14. Georgina
— ? —
Georgina
Max is already at the east gate when I arrive, the red-handled tape measure in his hand.
He’s talking to the estate manager about something I can’t hear from this distance, but when he sees me coming across the field, he straightens and waits.
He has the tape wound neatly into its reel, a smear of dirt on one knee.
I check the time before I can stop myself.
Ten fifty-three. He is here, and I have seven minutes left in which I don’t have to wonder whether he will come.
“You found the right tape.” I stop beside them and adjust the strap of my bag. “I’m impressed.”
“Red handle, shed by the lower barn.” Max holds it up. “I resisted the temptation to bring the one that sticks.”
The estate manager opens his notebook and starts walking the fence line, pointing out the first rotted post. I fall into step beside him, and Max takes the other side, ready with the tape when we need to measure.
We work through the twelve posts I counted yesterday, and the manager’s assessment matches mine exactly.
I approve the full estimate and agree on a timeline.
I’d expected Max to be late, or to offer opinions about the work, or to find some reason this couldn’t happen exactly as planned.
Instead he held the tape when we needed it and handed it back when we didn’t.
It shouldn’t feel like an accomplishment, a man showing up where he said he’d be and doing what he was asked.
But I’ve spent too many months learning not to count on his presence to ignore it now.
When the manager heads back toward the main buildings, I stand looking out at the hills. Max waits beside me without asking what happens next.
“I’m going to spend the afternoon with Sovrano.” I keep my eyes on the horizon. “I thought I might take him to the arena. Let him move around for a while.”
“Do you want me to bring him down from the paddock?” Max winds the last loose inch of tape into the reel. He watches my face rather than turning toward the stables before I’ve answered.
I think of his hand against Sovrano’s cheek last night. I haven’t told him I heard, and I don’t know whether I want to yet. He is waiting for an answer to a perfectly ordinary question, while I try to decide how much of yesterday I am willing to let matter today.
“Yes.” I shift my bag on my shoulder and meet his eyes. “After lunch. And stay with me for a while, if you can.”
“I can.” He lowers the reel to his side, his fingers closing around the handle. I make myself believe that much before we walk back toward the house.
***
The arena is quiet when I arrive, the afternoon sun warm on my shoulders.
I’ve left Max to collect Sovrano from the paddock near his stall while I walked the longer route, needing the time to settle my thoughts.
The enclosed space feels different when I’m the one choosing to be here, not watching from the stands while someone else rides.
The footing is soft from recent rain, and the rails cast long shadows across the sand.
I hear them before I see them. Hooves on packed earth, the familiar sound of Sovrano’s unhurried walk.
Max leads him through the gate, the rope held loosely in one hand.
He closes the gate behind them and waits for my nod before unclipping the rope from the halter.
Sovrano stands for a moment, ears pricked forward, then drops his head to investigate the ground at his feet.
Max coils the rope and hangs it over the gatepost, then walks to the low bank at the edge of the arena and sits down with his back against the rail. He doesn’t ask what I’m planning or suggest we try anything. He just settles there, giving me space.
I walk to the center of the arena and watch my horse explore.
He’s found a patch of grass near the fence and is grazing with the focused attention of an animal who has nowhere else to be.
Sunlight falls across his coat, and I can see the place on his shoulder where the hair grows in a different direction, a small whorl I used to trace with my fingers before every ride.
Before the championship, I had begun finding my way back to him through quiet visits, a hand against his face while he searched my palm for food. On the morning I tried to mount, I rested my face against his neck afterward until the shaking eased. I could accept that comfort from him then.
But I haven’t touched him since I stood by that trailer and watched him watch me leave.
Since I sat in my cousin’s car and drove away without saying goodbye.
The fear of falling is still there, coiled somewhere in my chest, but this distance is different.
This is the space that opened up when I saw my sister in his saddle, when I heard the announcer tell everyone the ride was in my honor.
Max sits against the rail, his long legs stretched out in front of him.
I spend a while walking along the inside of the fence, stopping when Sovrano comes near and moving on when he goes back to the grass.
The gate is closed, but I keep looking toward it.
I know how to open a gate. I dislike needing to remind myself that I can leave.
“He’ll eat every blade if you let him.” I stop near Max, keeping Sovrano in view. “Then look offended when someone expects him to eat hay.”
“A terrible hardship.” Max pulls his legs in to give me more room along the rail. “You always did defend him when he was being unreasonable.”
“Someone had to.” I rest my forearms on the top rail. The answer comes easily, and for a few seconds I can hear how we used to sound. I stay there after the small smile has gone, watching Sovrano search a strip of green along the arena’s edge.
There is no lesson waiting for me. Max doesn’t produce a plan after ten minutes or suggest we make use of the afternoon while the horse is calm.
When I sit briefly on the bank and then get up again, he draws his feet back to give me room.
The shadows creep beyond the first rail before I stop wondering when he will ask what we are doing here.
“I tried to ride him.” I keep my forearms on the rail, though I have stopped watching the grass. “A few weeks before the championship. I asked Marco to tack him up and bring him to the little paddock behind the cypress hedge. I got onto the mounting block. That was as far as I could go.”
Max turns his head toward me but doesn’t stand. “What happened?”
“Nothing.” I wrap my arms around myself, watching Sovrano tear at the grass. “That’s what I couldn’t stand. My toe touched the edge of the stirrup, and I started shaking. I couldn’t get my foot any farther. I had to wait until I could step down, then take him back to Marco.”
“Did Marco know what happened?” Max braces a hand on the bank as though he is about to get up, then stays where he is.
“I didn’t tell him. I went to find you afterward.” My nails catch against a rough place in the rail. I remember the arena in Umbria, the pale lesson horse, the words that made me turn away. I am not ready to give him that part yet. “You were teaching Giselle. I didn’t interrupt.”
Max looks toward Sovrano, his mouth tightening, and I know he is searching for a morning he has no reason to remember. I remember it too well. I wanted his help that day, badly enough to walk toward him while I was still shaking, and I went back to the house without it.
“I kept thinking I’d tell you later.” I pull my fingers away from the rough wood. “But I thought you’d tell me to rest. Wait until I was ready. I couldn’t explain that I was tired of waiting for something I didn’t know how to make happen.”
Max draws his heels closer to the bank and looks up at me. “I would have wanted you to stop before you hurt yourself.”
“I wasn’t injured that morning.” I rub my palms along my trousers, remembering how clammy they were against the saddle. “I was frightened. I needed help staying long enough to find out whether I could get past it.”
He looks down at his hands. I leave the words there without softening them, and after a while he lifts his head again. He hasn’t told me I was right to stop or that next time will be better. I hadn’t realized how much I was bracing to argue.
The sun has shifted, casting longer shadows across the arena. Sovrano has moved to a different patch of grass, and I watch him graze while the silence stretches between us. It’s not uncomfortable, exactly. Just heavy with all the things we haven’t said.
“When you tried to get on, were you remembering the fall?” Max follows my glance toward Sovrano. I nod, still rubbing my palms. He waits until I let my hands rest. “What did it feel like, when it happened?”
I look at him, surprised. We have talked about the accident so many times.
The appointments, the exercises, what I was cleared to do.
When I tried to explain the part that came back at night, he would pull me closer and remind me I was home.
I wanted him to hold me, but sometimes I also wanted to finish what I was saying.
“Why do you want to know?” I sit on the edge of the bank without quite settling, one hand still against the rail.
“Because I kept trying to get you past it.” He shifts against the fence until he can see my face. “I don’t think I let you tell me very much.”
I lower myself the rest of the way onto the dirt, leaving space between our bodies. Sovrano lifts his head to watch me, then goes back to his grass.
“It happened fast.” I keep my eyes on my horse. “One second I was in the saddle, and then I was in the air, and I remember thinking I should do something. Tuck my shoulder, protect my head, anything. But my body wasn’t listening anymore. It was just falling.”
Max doesn’t say anything. He just sits beside me, his hands resting on his knees.