What Can't Be Undone

by dee Hobsbawn-Smith

  Hailey’s face whitens, and in that instant, I decide where to position myself to watch my students as they ride the course. “What’s this?” she cries in despair, gesturing at the tangled thickets of wild roses that line the narrow path below us.

  I look squarely at her, inject steel into my voice. “These fences are no bigger than what you’ve been schooling Rumi over, just different shapes. Do you want to scratch?”

  “I can’t scratch, Coralie. My father would never forgive me.”

  When we return to the yard, I catch her staring at the plywood map posted on the barn wall.

  “If you think too much about falling, you’ll fall for sure. Look past the jump, to where you want to land. It’s like the bullfinch, Hailey, a leap of faith.”

  “All I can see is Rumi falling.”

  “He won’t. Not if you approach the jump properly. Not if you trust him.”

  Her hands are shaking as she turns away.

  It is raining steadily by the time the first horse heads on course. Stan, an enormous yellow slicker draped serape-style over one shoulder, stalks off to find a viewpoint without a word to Hailey. I am glad to see him go; anything he might say could only make things worse.

  “Don’t rush your fences,” I murmur, holding Rumi by his bridle while Hailey mounts. “You have lots of time.” I hand her a pair of gloves. “You’ll need these. Be brave.” When Hailey pulls the crumpled map from her breeches pocket, I crinkle my nose and wink. “You know the route, Hailey. Trust yourself.”

  Hailey’s half-laugh almost reassures me until I hear the quaver in her voice as Rumi tries to shy. “Cut it out, Rumi!” She kicks him into a canter, circles, comes back and halts beside me. I should have scratched her entry myself, and the devil take the hindmost. Too late now. “I know what you’re thinking,” she says, “but I’m not doing this for him. I’m doing it for Rumi. He deserves this chance.”

  “Bravo.” I hold up two thumbs as she trots away, but I simply don’t believe her. Not after watching her with Stan for the past six months. My mouth fills, the black metal of empathy. I’d ride the course for her if I could.

  A deep-chested black leaps over the warm-up jump, with Rumi five strides back. At the start line, the black bursts into a gallop and heads for the first fence.

  Three minutes later, the starter’s air-pistol barks and Hailey moves Rumi across the line at a canter. I watch long enough to see him sail through the bullfinch’s gaping blossoms, then pull my head in like a turtle’s and limp down the spectators’ shortcut to the bottom of the quarry. I’ll have to hurry to watch Hailey take the drop fence. Should have scratched her. Should have. I am abruptly aware of the cold raindrops dripping from my beret onto my neck. At the stone wall, its kites flickering like Chinese dragons, I see Stan perched on a rock. He waves as I limp past to the split rail, then edge down the hillside. When I reach the viewing spot at its base, my heart is pounding and my leg aches. By the time I catch my breath, the black horse ahead of Hailey skids down the slope, his rider bent double over his neck.

  I look up the hill at the sound of Hailey’s raised voice. “Come on, Rumi! You can do it!”

  An ominous double-beat rattle, Rumi’s hooves, catching the top rail. I see him, silhouetted against the sky, arcing over the fence, and Hailey, shaken loose, a rag-doll against his withers.

  Rumi’s shoulders crumple, his hind heels cartwheel overhead, and they somersault down the hill. Gravity pulls Hailey inexorably out of the saddle. As she falls free and rolls, I see again the thrashing legs of my mother’s stallion, scrabbling and panicking as he fell. My pelvis throbs, just as it had, hot and cold by turn.

  When Hailey hits the quarry’s bottom, a deadfall of blackened logs halts her momentum. Rumi lands on his side, jammed against a clump of aspens. I lurch through the loose gravel and sand toward Hailey, swearing with each step. When I reach her, Hailey’s eyes are closed although tears are spilling down her cheeks. Her entire left leg is buried under the deadfall. Blood drips from her nose onto her gloves.

  The fence judge runs up behind me from the observers’ station and grabs my arm. “Don’t touch her!”

  Hailey opens her eyes, spits out a mouthful of blood and stares around her. In her face, I see the exact moment when she realizes what has happened. “Rumi!” He lifts his head at the sound of her voice and whickers, foam and blood splattering his chest and the leaves under his neck.

  Crouching beside her, I whisper. “Hailey. Can you hear me?” She barely nods. “This man will help you. I’ll see to Rumi.” I leave her under the close eye of the official and hobble the ten feet to Rumi, kneel beside him, take his bridle and lay his head down on the dirt. He grunts, then sighs. His front legs are crossed like an old granny’s at tea, one shin buckling at an odd double angle, sure evidence of a compound fracture. “Get the vet!”

  The walkie-talkie crackles. I swivel and watch the jump judge gently brush Hailey’s face clean, a cloth blotting the blood beneath her nose, his grey raincoat draped over her. It should be her father beside her, tending her, but he’s nowhere in sight. Within me, anger lights its quick fuse, a spark against the long burn of guilt. I shove both down. Later will be enough time to face what needs facing.

  “Hailey, I’m over here with Rumi.” I see her shudder. “Cry if you need to. Swear like a sailor, damn it. It might help. I’ll be right there, just soon as the vet — ” Soon enough will be too soon for her, so I clench back the rest of the words, think about my mother. Her stiff upper lip that held me far from her.

  The rain slows. Blood puddles on the ground beneath Rumi’s jaw. He lies quietly, his ears stilled, his ribs slowly moving, my hand smoothing his neck, hypnotically stroking. The sound of running footsteps doesn’t rouse him, but Hailey murmurs as the vet hurries down the same path I had followed.

  He looks at me questioningly. “You okay to help?” At my nod, he extends a hand and I scramble to my feet. He scowls as he stares at the downed horse. “We’ll have to roll him clear of the trees. Grab his hooves on that side. Ready? On my count.” I cup two black hooves in my hands. “One. Two. Roll!” The saddletree cracks. Rumi’s scream is almost human. The vet touches my arm. “I’ll be back in a minute. I left my rifle in the truck.”

  “My horse!” Hailey’s voice wavers behind me.

  I drop to my knees beside Rumi and flatten my palms against his long cheekbones, gather my breath and pray, long slow seconds of losing myself, this is not what I want, god, not what I want, god don’t let this happen to her too, not on my watch. I had forgotten that I knew how. Under my hands, Rumi’s breath flutters. I slow my inhalations, try to sense his breathing slowing with me. Several minutes pass, and I am lightheaded when I manage to look at Hailey.

  Two paramedics have arrived, and set a stretcher on the ground beside her. One buries a needle in her arm. “Sorry, miss. This’ll help.” He nods to the jump judge, who pries the deadfall off her leg with a metal bar.

  The vet returns and brusquely tugs my arm. “Step back.” I retreat. At Hailey’s side, stumbling over the stretcher handle, I drop my cane and crouch at her shoulder, take her hand, her bloody glove limp between my fingers. Behind us, the dull click of cartridges chambering into the vet’s rifle.

  “Hailey,” I say. “Look at me. Don’t watch.”

  In the silence, I hear the whisper of raindrops on leaves, clods of dirt and a sifting of wet sand trickling down the hillside. Hailey’s gaze slides past my face. I turn my head, tracking her sightline as she watches Stan skid down the hill. His eyes are fixed not on his daughter, but on the vet, sighting down the barrel of his rifle. I try to pray again, but my prayers are all about me, my little piece of land, my days on its hillside. After the bullet has worked its mercies, I know with hard, bare certainty that I will ream Stan with words like the harshest spurs, then walk away from him. But not from this broken girl with the dim light of hospitals and horses in her eyes.

  The hand in mine convulsively tightens. All her longing coalesces, the
n her face pinches closed, as plain to read as light on leaves. “Hailey,” I whisper. “You’ll go riding again. In the hills behind my barn. No fences, no jumping. Just you and the horses.”

  The Good Husband

  “I HAVE TWO CHOICES,” George tells me, then he lights another smoke. A cigarette is constantly in his mouth, except for when he carries Trudy in and out of her garden. Her litany of illnesses over the last two years is long, from female complaints to irritable bowel. She doesn’t need carrying but he persists, the habit formed after her accident, a fall from the stage that wrenched her life into its present narrow shape. Trudy slid from painkillers to this other form of dependence that would have made my Astrid weep to witness.

  We are drinking coffee in my back yard, sitting in the chairs that Astrid painted, oranges and pinks splattered over a solid teal background. “What do you mean, two choices?” I say.

  “You know. Faithful. Or not.”

  “C’mon, George, marriage is more complicated than that.” Then I stop to reflect.

  Trudy lives in a shabby blue bathrobe. I doubt if she combs her hair from one day to the next. When I pass through my gate adjoining their yard, she waves half-heartedly. I rarely hear her voice anymore, and her movements have faded to a shuffle. Seems like she has settled permanently into her starring role as an invalid. She was a jazz dancer, the full grace of God in her arms, legs, even her hands. A torso rippling with muscles, platinum hair to her waist. Watching her was like watching a river. Before her accident, she choreographed and performed a one-woman show that Astrid and George and I attended at the Arts Centre, a torrential event of charged sexuality. She and George came over after the show’s premiere. Trudy was still high, and swept Astrid around the kitchen in a spinning waltz that had George and me dumbstruck. “There’s no room in art for milquetoast,” she said as I poured the champagne. Now she shuffles, and seems older than Astrid was when she died.

  “No, you’re right, George,” I say and sip my coffee, “it isn’t complicated after all. You’re in or you’re out. But the choice should be easy, man. Treasure her. Each day is a gift.” As I say it, I remember my sunlit final days with Astrid. The pain of losing her is still there. Morning and evening, I stumble over missing moments. I can’t get used to their echo.

  George lights another cigarette and ponders. “Why would a middle-aged couple meet in a parking lot?” he finally asks, squirming.

  Another breath-held morning. Astrid’s perennials are in bloom, sprawling across the beds, climbing the fence. It’s been three years. Those flowers are almost unbearable. Last spring, I swore I’d rip out the beds and put down gravel, but they remind me of her. So Dina, our neighbour Lorraine’s daughter, weeds the beds for me. She’s a university student, still at home. She brings lemonade in the evenings, and we share it when she’s finished sweating and digging, just as Astrid and I used to. This house rattles with thirty years of memories.

  “C’mon, George, there’s lots of reasons for people to meet in a parking lot.”

  “That park near the Stampede grounds we visited the year Astrid was so stuck on rock gardens, that parking lot. Walking through it last week, I saw a couple there, way past middle-aged, he had grey hair and a limp. They got out of two cars, and ran to meet each other. Like kids. They had their hands all over each other … ”

  I’m starting to wonder. Has George been getting some action while Trudy’s been so sick? It’s been two years since her accident.

  “Alex, did you and Astrid stop — you know? When she was so sick.” George and I have talked about many things over the years, but sex has never been one of them. But here he is blushing like a teenager. “Never mind, I didn’t mean to pry.”

  He stubs out his cigarette and leans across the table. His belly juts against the chair’s arm. George manages a supermarket in the south end of town. He used to be a produce buyer for the chain, travelling to China, California, Chile, visiting farms and looking for perfect fruit and vegetables. Since Trudy’s illness, he gets no farther than pacing the produce department. A lot of weight has accumulated, mentally and physically.

  “At work,” he says, sounding sheepish, “there’s this jock in marketing, his wife’s a hot babe. He hangs out at the gym, talks about the old days, football, mostly, being the quarterback, all that. But lately he’s been talking about — well, chat rooms and sex in motels, and in his car, and in the sales room once, for chrissakes, a blow job. Some woman was under the table, kneeling between the sample cases of organic apples. I walked in with a stack of orders in my hand and her ass was front and centre. Sex is all he has on his mind. He says his wife won’t put out now that she’s pregnant.”

  “George. What’s this go to do with you and Trudy? Wait a sec … You haven’t, have you? Have you?”

  His silence is answer enough.

  Well, who am I to judge? Although I never did step out on Astrid, I did my share of looking. And before we met, there was this one woman, a dancer like Trudy. I met her in my last year at university, the year I wrote my first play. We used to meet backstage after rehearsals. What she could do with her legs would make a contortionist envious.

  “I couldn’t help it,” says George, looking hangdog. “Once. A woman from my gym. The only time I can touch Trudy anymore is when I help her in or out of bed. Or carry her out here. And that damn dressing gown, well, you’ve seen it, Alex, it’s all she’ll wear. I’d lie down and die for her if she’d just — ”

  I drink my coffee. The silence lengthens. George walks into my kitchen, brings back the carafe, pours us each another mug. He hands me the brown sugar. I keep my eyes on the coffee I’m stirring. The spoon goes round and round the mug without clinking.

  “The worst of it is the pills. Her doc has her on this bizarre cocktail, and she’s either sleeping or drugged to the eyeballs, and when she’s doped up she says the most god-awful things.”

  “What do you mean? Trudy’s a sweetie.”

  “She is. But she keeps saying she’s had enough. And then she shuts up and cries. Between that and no … Well, like I said. I was at the gym — ”

  “George! Stop, for crying out loud. I don’t want to hear the details.”

  “I gotta tell somebody, man. I can’t stand myself, and she’s so sick.”

  When I look up, Trudy is standing just inside my yard.

  George nearly trips as he rushes over to her. “Hey, sweetie, come sit down. How’s your head today?”

  She murmurs so quietly he bends his head to hear.

  “Are you sure?”

  She nods.

  “All right then. Alex, Trudy is wondering if you’d like to come for lunch. Saturday.”

  I haven’t been inside their house since Trudy’s fall. Looking through their window is as close as I have gotten. I flounder a bit, trying to figure out the sea change.

  “Um. You sure you’re up to it? ”

  She smiles, a ghost of the old Trudy. George wraps one arm around her waist as they leave my yard. I’m relieved to see them go. Our houses almost touch, kitchen windows eye to eye, side-by-side back decks, our glass balconies practically kissing on the upper floor. I see and hear so much of their lives as it is, I feel like a card-carrying voyeur. George’s exposure is more than I can stand. Astrid and I had a habit of silence, me engrossed in my current play, her reading the latest Mavis Gallant or flipping through the New Yorker. Sharp humour instead of histrionics. Control in spades, most of the time.

  When Astrid got so ill so quickly, solicitude came easily: we both knew she’d come home to die, we had made that promise, that we’d not let the other die in a hospital bed. But not so soon. She was only fifty-three. She was still keeping the interns on their toes at the law firm.

  The ambulance drivers set her gently in our double bed, her oxygen tubes carefully arranged. When they left, I stretched out beside her and put my arms around her as if she was bone china.

  “Come on, Alex. Really hold me,” she said. Not briskly, but matter-of-fact
. So I made love to her, doing my best to ignore the tubes and the oxygen tank, wondering how many more times I’d embrace her. She was home for a week. She had been sleeping, a long mid-afternoon nap with the blinds wide open to the sun, and I had crawled under the duvet to cradle her long body against me. She never woke. I was grateful it had been so peaceful for her. But I wish I’d had more mornings to bring her breakfast in the garden and make her lunch. Her absence is not just a hole in my life. It’s my life, ending too, on a slow winding path back to her garden.

  The next morning, over coffee on the upstairs balcony, I see George pour Trudy’s tea, and I hear his cowboy boots follow her when she meanders out of my sight. Their voices are as clear as if they were sitting here, not two walls removed.

  “Here, sweetie. Eat some melon, you liked it last week. Try it?”

  Cutlery clatters, then her slippers shush past the back door onto the deck. She avoids looking up at me, and the waft of tobacco floats by.

  The sun is still high when he comes home from work with a full grocery bag. An hour later, I’m fixing a drink in the kitchen to the heavy scent of grilling steaks and smoke drifting from his grill. Although George says she barely eats, Trudy’s belly is puffy, distended by the dope her doctor has her on. But while George’s attention is fixed on the grill, I see her hands, normally placid on her lap, fiddling with the steak knives and salt shaker. Her jaw is set, her eyebrows wrenched together with tension. A while later, the steak on her plate goes to the kitchen untouched.

  At two AM, I’m settled in a comforter on Astrid’s old divan on the balcony, moon-watching. Coyotes, madrigals in four part harmony, the late night sky ruffled with melody. My hair damp against my neck. Downstairs and through the glass doors, George is clearly visible. His bulky shape is outlined through the lace curtains, his back to me as he stands at the counter with his hands in the sink. Cigarette smoke curling above his head. He doesn’t look up, although I think by the set of his neck, he knows I am here. I’m puzzled. Trudy hasn’t cooked in months. What has triggered her unexpected interest? Did she hear George’s comments about her drugs? Or about his straying? Or neither? That seems hard to believe. This invitation is too abrupt to be coincidence. As I finish my mint tea, waiting to hear the coyotes again, I try to ignore the small sounds, perhaps sobbing, that filter through their kitchen window.