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And yet.
It was notfriends I was seeking. It was something far less tasteful.
No more!Juliette and I can be friends. Lolly and I, whatever we make of what’s between us.
So, that’s my decision. I give up polo. My heart sinks, even as it lifts. It’s better that I not do a thing I cannot do. And I’m certain I can’t. Charming as Juliette is, she’s not the woman for me. If I take this route—let Juliette know that I am no longer for hire and then beg Lolly to give me a chance to prove myself to her—we’re all made free again. It’s a win-win, with a loss at its center. But a loss I can bear, rather than the burden I can’t.
The acid that has burned my gut since that first phone call about my dearpapáeases, freeing me up to make the call home.
My beautiful mother, she who suffers and never speaks of it, has finally broken the seal of silence around thewhyof my father’s firm’s collapse. “He’s healing, Mariano. The surgery went well.” He had a heart attack. Not last week. Not the week before.Ten damn months ago.And they didn’t tell me until after he had quadruple bypass surgery. “We didn’t want to worry you,mijo.” She never stopped calling me her sweet boy. Not even when I left home and broke her heart.
“I’m coming home.”
“No!”She smacks something down on the phone table. I can see it in my mind’s eye, her hovering near the kitchen door, coiling the phone cable around her fingers, whispering so Papá can’t hear her. “He doesn’t want you boys to see him this way.”
“Mamá…”I’m begging her to let me back in. Let me at least help.
“He loves you too much, Mariano.”She coughs. Her way of not letting herself break down and cry. “If you can’t play, it will break him. He takes these things personally.”
The stomach acidpicks up where it left off. He has to know I can’t play—not without his backing—so what she says makes no sense. What she means but would never say out loud is, ‘He can’t face the shame of not paying your way,’ which is insane. I’m twenty-six. I should have cut that cord years ago.
“You can makeit a while longer, no?” The not-crying has reached gulp-levels of denial. “Mariano?”
She clingsto the old plan, the former Mariano. One more year—two at the most—and I’d open my own training arena for city kids who’ve never seen a horse, let alone held a mallet. And my dear Mamá and beloved Papá would have every penny back and then some. That was what I said. And I meant it. But now? I...
“Finda way to make it work,mi cielito.May God bless us with more years, that we may see you rise.” All the unsaid things are wrapped in that prayer. ‘Don’t let my husband, heart of my heart, die. Don’t let all his sacrifices be for nothing. Don’t give up, just because the burden of how you go forward is now on your shoulders, son. Find a way.’ “For yourmamá.With love, I think, all things are made simple. And you, my boy, have always known this. To cut to the heart of the matter and do what must be done. Simple, yes?”
And here we are,my mother begging me to do whatever it takes.
All my thrashingand thinking is brushed away in that instant.
There’snothing else for it but for me to agree.
“For you,Mamá. For you, I’ll find a way.” Like a nail in the coffin of my honor, I repeat the phrase that seals my fate, again and again:I’ll find a way.I already know what thatwayis.
She tellsme of my brothers, of my nephews and nieces, of the neighbors who bring her food so she’s not alone. She talks of the cockspur coral tree that blooms by the front door, its vibrant reds playing against the bright blue door Papá painted for her on their wedding day, of the toucan who visits the trees beyond the barn and the crane who graces the lake. The thing she doesn’t talk about is her own heartache or the pressure they’re under now that Papá can’t work. She wants to end our call on an up note. And I let her. What else should a son do?
I’mglad she doesn’t do video calls. That’s one mercy. In the days since our terrible news, I’ve downsized, dramatically, selling everything of value that I own, giving up my penthouse suite. My new digs cost me nothing but the price of a couple of warm-up sessions for the horses each morning and a turn at picking out stalls every other day. For this—and it’s barely a hardship—I sleep on a cot in the tack room.
I’m up before dawn,so I don’t bump into the riders. Stephanie takes lessons with the trainer, Donnie, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The other days she leaves it entirely to the stable hands—Lolly, lovely Lolly who was so lithe and true in my arms—to make sure Tattle is properly cared for.
But Lolly,laughing Lolly whose body sings to mine, calls to me still. And yet, it will never happen. Can never happen. Not now that I am a man besmirched. I will help her with her polo career as I promised to do, but anything beyond that—I can’t think about it. Shame has no place when your parents falter. These are the times when you find who you are; would you do anything for the people you love? Truly? Because I’m about to and it’s breaking me in half.
I stripto the waist and grab a wheelbarrow and manure rake and get to work sifting manure from shavings. Tattle’s still at the vet hospital, recovering from the attack of the colic, so her stall is empty. But it’s the memory of Lolly I see there, shaking the bag and praying—just as I did—that there would be no sand in the residue. But there was, and Lolly cried as Tattle was taken away, for a horse not even her own, turning so she wouldn’t burden us with her tears. How I wished to go to her and take that from her. The trailer pulled away, Tattle in the hands of our beloved vet, and when I turned back, Lolly was gone.
Which is just as well.I cannot think about those things that are not mine to think on.
I wantto be done within the hour so I can work out and ride before my lunch date. Ugh. “Date.”Is that what it is now? I guess it is. No matter the cost to me or my pride, my family has to come before the bile that rises each time I think about the road ahead. The decision has been made for me: I’m going to bed Juliette Parkinson in order to keep my family afloat and my dream alive.
The morning’sa blur of horse shit, sawdust, and a healthy sprinkling of Sweet PDZ to keep the ammonia at bay. It keeps my mind from wandering too far down the path of “servicing your patroness,” which is what the next few months of my life are going to include if I’m going to make this work. I tell myself it’s a done deal, but my brain recoils. My mother’s prayer is on repeat. “Let us live long enough to see you rise.”
So,rise I must.
I graba bottle of eZall Total Body Wash from the wash rack and turn on the hose. If it’s good enough for the horses, it’s good enough for me. Besides, the water is heated. I spray myself with the nozzle. The eZall suds up nicely and rinses easily enough. The stable boy, Gustavo, doesn’t arrive for at least another half hour, so I can drop my trousers and lather up without fear of causing embarrassment. Healthy body, healthy mind and all that. I may be sleeping in a cot in the tack room, but that doesn’t mean I need to let my standards drop. And in any case, if I’m about to appear naked in front of a stranger, I should do her the courtesy of being clean.
Somewhere above methere’s a gasp. I look up in time to see a mass of red curls disappearing from the loft window. “Che! Quién está allí!”But I don’t have to ask who it is. I know that hair. The question should be, what are you doing spying on a naked man?
I pluckmy trousers from the rubber mats and hop my way into them before making for the stairs to the apartment that’s attached to the barn. She’s scrambling around, swearing. She was playing the Peeping Tom. Or Tomasina. Do they have such a thing in English? A phrase for women who ogle?
