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Mary got it out of him. She’d gotten a job in the city and moved back home after college to save up for her own place. She went off with Lillie most mornings and got a kick out of seeing her mom on the train, in work mode. At home, she imitated for them how Lillie hustled from the Metro North to the subway once they got to Grand Central. Eventually, Mary wanted to go to law school but she didn’t know what area of law she wanted to focus on yet, so she’d work at a firm, pay down her college loans, and go from there.

“Why are you acting weird?” Mary asked Mac one day. His back was killing him, he told her. He’d taken two ibuprofen but they did nothing, so he took two more. He recalled Ivor for her and suddenly felt more sympathy for him. Mac was only fifty-five but there was no way he could keep shoeing horses as long as Ivor had. Mary said it was kind of funny that he spent his days with horses and yet his daughters didn’t know a thing about them.

“You used to come along sometimes when you were small,” he said. “You don’t remember?”

“I do. I just didn’t pay much attention,” she said. “Someone was always yelling at us to stay away from the stalls.”

“You want to come with me tomorrow?” he asked. It was a Saturday, and he had to drive to a stable in Connecticut. It would be helpful if she did the driving because his back was in spasm.

“Sure,” she said.

The day started at six in the morning, a detail Mary accused him of not disclosing before she agreed. She climbed into the driver’s seat of Mac’s work van with her thermos of coffee at 5:59. He’d come a long way from Nino’s, but the kit was essentially the same. His forge and anvil, his tools, a rack of different-size shoes ready to be customized. They started at a private home, a client who had a gelding named Pilot and a mare named Hannah, both in need of four shoes. Next they went to a farm that offered boarding, training, shows, and clinics. There, Mac made four shoes for three horses, front shoes for two more, and then trimmed two who’d stay barefoot. Each stall showcased that horse’s ribbons in dressage or eventing. In all cases the owners stood around and told stories about their horses like they were their children.

“You have to make conversation with these people all day?” Mary whispered at one point when Mac was taking a break to stretch and take another two ibuprofen. Some owners talked about their jobs—buyout packages and layoffs and pension plans. One always wanted to talk about her great-grandfather who’d come from Kilkenny, where Mac had never been. Another of the owners was a blowhard, considered himself knowledgeable about blacksmithing though he’d never fired or hammered anything in his life. His horse was always hurting because he was too fat. Mac told him the horse was too fat at least a dozen times but the owner never seemed to realize it was up to him to do something about it. Instead, he rattled off the horse’s various ailments as if they were a mystery to him.

“Just pretend you’re going deaf,” Mary advised.

“Mary,” Mac said, laughing, “I couldn’t do that.”

And besides, most people were okay, Mac found. Just a bit lonely when it boiled down. They weren’t all wealthy either. Some had given up every other convenience because they loved horses and having one made their lives richer—something Mac understood. One mischievous mare named Ruby, his current favorite, always removed her front shoes by using a hind leg to pry them off. Mac would swear on his life that she pretended to be distracted or asleep whenever his van pulled up and she realized it was him, there to put them back on. “Look at the guilty face on this girl,” he said to Mary when he introduced her to Ruby. “What did you do?” he asked the horse.

Lately, Mac had begun requiring that any new stallions he took on be sedated when he handled them. He’d been kicked, pulled, stomped, bitten. But mostly his whole body hurt from bending.

“I used to be able to do twice as many shoes in a day,” he said to Mary.

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “I can see why it’s not really a job you can do into old age. So what’s the plan? Mom doesn’t want to work forever, either, I’m sure.”

“There’s no plan,” Mac said. “Day by day.”

“What’s it like doing this work here versus Montana?” Mary asked, and he explained that even within Montana there were differences. In the eastern part of the state, where there was prairie and openness, the horses mostly went barefoot. The hard, arid ground kept hoofs naturally trim and dry. But in the western part of the state—closer to the Rockies—most horses had front shoes at a minimum. And in Montana, at least in the sixties and seventies, there were still workhorses. He didn’t know what things were like there now.

“You really liked it there.”

“I did,” he said. “There’s nothing not to like.”

“Except your family wasn’t there.”

“Except my family wasn’t there,” he confirmed, and then he remembered.

“What?” Mary asked. “You’re making a face.”

“Nothing,” Mac said. “I was just thinking I’m ready to call it a day.”

They ate the sandwiches Mac packed for them at a picnic table under a tree.

“The funny thing is I might have family there now,” Mac finally said.

“Where?”

“Montana. You know the brother you’re always asking about?”

“Stop,” Mary said, putting her thermos down on the table.

Driving back to Yonkers later, Mac wondered if there was a word for regretting something instantly—telling Mary—and simultaneously feeling such a sense of relief at having told someone. For the entire ninety-minute ride home, Mary asked him variations of the same questions: Why hadn’t he done anything with this information? Didn’t he want to see him? Who else knew? Did Mac think Rian moved to Montana when he left Chicago and had been there ever since? Why would he stay there so long if he usually moved around? Was he married? Did he look like his brothers? What had happened back then, exactly? Why’d he run away? Why not go to Montana now and find him? She was sure his brothers would want to go with him, or if not his brothers then Mom, and if not Mom then she’d go, she wouldn’t mind, she’d love it, actually forget the others, why don’t the two of them go on their own and not tell anyone and just get a look at the guy, see if it’s even him.

“I’m just having a think about it for now,” Mac said.

“I don’t understand what there could be to think about,” Mary said. “Didn’t Thomas and Noel go looking for him years ago? What changed? You’re being weird.”