Dark Horses

by Susan Mihalic

  Money had been the subject of many arguments between my parents. Mama had her own checking account, but Daddy was the one who fed money into it—never enough according to her and an insanely generous amount according to him. His estimate was more trustworthy. Mama’s need for money and things was insatiable.

  “Is it enough?” I asked.

  “I believe so.”

  He’d been furious with Mama, so their definitions of plenty and enough could be poles apart.

  “How much?”

  “We had a prenup. It would have been naïve of me if we hadn’t. This farm is mine and yours, not hers.”

  I couldn’t fathom Mama wanting a single square foot of Rosemont, but she might have tried to take it out of spite. A prenup made that impossible.

  He swirled his drink. “Your mother received a certain sum of money for each year of marriage, plus a bonus every five years. It’s held in trust because she can’t manage that kind of money—and also because there’s a fidelity clause. If she strayed outside the bounds of marriage, she’d get nothing.”

  “Then she has nothing.”

  “She has five hundred thousand for each year we were married, plus a million for every five years, plus something on top of that. It’s still in trust, because she has to comply with certain conditions. If she doesn’t, the money goes away.”

  I did the math in my head. “You gave Mama eleven million dollars?”

  “More.”

  She’d cheated, and he’d held up his end of the prenup and then some?

  “Why?” I asked. “What did she give you?”

  He smiled. “You.”

  * * *

  AFTER SUPPER, HE showed me the prenup and the irrevocable relinquishment of custody, prepared by an attorney, signed by Mama, witnessed by Gertrude and Eddie.

  Her signature, a spiky heartbeat of ink, looked more hopeful on the prenup than her hurried sign-off on my bill of sale. I wasn’t the only thing she’d sold. A nondisclosure clause prohibited her from discussing the marriage and our family. She’d sold her silence.

  Daddy stuck his head in the kitchen while I was washing dishes. “Come on, darlin’. Leave the rest. The video’s cued up.”

  In the living room, he sat on the sofa and patted the seat next to him.

  The video was the Middleton cross-country phase.

  He didn’t critique my ride, since we’d already had that discussion, but we reviewed the performances of the other riders, Daddy pausing frequently to point out a weak takeoff or poor landing or to ask what my competitors were doing wrong. When we came to Jamie’s fall, Luna plunged into the water like a stone, and Jamie cartwheeled off, catching a hard blow of hoof to helmet and a battery of hoofs to the chest as Luna scrambled out of the water.

  “Frank says he’s concussed, but compared to what it could have been…”

  Jamie was lucky to be alive and likely wouldn’t have been were it not for his safety vest and helmet.

  Daddy rewound. “He walked the course like the rest of us. That was a ballbuster, but he knew it was coming. Here, watch.”

  He pressed Play and then Pause. “He’s tentative on takeoff.” He advanced the video frame by frame. “See how he’s sitting, too far forward and too high on her back? It’s inevitable that she’s going down and he’s coming off.”

  Watching it once had been bad enough. I closed my eyes, and even when I knew we were past the fall, I didn’t open them. I couldn’t. They were weighted.

  Daddy’s fingers wound in my hair. My eyes flew open.

  The living room was dark. I’d fallen asleep with my cheek on his shoulder.

  With his free hand, he raised my chin. His tongue pushed into my mouth, stubble grating my skin. This was not like Will’s kiss. Will had kissed some girls, but Daddy knew what he was doing. After a minute he pushed my head downward.

  This morning, when he’d told me Mama was leaving, I hadn’t wanted to abandon the life I knew, Rosemont and my horses—but this was also the life I knew. I didn’t want this, and I did, and I didn’t understand why.

  There were things I hadn’t told Mama, when I was ten or ever: the way I didn’t fight or scream, the way my body responded to his, the ease with which he made me come—the fact that I came at all.

  There were things I could never tell anyone.

  - nine -

  MONDAY MORNING, SHERIDAN Academy resumed its regular class schedule after a school-wide assembly at which the associate headmaster, Mr. Felton, announced he had replaced Mr. Dashwood, who had resigned because of family concerns.

  I imagined a silent collective groan from the student body. Mr. Felton delivered a short lecture on behavior becoming an Academy student. Previous administrations had been lenient. Discipline would now be stern and swift. Chelsea told me later that Sass and Annabelle had been expelled, not suspended; during their suspension, they’d posted photos on Instagram of Sass’s cartoon and tagged me in the posts.

  “This is why you need a phone.” Chelsea whipped hers out and poked at the screen. “I mean, the posts were deleted, but I took some screenshots. Stupid idiots. Look.”

  #whoremother #horsedaughter #roanmontgomery

  No wonder Daddy said social media would distract me. He’d seen the posts, and undoubtedly he’d had something to do with the expulsions. For once, I didn’t mind the layer of protection he’d built between me and the world. I was glad Sass and Annabelle were gone, glad Mr. Dashwood was gone. Glad Mama was gone.

  The one person I wanted to see didn’t come to school that week. Will surfaced in my mind often, and not only because of his kiss. He’d sat in his truck at the base of my driveway for two hours. Why hadn’t he gone to see Wedge or Rico? Because they didn’t get him? What made him think I did? Likewise, why had I called him instead of Chelsea Thanksgiving night? He wasn’t even a friend, just a classmate. He’d move on to another girl when he saw I wasn’t interested. I wasn’t.

  On Friday, the school held a memorial service for his brother. A decade ago, Steve Howard had been captain of a nationally ranked lacrosse team, honor society president, valedictorian, poster child for the school’s crème-de-la-crème university-prep image. It hardly seemed possible Will was related to him.

  After an abbreviated morning schedule, we reconvened in our homerooms and tramped down to the phys ed building under a glaring white sky.

  “You don’t think we have to see their bodies, do you?” Chelsea said.

  “It’s a memorial, not a funeral. They don’t have bodies at memorials.”

  The service had expanded beyond the school to the town and consequently was being held in the gym. Chairs for students and faculty were lined up on the basketball court. Will stood paper-white and gaunt in a receiving line with his parents and his sister, a wisp of a girl, no more than six. He accepted a hug with some manly backslapping from Wedge and a punch to the arm from Rico.

  The line inched forward until I stood in front of Mr. Howard, an older version of Will, tall and broad-shouldered and dry-eyed. He shook my hand.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “Thank you, dear.”

  Another hand touched the small of my back, and my body knew before my mind did that it was Will’s. The layers of heavy winter woolens fell away as if he’d touched skin.

  “Dad,” he said, “this is my friend Roan.”

  Friend. Okay.

  “Of course.” Mr. Howard released my hand and patted my arm.

  “Mom,” Will said, “this is my friend Roan.”

  Mrs. Howard was tall and slim, with short streaky blond hair. Her face was composed but strained. “Thank you for coming.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “And Carrie,” Will said.

  Will’s sister leaned against Mrs. Howard’s hip, her ponytail tied with a navy ribbon that matched her dress.

  “Carried away,” Will added, raising a brief, wan smile on her lips.

  “Carrie Howard,” she said in a tone of long-suffering toleran
ce.

  Will led me a step away from his family.

  “How are you?” I asked.

  “Okay. Well, sometimes. Other times I don’t think I can stand it.”

  Mrs. Tomich, directing the juniors to their seats, waved me forward with a baton of rolled-up papers.

  “I should sit down,” I said.

  “Can we talk after this?”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll find you.”

  Chelsea had waited for me, and as we walked to our seats she said, “What did he say to you?”

  “Nothing.”

  Mrs. Tomich handed each of us a program—her baton had been a batch of them—and Chelsea and I took the last two seats in a row.

  “I didn’t know this many people lived in Sheridan,” she whispered.

  A hush fell over the gym, and the Howards passed by to take their seats in front. Mr. and Mrs. Howard walked arm in arm. Will followed, holding Carrie’s hand. Mr. Felton took the small, portable stage at the far end of the court, turned on the microphone, and said, “We’re ready to begin.”

  A minister led an opening prayer asking for comfort and healing. Harold Moon sang a hymn in his pitch-perfect tenor, accompanied by Mr. Hanlon on the school’s Steinway. From all over the gym came sniffing and sometimes gentle laughter as different people told stories about Steve. After several speakers, the minister said a closing prayer, and Mr. Felton invited everyone to visit with the family in the lobby, where the school was providing refreshments.

  Chelsea and I got separated in the shuffle to the doors. I saw the back of her head, but several other heads bobbed between us.

  A hand took my elbow.

  “Let’s go out the back way,” Will said.

  He angled us toward the exit by the girls’ locker room. We went down a short flight of stairs, he pushed open the door, and we stepped out into the cold. The door sighed on its pneumatic hinge and closed with a clunk.

  “That was a nice service,” I said.

  “It wasn’t as bad as the funeral. Then there was a service at the graveside. I wasn’t sure how many more funerals I could take, but it was good to hear people who knew him talk about him. I didn’t know half those stories.” On his cheeks were faint salty streaks where tears had dried. He took a breath, let it out in a cloud of condensation, and nodded toward the football stadium. “Let’s take a walk.”

  The air was bitter. I put my hands in my pockets, but Will seemed oblivious to the cold.

  The gate to the stadium wasn’t locked. The school’s honor code led to very few places being locked during school hours. Will lifted the latch and let me through. We climbed the concrete steps to the top of the bleachers and looked over the safety railing. A few people had come out of the gym and were making their way to their cars.

  “Sorry about the other day,” he said. “I didn’t mean to kiss you like that.”

  “How did you mean to kiss me?” I said it as a sort of joke, but it gave him the perfect opportunity to say, “Like this,” and kiss me again.

  “I didn’t mean to kiss you at all,” he said.

  Instantly my face was hot enough to sear meat. I was an idiot. Pathetic. But he’d asked me on a date and said he wouldn’t give up, and I’d thought that kiss had meant something.

  “I shouldn’t have offered you the weed, either,” he said.

  How had I grown to like him so much so fast?

  Humor might hide my humiliation. “So… this blows.” I tried to chuckle, but a bray came out instead, and Will didn’t even smile.

  I turned to start down the steps and stumbled over the shreds of my dignity.

  He grabbed my arm to keep me from falling. “Bailing on me again?”

  “First you act like you like me, and now you’re saying you don’t, and, I mean, that’s fine, but I don’t want to stand around talking about it.”

  “I do like you.”

  “Just not that way.” I looked pointedly at his hand on my upper arm, and he released me, but he said, “No, I do like you that way.”

  The heat began to bleed out of my face. “What?”

  “I moved sort of fast the other day. I didn’t mean to, but I did, and it freaked you out.”

  “I got over it.”

  “Reckon you did.” He leaned on his forearms on the safety railing, the wind ruffling his hair. “Seriously, I like you—that way—and enough to do this the right way. We ought to hang out, do stuff together.”

  “I don’t have a lot of time for hanging out and doing stuff,” I said, still smarting.

  “We’ll find a way.”

  I watched people leaving the gym. “Why do you like me, anyway?”

  “You fought back.”

  I frowned, not understanding.

  “When Sass drew that cartoon, you fought back. She always whomps on you. I thought you were sort of spineless. Smart, but you didn’t have any spark. Then all of a sudden you did, and I thought, maybe there’s more to you than I figured. Why do you like me?”

  “Who says I do?”

  “I think you did,” he said steadily.

  He was so frank that I wasn’t even embarrassed.

  “I’ve gotten into it with Sass before. You just weren’t around to see it. But it was nice of you to stand up for me. I thought you were sort of a burnout.”

  “Reckon I am,” he said.

  I got more than enough exposure to people and their addictions at home, but I was the one sneaking bourbon. I wasn’t better than Will Howard.

  He nudged me with his shoulder.

  I nudged him back. “Will you be at school Monday?”

  “Yeah. I wanted to come back this week, but there was the funeral, and we made some trips to their house, and… it’s been hard. I keep thinking everything will get back to normal, but what’s normal now?” He checked the time on his phone. “It’s almost noon. You need to get back. I do, too.”

  We started down the stairs, so close that our arms bumped now and then.

  “How are you managing without your mom?”

  “Fine.” I sounded too bright, too determined to be fine, but he just said, “Has she contacted you?”

  “She doesn’t want contact.”

  “That’s got to be hard.”

  I shrugged. “Mr. Dashwood resigned.”

  “Rico told me.”

  We reached the bottom of the stairs.

  “What’s your cell?” Will said.

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Well, you said I can’t call your house again, so will you call me this weekend?”

  “Why?”

  “We really have to work on your social skills. Call me so we can talk. Don’t ask me about what. It doesn’t matter. Don’t you ever call your friends?”

  “Sure,” I said, as if I had friends I called all the time. “What’s your number?”

  He told me. “I was wrong for thinking you were spineless. We both lost someone, and you’re just handling it. Me, not so much.”

  “You and Steve were close. Mama and I never got along. She says I’m too much like Daddy.”

  “You don’t seem at all like your father to me.”

  I didn’t respond. In the past week, I’d learned I was more like Daddy than I had known.

  * * *

  AFTER CHORES, LESSONS, and breakfast on Sunday morning, Daddy suggested we ride out.

  It was the mildest day we’d had since before Thanksgiving. Without the bitter whipping wind, the air felt almost warm.

  Diva fidgeted beneath me in the stable yard while Daddy tightened Byron’s girth, eliciting a teeth-baring display of displeasure from his horse. Besides Daddy, only Eddie, Mateo, and a couple of other senior grooms handled Byron. I doubted he was any worse than Diva, but generally I gave him a wide berth.

  Daddy mounted Psycho Pony the Elder. “Let’s ride up the fire road.”

  Many fire roads snaked over the farm’s nearly three thousand acres, but there was one we often rode on. It rose steeply into the hil
ls and made good conditioning ground for the horses.

  We walked the horses down the mile-long back drive to the service road. Daddy leaned down from the saddle to punch in the gate code, and we rode through. As the gate slowly closed behind us, Byron’s head flashed toward Diva with the speed of a copperhead striking. She jerked her head out of biting range. Byron’s teeth snapped together audibly.

  “They need to work off some of this piss and vinegar,” Daddy said. “Ready?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he gave Byron an invisible cue, and the stallion broke into a canter down the service road. I clicked my tongue to Diva, and we followed.

  Byron bucked, putting his head down, lashing out and upward with his back legs, dropping first his right shoulder and then his left, a move virtually guaranteed to unseat a rider. Daddy stuck in the saddle. He could still outride me, dissolving the distinction between horse and rider in a way I’d not yet achieved.

  He settled Byron and resumed the canter. “Get a move on, darlin’!”

  I urged Diva into an extended canter until we were alongside Byron, who pinned his ears. Diva returned the gesture.

  As soon as we turned onto the fire road, Daddy gave Byron a guttural “Yah!” The stallion broke into a gallop. I touched Diva with my heels, and she lunged after them. Within three strides we were beside them, but only for two paces. Then we passed them, bare branches and pine boughs flashing by.

  We’d been in a steady gallop for several strides when Diva accelerated. Peripherally I saw Daddy and Byron coming up on our left. They pulled ahead.

  I leaned forward. “Go!”

  Diva flattened her stride, long legs devouring the ground. I had an impression of Daddy—black hacking jacket, blue-black horse—as we flew past.

  The pine tree lying across the road must have come down in the Thanksgiving Day storm. Diva met it as perfectly as if we’d jumped this tree in this spot a hundred times, rising into the air with her forelegs tucked, floating over it, and landing neatly on the other side. I risked a look over my left shoulder and saw Byron sailing over the tree, Daddy laughing.

  We raced up the hill. Byron and Daddy kept pace a horse’s length behind us but didn’t pass us again. Finally, I began to slow Diva, and with one rebellious shake of her head, as if she were saying, “No, this is what I was born to do,” she dropped down to a jog. Daddy and Byron drew alongside again. Together we slowed the horses and brought them to a stop.