Aunt Crista hugged us as we stood beside the casket. Mom’s white skin gleamed like her Meissen porcelain. I reached out and touched a cheek. Cold and smooth. The stillness of her deflated chest was visceral after the hospital, where we had been buried among harried nurses and blinking lights, forbidden to touch dials or adjust more than blanket and pillow.
Cory sang “Satan’s Jewel Crown” during the service. Just him and that mandolin. When the final notes faded from the strings, he laid his head on the lectern. No one in the congregation drew a breath until I got up, took his arm and led him back in the silence to our pew.
It’s been ten years since the first time I went looking for him. Cory’s cleaned himself up a dozen times. He comes and goes. I never know which man may show up — the stranger, lost in a chemical haze, or my brother the musician, eager to play.
The phone wakes me. Crista’s weekly call. “Yes, he was here. No sign of him,” I tell her, peering into the guest room. The bed is rumpled but empty. I sigh. “I gave him some money last night.”
I hold the receiver away from my ear as Crista’s voice twangs into the room. “ — in god’s name did you do that, Lise? You know he’ll — ” I listen with half an ear as my aunt berates me, then cut her off.
“I don’t regret it. Damn it, Crista, we’ve been through this before.” Her voice winds down after a few minutes.
His voice and mandolin were the last sounds I had heard last night as I drifted off, wound together in a lullaby that soothed me straight back to childhood. But this morning, as I make coffee, I try not to think about debts or threats, but I feel a widening within my chest, as if an umbilical cord has loosened. Jon asked me once why I never send a private investigator to find my brother when he disappears. Too steep a price, I told him curtly. Ransoming the mandolin, and its disappearance so soon after, is another pair of waves sent toward a distant coast. We live on separate continents, my twin and me. I can bail him out forever, send wave after wave towards that invisible shore, or I can stop. Direct the current into my own life.
On my way to work, I wheel the Jeep west through the crowded traffic along 16th Avenue, and pull into the parking lot at Sharky’s. Sitting there, winter sunlight ice-pale around me, I can imagine Jon’s derisive voice when he learns what I am contemplating. I look down at my hands. In my inner ear, I hear the sea’s melody coursing, and as I walk into the pawn shop, I am suddenly, soberly, sure.
I’ll ask Rusty to teach me to play, finally begin my own apprenticeship. Jon would appreciate that. Maybe Cory will too, and maybe he’ll never notice.
I leave Sharky’s with the red guitar’s battered case and a music stand bumping and kissing around the backs of my knees like shy teenagers on the beach.
Nerve
FROM MY PERCH ALONG THE RAIL, I can’t fault the start of Hailey’s dressage test — smooth halt, precise nodding salute to the judges. But the bloody girl’s torso is so stiff, I’m completely surprised when Rumi glides into the half-paused aria of a collected trot. Then I see Hailey’s backbone ease into her saddle, and my own body relaxes, too. Maybe they’ll be fine. Maybe. She nudges Rumi into a canter and I’m momentarily lulled. But a minute later, she inexplicably pulls him to a halt in front of the judges’ table. Bloody hell. She must have forgotten the next movement. I can just imagine what Stan will have to say about this. Her pop’s down at the gate, doing a slow burn, scattering cigarette ashes as the clerk reads the next movement, his measured voice loud enough for the whole stadium to hear. Watching Hailey’s flushed face as she listens, I wonder where I buried my old top hat. If I can find it, it would do her more justice than that faded helmet she wears, give her a little dignity.
The ride goes downhill from there. Hailey’s definitely rattled, and after her closing salute, heading out of the ring, she takes a quick sliding glance at her father, dismay written all over her face. Six months of schooling and hard work down the tube. But she’s got spunk, and recovers in time to give Nate a quick thumbs-up just as his crazy mare shies at the nodding lilies edging the ring. Hailey’s just sixteen. It must be hard for her not to feel envious of Nate; at twenty-three, he seems unflappable, even during their group jumping lessons when everything that mare does goes to sixes and sevens.
My cane catches in the sand as I hobble toward the barn, hoping to reach her ahead of Stan. I’m not surprised she hasn’t asked about my limp. She’s so obviously used to a whiphand, she likely expects I’d unleash my “none of your bloody business” glare on her. Six months ago, I would have. Not now. This girl doesn’t need another cutting-down.
But if I unloaded a few well-chosen bricks on her pop’s head and ditch him as a paying customer, who’ll look out for her and Rumi?
I first met them when they drove out to my ranch late last autumn to inquire about lessons. As Stan swung out of his truck, I noticed his fingernails, edged in black, his denim shirt straining across his torso, his narrow-lipped mouth pulled tight. I knew right away that he was a man I’d not be too eager to cross, certainly not what my old Ma would have called “a fine upstanding gentleman.”
His first words to me: “That fence could use some paint.” I shrugged it off, my eye on the gawky goosegirl behind him, her long neck retreating at his tone as she unloaded her horse, a spanky penny-bright Arab with a dishy face and wide white blaze. “I worked as a stablehand as a kid back in Ontario,” he said, watching his daughter tack up. “Mucked out more’n enough stalls. I had enough of shovelling it. It’s time to be the guy at the bridle end collecting the trophies.” I told him we’d see right enough about that.
My ranch is a modest one, twenty acres of hillside north of Cochrane, perched above the Ghost River, complete with a tiny leaky house and a cranky gas range, a stony garden, and an airy hip-roofed barn. The hills swoop past the barn; coyotes, deer and a fearless mother skunk with three kits all regularly emerge from the coulees to investigate my yard. I adore the place, and I’ve sweated like a navvy so it — and I — can earn our keep. I walk the entire fence line every day to check on my lame boarders, Molly and Pistachio, both retired racehorses, out grazing on the north slope’s spring fescue. If they were mine, I’d shoot both and buy some young stock with promise, but their board pays a big bite of the rent.
Recently, my landlord’s been making noises about selling, and now the grumpy old bugger’s close to putting a bill of sale on the table. Ma’s bit of cash will just cover the down payment, but the rest is up to me. It’s been five Canadian winters since Ethan left me. Since I left England. I thought I’d gotten over missing riding, but when my back aches in winter, I remember all too acutely how it feels to ride a horse’s arcing spine en route to heaven, life stretching toward the infinite, the unexplainable, the incalculable. Living in those silent hills feels like compensation for what I’ve lost.
By the time I reach the stable, Hailey has ditched her helmet and jacket in the manger. She eases Rumi’s bridle over his ears, slips his halter into place and bends her face to nuzzle his cheeks without a word. Well, at least she’s not crying. Lord knows I howled the first time I forgot a test.
Her father pushes past me and grabs the bridle. He fills the aisle, shaking the bit in hands as broad as a Percheron’s hooves.
“Stan,” I say, making bloody sure my tone is at even keel, “we all forget a test at one time or other. Goes with the territory. I’ll handle this.”
“I’m the one footing the tab. Kindly step out of my way, Coralie, so I can talk to my daughter.”
“I’ll thank you to be keeping a civil tone. And keep your voice down. I’ll not have you upsetting the horses, too.”
He turns his back and drops the decibels, but it’s sharpened by that edge I first heard when he set foot on my ranch, the sarcasm of a poor man who likes what he sees and can’t figure out how to have it for himself. “Hailey, you’ve disappointed me. Your one job was to memorize the damn test.”
Hailey leans on Rumi’s far side, her horse a shield, her face hidden against h
is ribs. Her shoulders start to heave. With nowhere else to look that won’t embarrass her, I pluck her jacket and helmet from the manger, brush off the oats and hay, and stare at Stan’s workboots, their steel toes gleaming through the worn leather.
Stan’s voice drops even more, and I have to lean in to hear him. “Coralie says you’ve got promise. If you’re not going to take this seriously, I’ll sell the horse.” He holds out the bridle without looking at me, drops it, stalks away. The bit cracks against my elbow. I keep my back turned as I hang the bridle on its hook, just in case Hailey needs a wee bit of what these Canadians so blandly call “space.” When I turn around, her skin has lost a little of the grey tightness around the eyes that settles into her every time Stan is around. She lifts her face from Rumi’s coat. The gelding whickers and nudges at her arm.
“Odds are he doesn’t mean it, Hailey.”
“Yes, he does,” she says. “He’s a bully.”
“He is that.” A terrible thought occurs to me, and I study her covertly, wondering. Surely not.
She reads my mind. “He’s never hit me, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Let it go, girl. Julia’s on deck. Let’s go watch her ride.” My words sound lame even to me, and Hailey’s silent rebuff skewers me as we leave the stable.
Julia’s performance is flawless. She’s a natural. Everything’s easy for her, I suspect, her life a non-stop curve of ups and dipsy-doodles without the emotional elevator falls that Hailey endures. Julia’s blonde ponytail can always be spotted at the centre of a group of riders drinking coffee and comparing notes. Her family is old Alberta money, and her custom-made jacket, its red-lined tail flipping in the breeze, cost ten times what I spend on oats each month.
Julia exits the ring, leaning forward in her saddle and hugging her mare’s dappled neck, her breeches snug over her arse. Mindful of the younger girl, still sniffling, standing at my shoulder, I simply nod in acknowledgement as Julia halts her mare, pulls off her top hat and shakes out her hair while listening to Nate’s analysis of her test, and I fiddle with the program in my hands.
“Why doesn’t your mother come along?” I ask Hailey sotto voce, and immediately kick myself for my obtuseness.
Hailey’s face screws up. “Work. She gets a shift premium for working nights at the hospital. She sleeps days.”
Her mother didn’t come to the previous competition last month either, a brilliant blue June afternoon in the foothills near Priddis, just beyond Calgary’s southernmost suburbs. Hailey and Rumi got lost on the cross-country course and were eliminated. That’s not so unusual for a novice, but you’d have thought the world had come to a bloody crashing end, the way Stan carried on. He wouldn’t look at his daughter, and it was me who finally helped her bandage Rumi’s legs at the afternoon’s end. Hailey was hunched like an old deckhand as she loaded him into the trailer. As they drove away, she stared out the passenger window, her face bleak. I imagine that the silence lasted all the way to my barn and along the winding highway to their home in northwest Calgary.
Mothering is not on the books along with teaching. I’ve got more than enough on my own plate — I don’t want to get tangled in those lives, no matter how much I sympathize with the girl, who’s obviously drawn the short straw in the father category. I place my hand on Hailey’s shoulder, neutral territory, and summon up my best Brit-backbencher tone. “Let it go, girl. You’ve got the cross-country to think about next. Find a quiet spot to review your map. I’ll go check on the horses.”
Stan waylays me as I pass his camper en route to the barn, a cigarette clenched between those tight lips.
“Stan, you can’t smoke here.”
He stubs the match under his boot, puffing unrepentantly. “Keep her head in the game, Coralie. I’ve got plans for that horse, maybe even the Olympics eventually if that kid can keep her wits about her. A gold medal in the china cabinet would be just the ticket.”
“You’re joking, surely. She’s a novice, and Rumi is no international-level horse. That calibre of animal would set you back thousands and thousands! And Hailey may never — ”
He cuts me off. “So maybe not the Olympics, but I put in a double shift every day last month, plumbing that new subdivision on the west side to pay for this little jaunt. She’s damn well gonna stick with it.”
“You can’t expect her to redeem your childhood, Stan. She’s just a kid.”
“Kids are supposed to make their parents proud, Coralie. That’s what I’m payin’ you for. You don’t want the job? I’ll find someone else.”
There. He’s played his trump card. “You’re pushing too hard, Stan. Let her scratch. She’s nerved out.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
We’re in the barn when the announcer reads out the standings, metallic echoes chipping corners off the rafters. Julia stands second and Nate is a respectable sixth. Hailey is in a clutch near the bottom, tied for sixteenth.
Sympathetic Nate gets there ahead of me. “Don’t sweat it, kiddo,” he says gently from the adjacent stall. “You’ve got more events ahead. We all have off days.”
“You’re lucky your dad is so interested in your riding, Hailey,” Julia calls from Astral’s stall. “Maybe he’d like to walk the course with us.” Talk about tactless. All that money hasn’t taught her anything about how fragile the human heart really is. I ought to take her aside for a serious girl-talk.
Nate, watching Hailey’s face, quickly interjects. “Hailey’s dad told me earlier that he’s not walking it.”
I turn back to Hailey, on her knees beside her horse, a brush in her hand. When she starts a tuneless humming, he drops his head to hers, and she reaches blindly to stroke his muzzle. It’s a tender sight, and I feel a slight whiffle of relief — at least she has Rumi to love.
“Hailey,” I say, conscious of sounding like a drone, “pay attention to what’s at hand. Do you want to finish this competition?” She won’t look at me, her attention fixed on Rumi, stroking his shins gently. Finally she nods without looking up. It’s not the wholehearted “Yes!” I had hoped for, but it’s better than a flat denial. “All right then.” I turn to my other students. “Grab a sandwich and your rainjackets. I’ll meet you in the yard.”
Straw rustles as they leave the stable. Hailey rubs her nose. She looks pale. I take her arm and lead her to a secluded stall. “Sit down on this bale. Catch your breath. In a few minutes, we’ll just — ”
“Get on with it?”
“Yes. Exactly. We’ll just get on with it.” I shrug and gently tap Hailey’s forehead with my forefinger. “Life is never fair, Hailey. It’s rarely even halfway bloody decent. I learned that the hard way from my old Ma.”
As I briskly rub her cold hand, an echoing numbness runs through my pelvis and my thigh, just as it had that rainy day at Aintree, when Ma’s stallion, Austin, clipped a rail. Flipped in mid-air. Landed on me, smashed my thigh bone. My knee was — well, everyone knows how I walk. I’ll never ride again, and I can’t have kids, something happened to my pelvis. Ma always said they should have put me down and let the damned horse live. She blamed me until they put her in her grave. And Stan is almost as cold a bugger.
“You have to grow some backbone, girl. It’s your life, not his.”
“Your old Ma and my Dad would have made a fine pair.”
It’s the first show of humour she’s mustered all afternoon.“No doubt. Now let’s go walk the course.”
Stan is at the barn door, studying the immaculate white and green fences edging the paddocks. Hailey ducks away as he beckons.
“You go on ahead, Hailey,” I tell her. “I won’t be a minute. Stan, a word. Then I have to walk the course with the girls and Nate.”
“Ah, relax. Ya got plenty of time. This is the life, eh, Coralie? What I want for Hailey.” He nods at the buildings. “I know rich folks. I saw how they live, back east. Like this.” He nudges me and winks. “You need to get yourself a rich man, Coralie. Then you could fix up that plain-Jane bit y
ou rent. Start your own string. Maybe build an outfit like this. That’s what it takes — horses, and land. Money. Hailey’s gotta learn that.”
“Money? That’s the worst reason to have a horse, Stan. That’s not the reason your girl rides.”
He makes a pawing motion, as if halfway considering a grab at my arm, but thinks better of it. “About this afternoon. Maybe my kid can gain some ground, right?”
“Stan, Hailey will be lucky to finish the course. You should let her — ”
“What, quit? Balls. No one gets anywhere by quitting. Speaking of, that gelding has balls enough for both of them.” He turns away, lighting the next cigarette.
As I head toward my waiting students, I ponder the unanswerable. How does he sleep at night? That cold, voracious appetite. Then I remember the one decent thing my mother did for me, and my face burns. Land. I want the deed to my little bit of hillside. My inheritance adds up to a tidy down payment on my own appetite.
Walking the course gives me a chance to settle my thoughts, although Hailey grumbles at the first fence, a bullfinch, its low wooden frame stuffed with scraggy shrubbery in full yellow flower. We pace twelve strides from the bullfinch to a narrow railway barrier, a dangling triangle, all air and red stripes. A bent jackpine as a landmark at the turn off the track. Then a sloppy stack of bales and a stone wall, its pillars festooned with orange kite tails.
Halfway through the course, Nate peers over a split rail fence perched on the lip of the ridge. “Blitz is gonna love this drop,” he says. Beyond it, the track plunges down the belly of an old gravel pit.
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