by Orly Konig
Emma’s afraid to look away from the road, as though her focus is the only thing keeping them on the narrow, curving asphalt. “What is wrong with you?”
Jillian releases a sound between surprise and rage. She turns and stares at Emma, an ugly mix of disgust and pity twisting her face. “It’s always about you. Always about poor Emma. I’m so sick of you and your weak little self.”
“Eyes on the road. Oh my god, Jillian, slow down.”
“If your crazy mom hadn’t killed herself…”
“She died of a heart attack and you know it. Stop it, Jillian. You’re being cruel and you’re scaring me. Alcohol makes you mean.” Her teeth begin to chatter and her body shakes, loosening the tears and the sobs.
A tree branch slaps the window and Emma ducks and shrieks.
Jillian laughs, hollow and hard. “You’re ridiculous.”
“You’re crazy. Slow down.”
“Crazy?” Jillian shrieks. “You’re calling me crazy. Look in the mirror. You’re the one with the mental genes.”
“Shut up.”
“You’re going to end up just like your mom.”
“Shut up!”
“In the loony bin.”
“SHUT UP.”
A yellow right-angle Turn sign flashes past.
“Woo-woo crazy.”
“Shut up. Oh my god.” She grabs Jilli’s arm. The truck needs to turn. She has to fix it. They’re going too fast. The trees on her right side blur. They have to turn. NOW.
“Let go.”
Oh my god. The ditch. They’re going to end in the ditch. “TURN.”
Her head slams into the side window, and her back arches as she tries to escape the stranglehold of the seat belt.
“STOP.” She feels the burn of the word but all she can hear is the screeching of tires. The smell of burning rubber stings her nose.
Her forehead slaps the window. The seat belt yanks her back.
“EMMA.” Jilli’s head bounces off the steering wheel. Blood gushes from her mouth.
Someone screams. Her? Jilli? A horse?
“JACK.”
Jilli’s head twists and their eyes meet. Emma’s breath echoes in her ears, competing with the pounding heartbeats. Time slows.
A tree moves. Too fast. Into their path.
The slam of metal into wood is like the explosion of fireworks.
She feels the scream as pain shatters her right side.
Jillian moans.
A horse screams.
She tries to move. She is moving. Her body flames with the effort.
“Emma. Please. Move. Please.”
Move. Where?
Another searing lightning bolt and the world tilts with jerked motion.
“You. Have. To. Tell. Them.”
“Whuuu…”
She’s falling. Sliding. She opens her eyes, moves her arms, flexes her hands. She closes her fingers on the steering wheel to make the swaying stop.
“Please, Emma. You. Have. To. Say. You. Were. Driving.”
She grips tighter and pain shoots into her lungs. Jilli leans closer. “Sorry.” The snap of the seat belt splits through the noise in her brain.
“Why?” Her lips move but she’s not sure her lungs released enough air to make the sound.
“Please.”
Silence.
Sirens.
Darkness.
35
Someone takes the envelope from my hand, wraps a blanket around me, then settles into the second chair with a groan.
“I’m amazed he kept these.” Rena picks up the box, her fingers walking through the stacks of envelopes.
I blink at her. They started writing to each other before we moved here, kept it up the entire time we lived a woods-distance away, then stopped when our lives broke apart.
Like so many other things in my life, I had only one side of the story. I’d seen only the reserved, for-public-eyes side of my father.
How is it that he confided in her? Why Rena of all people?
“You’re angry.”
“I’m angry.”
She puts the box back down between the chairs.
“I’m hurt, too.” I can’t bring myself to match her gaze.
“Why, Emma?”
Why? Thirty-some years of trying to penetrate his cold bubble, doing everything to be worthy, and the only person he let in was someone he barely knew.
Apparently knew much better than you thought.
I squeeze my eyes shut, searching for a snapshot of my childhood. “He was so closed off. All he really cared about was his work. When Mom was healthy she was an asset, the beautiful wife on his arm at receptions. But a renowned psychiatrist can’t have a sick wife. And me? I just got in his way.”
“Oh, Emma, that’s not true.”
“How can you say that? You were there. You saw how uninterested he was. He never cared if I was at the house. He seemed much happier when I stayed with you. I’m surprised he didn’t offer for you guys to adopt me. Give him the freedom to live his life without the baggage of a fucked-up family.”
Rena sucks in a harsh breath and I wait for the reprimand. Cursing was never permitted in her presence. Not by her family, not by the stable help, not by her students. That never stopped Simon, although he generally reverted to the softer British terms that fell under Rena’s censor radar.
She doesn’t reprimand me. She doesn’t say anything at all for a few inflated minutes. The stretch in time pokes at the raw wound of my self-worth.
“He loved you. It hurt him that you spent so much time away from home, but he thought it made you happier.”
“If it wasn’t so damn sad, it would be funny.”
“There’s nothing funny about this.”
“No.”
We listen to the night, horses pawing in their stalls, a TV from one of the apartments above, the beep of a microwave, an owl sending an all-clear.
I deflate into the chair, the anger gone. “How did it start?”
She looks at me before responding, maybe trying to decide what the “it” was. “He was looking for anything that might help your mom.”
Nope, she knows.
“Why you? Why here?”
“It’s not an accident that your father bought the property so close to ours, Emma. After your mom had the breakdown, her doctors recommended various treatment options. One of her doctors was an old acquaintance. In addition to his private practice, he worked with military vets. That’s how we met. One of the patients he worked with was also a client in the therapeutic program. Leo was impressed with the progress this guy had made and started sending patients he thought would benefit. He ended up writing a number of papers that were published in the medical journals. Anyway, at Leo’s suggestion, your father contacted me. He was worried about you and your mom.”
“Why was he worried about me?”
“Depression affects more than the person suffering from it. He wanted to protect you from the gossip. He wanted you to have a fresh start. For all of you to have a fresh start.”
“If we moved here because of the stable, why was he so against me riding at first?”
Rena restocks her air supply. “It wasn’t so much that he was against you riding. I think he was more worried about how you’d feel if you knew your mom was part of the therapeutic program.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“To him it did. He didn’t want you to see your mom as damaged. And people in the therapeutic program are damaged.”
I’d seen my mom as fragile and sad but not damaged. My father, on the other hand, I’d always thought of as damaged.
“For a while, your mom seemed to be improving. You were becoming quite the little rider, and you and Jilli were becoming close. Edward seemed to relax.”
I laugh, one dry, weary laugh. “‘Relaxed’ is not a word that ever fit my father.”
“He came to a couple of shows. And asked me to help pick out a new saddle for you.”
“He
didn’t do it because it was the best thing for me. He did it because it assuaged his guilt. If I was at the stable, I was fine. If I was at home, I might need his attention. And that was something he couldn’t spare. Money, easy. Give-a-shit? Not so much.”
She picks the box up again and flips through the envelopes. “Did you read all of these?”
“And the ones I found in his home office.”
“Then how can you still think he didn’t care?”
The smart-ass response fizzles on my tongue like a bitter dissolvable pill. The person at the other end of those letters was hurting and confused, someone who was trapped and didn’t know how to reach out. All those years of trying to earn his love and now I’m supposed to just flip thirty-two years based on a few letters?
“The person I knew didn’t care.” I hear the petulance in my voice.
“The Edward Metz I knew cared. A lot. For both of you.”
“The Edward Metz you knew was a pen-and-paper person. Not the real man I lived with. You can put anything in a letter.”
“Did you keep a journal?”
She knows I did. For Christmas one year she bought matching journals for me and Jillian. I’d written religiously in it. And every Christmas, Rena had bought me another one. Jilli wrote three entries, then chucked the journal into the bottom of her desk drawer and forgot about it. She’d scoff when she saw me writing in mine. It became my private outlet. Usually while I sat under a tree watching Jack graze or cross-legged on the mounting block while Simon taught a lesson or Rena worked with a therapy client. Often I wrote huddled in the secret cave I’d made in my bedroom closet.
“So? We’re not talking about my father penning his deepest secrets in a journal. He wrote letters to someone he barely knew.”
I’m embarrassed by the resentment I feel toward her, like a child hurt by someone else’s knowing a secret you aren’t privy to.
“Did you talk to Jilli or Simon about the things you wrote in those journals?”
“Of course not. Those things were private.”
“Why do you think it was easier to write than to talk to the people who loved you?”
“Jilli would have judged me. She would have made fun of me.”
“And Simon?”
“I didn’t want to burden him.”
“Exactly. It’s much easier to write about your feelings, especially when you know it’s between you and the paper.”
“But it wasn’t between him and the paper. I wrote knowing no one would read my ramblings. He was writing to someone.”
“True.”
My journals never responded with advice or pep talks. They didn’t care in return. I think about the letters I wrote Karen. Granted, we’d been all of eight at the time. “Deep” consisted of the size of my new room or the horse I’d ridden the previous week or the new friends she was making. That’s when our letters had stopped, when she found a new best friend.
That pen-pal experience had lasted a couple of months. My father and Rena kept it going for over eight years.
Sure, I’d confessed plenty of secret desires and heartbreaks in e-mails to friends and they’d had plenty of advice. But there’s an intimacy in handwritten letters, an intimacy that he denied his own family.
“Is that the reason he never came to the stable when I was there?” My mind bounces from thought to thought.
“Is what the reason?”
“You were his journal. Okay, not exactly his journal since you wrote back but he confided in you the way I confided in my journal. Do you think he was afraid to see you in person because of the secrets you knew about him?”
“I think your dad was able to confide in me because he knew me but he didn’t know me. He knew I would do anything to help you and your mom and because of that he was able to open a degree of trust between us. Knowing me personally—seeing me face-to-face at the stable—would have made that harder for him.”
The anger seeps out of me, replaced with sadness.
“Why didn’t he ever take your advice?”
“He did, in his own way.”
I shiver and pull my legs up, curling into as small a ball as I can in the chair, and tuck the blanket around my legs. “His own way.”
My entire childhood, my father’s way was unyielding. What child doesn’t crave a positive word, a wink, a secret exchanged with just a look? What child doesn’t dream about sharing the pride over a stellar report card or seeing her parents cheering from the sidelines? What child doesn’t need a steadying hand or the unspoken bond spoken through the simple act of a hug?
As an adult, “his way” had been inflexible. All those years of doing everything I could to make him proud. I followed the path he “suggested” would be best. And I excelled. At the end of that path was recognition. Even if I couldn’t earn his love, I damn well could earn his respect. But did I?
When I finally speak again, my voice is thick. “I never expected to hear him say ‘I love you.’ I’m not sure he even knew those words. But ‘good job’ or ‘well done’ or, better yet, ‘I’m proud of you.’”
“He was proud of you.”
“Does a tree falling in the woods make a sound if no one is around to hear it?”
“I heard it.”
I swallow, loud, painful. It doesn’t help with keeping the sobs down.
“I wasn’t here when the tree fell. Now I’ll never know, will I?”
“Oh, Emma.” She pushes up from the chair and kneels in front of me, pulling me into a hug. “I wish I’d kept his letters so you could see for yourself. He was proud of you and he did love you. He was a good man, sweetheart, he just didn’t know how to open himself up.”
In her arms, the tears flow, hot and draining.
“He was proud of you,” she repeats. “He’d be even prouder if he knew you were doing what made you happy.”
She gives one final squeeze, then unfolds and turns to leave. I listen to the shuffle of gravel under her boots, the sound fading into the symphony of the crickets.
Are you proud of me, Dad? Would you still be proud of me if I didn’t have a fancy job? Did you really think keeping me away was the right thing to do? Why all the secrecy with the drawings and funding the program? Were you afraid I’d see the real you? Would that really have been so awful?
The answers aren’t in the letters he kept all these years, or in the night, or even in the woods. I stay curled up in the hard Adirondack chair on the front porch of the place that always made me feel whole, listening to the crackles and the whispers coming from the woods surrounding the property.
No trees falling tonight.
36
“What are you two gawking at?” I push my way between Ben and Tony, who are blocking the door from the lounge to the barn aisle.
Rena is standing in front of Taco’s stall, talking to a tall, curvy redhead.
“What’s going on?” I try again, since neither man has acknowledged my arrival.
“Potential buyer.”
“For Taco?”
“Yeahhh.” Ben draws out the word, his eyes widening, grin spreading. “She’ll be a nice addition to the barn.”
“Seriously?” I slap him gently across the chest.
“What?”
“But, boss, that don’t mean she’ll board him here.” Tony shakes his head, and somehow I think he’s sadder about the idea of losing her than seeing the horse go.
“She can’t sell Taco. He’s a star in the program. Michael would be lost without him.”
“No more therapy program,” Tony says.
“Did sleeping outside last night freeze your brain?” Ben stares down at me. “We talked about this yesterday, remember? No more funding. No more program.”
“I need to talk to Rena.” I elbow both men out of my way and stride down the aisle to where Rena and the redhead are standing.
Taco sticks his head over the stall door, rolls his tongue, and sticks his muzzle in my face.
“You’re such a goofball.” I
rub his forehead.
Rena introduces me and explains that the intruder is interested in purchasing a couple of horses to build up her lesson barn.
Not our horses. No, no, no. That’s not happening.
“Sorry for interrupting, but, Rena, I need to speak with you a minute.”
Rena excuses herself, giving the unwanted poacher free rein to look around.
Enjoy the view, lady, you’re not getting anyone from this barn.
“You can’t sell the horses,” I blurt the moment we’re inside the office.
With a sigh, Rena eases into the chair behind her desk. She looks tired, older. “I’m sure Ben has already told you, but the donor who was keeping the program alive has pulled the funding. Without that money, I can’t keep it going. It was great while it lasted, and it lasted a long time. I’m thankful for that. And, Emma, I can’t keep going either. I’m done, honey. I’ve been pushing and pushing because I couldn’t let everyone down. Now, well, now the decision has been made for me.”
“But…”
“No buts. Done deal. I don’t have it in me to fight.”
“But it’s not a done deal.”
Rena raises a hand to stop me. “Emma, I talked to the lawyer at length yesterday. There’s nothing we can do. I don’t know why now, but the timing seems like a message.”
“The donor died. That’s why now.”
She looks at me, confusion replacing the weariness.
“It was my father. He’s the one who’s been funding the program all these years.”
“Edward? Even after…” She lets the obvious fade into disbelief.
“Even after what happened.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Maybe you were right. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy after all.” My shoulders and ears meet in a halfhearted shrug.
She gives me the of-course-I-was-right look.
I wave it away. “I went to see his lawyer yesterday afternoon. You’ll be able to keep the program going.”
“Not to dump salt on the wound, Emma, but Edward is still dead. And that means our funding is still dead.”
“But that dead man’s daughter inherited his money. And I want to put that money into the therapeutic program.”