Horsekeeping (15 page)

From then on, this tragedy branded Dad and me, and the Marys forlornly shook their heads in our direction, a miming Greek chorus. I swallowed all pity by refusing to be pitiful. Still I felt marked, tattooed, and strength seemed my only life raft. In my confused attempt to spare Dad more pain, and though I forced tears when he took me across the street
into the woods to tell me, I never cried about it again. At nine, I was too old to act the baby, and too young to be grown-up, but I opted for the adult route. I packed up my heart and became the woman of the house, ironing, cleaning, cooking, organizing—at least in my own mind—and stoically muscled through to bolster Dad. We carried on, in fits and starts, and he and I made good lives for ourselves, first together and then apart. We try not to dwell on the past, though that effort keeps it present, and we have much to be thankful for. But nearly forty years later, we both live on high alert, bracing ourselves against the next catastrophe.

When I had my own children, I realized that a nine-year-old boy still has a high-pitched little girl voice, still needs to be tucked into bed at night and wants his head held when sick. But for me the bell went off too early, and I raced toward a less-tender adulthood, indoctrinated to life's blows. And once that first burst is made, there is no gathering that momentum back into the starting gate, stepmother or no. When my mother died I was handed a bag of grief. If I had been a few years younger, I'd have held it for awhile and set it down, forgetting it. Had I been older, twelve or thirteen, I'd probably have clutched it a while longer and then slowly would have unpacked it, placing memories here and there, spreading bits of her around to release the pain, emptying the bag. At barely nine however, I held that full bag, tending it carefully, and never let it go. Unlike the Spanish moss, my grief never disintegrated. What a loss my mother was to me and our little world.

But she had awakened me to the magic of the woods. My rural affinities connect me to her and reach deep emotionally and back chronologically to times infused with essential elements of childhood, adventures and loss. My home in, and appreciation of, more authentically rural northwest Connecticut is built upon my mother's securely laid nature foundation. Just that the “wild” was important to her, that she was deeply affected, was enough. A romantic at heart, she valued nature and I took notice.

Once she died I engaged the country as a tool to remember until the pain dulled and nature grew pleasurable in its own right. I share “wild”
adventures with my own children, both by subtle example and outright manipulation. I make sure they get outside: in Connecticut we routinely brave ticks and bears to traipse through the woods around our house, kicking through the stream in our Wellies, building forts, crashing through the undergrowth collecting beetles, frogs and spotted salamanders, theorizing over rotted animal carcasses, toting home skulls and femurs, startling deer, picking wild berries, and not forgetting to sit and hear the wind rustling the trees' canopy, the crack and thud of a falling branch, the water smoothing river stones, the bark of a crow, the woods' collective non-silence. Rather than grow apart from my mother all the years I approached and passed her age, I understood her better.

CHAPTER EIGHT

A Horse Is a Horse, of Course, of Course

T
HE NEGLECTED BARN inhaled a huge breath, like a surfacing whale too long submerged. Everyone “heard” it, felt it, commented on it when cracked plastic windows were pried off, stuck doors swung open and cleansing air allowed to circulate. Builder Gary and his crew power washed decades of dirt and spider mastery away. A new roof sported ten skylights that angled beams of sunshine and playful shadows to awaken the dark cavern. It is amazing, as I've learned from years of yoga pranayama, what simple breath can do. Merry in transformation, all spookiness dissipated. The fresh air peeled away years of sickliness from our long-secluded invalid: the patient was still wheelchair-bound, but with mobility only weeks away. Even the homes Bobbi found for the last unbroken, hard-to-place horses proved successful. One mare was already pregnant, and the old stallion, Stanislav, rehabilitated into a happy, docile guy upon being freed from his prison and turned out into pasture for the first time in years. Four reprieves.

“I was the most worried about Stan because everyone seemed afraid of him. I just wanted to get him out of that dark stall and see what he'd do,” Bobbi told me.

“But the guys said he strikes,” I said, unable to imagine who would approach a caged, desperate stallion known to rear on his hind legs and give a one-two punch with bare front hooves.

“Well, at least I knew what to expect. Plus he's so small compared to what I'm used to.”

Her comparison was Toby, seventeen hands to Stan's Arabianesque fifteen. Still, her bravery impressed me.

“So, how did you manage to find someone to take him?”

“Once I got him turned out, he was a pussycat. The poor boy just needed to get some fresh air, run around and be a horse again. He hasn't been any trouble since, and his new owners are just in love with him and want to breed him again. He really is a fine Arabian.”

With that, the last tenant of El-Arabia left and a hive of workers went to work the very hour the closing papers were signed. Over weeks, their number swarmed. More wood came out of the barn than was left in, and Scott and I joked about memorializing the one remaining original two-by-four in the glass trophy case for posterity's sake. The excavator, Kenny, got busy rescaling the land to address the lack of drainage, but piles of soil redistributed seemingly without rhyme or reason.

“It looks like he's having a lot of fun moving that dirt around,” I said.

“Do you think he actually has a plan?” Scott asked, annoyed.

“Who knows?” I watched Kenny, burly in a tank top, drive his front loader into a brown hillock, lift the bucket and speed off. “He looks like a grown-up version of Elliot playing in the sand with his building machines. But you have to admit it does look like fun.”

Scott shrugged. “Yeah, well, I guess we'll just have to trust him.”

“It's got to be costing a fortune,” I added, counting the bulldozers and dump trucks attacking other mysterious jobs.

The destruction that preceded the construction shocked us. This near-tear-down would redefine the term “only cosmetic.” But we could only go along, and focus on the big picture. The good news was that the assembled team was friendly and dedicated, and that this lump of a barn might actually surprise us aesthetically. Gary's suggested touches, like curved cupolas on the roof peaks in place of the old boxy ones and cross-trim on the doors, held promise. But right then, spring was nothing
but brown muck and revving machinery. I apologized repeatedly to our neighbors for the ruckus. They were unfailingly gracious, appreciative and patient, unlike ourselves. Our thirst for our envisioned beautiful green farm dotted with horses wouldn't be satiated any time soon. We felt years away from our tarnishing dream.

Bobbi must have sensed our project fatigue. About a week after the kids and I moved up to Connecticut for the summer at the end of June, I got the call.

“I think I may have found you a horse,” Bobbi said.

“Oh?”

“He's down in Woodbury: a chestnut Quarter Horse, just your size. He's eleven years old, old enough to have the kid out of him and some manners, but young enough to be sound with a good many years left. He's lovely on paper, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's right. We'd have to take a look. How about Thursday, we take a ride?”

“Am I ready for this?”

“You're ready. Anyway, we have to start somewhere, and we probably won't buy the first horse we see.”

You don't know me
, I thought to myself.

“How much is he?” I asked, genuinely curious. She could have told me anything from a hundred dollars to a hundred thousand.

“Fifteen.”

“Hundred?”

“Thousand.”

“Oh.”

 

 

THE DAY BROKE COLD AND WET. Bobbi called early.

“Are you still game?”

“Sure,” I said, not really meaning it. I pictured slipping and sliding atop a horse that hated me already for getting him soaked.
How do they
not fall in the mud,
I wondered? Already stiff with fear, I tried to sound vaguely intelligent.

“Would it be a fair trial?”

“Well, let's put it this way: if he's nasty in the rain, we don't want him.”

“Okay. Let's go for it,” I said, hoping we'd see any “nasty” before I got on.

On vacation that week, Scott tagged along. We chattered all the way about the farm and our plans. We critiqued horse farm signs since we were deciding color, size and style for our own. Eventually we pulled up to a low pasture studded with a naturalistic jump course. Despite the fog and spitting rain it looked inviting, and we wound the long driveway to a mushy parking area surrounded by three red barns with worn white trim. Stacey the trainer met us, and we sloshed over to the farthest set of stalls. I knew what Scott was thinking: twenty-four years of marriage afforded us symmetry of mind. Sure enough, later in the car he immediately criticized the site.

“We have to be sure to put down some kind of stone to avoid a mud bath of a parking area,” Scott said, kicking his shoes against the running board.

I laughed. “I knew that would be the first thing you would comment on.”

“What? It's a mess there,” he defensively replied.

“I agree. It is a pretty setting though, with that big hill up in back.”

“Yeah, but the barns look run down. And what's with all that old equipment lying around?” My stickler husband couldn't let it go.

Bobbi chimed right in, “Yeah, it is quite sloppy, and unnecessarily so. But the horses are well-kept and appear happy.”

Ah, a diplomat,
I registered happily
.
I supposed it best that Bobbi recognize our characteristic meticulousness right up front. Scott and I are not savers: we mercilessly pitch stuff when many a sentimental Gus would give pause. Organizing makes us happy. I sometimes aim to achieve a more casual approach in our day to day living, but we are who we are. Bobbi seemed to fit right in, and I pitied any untidy employee who happened to find his or her way in amongst us neatniks.

“Steal the Show,” barn name “Bandicoot,” gave us a good smell as Sandra,
his thirteen-year-old owner, stepped confidently in the stall to groom him. I searched my mental dictionary to define a Bandicoot—a type of monkey, maybe?
What kind of name is Bandicoot for a horse, anyway
? Later, my OED set me straight: “A large, destructive southern Asian rat.”

A coltish, bubbly teenager, Sandra genuinely loved “Bandi.” The first thing I noticed was his orangey-brown color, not my favorite hue. But he sported white socks on his hind feet, a white blaze on his face and dark sultry eyes. His mane sprung short and full and his tail long, and both burnished brassy with highlights. His ears pinned back as Sandra combed him, a habit she brushed aside as his customary response to grooming, and temporarily worsened by his unappealing neighbor in the adjoining stall. Now, I like my animals warm and fuzzy and extremely affectionate, so this wasn't going well. Not really knowing how to behave around a horse or what questions to ask, I listened to Bobbi question his feed regimen, daily habits and tack arrangements while subtly probing about his temperament.

“Sandra has been riding him since she was six,” Stacey said.

“He is soooo sweet,” Sandra added.

“Bandi taught her how to ride. He had one other owner besides Sandra who bought him directly from a breeder whose child learned on him. He is really great with kids and excellent for new riders, being both safe and willing,” Stacey said as she handed Sandra a bridle. “I'd trust anyone on him.”