Bittersweet Farm 2: Joyful Spirit

by Barbara Morgenroth

  “You’re just saying that.”

  “No, I could use another rider. Come along with us and we’ll have the lesson.”

  ***

  We worked for a half hour on suppleness. Of the four of us, only CB possessed it in quantity. Spare was too green to be supple, Greer was too impatient and I felt incompetent.

  Butch and I had been at the same level and, in no stretch of the imagination, would that be considered the fast lane. We did what was required to get by, and up until Lockie had arrived, that was sufficient. Now the reality was evident. I knew far less than CB and that would probably always be true. If we weren’t able to perform the exercises, it was my fault.

  “Walk,” Lockie said from the middle of the arena. “Talia, what’s wrong?”

  I had missed the turn off the wall because all I could think of was Josh and how his face looked like a meat tenderizer had been applied to it.

  Why was he going to Lockie who he barely knew? Why didn’t he come to me if he was in trouble? It was a given that Josh couldn’t go home looking the way he did, but there were other school friends.

  Of course, maybe he didn’t want them to know either. Josh could have gone to Rogers’ house but her parents were friends with the Standishes. If they saw Josh with a black eye, that fact wouldn’t remain a secret for long.

  This was why I had always advised Josh to be cautious about where he went. I never felt he understood what it was like to live in a city, or to meet up with street-wise tough guys.

  Everyone Josh knew was like him and unfortunately, being a Standish had sheltered him from reality. Attending The Briar School didn’t prepare him for how he might be treated elsewhere.

  A little taller than I was, Josh was slender and lithe but not as physical. My strength had developed from years being in the barn lifting heavy bales of hay, moving jumps and dealing with horses that used their weight and muscle against me. Because he had no choice, Josh played soccer at school and did some swimming at home. He didn’t make any pretense of being a jock. If a couple guys who spent every spare minute at the gym decided to pick a fight with the cutie from the country, there was no question how it would turn out.

  I was certain that was what happened to Josh and he was too embarrassed to reveal the truth to me.

  Perhaps it was my fault and Lockie was right. I should keep my concern for everyone’s safety to myself but instead my worries became their white noise. Under those conditions, Josh could have found it impossible to come to me, so the only person he had to turn to in his time of need was Lockie who was practically a stranger.

  Still, my misgivings were proven all too accurate and Josh’s couldn’t take care of himself in a dicey situation. Making his own mistakes was not a praiseworthy achievement and it put everyone who cared about Josh in a position to stand idly by while he was hurt. For what purpose? If it was to learn by experience, being assaulted was one heck of lesson.

  “Talia,” Lockie called to me as I sat there on the track between the K and E positions. “Are you still with us?”

  I turned to him and thought how much he knew and how little I knew.

  “Maybe I’m not cut out to be a dressage rider.”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake,” Greer groaned from across the arena.

  “Okay. You’re done for the day. After you’ve taken care of him, turn CB out in the paddock. Greer, walk not hack, over the cavelletti.” Lockie pointed to the rails on the arena floor. “Let Spare understand what’s being asked of him. This is still work.”

  I rode CB to the middle of the ring and dismounted next to Lockie.

  “Are you angry with me?”

  “No,” he replied while watching Greer on the track.

  “Disappointed?” I followed Lockie to the end of the cavelletti where he lowered the jump to the floor.

  “Stop obsessing about Josh.”

  “I knew something was going to happen.”

  Lockie took a step closer to me and put his hand on my arm. “You didn’t know. You feared it would. Just because you think something, doesn’t cause it to happen. That’s not your super power.”

  “Hello. I’m still here,” Greer called from across the arena. “Put her on the couch and psychoanalyze her after my lesson.”

  “I wish I had the power to keep everyone safe...”

  CB rested his chin on my shoulder and his head weighed a ton. I looped my arm around his face.

  “No one has that power,” Lockie said.

  “If I tried harder ...”

  “You’re at a hundred percent capacity now. Why don’t you use your real super power?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You don’t need to do anything else besides caring about us and you’re very good at it.”

  “Kiss him so I can finish the lesson!” Greer shouted at us.

  I kissed Lockie on the cheek.

  “That’s it? What is the matter with you? Do you need me to show you how it’s done?”

  “You’ve shown me,” I replied as I led CB from the indoor to the sound of her laughter.

  ***

  That evening, my grandparents long gone, Greer out with her friends, my father away and Jules inside watching So You Think You Can Cook, Lockie and I sat together on the terrace.

  “I start school tomorrow.”

  “I thought it was next week.”

  “Moving it up was a suggestion from my father,” I replied and we both knew the weight his suggestions carried.

  “It won’t be that much different than the way things are now. You’ll still be here.”

  The crickets were creating a nocturnal symphony as I reclined against his chest and felt him kiss the top of my head.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Two weeks later, I had done more schoolwork than any semester I could remember and The Briar School was a prep school not a country club. The history course Amanda had set for me was intensive. We had started with The Declaration of Independence and it wasn’t enough to read the words, I had to understand the document and its place in the founding of America.

  It was as though we were looking at those years through a microscope. At first, I was lost in a distant time with no map, but Amanda had the ability to bring life to the pages and I began to look forward to the hours spent with her.

  Then I’d race to the barn and fit all my riding into the rest of the day. Sometimes I would find Greer there already, having left school early. If she had done that during the spring, Greer would have made it to the Medal and the Maclay.

  I suspected she knew that but never mentioned it.

  ***

  The phone in the tack room rang.

  “Get that, will you, Tal?” Lockie called. He was crouched on the aisle wrapping Counterpoint’s legs.

  I picked up the receiver. “Bittersweet Farm.”

  “Bad news, Tal,” Jules said. “Rogers just got hit in the head with a field hockey stick.”

  I felt the shockwave course through me. “Is she okay?”

  Lockie came into the tack room. “Is who okay?”

  “Rogers,” I said to him.

  “She has a concussion. She’s staying overnight at the hospital,” Jules replied.

  “Thanks,” I said and hung up. “This is what happens when you take phys. ed. in school. You get hurt.”

  “Who are we talking about?”

  “Someone clubbed Rogers during field hockey and she’s at the hospital.”

  “We’ll go see her.”

  An hour later, we walked into Rogers’ room where her left eye was swollen shut and there were butterfly stitches across her temple. She looked appallingly bad.

  “Rogers, how do you feel?” I handed her the bouquet of flowers we had picked up at the local market. It wasn’t an impressive floral display but with the baby's breath, carnations and a couple ferns, it got the point across.

  Rogers punched the bed with her hand. “I have a splitting headache, I can’t see out of one eye and they won’t let me ride in t
he hunter pace!”

  “That’s not important,” Lockie said as he went around to the other side of her bed, while I sat on the edge.

  “It is!”

  “Don’t cry,” I said. “It’ll just make you feel worse and the tears will get backed up behind your eyelid and cause your brain to flood.”

  “Don’t try to make me feel better! This is a catastrophe!”

  “Rogers. It’s a hunter pace,” Lockie said. “We’ll go to another one. There’s one in South Salem, there’s one in Fairfield County. Golden’s Bridge holds one each year. You can ride in all of them.”

  I gave Lockie a warning glance.

  “This was our hunter pace. I wanted...”

  “You don’t have anything to prove to those people.”

  “I do.” Tears began spilling onto her pink cheeks. “They always made me ride at the back of the field.”

  “They always make the juniors ride there,” I replied.

  “No. Anne St. Phalle always rode behind the master.”

  “She’s French royalty or something, isn’t she?”

  “That’s a new one on me, I never consorted with a princess,” Lockie commented. “Or have I?”

  “Neither did I! She wouldn’t talk to a peasant like me,” Rogers retorted.

  He patted her shoulder. “Rest. Let your parents spoil you, eat ice cream and fancy chocolates all day long. In another week or so, we’ll pick up where we left off.”

  “Field hockey. How does learning that improve my life?” Rogers wailed paying no attention to anything Lockie said.

  “It’s not for you future like math, it’s for your health now. It’s supposed to be good for you.”

  “Bull. You hated gym, too.”

  I sure had.

  ***

  In the hospital parking lot, I got into the truck and closed the door. “That’s a relief.”

  Lockie got in the passenger side. “What is?”

  “Now I don’t have to ride in the hunter pace.”

  “Who says?”

  “You go as a team. I just lost my team mate,” I replied, heading the truck toward home.

  “I’ll take Rogers’ place.”

  I almost stomped on the brake. “No, you won’t.”

  “I don’t want to fight with you about this.”

  “We agree then. I’m not going to fight with you and I won’t ride with you. You aren’t supposed to jump. A hunter pace entails jumping.”

  “Not that much.”

  “Lockie, you agreed to these terms weeks ago. My father told me not to nag and I haven’t. Your part of the deal was to stay on the flat.”

  “Well...”

  I turned the truck into the farm driveway. “Oh my God. You’ve been riding the outside course, haven’t you?”

  “I had to try it out.”

  “I’m not talking to you again until I can speak without swearing.”

  “Talia, it’s not that big of a deal.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You’re fighting with me.” Lockie got out of the truck. “I’m tougher than you are.” He closed the door with more force than was required.

  He was right about one thing. He was tougher than I was.

  ***

  The chasm between us was unbearable. The two hours I stayed in my room made me feel as though I couldn’t breathe.

  Once when I had been much younger and riding Butch on the road, something had spooked him. Not being a very good rider then, I came off and hit the pavement hard. It seemed like an eternity before my lungs would work, then I gasped for air as if I had been too long under water.

  This situation was like that. That’s how he was tougher than I was because I knew he didn’t feel the same way now. It wasn’t that he didn’t have emotions, it was that I had too many. They controlled me instead of the other way around. I didn’t stop at feeling things deeply, I felt everything too acutely.

  Every event could become a crisis because that’s what I had learned. I couldn’t do enough to hold the world together.

  It was easy for Lockie to say I should just care about those around me. I couldn’t just care because that wasn’t enough. The emotion had to become an action or it didn’t count.

  The best way to do this often eluded me, and the right words were like a bizarre list on a treasure hunt, but I was convinced any attempt was better than none.

  When I didn’t come downstairs for dinner, there was a knock at my door.

  “Yes?”

  “May I come in?” My father asked.

  “Yes.”

  He stepped into my room wearing a nice blue shirt and trousers. “Dinner is a family meal and you should be there.”

  “I’m not good company right now.”

  “I don’t like how you’re behaving. It’s unnecessary and you’re a better person than this.”

  “Do you know that he wants to ride in the hunter pace in place of Rogers? The doctors wouldn’t sanction that.”

  “Lockie has ...”

  “I don’t want to hear about people making their own decisions when they’re wrong.”

  “That’s not what I was going to say even if it is the truth. Don’t you think I would have flown your mother to any clinic in the world for medical treatment? I found an institute in France where they are doing research. It might have bought her time. Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “It’s true. She decided to stay home with you. I tried to persuade her that there was the possibility of an extended future if we made the trip to Europe but she said no.”

  “Why?”

  “It was about the quality of her life but it was more about being allowed to keep her dignity. She didn’t want to feel pathetic.”

  “She was never that.”

  “No, she never was and I wouldn’t take that self-regard from her, even if it might have meant an extra six months. Don’t take Lockie’s dignity away. Besides, we have a partial solution and if you grace us with your presence, you’ll see that.”

  My father left the room. I changed and went downstairs to find everyone at the table, including Greer. I pulled out my chair next to Lockie and sat down.

  “Wonderful. We’re all here.”

  “Why does everything have to be high drama with her?” Greer asked.

  “Look who’s talking,” I replied.

  “You’re both grounded,” my father said evenly.

  “What?” Greer protested. “What did I do?”

  “You can’t ground me, I never go anywhere,” I replied.

  My father regarded both of us seriously. “That’s true. I’ll have to think of something else.”

  Jules laughed.

  “I’m glad you find this amusing,” Greer said to her.

  Jules shrugged.

  “Enough. I have a present for Lockie.”

  “Why does he get a present? Is it his birthday?” Greer asked.

  “You may have a present, too, very soon,” my father said as he leaned over and lifted a box from the floor. He handed it to Jules who passed it to Lockie.

  At first Lockie seemed confused, then he began to smile.

  “Open it,” Greer said.

  Lockie lifted the lid.

  “It’s the prototype,” my father said as Lockie removed the helmet from the packing material.

  “A helmet.”

  Greer seemed to be disappointed it wasn’t something she’d want.

  Lockie turned it over to look inside then held it up for me to see.

  It looked like my helmet inside. “So?”

  “The difference is the material we used, not the construction of the shell or the harness. That’s the same as any helmet. It would have been impossible to get a prototype made and also create a completely new helmet quickly enough.”

  “Will this protect a rider’s head more than any other helmet?” Jules asked.

  “No,” my father replied.

  “Then what is this all about?” Greer asked in ex
asperation.

  “We believe it will protect the brain more efficiently. Further testing needs to be done but all indications are that this helmet will be an improvement in safety.”

  Lockie put the helmet on and it fit him perfectly.

  “And in our stable colors,” I said because I didn’t know what else to say.

  “All right. Let’s have dinner,” Jules said enthusiastically.

  Lockie took off his new helmet and replaced it in the box.

  I felt as though Lockie had just been given a carte blanche to take as many risks as he desired.

  The meal was wonderful, dessert was delicious, and I had no appetite. No one seemed to notice as they ate heartily and I picked.

  The only person I ever fought with was Greer and I didn’t care very much if we never spoke to each other again. With Lockie, I cared. Since I told him I wasn’t going to speak to him, there was no way of knowing if he’d attempt talking to me first.

  I didn’t know how to bridge the gap I created. Apologizing would be a good start, but the truth was I still didn’t want him to ride and the new helmet hadn’t changed that. I couldn’t envision a scenario where Lockie went to a doctor’s appointment, showed them the helmet and their response was “Hallelujah! Do whatever you want!”

  The truth was also that I wished I had known earlier how hard my father had tried to press my mother into accepting new medical treatments and why he had finally submitted to her judgment. I considered it the right, although difficult, decision and in that, I took after my father. It would not have made me happy to see her reduced to begging for a few more days even if it had meant more time together.

  There does come a point where accepting reality is the sensible thing to do.

  What was sensible now? Giving in was inevitable because Lockie did have a stronger will than I did. That didn’t make me happy to admit since I had spent most of my life trying to be in control and all I had been doing was flailing against fate.

  When dinner was finished, Greer and my father went off in separate directions and Jules went to the kitchen.

  There was a deep silence between us that forced me to say something. “I’m not going to stop being concerned about you. The helmet doesn’t change that,” I said, not looking at him.

  “Fair enough. You’ll ride with me on the hunter pace?”