The Lavender Field

by Jeanette Baker

  The old man nodded. “I wish that were possible, Gabriel. I’ve come a long way to explain why it isn’t. Naturally, I hope that you will keep the information I relay to you confidential. May I count on you to do so?”

  “Of course.”

  Pohl stared into his glass of ale. Then he looked at Gabe. “This is difficult for me.”

  “Can I help you?”

  Werner Pohl smiled and shook his head. “Not unless you are a magician. Have you heard of navicular disease?”

  Gabe frowned. “I haven’t had too much experience with it, but I’ve heard it happens to horses who are confined to stalls or have strong physical demands made upon them.”

  “Precisely. It is a gradual progression of lameness in the front legs, rarely terminal but always debilitating. It doesn’t happen to all confined, hard-working horses. We don’t really understand the cause.”

  Gabriel waited. He knew the European aversion to reaching the point too quickly.

  The horsemaster continued. “It isn’t discovered until the disease is advanced, somewhere between the ages of ten and thirteen years.” His mouth tightened. “Every Lipizzaner ten years and older at the Riding School is in the throes of this disease.”

  Gabe stared at him in disbelief.

  “I don’t have to tell you that this means the end of a centuries’ old tradition,” he continued. “Should anything happen to the school, and the thin line of continuity with the past be snapped, more would be lost than the livelihood of a few score of horses and riders. An art form of great subtlety and power, as abstract and as moving as the ballet, would vanish from the world’s cultural heritage. Quite simply, we can’t work lame horses. We can keep them comfortable with the proper shoes, exercise and drugs, even surgery, but those are temporary measures. We must have healthy animals.”

  Suddenly Gabe understood. “You want my healthy horses.”

  The old man nodded. “We must breed new stock. It is possible that the disease is hereditary. The horses sent with your father were from the line of Vilano, out of the Arab, Siglavy. They were selected because they were the strongest, the healthiest breeders, with the longest life spans. It was believed they could withstand the journey and breed on foreign soil. We need them returned. It was never intended that they would stay away permanently. In short, without your horses the school will cease to exist. I don’t believe Franz would have wanted that.”

  “No,” Gabe agreed. “He wouldn’t. I’m happy to sell you my horses. But Lorelei is old for breeding purposes. Why not leave her?”

  “Under the proper conditions, she can be bred for at least several more seasons. Her healthy foals may be the difference between survival and extinction for us. There is another reason, as well. Because of her age, we know she does not carry navicular disease.”

  “None of my horses have it,” Gabe pronounced firmly.

  “We have a board of directors,” Pohl said sadly. “They want guarantees.”

  “You’ll have fifteen mares.”

  “They’re too young to be accurately diagnosed.”

  “That’s crazy,” Gabe protested. “Navicular-diseased horses have symptoms, a short stride, stumbling gait, unevenness on turns, reluctance to go forward, irritability. My horses don’t show any of those.”

  “Neither do ours, until we’ve gone through the trouble to train them. None of your mares, with the exception of Lorelei, has reached the age when we can be sure she won’t be a carrier. She is vital to our experiment.”

  Gabe was silent for a long time. “I assume you know about my daughter.”

  The Austrian did not look away. His eyes were kind. “Most unfortunate. I’m so sorry. I suppose it isn’t possible to divert her with a mare whose bloodlines are not those of Vilano and Siglavy, a mare who is not a Lipizzaner.” He looked at the brooding expression on Gabriel’s face and sighed. “No. Of course not.”

  “My family and I own the horses together,” Gabe explained. “My share will be a little over six million dollars. I’ve done the numbers. Starting over will cost me at least that much. For everyone else it would be a windfall. Ironic, isn’t it? I’ll be the only one who doesn’t profit, unless I cash it all in and do something else.”

  “I understand.”

  “May I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “What if I keep Lorelei? Are all bets off?”

  The older man hesitated. “No,” he said honestly. “We need the others, with or without Lorelei, but our chances will improve with her.”

  Gabe nodded.

  “Will you return the favor and now answer my question?”

  “Yes.”

  “If I had answered differently, would you have given her up?”

  “Yes,” Gabe replied. “You’ve convinced me.”

  Pohl nodded. “Then my visit had purpose. I’m glad I came.” He smiled. “Don’t look so despondent, my friend. Your horses were bred to perform. If you’ve trained them the way Franz was taught, they will live out their lives in disciplined luxury. The Spanish Riding School is their destiny. Do not deny Lorelei what you have given the others.” Pohl stood. “I thank you for your time, Gabriel. You know where to reach me should you have any questions. I’m sure you understand that time is of the essence. I will go inside now and bid goodbye to your charming mother.”

  Gabe watched him disappear through the French doors. He leaned back in the patio chair and stared out over the lavender field. The situation had escalated beyond the personal and, therefore, was out of his hands. Except for breaking the news to Claire and signing the papers, the deal was as good as done. He wanted desperately to call Whitney, but maybe it was too late for that.

  Thirty

  Mercedes sighed. She tapped her index finger against the glass of wine that was now half empty. Normally, she would have replenished it, but Gabriel showed no signs of leaving the room and she didn’t feel like arguing with him. He was standing by the window staring out at the darkening sky. He’d been there for a long time. Something was definitely wrong. She didn’t like to interfere. No one would ever call her an interfering woman, but when her children needed her, Mercedes set her scruples aside.

  She sighed. Gabriel was so sensitive. He looked weary to the bone. It was time to take the offensive. “What is it, mijito? How can I help you?”

  He looked surprised, as if he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone. “Nothing, Ma. I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not. Tell me what has you so troubled.”

  “I’m not troubled,” he said, much too quickly.

  “You’re a terrible liar. Did you tell that man you’re not selling him our horses?”

  Gabe shook his head. “No. He’ll get his horses.”

  Mercedes released her breath. She’d been worried. “It’s the right thing to do, Gabriel.”

  “I know.”

  “If it isn’t the horses, what is it?” she persisted.

  “Please, Ma. Leave it alone. I’m fine.”

  “Is it Whitney? Did you have a fight?”

  “Whitney and I don’t fight.”

  Mercedes’s eyes gleamed. “You should fight, mijito. Passion is good for a marriage. If you don’t fight, you don’t get scared, and if you don’t get scared, you don’t make up and if you don’t make up, you don’t appreciate what you have.” She shook her finger at him. “Do you hear what I’m telling you, Gabriel?”

  “I hear you, Ma. If we don’t fight, we won’t appreciate each other,” he paraphrased.

  “That’s right. Next time something bothers you, you should fight.”

  “There won’t be a next time.”

  “What did you say?”

  He turned, exhaustion evident in every line of his face. “I said, there won’t be a next time.”

  “Why not?”

  “We won’t be seeing her anymore.”

  “What did you do?” she demanded.

  “What did I do?” He laughed bitterly. “Why are you assuming it was me?”


  “Because I know you,” she said flatly. “The woman is crazy about you.”

  “Not crazy enough.”

  “I know you better than you think, mijito. What did you tell her?”

  “I didn’t tell her anything. She’s the one who said she didn’t want any part of a conditional relationship. What in the hell does that mean? All relationships are conditional. Would she put up with me if I cheated, or drank or gambled, or if I stopped loving her?”

  “That’s not the point,” said Mercedes.

  “What is the point? I didn’t want her to give up what she has if I could only offer her less. That kind of resentment can kill a marriage. I’ve been there, done that. Excuse me if I don’t want to repeat the past. No, thank you.”

  “Oh, Gabriel,” Mercedes said sadly. “I’ve raised a foolish son.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You’re not giving her the benefit of the doubt,” Mercedes continued. “She isn’t Kristen. The woman deserves to make her own choices. She’s not twenty, mijito. Maybe she’s had all the things she thought she wanted. Maybe she wants something else. By deciding for her, you’ve insulted her. Besides, you’re selling the horses. She won’t be giving up anything.”

  “She’s done with me, Ma. She said it herself. It doesn’t matter whether I sell or not.”

  “Talk to her, Gabriel. Change her mind.”

  He was silent. Mercedes hoped he was thinking. Like a good stew, there were times when words should sit on the mind. She stretched out her injured leg and stood carefully. “I’ll finish dinner,” she said.

  Gabriel didn’t answer.

  Claire sat up in her bed, leaning against her pillows. Her knees were pulled close to her chest and she was flipping through the pages of a book. At the doorway of her room, Gabe hesitated. He would have given anything to avoid the news that he brought to his daughter. Lately, she seemed so much better, almost normal, as long as he ignored the occasional vacant look in her eyes. Having Eric and Emma around helped to distract him from her silences.

  “Hi, honey,” he said softly.

  She looked up. “Hi, Daddy.”

  “What are you reading?”

  She held up the book. He smiled. What little girl, crazy about horses, hadn’t read Misty of Chincoteague? “

  Emma started reading it to me and I’m finishing it.”

  He sat down beside her on the bed. “Smile for me, Claire.”

  Obediently the seam of her lips separated over her missing front teeth.

  “I have to tell you something sad,” he began.

  She waited expectantly, staring at him with Kristen’s blue eyes.

  He swallowed. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild, with a faery, hand in hand, for the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand. “Do you remember the story I told you about how Granddad brought our horses from Austria?”

  She nodded.

  “He never planned on keeping them here forever.”

  Again she nodded.

  He swallowed. “It’s time for them to go back to Austria.”

  She thought a minute. “Why?”

  Gabriel considered his promise of silence to Werner Pohl and decided it didn’t apply to Claire. “The Spanish Riding School needs our horses. Theirs are sick and can’t perform anymore.”

  “How did they get sick?”

  “Nobody really knows. They have a disease that makes their front legs lame.”

  “Will they get well after ours come?”

  “No. It isn’t the kind of sickness that gets better.”

  “Will our horses get sick?”

  Sometimes it amazed him the way her mind leaped. “No,” he said gently. “Ours won’t get sick.”

  “What will we do if we don’t have any more horses?”

  “We’ll have the stable and the dressage center. We’ll keep all the horses who aren’t Lipizzaners.”

  “Lorelei is a Lipizzaner.”

  He nodded. “I’m sorry, Claire. Lorelei has to go, too.”

  She slipped her small hand into his. “When?”

  He frowned. This couldn’t be as easy as it seemed. “Soon. Do you understand what I’m saying, Claire? Lorelei has to go to Austria. She won’t be here with us anymore.”

  “She has to go, Daddy. She wouldn’t be happy with all her foals and the rest of her friends gone.”

  “She wouldn’t?”

  “No. If we kept Lorelei, she’d be like Mommy.” Gabe was thoroughly confused. “How would she be like Mommy?”

  “She’d be away from her family and it would make her sad, like Mommy’s sad now.”

  “How do you know she’s sad?”

  Claire’s eyes widened. “Every time I see her, she looks sad. She says she misses us.”

  Gabe tucked a curl behind his daughter’s ear. “What do you think we should do so that Mommy isn’t sad?”

  She shrugged and resumed reading her book. Gabe understood the signs. Claire’s attention had wandered. The discussion was finished. He was surprised it had lasted as long as it had. He kissed her cheek and stood. “I’ll come back and turn out the light when it’s time for bed.”

  Claire, absorbed in Misty, didn’t reply.

  Gabe left a message on Whitney’s voice mail the following morning telling her he would accept the terms of the original contract. He didn’t expect a reply. By noon a copy of the contract had been faxed back to him and by three o’clock he’d returned it with the necessary signatures. At four o’clock he was seated with Eric and Emma beside Adam Winchester in the lawyer’s conference room. Kristen, her mother and their attorney sat on the other side of the table.

  Lynne spoke first. “I don’t think it was necessary to bring the children, Gabriel.”

  “They aren’t babies and this concerns them,” Gabe replied.

  “Still, I don’t think—”

  Kristen interrupted. “They’re already here, Mom. Let’s just move on, shall we?”

  Adam Winchester leaned forward. “It was my suggestion that Eric and Emma be here. It’s customary to have teenage children give their parents input on how they’re feeling about decisions that are made for them.”

  Lynne pursed her lips and settled back in her chair.

  Her lawyer, Jim Thatcher, spoke next. “Mrs. Chamberlain feels that the children should be with a blood relative, preferably their mother. Given Mrs. Mendoza’s schedule, however, that isn’t possible. Therefore, as their maternal grandmother, she is willing to take the children into her custody until their mother’s situation changes.”

  “Jim, that’s the most interesting custody interpretation I’ve ever heard,” said Winchester. “Where in the hell did you study family law?”

  “I see no reason to get personal, Mr. Winchester,” said the lawyer stiffly.

  “You can’t possibly think you can win this one in court.”

  “I certainly do.”

  Winchester hooted. “Let’s see, now.” He scratched his head. “We’ve got a mother who abandoned her children. We’ve got a widowed grandmother too old tohandle active teenagers. We’ve got a stepfather, the only father the children have ever known, who picked up the ball and who works within walking distance of the family home. You have two teenagers who want to stay right where they are. I wonder who the court will decide for?” His smile disappeared. “Get real, Thatcher. They obviously don’t pay you enough, or you wouldn’t have taken this one.”

  Jim Thatcher frowned. “Mr. Mendoza may be the only father they’ve known, but the fact remains that he isn’t their biological father. He didn’t even adopt them.”

  “Only because their late father’s social security benefits would cease—benefits, by the way, that Kristen Mendoza is still collecting, even though the children no longer live with her.”

  Thatcher protested. “I don’t see the relevance—”

  “It doesn’t matter whether you see it,” interrupted Winchester. “The point is, it’s illegal to collect m
oney for the support of children who are not dependents. The IRS frowns on fraud. Be assured they will be notified.”

  Kristen’s cheeks burned. She swallowed, ignored the attorney and looked at her children. “Is it true that you want to stay with your dad?”

  “Yes,” said Eric forcefully.

  Emma looked down at her hands.

  “What about you, Emma? Do you want to stay with Dad, too?”

  She sniffed. “I don’t know. I don’t want to leave Eric and Claire. I guess I want both of you to be together, like it was.”

  Kristen shook her head. “That isn’t going to happen, honey.”

  “Then I want to live with both of you, half the time with Dad and half with you.”

  “That isn’t possible, either.”

  Emma looked at her grandmother and her eyes filled. “I’m sorry, Grandma. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I don’t want to live at your house unless Mom lives there, too.”

  Gabe spoke up. “Kristen, if it’s a matter of money, we can work something out.”

  “It has nothing to do with money,” she said fiercely. “Don’t you see, I have to do this for myself. I don’t want to go back to the way it was, living in someone else’s house, always walking on eggshells.”

  Gabe couldn’t believe his ears. “What are you talking about?”

  “My sentiments exactly,” said Lynne. “What do you mean by walking on eggshells? When have I ever made you feel like that?”

  Kristen clenched her fists. “Of course you don’t know. Why would you? It wasn’t happening to you.”

  “We’re digressing,” Thatcher said.

  Adam Winchester held up his hand. “Hold on, Jim. We may be on to something here.”

  Six pairs of eyes stared at him.

  “We can resolve this,” he said easily. “Gabe wants the kids. Emma wants to live with both parents. Mrs. Mendoza doesn’t want to move back into someone else’s home.” He looked at Kristen. “What if you had your own home close enough so the kids could stay with you when you’re not touring?”