4. Georgina #2
For a moment, I don’t understand where I am. My cheek is against the dirt. Something hard presses into my side, and I’m waiting for the pain to settle into a shape I can recognize.
I need to get up. Sovrano is loose.
I try to draw a breath, but my chest won’t open. I try again, harder this time, and a terrible little sound catches in my throat.
No. Slowly. I know better than to panic.
I press my palm against the ground, meaning to push myself upright. Pain stops me before I’ve lifted my shoulder. It is so sudden and complete that everything else disappears beneath it, even the fear, and when it eases enough for me to think again, I’m still lying exactly where I fell.
I can see the marks my fingers have made in the dirt.
Move, Georgina.
My hand scrapes forward, but the rest of me won’t follow. I’m furious with myself for it, for lying here when I should be checking my horse, when someone needs to make sure Giselle is all right.
Giselle.
I try to say her name. I need to know he missed her. I saw her standing, didn’t I? I turned him in time.
Footsteps are coming toward me. I hear them through the strange rushing in my ears and try to lift my head, to show whoever it is that I’m awake, that I only need a moment.
But the edges of everything are going gray, and I can’t seem to take that first proper breath.
“Georgina!”
I wrench myself back to the present.
Sovrano is still standing quietly, patient as always, waiting for me to do the thing I’ve done since I was a girl. The sun is warm on my back. The cypress trees rustle in the breeze.
Nothing is happening to me except my own body refusing to cooperate.
“Piano.” His ear turns back toward me, and I lower my hand to stroke the base of his mane. I’m not sure which of us I’m trying to reassure.
I try again. My foot lifts toward the stirrup until my toe touches its edge.
My whole body starts to shake.
I can’t do it. The realization crashes through me, sharp and final.
I’m standing here in my riding clothes with my horse ready beside me, and I cannot make myself take the next step.
My hands are shaking so badly the reins are trembling, and Sovrano tosses his head, confused by the signals I’m sending him.
“Basta.” I put my foot back on the block and make myself wait until I can step down without stumbling into him.
I lean against Sovrano’s shoulder and press my face into his neck, breathing in the warm horse smell that used to mean everything good in my life.
The trembling is starting to ease, but the shame is worse. I came here to prove something to myself, and instead I proved the opposite.
I made it all this way. I’m standing beside him, touching him, with his reins in my hand. A week ago I would have wanted someone to tell me that mattered.
Now I look at the saddle and feel stupid for thinking it would be enough.
I gather the reins properly and lead him back toward the gate.
My hands are still shaking, but I keep my grip firm, letting the familiar motions steady me. Sovrano walks calmly beside me, unbothered by my failure, and I’m grateful for his patience even as I hate myself for needing it.
Marco is near the feed room when I come around the corner, and he straightens when he sees me leading Sovrano back so soon.
“Signora.” He reaches for the reins. “Is everything all right?”
“Fine.” I hand him the leather, not meeting his eyes. “Can you put him away? I need to… I have somewhere to be.”
He takes Sovrano without comment, and I turn and walk toward the main arena before I can change my mind.
***
I’m going to tell Max. I decide it before I reach the end of the stable wall, while turning back would still be easy. I can’t keep arranging things so no one will see me fail, then going home wishing he understood how hard I’m trying.
He’s my husband. He loves me. I’ve told him I miss him. I’ve told him I want to be part of his day. What I haven’t told him is that I’ve been coming here, or how much it takes to open a stall door I used to walk through without thinking. Perhaps I can start with that.
The path to the main arena curves through a gap in the hedge. I can hear them before I see them, Max’s voice carrying clearly in the morning air. He’s explaining something about keeping her heels down, the patient teaching tone I know so well.
I reach the rail and stop, waiting for a break in the instruction.
They’re in the center of the arena, Giselle mounted on the pale horse she’s been using for lessons. She looks more confident than she did three weeks ago, her posture improved, her hands steadier on the reins. Max walks beside her, one hand on the horse’s shoulder.
“That’s it.” He steps back, letting her take the horse in a small circle on her own. “Keep your weight in your heels. Don’t grip with your knees.”
She completes the circuit, and when she looks at Max for approval, her face is bright with the pleasure of getting something right. He smiles at her, the warm encouraging smile of a good teacher, and something in my chest tightens.
I should call out. Let them know I’m here. But my throat is closed, and my hands are gripping the top rail, and I can’t seem to make myself move.
“Bring her around again.” Max gestures toward the far end of the arena. “One more circle, and really focus on staying centered.”
Giselle guides the horse around, more confident this time. I watch her find her balance and adjust her weight the way Max taught her.
She’s not bad. After weeks of lessons, she’s becoming competent.
She finishes the circle and looks at Max expectantly.
“Good.” He walks toward her, reaching up to check her stirrup length. “Really good. You’re starting to feel it, aren’t you? The rhythm.”
“I think so.” She settles her hands over the horse’s neck, looking to Max before she asks the mare to walk on. “It’s starting to make sense.”
Max steps back and looks up at her, and his face is open with genuine satisfaction. “You were made for this.”
My hands tighten on the rail.
For a moment I think I’ve heard him wrong. I wait for the rest of the sentence, for some ordinary instruction that will make it something else, but Giselle is smiling down at him and he has already turned to point toward the far end of the arena.
How can he say it so easily?
He remembered our race when we talked in bed three weeks ago. He still sounded impressed. I held on to that, to the thought that somewhere beneath his worry he could still see the woman who beat him on a borrowed mare.
My mother had spent years telling me what I was allowed to be. Max watched me ride once and saw something she refused to. I remember sitting in that saddle, dusty and breathless, wanting him to say it again. Not because I needed his permission.
Because I had finally found someone I didn’t have to argue with about loving this.
I look down at my boots.
There is dust caught in the stitching, and my left ankle aches from holding my foot above the stirrup, trying to force myself to move.
I was going to tell him all of it. Even the parts that make me ashamed. I thought he would know what it meant that I’d tried.
Giselle laughs, and I can’t look up.
What am I supposed to say now? Those words were mine? I can hear how childish it would sound. I can also hear him saying them to me, the way I have heard him every time I’ve needed to remember I wasn’t always afraid.
In the end, I loosen my grip on the rail and I don’t call his name.
He’s so close that he would hear me, but I wish I’d stayed where no one could see me.
I came to him because I thought he still knew who I was.
Yet it seems as if he found his new partner in someone else that is not me.