by Naomi Niles
Just then Curtis came back into the house, looking alarmed. “What was that all about?”
“It’s my boss. A horse is pregnant, and he needs me to help him deliver it. Looks like we won’t able to go riding today. I’m so sorry.”
Curtis’ face fell, but he made a game attempt to look supportive. “Well, at least we’ll get to enjoy a fabulous breakfast first. Look, I found fresh bacon in Mama’s fridge and some maple breakfast sausage.” He threw the packages down on the counter. Even uncooked, they had a delicious aroma.
We spent so much of the next hour cooking and having food fights that by the time the sausage was finished, I only had a few minutes to eat it. Tossing the last of my omelette into a Tupperware container to eat on the way, I gave Curtis a quick smooch on the cheek and dashed out the door.
Weirdly, the horse-birthing ended up being not the worst part of my day. Once we drove out to the farm, once I was crouched in the barn with my hands on the mare’s legs, I remembered why I had taken this job in the first place. “It’s a mystery to me how you got her to calm down,” Mrs. Dalton told me. “She’s been moaning all morning, miserable. Then the second you stepped into the stall and put your hands on her, she became as still as a whisper.”
No, the worst of it came once the foal had been delivered, when Dave and I were kneeling together waiting for Mrs. Dalton to return with a hot water bottle.
“Look, I know this probably isn’t the best time,” said Dave, and I knew at once it almost certainly wasn’t, “but I hope there are no hard feelings about our date the other night.”
From the way he was staring at the ground, awaiting my response, I had the prickly feeling he had been lying awake at night reliving the humiliation of that dinner for the last couple of nights. “Dave, don’t blame yourself for what happened,” I said. “Things were never going to work out between us, and that didn’t become clear to me until we sat down to dinner.”
“I guess not, but I still feel terrible for badgering you to go out with me.”
“Well, let that feeling guide you to make better choices in the future. You’re my boss, so I really shouldn’t be working for you anyway. Let’s agree never to talk again about what happened between us, and promise me—promise me you’ll never hit on me again.”
Dave nodded reluctantly. “Yes,” he said, half to himself. “I suppose it’s best.”
“It is,” I said. “We could never be happy together because we have nothing in common. Even if you were dating me, you would still feel lonely and frustrated. You would be miserable. Trust me on this.”
Luckily, at that moment Mrs. Dalton returned with the hot water bottle, rescuing me from what might have been a prolonged and tortuous conversation. Dave seemed listless and unfocused for the rest of our visit, only speaking when he was asked a question, and even then only in whispers. It was with a feeling of immense relief that I watched him climb into his car at the end and wave goodbye to Mrs. Dalton, but he drove past me as if I wasn’t there.
Chapter Thirty-One
Curtis
One week later, Allie and I were finally about to head out on that ride I had promised her. We talked about it in eager tones over a breakfast of maple-roasted bacon, fried eggs, and hash browns at Mama’s house.
“It’s weird that we’ve been dating for almost a month now, and we still haven’t done this,” said Allie. She took a sip of her chilled orange juice. “I mean, we went out riding that one time, but didn’t go much further than the end of the street.”
“It’s probably more exciting for you because you’ve never done it,” I said. “Some of us have got to do it every day.”
“You’re not excited about going with me at all?” asked Allie, looking disappointed.
“Only because you’re goin’ with me,” I replied. “I’ve seen the trail before. I suspect it’ll look about the same today as it did on Friday.”
Allie took a long swig of her drink and wiped her face with the back of her sleeve. “Well,” she said, “maybe having me out there with you will help you to see it with fresh eyes.”
“Wish I could go with y’all,” said Dad, “but Yankee Doodle Dandy is playing on TCM this afternoon, and your mom has been begging me to record it.”
I grinned at him from across the table. It was just like Dad to make up a convoluted story about why he couldn’t come along, when the reality was that he wanted me and Allie to have a day to ourselves.
As we were heading out the door, I asked Mama, “By the way, how are Marshall and Braxton doing?”
Mama shook her head in disgust. “Marshall had to file a restraining order on him because he went down to the Nightshade one too many times looking for trouble.” The Nightshade was in Sulphur Springs and owned by Marshall. Upstairs in its red-velvet-upholstered billiard rooms, well-heeled gentlemen came to smoke, drink, and place bets. “Apparently Marshall’s bodyguards carried him out into the street and gave him a good beating. Not a—but you know what I mean.”
“Is he okay?”
“He spent most of last night in the hospital,” said Mama. “He’s got a bruised black eye, and the entire left side of his face is bandaged. He’s threatening to sue the club, but Marshall swears up and down he had nothing to do with it.”
“Yeah, hmmm,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders. “I hope they get that straightened out.”
“Me, too,” said Mama, “or Thanksgiving is gonna be awkward as hell.”
This time, Allie and I rode about a mile further than we had during our first ride together. I led her out to a ridge from the edge of which we could see the land for miles around: rivers snaking along in the canyons to the north, lakes dotted with crocodiles and white herons, ranches fringed with scrub and protected by barbed wire.
“This is my favorite spot to visit when it’s not too hot out,” I told her as she surveyed the scene in stunned silence. “You feel so small down here looking up at everything. I come up here, and the cares of the moment—brothers fighting and family quarrels and even my own grief—are all put in their proper place.”
Allie drew a deep breath. “You must still think about her all the time. Don’t you? You never talk about her, not unless I bring her up, but there are moments when I can see the wheels in your head turning, and you’re in a different place. It’s like for a moment I’ve lost you. But then you come back to reality as if you were never gone.”
That was one of the perils of getting so close to someone: they could see straight through you to the other side. “It’s gotten to where I can go whole hours without really thinking about her, but I don’t really have to. She’s always there in the back of my mind. And it’s hard being by yourself because those memories come to the surface and don’t let go. When that happens, I’ll do anything to distract myself.”
I shifted uneasily on my horse, still staring out at the vast landscape around us. “I don’t guess I ever told you how she died.”
Allison’s voice was so quiet I almost didn’t hear her response. “No, you never did.”
“We were out on a ride one Sunday, one of those perfect summer Sundays in June when the rains have just ended and you can ride around without feeling you’re being burned to death. To this day, I don’t know how it happened. One minute we were talking and laughing, arguing about whether Hank Williams or Hank Williams, Jr. was the better singer. And then I guess the horse wasn’t watching where he was going, because he stumbled over a boulder, and Christine, who wasn’t prepared, went flying out of the saddle.”
“I’m so sorry, Curtis,” said Allie, who seemed to be struggling for words.
“She didn’t die immediately,” I went on. “I called Dad, and he tore out here in the pickup and carried her to Fleet-Mitchell Memorial. She held on for a few hours and—” I couldn’t help it, my voice getting choked up “—they said she died of her injuries.
“I’ve never told anyone this, but she might have survived and recovered if it hadn’t been for another little wrinkle. See, C
hristine and I had gone out riding that day to celebrate the fact that she was pregnant. She was about three months along, and not a single other soul in the world knew because she herself had just found out. We were plannin’ to come back to the house and share a glass of raspberry lemonade and eat ice cream and maybe watch a movie. That champagne is still in my pantry, waiting to be opened.”
Allie looked like she had been utterly crushed. I knew if she hadn’t been on the horse, she would’ve come over and flung her arms around me. But perhaps it was just as well. I wasn’t looking for sympathy. I just needed someone to know.
“And so now you know,” I concluded. “It wasn’t just losing her, although that was bad enough. I feel like I lost two souls that day. One I had known for a long time. The other I had just met, but was already part of the family. Mama’s been pushing me to go out and meet new girls, and I told her I just didn’t have the energy, but the truth is, I’ve been scared. Because who wants to go through all that trouble again? Knowing they can be taken away in a second?”
“You know something,” said Allie, and there was a fierceness in her voice that hadn’t been there previously, “I don’t think I knew until just this second, but you have to be one of the bravest men I’ve ever met. The fact that you would even think of going out with me after what you’ve been through—”
I shrugged. “Well, it wasn’t hard once I met you. You were too good to let go.”
“Not as good as you,” she said. “There are horrors in your past I can’t even imagine. And you’ve kept them hidden this whole time. And somehow you haven’t been consumed with bitterness and anger. You’ve kept your heart open, and I don’t know whether I would have the courage to react in the same way if I had experienced even a tenth of what you’ve gone through.”
“Well, thank you for saying that,” I said with a small smile. “But it’s not as courageous as maybe you think. It was necessary, if I wanted to keep going. The only way to live in this world is to keep your heart open.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Allie
We didn’t speak much as we rode back to the house that night. I wanted to tell Curtis how much I respected him and how much my perspective on him had changed now that I knew his secret grief. But it wouldn’t have been true, anyway, or at least not entirely. I wouldn’t have loved him the way I did if I hadn’t sensed the wisdom and quiet gravity at his core, a wisdom that only comes through grief.
We parted ways at the door of my house that night after stabling the horses. There was so much we both wanted to say to the other, but words were inadequate. I had to content myself with the sad smile I gave him as he tipped his hat and loped off into the saffron twilight. After I fed the animals, I flung myself down on the sofa, wishing I could talk to someone about what I was feeling, but I wasn’t sure even the normally empathetic Lindsay would be able to understand. What had just passed between me and Curtis was like a secret known only to us.
I awoke the next morning just after dawn and headed down to Curtis’ house for breakfast. But I had only walked about halfway when I ran into him walking in the opposite direction.
“Just got a call from my mom,” he said in a tone of mild irritation. “Apparently, she wants us to head over there and help her make breakfast.”
By now it had become a running joke between us how much his mother loved making breakfast. She brought a zeal and energy to it that she never displayed towards other meals and other tasks. The upside of that was that it made her unusually good at it.
“That’s fine,” I said, trying to sound at least a little disappointed. “You and I can make breakfast together some other morning this week.”
“I guess,” said Curtis as we turned and began walking back toward his mother’s house. “But I was all ready to make you honey biscuits and white gravy. Had the ingredients laid out and everything.”
We entered the house to find Darren standing beside his mother drying dishes with a red hand towel and placing them on the dry rack. Although Mrs. Savery looked decidedly gloomy, she perked up at once when Curtis slapped a package of bacon down on the counter.
“Now that y’all are here,” she said, “we can actually start cooking. Curtis, I’ll need you to whisk the eggs for the omelets, and I’ll need Allie to make the pancakes.”
I hated to tell her no, but I was also hesitant to admit that I had never made pancakes successfully. My one attempt in college had set off the sprinklers and the smoke alarms and forced our entire dorm out into the snow at three in the morning. Chris Gephardt had called me “Pancake Allie” for the next two and a half years.
“Could you teach me?” I stammered, my face turning a bright shade of red. “I don’t want to get it wrong, not when the rest of your meal is probably going to turn out perfect.”
Mrs. Savery turned toward me, beaming. “Of course I will. It’s the easiest thing in the world once you’ve figured out how to mix properly.”
While Curtis whisked the eggs for the omelets, she showed me how to mix the butter, eggs, milk, and pancake mix into a bowl so that they were neither lumpy nor runny. “Half the battle is knowing when to pour the batter into the skillet,” she explained. “You’ve gotta give the skillet a few minutes to heat up before pouring it in, otherwise they’ll come out wrong.”
“That may have been my mistake before,” I said. “Same with omelets—I’m always in a hurry and never wait until the frying pan is warm enough.”
“That’s the real trick,” said Mrs. Savery. “You need precise timing if you want to be a halfway-decent cook.”
Under her guidance, I was able to make the pancakes without setting off any alarms. Only one of the pancakes turned out looking like a sodden, shapeless mess; the other two were perfect, crisp circles of butter and dough. I had no idea how it had happened, and knew if I ever tried to do it again, without Mrs. Savery to help me, I would be courting disaster.
Maybe it was because of the talk we had had last night, maybe because I had been included in making breakfast, but I could feel a shift in the air as I sat down at the end of the table that morning. Somehow overnight, my relationship to the rest of the family had changed. For the first time, I actually felt like part of the family. No one questioned my right to be there, and when my eyes met Curtis’ for a moment as Darren said grace, I felt like I belonged there.
The feeling was cemented after breakfast when I asked if anyone wanted to play dominoes, and Mr. Savery immediately said yes. Darren and Curtis looked thunderstruck.
“I think that’s the first time Dad has ever agreed to play a game with us,” said Darren. “Did you put somethin’ in his soda?”
“I don’t think you realized how many years I spent playing dominoes in the service,” said Mr. Savery mildly. “If you want to be destroyed, that’s your business.”
As it turned out, he had given us fair warning. We played five rounds, and Mr. Savery prevailed in each. At the end, he was eager to play another one, but Curtis and Darren had had enough. “It gets boring when there’s no hope,” said Darren sagely.
“Besides,” said Curtis, “me and Allie have got things we want to do this afternoon.”
“Do we?” I asked, giving him a puzzled look. “For the record, this is the first I’ve heard about it.”
“Yeah, we’ve gotta make dinner,” said Curtis as he rose from the table. “In lieu of the breakfast I was supposed to make you last weekend before we got interrupted by horse emergencies.”
“Well, don’t let us keep you,” said Mr. Savery with a ghoulish laugh. “If you ever feel like being whooped again, you know where to find me.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Curtis
We walked outside into the back pasture. It was the hour between late afternoon and evening when the world is a hazy gray. Around us, we could hear the faint buzz of crickets and cicadas. Jake barked at a fleet figure that looked like a squirrel rustling through the tall grass, but might have been a bandicoot or possum.
�
��When I was in community college,” I told Allie, “some guys I know got together one night and went possum-hunting. They came back carrying two possums on the end of a harpoon, waving ‘em around like a couple of South Sea cannibals. They put ‘em on a spit and built a bonfire at the back of the school—”
“Eww, don’t tell me this story,” said Allie, placing her hands to her ears, a disgusted look on her face. “It’s so sick and disturbing that they would do that. Why would you tell me that?”
I felt myself growing red behind the ears, cursing myself for being an idiot. How could I have thought this would be a story she would appreciate?
We stood there together in silence for a minute, watching Jake wrestle with Gandalf. The older dog grabbed the pup by the scruff of his neck with his teeth and pulled him down into the grass. Gandalf barked in a frenzy of excitement.
“Well, anyway,” I said with my hands in my back pockets, “my family sure does seem to like you.”
“Don’t they?” said Allie, perking up at once. “You’ve no idea how much this pleases me. I just wish your dad had let me win a game or two.”
“He’s not that kind of dad, unfortunately,” I said, beginning to feel better. “And whatever you do, don’t ever let him talk you into playing against him for money. He’ll clean you out. He will steal the shirt off your back.”
Allie smiled up at me. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
I smiled irresistibly. “As long as he wasn’t there to see it. Anyway, you wanna know something else? As much as my family’s startin’ to like you, I think I’m startin’ to like you, too.”
“Really?” said Allie, a smirk playing at the edges of her mouth. “’cause I was beginning to wonder.”
“I mean, it was up in the air there for a while, but you’re growing on me.”
“Well, as long as I’m one of your forty or fifty favorite people, I can’t complain too much.”