Learning to Fall

by Anne Clermont

  “How could he let this happen?” My words came as a whisper, as my eyes searched hers.

  “Let’s talk about this at home.” She glanced at Seth, her cheeks flushing.

  I sensed the blood drain from my face as I turned to Seth, his white shirt heavy on the starch, his collar a size too small. “How much time do we have?” My voice sounded small now.

  “Well . . .” Seth looked down at the papers again, shuffling them around until he found what he was looking for. “You have a couple of months before the bank files an NOD.” Seeing my quizzical look, he quickly added: “A Notice of Default. Maybe longer . . . depends. Then you still have ninety days to catch up, to make a payment. So I’d say you have until the spring. And then of course you’ll have to keep making the payments on the mortgage.”

  He looked at us again. Mom had pulled out her notebook and was scribbling something, her eyes glazed over. It was her writing notebook, her escape from anything that stressed her. I’d seen her do this whenever any conversation with Dad got tense.

  “Oh . . .” I peered down at my lap, winding my fingers together. “So what are we supposed to do?”

  The secretary’s giggle filtered through the door. Seth looked down at his desk.

  “I . . .” He cleared his throat. “I’m not sure what to say . . .”

  He had no advice. We had no one else to rely on now. No one to help us make decisions, or to tell us the best course of action.

  Silence filled the small confines of my Honda Civic on the drive home. Mom kept her eyes straight ahead as I drove, leaning over only long enough to change the station to NPR. She sat, knees pressed together, her hands folded over her purse, Michael Krasny’s voice filling my car. I wanted to discuss the situation, but the dabbing at her eyes with her tissue told me this wasn’t the right time.

  Once home, I got into my riding clothes and darted outside with Subira trying to keep pace. I slowed, tapping my leg. “Come on, old girl. Let’s go.”

  Right after the accident Derek had told me he’d called a hiatus on lessons, and it crossed my mind that I had to organize a meeting with everyone. But I’d deal with that tomorrow. I made my way along the dim aisle of the barn, pausing at Cervantes’s empty stall, grabbing onto a stall bar for support. Cervantes, Dad’s dream horse. I closed my eyes and pictured Cervantes’s white mane, his forelock, the dark gray dapples on his hind quarters, the graciousness of his gallop as Dad took him around the arena. Dad’s shoulders hunched, his arms soft, his face drawn in concentration as he rode. The sweat lathering between Cervantes’s hind legs, Cervantes foaming at the bit, his neck arched, his legs extending with each stride. Then Dad’s smile as he took Cervantes over the jumps, and Cervantes’s buck as he acted out. Dad always smiled when jumping. No matter how good or bad the horse was, no matter his worth, Dad loved each one. Each horse has their own spirit, their own unique talent they bring to the world, Dad would say. I wish we could have seen Cervantes’s scope.

  The horses were out in pastures and paddocks. I should have known it was still early, but the day had gotten away from me and I had no idea what time it was now. Noon? Four? I peered into Jett’s stall to confirm. Most show horses stayed in their stalls for a majority of the day, but ours had all-day turnout. Dad had always been proud that he had been able to give the horses fresh air, a chance to socialize, to graze in the large pastures, where they could stretch their legs, jump, and frolic. They need this too, you know? he’d said.

  Turning to head back outside I accidentally knocked over a bucket, the sound echoing in the silence of the barn. Derek stuck his head out from the office.

  “It’s just me.” I returned the bucket to its rightful spot.

  “Wasn’t expecting you down here. Thought you were gone all day.”

  “You and me both,” I mumbled.

  Derek walked toward me, the light behind him outlining his stocky build. “Did you want me to get Jett?”

  “I’d rather do it myself.” I feigned a smile.

  Derek nodded, pressing a hand on my shoulder, then walked back to the office. Dad’s office. Where I still hadn’t been able to bring myself to go. It was too painful, Dad’s presence still too strong.

  I leaned against Jett’s stall door, inhaling the scent of shavings, fly spray, horses. My shoulders relaxed. This was my place. This was my sanctuary. And for a moment I felt better.

  Outside, I followed the path to the turnouts. Jett stood in the pasture under the large oak. Gleaming black coat, white star, one white sock. He wasn’t a beautiful horse. Solid, masculine, handsome even, but definitely not beautiful. I whistled quietly. His head popped up from the hay, his ears pricked forward. With his head held high, he commanded attention, like one of those horses pictured in the art books on the shelves in our sitting room. To me, he was the most beautiful horse.

  Jett’s forelock fell between his eyes. His mane, much too long and in need of pulling, fell to either side of his neck. A wave of guilt washed over me. In the last three weeks I hadn’t taken care of him as much as I should have.

  Jett stared at me, his liquid eyes spoke of knowing, of understanding, a bond we’d shared for years. He didn’t care about his mane. What mattered was this. This unspoken love. If horses could smile, he’d be smiling now. My heart filled with warmth, blood surging through my veins. No one could steal moments like this from me. “Come on, buddy. Let’s go for a ride. Just you and me.”

  I talked nonsense to Jett as I put on his halter and led him back toward the barn. I savored each brush stroke while grooming him, carefully picking out his feet, gently wiping his face, all as if they were my last. I ran my hand along his body, loving the softness of his hair, the thick muscles rippling beneath. I knew him almost as well as I knew myself. His snorts. His nickers. The way he nodded his head up and down when he begged for treats. I pressed my cheek against his warm neck, inhaling his scent. Everything faded.

  I wrapped my arm around his neck, playing with the wiry thick hair of his mane. “We’ll figure things out . . .”

  Once in the outdoor arena, I needed to gallop. With a single flex of my calf, Jett cantered. I pushed him faster, craving the speed, the feel of him beneath me, the wind rushing through my ears, my breath merging with his, replacing every thought in my head. We rode and rode, until Jett’s nostrils flared and my breath came short. Sweat dripped into my eyes, and lather coated his neck from where the reins rubbed against it. I don’t know how long we rode, but oh, how good it felt to be one with him, to feel him, to ride as if we could ride together indefinitely. Once we’d slowed, I sunk heavy in the saddle. Spent.

  Jett and I came around the corner and the ranch came into view. My head reeled, and I had to grab onto Jett’s mane for support. How had Dad taken out additional mortgages? Why hadn’t Mom stopped him? Had she known?

  Dad had worked for years to build up the training program: eight clients, twelve horses. Their trust fell to me now, even if I’d only been an assistant trainer to my dad, and only during summers and the occasional weekends, and holidays. That didn’t qualify me as a trainer. Or did it?

  I was the individual silver medalist for Young Riders, and our team had won gold. No small feat, it was an award prestigious enough that our clients should take me seriously. With Derek’s help, maybe there was a chance?

  No. No way.

  My final year of vet school would be more demanding than the previous three, which had me burned out as it was. The professors had warned us to be ready for no social life. For life spent in the field, on call, or in the library. I couldn’t possibly come here every weekend to train. And who would ride the horses during the week? Who would teach the afternoon lessons?

  I hopped off Jett. I needed to talk to Mom. We had to resolve this. We had to figure things out.

  “Hey.” Derek stood at the entrance to the barn, as if he’d been waiting for me. He wiped his hands on his shirt and chewed his lip for a moment. “I don’t mean to bother you, but, umm . . .” He cleared his th
roat, then grabbed the halter I was reaching for and passed it to me.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, not really wanting to know.

  “Helena, Corinne, and Mai were just in the office, and they’re a bit concerned about the show.”

  “The show?”

  “Yeah. Your dad was supposed to take them to a show in a couple of weeks. They, um, wanted to know whether we’re still going.”

  I heaved the sweaty saddle pad and saddle off Jett. “What did you tell them?”

  “I told them you were still thinking about it,” Derek said, taking the saddle from me. “Is that all right?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course. I’m thinking about it.” I hadn’t been. I didn’t even remember it. I unclipped Jett from the cross ties, pressing my hand against the sweat stain left beneath the saddle pad—slick and wet and warm. “So, which show was this again?”

  “Woodside.”

  “Right . . .” I led Jett outside toward the wash rack, buying time. Jett’s shoes clip-clopped as we walked down the asphalt of the aisle, marking time, like the beat of my heart. The show. How could I have forgotten about the goddamned show?

  Derek followed me outside. “So what do you want me to say?”

  I sprayed Jett, top to bottom. Sweat, thick and soapy, slid down with the jet stream, leaving his coat black again. By accident I squeezed the nozzle harder and Jett pranced, but then settled.

  “Tell them the show’s on,” I said. “I’ll take them.”

  Derek didn’t move.

  “I said, tell them I’ll take them.” I faced Derek this time, straightening my back, trying to make myself taller.

  Derek clicked his heels and walked away. I couldn’t help but notice he didn’t do it with as much gumption as he normally did with Dad. I knew Derek wasn’t ready to trust me as the head of the barn. I was like his younger sister, after all.

  I led Jett to a patch of grass around the side of the barn, tucking the hair that had fallen out of my ponytail behind my ears. Derek would have to get used to it. And this was the right thing to do. This was the only thing to do. I had to take the clients to the show—it would buy me precious time to figure out what to do next.

  “Brynn.” A young male voice. Not Derek’s.

  Startled, I pulled Jett to a stop. “Chris!”

  Chris Peterson sat on one of the oak tables in the courtyard.

  “Holy shit! You scared the crap out of me.”

  “You know me. I like the element of surprise.” Chris, my first love. He walked toward me, smiling. I hadn’t seen him in close to a year, when he’d moved back east to train and compete with McLain Ward, an elite hunter-jumper trainer. When he reached me, we embraced, him kissing my cheek. “I heard about your dad. I’m really sorry I wasn’t here.”

  Chris’s voice cracked a bit. He was only a few inches taller than me, and, like most professional riders, lean. As my hands wrapped around him, I inhaled the scent of high-end stores: Gucci, Armani. I closed my eyes, carried back in time, my cheek pressed into his freshly ironed shirt. He’d always be my first love, even though the timing never seemed right.

  Chris pulled away, eyeing me. “I heard you were there.”

  I didn’t meet his gaze. I couldn’t. So I changed the topic. “What are you doing here? Last we talked you were headed to a show in Florida.”

  “Well, here’s the thing,” he said, clearing his throat. “There’s been a change of plans. I’ve moved back.”

  “What?” I stepped back, taking him in, his designer jeans and black shiny shoes, his hair styled in that perpetually mussed-up look. “Moving back? I thought this was the best opportunity of your life?”

  “It was. It just wasn’t for me, you know?” Then he smiled, revealing that little gap between his teeth that had driven me crazy. Me, and all the girls on the West Coast hunter-jumper circuit. “Sometimes things aren’t what they appear to be. And I guess I miscalculated how much I’d miss California. Miss you.”

  He’d always been a flirt, though his romantic interests always involved girls with a modeling background. Not girls like me. “Your mother must be excited to have you back.”

  Chris suddenly found interest in a piece of lint on his shirt. “Actually, I’m staying at the old Hendricks Ranch.”

  I laughed, but Chris’s head shot up and the look he gave me was anything but funny. “You’re kidding, right?” He had to be. The ranch had been through a number of trainers in the last twenty or so years. The owners weren’t horse people; they just hired trainers to manage the business. It was a far cry from the typical show barn Chris would normally ride at, and he’d never stoop to training other people or their horses for money. Prestige? Maybe. Riding with McLain Ward? Definitely. But not working out of a dump like the Hendricks Ranch. His parents’ pockets were too deep for him to ever have to do that.

  “Hey! Don’t be a snob. It’s a decent place. And you’d be surprised. They’ve really fixed it up. Even added this awesome loft that’s part of the deal.”

  I couldn’t decide if he was telling the truth. I pulled at my ponytail, my eyes drawn to his freckles, evenly spaced, a handful on each cheek. They gave him an irresistible, innocent look. Memories of days playing on our ponies, laughing together at shows, spending evenings at his parents’ estate, hiding out in their guest cottage ran through my mind.

  “So you’ll come visit me, right? I’m around tonight.”

  I shook my head. “I’m taking clients to Woodside. I’ve gotta get the entries in by tonight.”

  Chris pouted, sticking his bottom lip out, giving me his puppy-eye look. I laughed. Chris stood straighter, and wrapped his arms around me again. “Next week, then? Promise?”

  “I’ll try.” Though really I knew I was lying.

  The day before the Woodside show, Derek and I packed all the required supplies for the horses plus the items needed to create a spa-like atmosphere for the clients: water and grain buckets, grooming and first-aid kits, tack, blankets, trunks, a water fountain, a patio set, an awning, and decorations for the stalls. I called in an order for sod. The deliveryman promised it would be there the next day.

  Through it all, I didn’t get stressed, or frustrated, or sad. I didn’t yell at Derek or Subira the way Dad always did the night before a show. I actually liked it. I liked all the details.

  “It’s the OCD in you,” Derek said.

  Over my Cup-o-Noodles I read the show schedule, making sure I had each class and rider combination memorized. And I listened for Mom. It had been days since I’d seen her eating, and I’d started to worry. I’d heard her call in sick to work all week. I listened for a sound, a whisper, a creak, but only silence greeted me. I needed to talk to her so we could figure out our plan.

  As I walked down her hall, I was five again, giggles and murmurs drifting toward me on the dust motes released like blowing dandelions into the air. Dad and Mom lay in bed, their legs intertwined with the steel-colored covers, a mix of rough and smooth, of white and bronze. I remembered how Dad’s face had appeared above the duvet. His eyes shone with the sparkle reserved only for jumping horses. Mom’s tousled hair, normally always in place, spilled around her face in messy waves. I thought she was the loveliest woman. Alive and full of laughter.

  Now I crept down the endless hallway, the redwood floor stretched before me, overlaid with the same blue runner, meticulously woven but now faded and worn. Photos, framed in ebony, lined the hall. Photos of Mom and Dad at her graduation; the three of us at Tahoe; Dad competing at a show; and my favorite: me, about four years old, atop Valkyrie, a nearly eighteen-hand dappled gray. Dad’s first Grand Prix jumper. In the photo Dad had his arms around me, his smile wide and sure. I could almost taste his pride. The memories hung on the walls in the same place they’d been for years, but their meaning seemed misplaced now.

  My steps didn’t make a sound on the silk runner as I hurried beyond the ghosts of the past. I paused outside her door, my hand resting on the doorknob, my pulse pounding in my ears. I
wanted to see my parents in bed again, laughing, giggling. I closed my eyes and pushed the door open.

  “Mom?”

  Silence greeted me. My voice faded in the dank air. The damask curtains hung closed, their blue diminished to black.

  “Are you awake?”

  My eyes adjusted. Her running shoes lay in the middle of the room, disorderly in comparison to the rest of the room. The brush strokes of the painting above their bed softened the severity of the windows on either side.

  The sheets on Dad’s side of the bed were tucked under the mattress, the way Mom had taught me. Dad’s pillow lay untouched, as if waiting for him to fill its deep recesses. Mom’s side was almost as well made, except for the long, narrow bump, the outline of her body.

  “Mom?” I asked again, afraid to startle her. I knelt beside the bed, the floor unforgiving. I placed my hand on her arm, like a porcelain doll’s atop the duvet.

  My eyes gravitated toward the nightstand on the other side of the bed. Dad’s reading glasses rested on top of several carelessly placed books, as if he’d laid them down only last night before falling asleep.

  “Where do we go from here?” Her voice, barely a whisper, sounded unrecognizable.

  “It’s just a little setback,” I said quietly, trying to lift her spirits. It was something Dad had always said whenever something went wrong.

  She didn’t respond.

  I stood and tugged at one of the curtains, the ones I used to hide behind while playing hide-and-seek.

  She cringed at the small amount of light filtering into the room. I pushed the window open. The room had always been filled with the scent of blooming hyacinths and roses and lilacs that had grown just outside her window. Now the garden stood bare, the air in the room thick.

  “I never wanted it to be like this,” she said.

  Her face matched the grayness of her sheets. Her hair hung in clumps. Unwashed.

  “I asked him years ago to stop riding. To figure out a new way. But you know your father—always knew best.” Her lips twisted up into a smile. “Such a stubborn, annoying old trainer.”