22. Bonnie #3
“Until September.”
“I wish you’d come after me that night.”
He tries to answer, but all I hear is his breathing go ragged. I cannot help him through this part. I am barely getting through it myself.
When he can speak, he says, “I wish I had too.”
I unfold the dishcloth, then fold it again. He waits.
“I’m sorry I gave her your horse. And the jacket. I told her to keep it on when you’d asked for it back. When you showed me the collar, I should’ve…” His voice goes. “I should’ve stood beside you.”
He stops. I can hear him breathing.
“I kept telling you to be quiet. So I wouldn’t have to look at it. You walked out of that dinner, and that arena, and I stayed.”
I press the dishcloth against my mouth.
“And I made her the one I talked to. About you. Things you trusted me with. You told me what she wanted, and I asked you to apologize to her. I’m sorry, Bonnie. You shouldn’t have had to leave before I would listen.”
I can hear how much it costs him to say it. I remember what it cost me when he would not.
I lean back against the chair. I have spent so much of the call braced for him to correct me that I do not know what to do with the quiet when he doesn’t.
“I wanted you at the birth,” I say. “For months, before all this. I pictured you there every time I thought about it. Then I pictured telling you I was scared and having her know exactly what I’d said.”
“I understand why you couldn’t call me.”
“I don’t think you do. Not all of it.”
“Tell me.”
“I still wanted you. That was the worst part. Cleo was right there, and I kept wanting you anyway.”
He says my name, so softly that I almost do not hear it.
“She never made me feel bad about that,” I say.
“I’m glad you had her.”
This time I believe he means it. It does not make the day different. It lets me stop defending the person who helped me through it.
“She was wonderful.”
“Good.”
I tell him one small thing about the hospital: how I kept losing the hair tie and making Cleo find it, although it was twice around my own wrist. He laughs, painfully, and I do too. I stop before the story becomes more than I want to give him tonight.
“Can we talk about something else for a minute?” I ask.
“Yes.”
I look at the copy of the schedule lying beside my elbow. I have creased one corner during the call. I smooth it against the table.
“You asked about the footing.”
“At the clinic?”
“I’m worried they’re going to water it too late. I don’t want to spend the first half hour finding out it’s slick.”
“Have you asked what time they’ll do it?” he says.
“Not yet.”
“Do you want me to think it through with you, or have you had enough of my suggestions?”
The question is so cautious that I almost laugh. “The footing, Gage. You can have an opinion about the footing.”
He laughs too, a little unsteadily. We talk through what I need to ask the organizer, and he remembers the number of riders I want.
Cricket wakes before we finish. I bring her out and sit with her on the sofa, the phone beside me. Gage stays while I feed her. I mention the second session they might add, and he asks whether I still want to teach there.
“Yes. I want it even more now.”
“Then I’m glad you got the slot.”
I am too.
“Tell me what you’d teach.”
I do. Cricket is still feeding when I get to the part I am most excited about.
Cricket goes down a little after ten. I should sleep. The call is still in my arms and legs, a hum that will not let me lie flat.
Keeley’s message is weeks old. I sit on the edge of the bed and open the clip.
The picture shakes, then finds him beside an arena rail, holding the microphone. “Mercy was trained by Bonnie Redfern,” my husband says, to the people who laughed in that ballroom and whistled under those screens.
He keeps going. His voice catches before he says I did not owe an apology. Below the head of the microphone, his thumb moves back and forth.
My face goes hot. September. He had the tunnel and a ballroom full of people, and it took him until September.
“You took your time,” I tell the phone.
Then the band around my chest lets out one notch. I breathe in, and it goes all the way down.
Tawny walks into the frame. I stop the clip there.
I do not write to him about it.
The jacket hangs at the back of my closet. I take it down and spread the original blue collar facing under the lamp. The little holes are still there, my name in dots. I run my finger across them.
I am angry again. He knew why those stitches mattered before any of this. I should never have had to explain it from another state.
I take the embroidery needle and the card of silver floss out of the tin. For several minutes I do nothing but sit with the jacket on my knees. Then I thread the needle.
I put in the B, one slow stitch after another. When I hold the collar up, I can see where I have pulled too tightly. I loosen that stitch and set it again.
My phone is still on the quilt. Gage is due in town tomorrow for his visit with Cricket. I pick it up and open our messages.
Bring a spare lead tomorrow. I want a second pair of hands for Keeley’s lesson.