2. Georgina #3
He leans closer and moves the serving dish within my reach. I take a little more, mostly because he’s watching, and his knee stays against mine while we eat.
“Giselle has had an idea,” my mother announces, laying her knife and fork together on her plate. “She wants to learn to ride properly while she’s here. To honor what the sport meant to Georgina, since Georgina can’t participate herself.”
“Is that right?” Max’s thumb pauses on my knuckles. He looks at Giselle, then at me.
“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.” Giselle sets down her cutlery and turns toward him.
“I know you’re busy, and I’m sure I’d be hopeless at it.
But Georgie loved it so much, and I thought…
I don’t know. I thought it might be nice to understand what she loved.
To keep that part of her alive while she can’t do it herself. ”
I watch Max’s face as she speaks. He’s listening carefully, the way he does when someone is asking him for something and he’s trying to figure out the right answer. His thumb resumes its small circles on my hand.
“That’s a kind thought, Giselle.” Max squeezes my hand, drawing me into the compliment. “Wanting to honor your sister.”
I look at Giselle, but she’s watching him. I asked her not to make this about me. Perhaps she thinks saying it differently has helped. Perhaps I’m supposed to be touched.
“So you will teach her?” My mother puts down her wine glass and turns fully toward Max, ready to settle the arrangements.
Max looks at me again, really looks, and I try to keep my face neutral.
He’s searching for something, permission or objection or some signal about what I want him to do.
I don’t give him one. This is not my decision to make for him, and I refuse to be the wife who forbids her husband from teaching her own sister to ride.
How would that sound? How would that look?
“I can spare some time in the mornings.” Max keeps his hand over mine, his thumb moving again. “Early, before the real training starts. Basic instruction. If that would help.”
“Oh, that would be wonderful.” Giselle leans toward him, her hands coming off her lap to rest on the table. She looks so relieved that I feel mean for sitting here wishing he had said no. “Thank you, Max. Really. I know I’ll probably be terrible, but I promise to try.”
“Everyone starts somewhere.” He squeezes my hand once more, then releases it to pick up his wine glass. “We can begin tomorrow. Dawn is best, before it gets too warm. I’ll have one of the grooms prepare something suitable.”
The words settle over me like cold water.
“That’s very generous of you, Maximillian.” My mother lifts her own glass, a toast to her successful maneuvering. “I’m sure Giselle will be a dedicated student.”
Giselle asks what she should wear. Max starts explaining about boots, and I look down at the hand he’s let go of. My fingers are still curved against the tablecloth.
Dawn. He’s offered her dawn.
For a moment, I remember him on that woodland path, smiling at me before he even knew my name.
I know what those mornings feel like. The cold that makes me tuck my fingers under his jacket while he complains about my hands. The pleasure of getting him to laugh before anyone else has spoken to him.
There was riding, yes, but there was also the walk to the stables, the walk home, all that time when I never had to ask whether he could spare a little of himself for me.
I turn toward him, and he catches me looking. His knee presses against mine beneath the table. I almost reach for his hand again. But he’s telling Giselle where to meet him, and I can’t get past how easy it was. No checking the schedule, no promise to see what he could do.
Just tomorrow, before the day begins.
Maybe I could come down too. The thought arrives before I can stop it, and for a moment I let myself imagine it. Then I remember Sovrano turning toward me yesterday, my feet refusing to move, Max guiding me back to the house. I press my knees together beneath the table until the trembling stops.
I hate that I’m sitting here trying to work out how to bear the stables just to have breakfast with my husband afterward.
Giselle laughs at a thing he says. I lift my glass so I’ll have something to do with my mouth.
Why is there time for her but not for me?
The thought is so bitterly poisonous and unwanted that the water catches in my throat. I try to ignore it. I swallow carefully, keeping my eyes on my plate until I trust myself to look up.
Riprenditi, Georgina. Don’t be that wife, turning one riding lesson into something to lie awake over.
It’s one lesson. She’s my sister, and my husband is only trying to help. Yesterday, he spent the day with me. He held me beneath that tree and played with my hair, and I didn’t have to imagine how much he wanted to be there.
I can’t let one offer at dinner undo that.
Beside me, Max reaches for my hand again. I let him take it, even turn my palm into his, grateful enough for the small gesture that I almost manage to put the question away.
Tomorrow, I’ll try to sleep through the sound of him leaving.