The Horsewoman(50)

FIFTY-SEVEN

Daniel



BECKY HAD GONE to Coral Gables for a couple of days to visit her old college roommate. According to Maggie and Caroline, they had found a note from Becky on the kitchen table. She needed a break and would be back on Wednesday to ride Sky. Until then, she wrote, Don’t miss me too much.

Now it was Tuesday morning. Day two of Daniel being back in the ring with Maggie Atwood.

“Listen,” Maggie said to him now. “I need to say this while Becky isn’t around. We’re all going to have to get used to the new normal.”

Normal? Daniel thought. This family?

“Fair enough,” he said.

“Don’t sound so enthusiastic,” Maggie said.

Maybe she’d always been this edgy, and he had forgotten. Today was starting out as awkwardly between them as yesterday had when Maggie had just been waiting for him in the ring, she and Emilio having already saddled Coronado. No request that Daniel continue to train her beyond “Let’s do this,” and they went right to work.

But this, Daniel knew, was about more than the horses and the women in this family riding them. So much more. Daniel, for all his misgivings and anger about the way she had pulled the rug—the horse, really—out from underneath her daughter, felt he owed her his best efforts.

He watched her do small jumps now, after having just trotted the horse the day before. She looked stiff in the saddle, as if afraid to even change her position slightly.

“You need to watch your posture, Maggie,” he called out to her. “Shoulders back more, where they used to be.”

“Small problem, Daniel,” she yelled back to him. “A lot of things aren’t where they used to be. You may have heard, some of my furniture got rearranged.”

Tread carefully, he told himself.

She is still your boss.

“I told myself it would be like riding a bike,” she said. “Guess what? It’s not. My mind isn’t fully connecting with my body.”

“I’d like to see you press down harder into the stirrups,” he said. “You’re standing up more than you used to.”

“I know,” she said.

The edge again, the words brittle.

He’d set the rail at three feet, a height girls in the Hunters ring could clear with ease. Her distance was fine on the first jump she’d had on Coronado in a long time. The horse’s form was perfect. Daniel closed his eyes briefly and tried to imagine her executing the same kind of jump at 1.6 meter in the International Arena.

Could not.

Maggie circled back around. Jumped the big horse again. As she landed him Daniel could see her wince, revealing the strain on her face, the tension in her whole body.

“Better,” he said.

“Be honest, please,” Maggie said, slowing the horse and coming in his direction.

“I have never been a good liar,” he said. “You should know that by now.”

Except when I need to be, especially with your daughter.

She said, “Do you honestly believe I can ride this horse in a Grand Prix in two weeks?”

He believed she would jump in that ring two weeks from now. But she was asking him how well he thought she would do.

“If you are going to be ready,” he answered, “you need to ride as much as your body can stand. So even though you are finished with Coronado for today, I would now like you to ride Sky.”

“Nope,” she said. “Not happening. Not riding Becky’s horse.”

“She rode yours,” Daniel said.

“This is different,” she said.

“I’m not asking you to jump her if you’d rather not,” Daniel said. “She needs a light workout, perhaps a half hour, tops. Or less.”

She was the boss.

Finally, Maggie gave in.

Daniel went to the barn to get Sky ready, brought her back out, helped Maggie up. Her left leg went into the stirrup first, but as she swung her right leg over and settled herself into the saddle, Daniel heard her exhale sharply in pain.

“Enjoy the ride you are about to have,” Daniel said, grinning. “I know that you will.”

“Pretty sure of yourself.”

“With this horse?” he said. “Yes. Very sure.”

Right away Daniel could see Maggie’s face light up with joy, as if in bright colors. Could see her posture suddenly improve and her attitude along with it. Saw her smiling for the first time in two days, as if abandoning for the moment she was not in competition with herself, and her own ambition, and expectations. Saw her effortlessly picking up speed. The joy Becky regained from riding Sky again full time had now passed to her mother.

“I’m going to jump her,” Maggie called out to him from the other end of the ring.

She looked over at Daniel.

“You knew, didn’t you?” she said.

He smiled and nodded.

After about ten minutes, she held up a finger. One more.

“Go for it,” Daniel said.

“This is why I came back!” Maggie yelled from the far end of the ring. “This horse makes you feel like you’re floating!”

As Daniel watched Maggie and Sky float one last time, landing the jump perfectly, he heard the sound of a slow, rhythmic clapping.

Becky was standing at the barn.