Seth had hit a nerve. It was true, I’d spent every possible minute with Blaze when he was young, but with Cal, I just didn’t feel like it. Something about his presence disquieted me. It wasn’t one of those comfortable friendships where you can just ‘be’ together; with Cal it took effort. But I couldn’t tell anyone that Cal wasn’t perfect. Dec had spent a lot of money on him, money we could ill afford, and now it was up to me to make it work. I’d always been good at training ‘babies’ — young horses who were learning the ropes — but lately I’d been petrified that my first real failure would be with my own horse.

  I woke up the next day determined to make some progress with Cal. Seth had been riding him since I couldn’t, and the two of them got along famously. I could barely stand to watch other people ride all weekend, so when the barn quieted on Sunday I took Cal out and started grooming him, struggling a bit with the currycomb in my casted right hand. Stephanie walked in carrying her own grooming tools. I wondered whether she should; she looked as though she could give birth at any moment. Cal immediately thrust his nose out, looking for attention.

  “You’re not going to ride, are you?” Stephanie asked, casting a suspicious eye on my tack.

  “Well, yeah,” I admitted. “The wrist doesn’t hurt.”

  “That’s because not many nerves run through the scaphoid bone, but it’s the bone with the highest risk of necrosis when it’s fractured,” she informed me.

  “And that’s bad?” I guessed.

  “It means bone death,” she said shortly. “Really, Téa, don’t you know better than to ride with a cast?”

  I huffed my breath out in frustration. I hated that Jaden was right about this. I reluctantly assured Stephanie I wouldn’t ride, thinking that at least I trusted her not to say anything to Dec. Cal clearly expected something more than simple grooming though, and on impulse, I decided to free-jump him. I hadn’t done it since he was two, when his gangly coltish body had put me in mind of a hopping spider.

  I brought him into the empty indoor arena and let him trot around to warm up. Then I set up two fences along one wall, small ones, to give him an idea of what to expect. Standing in the middle of the ring, I urged him into a canter and watched him leap unnecessarily high over the hurdles. I sighed; I wasn’t sure whether he was genuinely nervous about touching the jumps or whether this was just more of Cal’s singular flair for drama, but either way, it wasn’t ideal. He stopped in a corner and looked at me inquisitively.

  “Yeah, we’re doing it again,” I told him. I raised the jumps to about three and a half feet and made sure he could fit two strides in between. He seemed to be waiting for my signal, and as soon as I headed toward him he burst into a gallop and careened toward the verticals.

  “Whoa, easy,” I coaxed worriedly as he exploded over them. I let him go over once more at a less breakneck pace, then asked him to stop. He pranced sideways, snorting, and watched me with shining eyes. He was already breaking into a sweat and he’d hardly done anything.

  “Some jumper you are,” I muttered as I raised the fences again.

  He started off way too fast again, but as he rounded the corner and saw the increased size he drew back, balancing himself and bouncing lightly over each fence with catlike grace. My jaw dropped. He’d never jumped anything of this size before — the fences were over four feet — but his form had been perfect. In fact, he was jumping much better than I’d ever seen him. I stared at him, now rooting in the arena dirt with his nose.

  “Okay, buddy, let’s see what you can really do.” I raised the rails as high as they could go, filled in some of the empty space with more poles, and made the second jump an oxer. I was pushing him, and I wasn’t at all sure that he would jump it, but I wanted to see his reaction. I saw the surprise in his eyes as he came around the corner, but he didn’t stop. Instead, he carefully rounded his body over each fence, snapping his legs up tightly, and I could have sworn he was smiling. As he landed a swell of whoops and whistles rolled toward us from the arena door, and I turned to see Seth and Stephanie. Seth went over to Cal and patted him enthusiastically, grinning hugely at me all the while.

  “Looks like you two might have to learn to get along.”

  * * *

  Cal’s latent talent certainly raised my spirits, but they crashed right back down when Alan burst in the door at 6:45 the next morning.

  “There’s a flood in the barn,” he said tersely before turning and dashing back out. Seth ran to the base of the staircase.

  “Dec, we need you!” he yelled upstairs. We ran outside.

  The barn was a mess. Shavings and manure floated in an inch of water, covering the aisles, and the smell of urine hung heavy in the air. Normally the wood shavings absorbed most of the odor but I supposed the wetness had released it. I sensed the horses’ anxiety as I splashed down the aisle, and realized we couldn’t even calm them down by feeding them because we couldn’t put hay down in the dirty, wet stalls.

  A muttered oath signaled Dec’s arrival. We turned out as many horses as possible and fed them outside, leaving the unfed horses to stamp wetly and whinny in frustration. Then we gathered every cleaning implement in the barn and got to work. It was hard going; the sodden shavings were heavy and we had to empty every stall out entirely, which was much more work than usual since we normally only removed the manure and wet spots. I worked by holding the shovel’s handle in my left hand and balancing the shaft against my cast and after a couple of hours my arms, shoulders, and back were aching. I belatedly remembered I had a test that day but there was no way I was going to school before the mess was cleaned up, especially since Dec was anxious to put it to rights before any boarders arrived.

  As stalls were emptied, we put horses in them and fed them. We were about halfway through when a sudden clank and yell made me run out of the stall I was cleaning.

  “What is it?” I asked Alan. Dec’s towering temper was causing us to avoid him as much as possible.

  “The conveyer’s broken,” Alan said with a sigh. “I think we burned out the motor.”

  I groaned. The muck we were piling into wheelbarrows was trundled to a conveyer, which dumped it on top of the manure pile. If the conveyer was broken we’d have to rig planks and wheel the heavy loads up manually, which would take forever.

  Dec’s expression darkened even further at the news, but we talked him into taking a break before we tackled the new plank set-up. A good thing too, because even I was starving — I was surprised Seth was still standing.

  We got back to work after a hasty meal and lots of coffee.

  “Cheer up, li’l brother, we’re halfway done,” I said as I pulled on my lone glove. I was already feeling relieved at the prospect of finishing
. I should have known better. Dec’s bellow echoed through the barn and I ran to the storeroom see what new calamity awaited us.

  I trailed slowly after Dec as he marched back into the aisle.

  “Seth, did you forget something?” Dec’s voice wasn’t loud, but his hands-on-hips stance made it clear trouble was brewing.

  Seth stepped out of a stall and shot me a look.

  “We’re out of shavings,” I said quietly. “I would’ve ordered them-”

  “It wasn’t your responsibility!” Dec burst out. “It was Seth’s, and I’d be very interested in hearing why it wasn’t done!”

  “Take it easy, Dec,” Alan urged, dropping a hand on Seth’s shoulder. Alan had known our family for a long time, and he’d seen Dec manhandle us more than once.

  Dec ignored him. “Come here, boy,” he ordered.

  I was still reluctant to approach Dec when he was mad, but Seth threw Alan a quick smile and strode up to Dec easily.

  He looked him in the eye. “C’mon, Dec. I’m good, but I’m not psychic — I couldn’t have predicted we’d have a flood. I was going to order the shavings tomorrow, and if it weren’t for the waterworks that would’ve been fine.”

  I gaped at my brother as though I’d never seen him before. More than anything, this small exchange showed me the extent of the changes that his trip had wrought. Seth really had found himself.

  Dec rubbed the back of his neck before giving a curt nod. He turned to me. “Téa, take my truck and go to the feed store while we finish up here. Buy as many bags of shavings as you can fit into the truck to tide us over.”

  By the time we were done it was the horses’ dinnertime. I was exhausted down to my last muscle fiber and my fondest wish in life was to sleep, but I had a lesson to teach that night. My left hand was so sore I had trouble holding my fork. We had leftovers since no one had had time to cook. The hot shower I had that night was the best thing I’d ever felt, but before I could crawl into bed Dec called us downstairs.

  I was surprised to find Gran in the kitchen too. She placed cups of tea in front of Seth and me as we sat down.