23. Bonnie
BONNIE
Flint plants his feet halfway through the exercise and refuses to take another step.
Keeley looks down at him. “I thought we fixed this.”
“We fixed the mounting block,” I say. “Today he’s worried about the banner.”
The banner is rolled against the rail, waiting to travel to next month’s clinic. It has shifted in the wind twice. Flint keeps turning away from that end of the arena.
Gage stands beside me with a spare lead over his shoulder. He drove up from Texas overnight for his two-day visit. When I opened the cottage door, we looked at each other for a long moment before he asked how I had slept.
“Badly,” I told him.
“Me too.”
I nearly said I was sorry. Instead I told him Keeley would arrive in ten minutes and brought him out here.
Cleo is inside with both children; afterward I will take her son to the playground while she meets a prospective boarder.
“Should we move it?” Gage asks.
I watch Flint raise his head when Keeley asks him forward.
“For a minute. I want to see if that’s all he’s answering.”
Gage carries the banner out. Flint walks on after a few hesitant steps. Keeley breathes out and pats him too quickly.
“You’re bracing before he does,” I tell her. “Give yourself a little more room.”
“I don’t want him spinning.”
“Then we’ll make the next ask smaller.”
Gage comes back to the rail. In the old days he would have offered to get on and show her. Sometimes that would have been useful. Sometimes it would have left the rider admiring him and still unable to solve the problem when she got home.
Today he asks Keeley what Flint does in her own arena.
She tells him about a gate that rattles. He listens, then asks where she usually turns before it. I see her realize she has been avoiding the same corner for months.
“I thought I was being sensible,” she says.
“You were trying to stay on,” I tell her. “We can work with that.”
Gage brings the rolled banner back and holds it where I ask him to, far enough away for Keeley to try again. This time she gets Flint a few steps closer herself.
I make a poor joke about the banner’s artistic quality, and Gage laughs before anyone else does because he knows I designed it.
“You said it looked good,” I tell him.
“I said I could read it from the truck.”
Keeley laughs, and her shoulders finally loosen. Flint walks a little farther.
At the end, she dismounts with the pleased, tired expression of somebody who has done work she can repeat. Gage holds Flint while she loosens the girth. She asks him about the championship, and he tells her he is still trying to qualify near the top.
“Bonnie used to say I wanted every run to fix the last one,” he adds.
“Used to?” I ask.
He laughs. “She still says it.”
Gage helps me carry the poles back to the rack. I take the lighter end because I am still rebuilding strength. He notices when I need to change my grip and waits.
“I was afraid she’d ask you to take over,” I say after Keeley has led Flint away.
“Keeley?”
“When he stopped. You could have got him past that banner in half the time.”
“Then she’d have watched me ride her horse,” he says. “You were teaching her what to do when she got home.”
“I know the difference. I was afraid she’d look at you and forget it.”
He sets down his end of the pole.
“I used to like being the one people watched.”
I look at him. “You still do.”
“Yes.” He glances toward the gate Keeley went through. “But that was your lesson. She came for you.”
I have spent months trying to make people remember which work was mine. He could have taken the reins today and had everyone admiring how quickly he solved it. Instead he held the banner where I asked.
I pick up my water bottle. It is easier to look at him when I do.
Once the arena is clear, I lean against the rail and drink from my bottle.
He stands beside me, dusty, the back of his neck still brown from the summer.
I have seen him look like this hundreds of times.
Today the sight makes me remember what it felt like to put my mouth there when nobody was watching.
I look away too late.
“What?” he asks.
“You’ve got dirt on your neck.”
He rubs at the wrong place. I set down the bottle and brush it away with my thumb. His skin is warm. Neither of us moves for a moment after the dirt is gone.
He turns toward me. I could kiss him now; I have to decide what to do with my hand before he mistakes the touch for an accident.
“I liked working with you today,” I say.
“I liked being asked.”
I let my thumb move once more against his neck, then lower my hand. He stays close while I pick up the bottle.
“We should get the children,” I say.
He comes with me. I do not take his hand yet, but I spend the whole walk aware of how close it is.
Inside, Cricket is on Cleo’s lap, awake and pleased with the audience. Gage crouches beside them. Cleo’s son puts the truck on his knee and explains that it has a flat tire. Gage inspects it seriously while Cricket watches his face.
I make tea.
Later, after the lesson money is put away and Cleo has left for her meeting, Gage comes with us to the playground. He carries Cricket while I push the swing. Cleo’s son demands to go higher, then immediately demands lower. I laugh so hard that I have to stop pushing.
Gage watches me from the bench, and I wave him over. We spend ten minutes disagreeing about how high is high enough for a three-year-old until the child gets bored and asks for a snack.
On the walk back, I take Gage’s free hand.
His fingers settle between mine. We keep walking, with Cleo’s son hopping over cracks ahead of us and our daughter asleep against her father.
At the cottage I let go to open the door. I miss his hand before he has even stepped inside.