Epilogue #2
Luce has been learning this for a few weeks, and today she does it cleanly, her ears flicking back to catch Elle’s voice as she pauses in the center.
“Good,” Elle says. “Now back.”
Luce hesitates, considering. Then she shifts her weight and takes two careful steps backward, remaining straight between the poles instead of swinging her quarters out.
“Clever girl.” Elle walks to her and strokes her neck, then gathers the long lines and exchanges them for a lead clipped to the cavesson. She walks Luce toward the gate where I’m standing.
“She’s getting it,” I say.
“She’s thinking about it.” Elle’s face is warm with satisfaction. “Last week she wanted to rush through. Today she waited.”
“That’s progress.”
“That’s patience.” She hands me the long lines to coil while she leads Luce to the grooming area. “Hers and mine.”
I follow her and watch as she removes the surcingle and hangs it on its hook. Luce stands quietly, already relaxed, and turns her head to investigate my pockets.
“Not today,” I tell her. “Elle has the carrots.”
“Elle always has the carrots.” She produces one and feeds it to the filly, then clips Luce into the cross-ties and begins brushing her down.
Deus appears at the stable entrance, wiping his hands on a cloth. He’s been checking something in the tack room, reorganizing the bridles that the groom never hangs to his satisfaction.
“She did the halt well today,” he says, nodding toward Luce.
“She did.” Elle moves the brush in long strokes. “Will you walk her for me? Ten minutes, then she can go in.”
“I remember the routine.” Deus takes the lead rope while Elle releases the cross-ties, then gives Luce a scratch behind the ears. “You two enjoy your evening.”
He leads the filly out, and I watch Elle watching them go. Her hand has come to rest on the grooming kit, but she’s not moving, just looking at the chestnut horse walking calmly beside her cousin.
“She’s going to be something,” I say.
“She already is something.” Elle turns to me with a smile. “She’s mine.”
I cross to her and pull her into my arms. She comes willingly, her body warm against mine, and I hold her for a moment without speaking.
“What’s this for?” she asks.
“Do I need a reason?”
“You don’t.” She pulls back enough to look at my face. “But you usually have one.”
“You looked pleased with yourself. I wanted to see it up close.”
“I am pleased with myself. She stayed straight.”
“I noticed.”
“Then you can be pleased with me too.”
“An easy assignment.” I kiss her forehead, and she catches the front of my shirt before I can draw away, lifting her mouth to mine.
I had watched her do the same thing after a round at a small show last month, smile to herself before looking for me at the rail.
She had been happy with the way Sovrano listened through a turn they had practiced, and she told me about it while I carried her saddle back to the trailer.
My mother wanted photographs. Elle wanted lunch.
We had stayed until she was ready to leave.
Two years ago, I would have struggled to imagine how much pleasure I could take in a competition where nobody was waiting for my score. Now I can still hear her describing that turn, one hand busy drawing its shape in the air.
We walk together toward the house, stopping in the kitchen for water and the basket of figs Rosa left on the counter this morning. Elle eats one while I fill a water bottle, her eyes following me around the room.
“Your mother called earlier,” she says.
“What did she want?”
“To tell me she’s sending cuttings from her roses. And to ask when we’re visiting.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That we’d come after your Umbria trip.” Elle reaches for another fig. “You’re still planning Thursday and Friday next week?”
“Thursday and Friday. Home for dinner Friday evening.”
“Call me before you leave?”
“Always.” I cap the water bottle. “I’ll be insufferable on the drive if I don’t hear your voice first.”
She laughs. “You’re insufferable regardless.”
“But more pleasantly so when properly fortified.”
We take the water and the figs out to the terrace, where the late afternoon light has turned everything amber. Elle sits in one of the cane chairs and stretches her legs, and I settle beside her, close enough that our knees touch.
“I spoke to my mother this morning,” Elle says after a moment.
“Isadora?”
“She called about Luce. Wanted to know how the training is going.” Elle’s voice is careful, the way it always is when she talks about her mother. “She asked questions and then actually listened to the answers. Didn’t offer advice.”
“I’m glad she’s learning to ask.”
“And I’ve learned when to end the conversation.” Elle looks at me. “Fifteen minutes. Then I had things to do.”
“That’s good.”
“It’s enough.” She reaches over and takes my hand. “It’s what I can give her right now.”
I squeeze her fingers and don’t push. Elle’s relationship with her mother has been a careful negotiation for two years now, with visits arranged in advance and conversations Elle is free to finish. Her mother is learning that being invited back means respecting the terms of the invitation.
The proceedings involving Giselle are behind us now. She has no place in our home, and Isadora knows that an invitation for coffee will never become an opportunity to argue otherwise.
“I want to ride before dinner,” Elle says. “With you.”
“Together?”
“On Sovrano.” She looks at me with that expression again, a smile she seems to be keeping partly to herself. Something bright behind her eyes, something she’s holding close. “I want you close tonight.”
“Then you’ll have me close.”
We finish the figs and walk down to the paddock where Sovrano is grazing. He comes to the fence when he sees us, his dark eyes calm and familiar. Elle has been riding him for years now, and he knows us both well enough that he barely flicks an ear when I reach over to scratch his neck.
“Help me with the pad?” Elle asks.
We tack him together in the grooming area, the bareback pad secure on his back, the bridle fitted and adjusted. Elle fastens her helmet and waits while I do the same, both of us secured before we lead him to the mounting block.
“You first,” I tell her.
She swings up onto the pad and settles forward, leaving room behind her. I mount after, my legs against the horse’s sides, my arms coming around her waist. She passes me the reins and leans back against my chest.
“Comfortable?” I ask.
“Perfect.” She tilts her head back to look at me. “Take the orchard path. The one that runs along the ridge.”
I ask Sovrano forward, and he walks out of the yard with the unhurried stride of a horse who knows his home. Deus meets us at the turn out of the yard, Luce walking beside him.
We fall into step for a short stretch, the filly curious about our arrangement, stretching her nose toward Elle’s boot before Deus guides her back to his side.
“She wants to know why she wasn’t invited,” Elle says.
“Because somebody promised her dinner,” Deus answers. “And she remembers.”
“A sensible priority,” I tell him.
At the paddock turn, he takes Luce toward the stable. Elle watches the filly go, then settles back against me as we continue onto the orchard loop.
The path winds between old trees, their branches heavy with fruit, the light filtering gold and green through the leaves. Elle is warm against me, her breathing slow and even, and I feel the particular contentment that comes from these small rituals we’ve built together.
We follow the short loop along the hillside, where a gap in the trees gives us a view across the valley. The ground is level here, easy walking, and Sovrano moves steadily beneath us. Elle’s fingers trace patterns on my forearm where I hold the reins, and I press a kiss to the side of her neck.
“Do you remember the market last spring?” she asks.
“Which one?”
“The one where you bought that painting.”
“The donkey.”
“The donkey wearing a hat.” She’s laughing now, I can feel it in her body. “You were so serious about it.”
“I remain serious about it. That painting brings joy.”
“That painting brings confusion. Benedetto asked me last week if it was meant to be ironic.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That you have questionable taste in art but excellent taste in wives.”
“The correct answer.” I tighten my arms around her. “Though I’d argue my taste in art is also excellent.”
“You’d argue anything.”
“You make the best faces when I’m wrong.” I brush a kiss against her cheek. “I have to keep giving you opportunities.”
The path opens onto a stretch where we can see the mountains in the distance, the sky beginning to soften toward evening. Elle goes quiet, and I feel something shift in her, a stillness that wasn’t there before.
“Max,” she says. “Can you halt him?”
I bring Sovrano to a stop, and he stands easily, his head lowering slightly. Elle doesn’t move, just sits with her back against my chest, her breathing careful.
“I need to tell you something,” she says.
“Tell me.”
She turns her head, looking back at me over her shoulder. Her face is close, her eyes bright, and I can see the pulse jumping in her throat.
“I’m pregnant,” she says. “I found out this morning.”
I look at her, at the smile she has been trying to keep to herself all afternoon, and lose the breath I was about to take. My arm is still around her. Sovrano is standing beneath us. Everything is exactly where it was a moment ago, but I can’t seem to understand how to speak in it.
“Three tests,” she adds, her mouth beginning to tremble. “I thought I might have read the first one wrong. By the third, even I had to admit they were making a fairly consistent argument.”
I laugh, a startled sound that catches halfway out. She lifts her hand to my cheek, and I turn into it, pressing my mouth against her palm because I need to do something with how much I love her.
“We’re having a baby?”
“We’re having a baby.”