4. Bonnie
BONNIE
On Sunday evening, Gage comes home with the groceries I forgot to buy.
I am sitting on the kitchen floor because I tried to get a roasting pan out of the bottom cupboard and decided that staying down was easier than getting up. He puts the bags on the counter and bends beside me.
“Have we moved dinner?”
“I was considering it.”
He offers both hands. I take them and let him help me stand. My stomach gets in the way, and he steps back until I am balanced. For a moment I have his shirt bunched in my fingers. He smells of the soap he uses in the barn bathroom.
I want to put my face against him. It has been two days since the exhibition, and I am tired of missing someone who keeps walking into the room.
“Chicken?” he asks, looking at the pan.
“If I remember to buy one.”
“I got it.”
He has brought the peppery roasted chicken I like. There are olives too, the ones with pits that he complains about and eats anyway. He opens the jar and puts it beside my plate.
For a few minutes we manage dinner. He tells me a young horse walked through a temporary electric fence after the battery died. I ask whether anyone was hurt. Nobody was. Dewey lost a sandwich trying to tempt the colt away from his rental car.
I almost laugh.
Gage notices. He moves his chair closer, and I let him take my hand.
“I hate this,” he says.
“So do I.”
“We were having a good year.”
I look at his hand around mine. “I thought we still could.”
He rubs his thumb across my knuckles, the way he did in February when I lay awake after we wrote the dates for our winter clinic and spring appearance down. I had been frightened of wanting too much. A baby, my work, my husband, some part of my body that still felt like mine.
I told him I was afraid I would become a visitor in my own life.
He put his mouth against my forehead and said he would be there when I was ready. He would hold Mercy at the gate for my first appearance back. I believed him so completely that I went to sleep.
“I need you to remember what we agreed,” I say now.
His phone vibrates beside the olive jar.
Tawny’s name lights the screen. He turns it facedown without answering. Then it vibrates again, and he lifts it to read.
“What?” I ask.
“Tomorrow.”
He types with one thumb. His other hand still holds mine.
“We are talking.”
“It’ll take a second.”
The phone rings. He lets go of me to answer it.
“I’ve got the schedule,” he says. “Yes, I saw.”
I pull my plate toward me. The chicken has gone cold at the edges. I cut a piece because I need to do something with my hands.
“No, she hasn’t,” he says.
My knife stops.
Gage looks at me. “I’m at dinner. We’ll deal with it tomorrow.”
He listens, rubbing his forehead with his free hand. Then he says, “I know. You shouldn’t have had to spend your weekend worrying about it.”
I set down the knife.
He finishes the call without leaving the table.
“What haven’t I done?” I ask.
“Bonnie.”
“That’s what you said. No, she hasn’t. What was Tawny asking?”
He puts the phone in his pocket. “Whether you’d calmed down.”
“You told Tawny about an argument between you and me?”
“She was there on Friday. She knows you’re angry.”
“And you talked to her about it.”
“She called about the tour.”
I wait. He looks at my unfinished dinner, then at the window.
“We talked,” he says. “I’m allowed to talk to somebody.”
The olive pit I left on the edge of my plate rolls into the chicken sauce when I move it. I watch that instead of his face.
“What did you tell her?”
“That you’re worried about being left out. That this has been harder on you than we expected.”
“You mean the pregnancy.”
“I mean all of it.”
“You could have talked to me.”
“I’ve been trying.”
I push back my chair. He reaches for my wrist, and I put both hands on the table before he touches me.
“She was holding my jacket while you told me to stop embarrassing her. What do you think she does with you telling her our problems?”
“She tries to help.”
He sounds so certain that I have nothing ready for him. I have spent the weekend deciding how to say this without beginning another argument. Tawny has simply called.
“Has she told you what I need?”
“She’s said you might need a little room.”
“From my own work?”
“From the pressure.” He gets up and takes his plate to the sink, although half his dinner is still on it. “We can’t have every conversation end like this.”
The cupboard closes harder than it needs to. I stay at the table.
“I’m due at the arena tomorrow,” he says. “Byers has the clothes for next spring’s collection ready to fit. Afterward, they want to check Tawny’s saddle on Mercy. I told the groom to bring her.”
I look up. “Why does she need to ride Mercy again?”
“One of the stirrup leathers caught on Friday. They want to adjust it and have her ride a few minutes in the saddle before they sign off on the tack.”
“So there’s a clothing fitting for you and Tawny, and then a saddle test on my mare.”
“Yes. It’s all booked.”
“Mercy isn’t available.”
“It’s not a run. Half an hour in the pen.”
“And after that? She keeps using Mercy?”
“We have Friday to get through.”
“And the bookings next spring.”
“We need a reliable plan.”
I get out of my chair slowly. He watches me, impatient enough now that I can see how the next conversation with Tawny will go. He tried dinner. He tried being kind. I made it about a horse again.
“Mercy stays here tomorrow,” I say.
“I’ve already told the groom.”
“I’ll tell him something else.”
“You’re putting him in the middle.”
“She’s my horse.”
I leave the kitchen before he can answer. At the foot of the stairs, I call the groom and cancel the transport. He asks whether Gage knows. I tell him I’ve just told Gage.
Upstairs, I sit on the bed and pull the pins from my hair. I had wanted to eat dinner with him. I had wanted a little ordinary time together badly enough to keep cutting my chicken while he reassured Tawny about me.
My husband stays downstairs. Through the floor I hear his voice on the phone again. I wait to hear him tell the groom Mercy is staying home. He speaks too softly for me to make out the words.