25. Gage
GAGE
On Thursday afternoon, Bonnie and I get back from our walk with Cricket asleep in the stroller. She parks it inside by the cottage window and unbuttons her coat while she checks the time.
“You don’t have to go yet,” she says.
“I’m in no hurry.”
I have the address in my phone and the landlord’s number beneath it. Three times on the walk I nearly told her. Asking her to dance yesterday was easier; she could say no and we would still know what tomorrow looked like.
“There’s a house I want to look at. In town.”
She turns from the stroller. “To rent?”
“Yes.”
I could tell her the rent now, the distance from here, how the horses would fit into it. She is still taking off her coat. Give her time to ask.
“For you?” she asks.
“For me. With a room for Cricket.”
“She sleeps here.”
“I know. I want somewhere for her when we’re ready.”
Bonnie sits at the kitchen table. I take the other chair.
“What about the ranch?”
“The manager can run it. I’ll still need to go back. I can keep using the boarding barn here when I bring horses north.”
“You hate letting other people ride your horses.”
“Some of them.”
She waits.
“Most of them,” I admit. “I’ll have to get used to it.”
I look toward Cricket. She has one hand beside her cheek. Tomorrow I am supposed to drive away again, and I already want Bonnie to send a photograph before I have reached the highway.
“I miss whole days,” I say. “You tell me things she did, and by the time I get here she’s doing something else.”
Bonnie looks at Cricket too. Maybe there is room here after all. I lean forward, already working out what I could leave in Texas.
“I’m keeping this place.”
“I wasn’t asking you to leave it.”
“You asked me to look at the nursery too.”
I sit back. “I did.”
She rubs the edge of the table with her thumb. “I want you closer. I don’t want to spend every visit explaining why I’m going back to my own bed.”
“You won’t have to explain it.”
She looks at me for a while. Then she asks which house.
I show her the listing. She moves my phone closer and studies the photograph of the little yard.
“That’s about fifteen minutes from here.”
“I drove past.”
She almost smiles. “Of course you did.”
Cricket wakes before we have looked at all the rooms. Bonnie lifts her from the stroller and hands her to me while she gets a cloth. I hold her against my shoulder, warm from sleep, and keep one hand beneath her head.
“Let me know how the viewing goes,” Bonnie says.
“I will.”
On Monday, I am back at the Texas ranch, packing the things I want to bring north. Dewey forwards a message while I am in the barn. The subject is a spring sponsor meeting. I open it expecting a change to the calendar.
Tawny has written to the office. Her father will be there, she says, and the invitationals could still be discussed. Then the message changes.
We ought to talk before anyone else gets involved. Just us. You know how well we worked together. I’d like us to remember that.
I read it again.
I miss those invitationals. I miss walking into a room where half the people already want to shake my hand. For a moment I can see the familiar restaurant, Tawny across the table, both of us agreeing that everything has got out of hand. It would be so easy to let her make me feel reasonable again.
Behind me, the sorrel colt bangs his door. I have stood here holding my phone instead of taking him out.
I call Dewey.
“No meeting with Tawny.”
“The sponsor meeting or the two of you?”
“Either, if getting back into the invitationals depends on talking to her privately.”
“I could ask her father to separate them.”
I look at the message. The offer is exactly what I would once have called business while Bonnie tried to explain why it frightened her.
“You can handle any real business with him. Don’t put me in a room with her to get it.”
“All right.”
“And tell her through the office that I’m not meeting her. Don’t leave it open.”
After we hang up, I take the colt out. I walk him around the arena instead of trying to ride while I am angry. I want the invitationals back. I resent that wanting them can still make me consider an arrangement I should have refused before Bonnie had to ask.
When I have put him away, I call Bonnie.
“Everything all right?” she asks.
“I’m calling about something Tawny sent to the office. I didn’t want you hearing about it somewhere else.”
Bonnie says nothing while I explain the invitation and what I told Dewey.
“Did you answer her yourself?”
“No.”
“Can I see it?”
“Yes.”
I forward the message, then wait. She takes long enough to read it that I wish I had chosen different words on the call. I sounded as though I was bringing her proof of something.
“You didn’t tell her where you’re moving?” she asks.
“No. I haven’t spoken to her privately or sent her anything since July.”
“All right.”
I want to ask if she believes me. I want her voice to change back to the way it sounded before I said Tawny’s name.
“I’m glad you told me,” she says. “I’m angry I had to read that today.”
“I know.”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.”
She ends the call. I stay by the empty arena for a while, then go back to the house I am packing. I put the phone on the counter and finish the box of books. When it rings later, it is the ranch manager. I answer his question about a client and leave Bonnie out of the conversation.
On Wednesday, the landlord asks if I still want his furniture left in the house. I tell him yes, then realize I have never chosen a sofa without Bonnie making the final decision.
“The one in the pictures is fine,” I say.
He shows me the water shutoff before he hands over the keys. I make him show me again; I was thinking about where the crib will go. There will be nobody to ask at two in the morning if a pipe goes.
Fifteen minutes to the cottage, a short drive to the boarding barn where I’ve rented stalls.
I’ve checked both routes. The Texas ranch is the part I keep rearranging on paper, though the manager has asked for less help than I expected.
I called twice yesterday. On the second call he asked whether the first answer had been unclear.
I leave the phone on the counter and go measure Cricket’s room.
She called yesterday, as she said she would. We talked about the house and Cricket’s afternoon. Tawny’s message stayed out of it. I had been afraid Bonnie would cancel coming today. She had not said she was going to. I had spent half the night preparing to argue with a refusal she had never made.
After the landlord leaves, I pass two hooks by the door and stop looking at the second one.
I bring in the secondhand dresser I found on Saturday, then the first boxes of clothes and books, the pan I use most, and a coffee maker Bonnie said I should clean before packing.
She was right. I spend half an hour scrubbing it at a sink that sits lower than the one at home.
I am drying it when the ranch manager calls. A client wants me personally for a horse he can handle perfectly well. I start to say I will drive down tomorrow, then ask what he thinks the horse needs.
He tells me. His answer is sensible and complete.
“Do that,” I say.
“I was going to. I called about the client.”
I laugh. Earned that. “Tell him you’re handling the work. I’ll call him if he has a problem.”
“One more thing before you go,” he says. “The two three-year-olds. If you’re staying in Colorado, I want to take over their training and ride them at the spring shows. You’ve got the bay to prepare. Let me bring these two along.”
One of them is the sorrel colt. I put the first saddle on him myself.
He used to follow me down the fence line carrying his own lead rope in his teeth.
I have pictured riding his first clean pattern in front of a crowd so often that, for a moment, the manager sounds as though he is taking something that belongs to me.
I could keep that ride. I could tell him I would fit it in. Then I would have to find more days in Texas, and Bonnie would hear another explanation of why I needed to leave early.
I grip the edge of the counter. “You should ride him.”
The manager asks if I am sure.
“Yes.”
After we hang up, I nearly call back about another horse. It can wait; he has the work in hand. I haven’t heard a voice in this house except the landlord’s and his, and Bonnie isn’t coming until four.
I eat a sandwich standing at the counter, then take the crib pieces into the second bedroom.
Bonnie comes by at four with Cricket. She wanted to see where the baby would be. I have left the door to Cricket’s room open.
“You cleaned the coffee maker,” she says when she sees it.
“You sounded serious.”
“I was.”
She hands me Cricket while she takes off her coat. Our daughter looks around the unfamiliar room, then stares at the ceiling fan. I tell her the fan came with the house. Bonnie laughs at me explaining the lease to a baby who is not quite four months old.
We look at the crib together. It is assembled, with a firm mattress and a fitted sheet. Bonnie checks the space around it, then touches the little dresser I bought secondhand.
“This is nice.”
“It doesn’t stick.”
“A high standard.”
I almost tell her the one in Texas doesn’t stick either. I spent an hour on that drawer. She opens this one and finds the spare sleepers I bought, and I leave the other dresser out of it.
In the kitchen, Bonnie makes tea while I hold Cricket. We talk about the horse I did not drive back to ride. She asks what the manager decided, and I explain.
“He’s good,” she says.
“I know.”
“You’ve known for a while.”
I smile.
“I’m going to miss doing some of it myself.”
“The sorrel?” she asks.
“The manager will ride his first spring show.”
She looks toward the quiet room where our daughter will sleep. “You talked about that first run from the day he took a saddle.”
“I did. The manager knows him. I want to be here for Cricket growing up, and for the work you’re making here, if you’ll let me be part of it.”
Bonnie touches my wrist. “I want you close. I know that horse matters to you.” I can only look at her hand. Then I turn mine and hold it.
Her hair falls forward when she bends to check Cricket’s sleeve. She left it loose for our dinner too. I want to push it back and kiss her where it brushes her cheek. She looks up and catches me watching. I forget what I was about to say.
She asks about my next event. I tell her when I need to leave and when I will be back.
We work out the baby’s time around her lessons and my riding.
I have opinions. So does she. Saturday takes us three tries.
I’m talking about this week; she means next week.
When she finally turns the calendar toward me, I laugh so hard I wake Cricket against my shoulder.
Before she leaves, she kisses me in the kitchen. I set my free hand at her waist. Gentle kiss. Cricket has a fistful of my shirt and is aiming it at her mouth.
“You’ll get dinner?” Bonnie asks.
“I bought food.”
“For one?”
“Mostly.”
She smiles. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
After they go, I move my boxes out of the hallway and put the tools away. I can hear a television through the open window of the neighboring house. A dog barks and stops. I look out to see which house the voices are coming from. I haven’t met the neighbors yet.
I cook dinner and sit at the table to eat it. Then I call the ranch client who wanted me, tell him who will be handling his horse, and stand by the arrangement when he complains.
At nine, Bonnie sends a photograph of Cricket asleep in her crib. I answer with one of the empty plate I have managed to produce.
Evidence of vegetables, I write.
Those are pickles.