The Horsewoman(2)

Mom and Dad were divorced by then, and we couldn’t afford to buy another horse. But when I told Dad about Sky, he bought her for me. Called it an early birthday present. Now the little horse was my best friend in the world.

Sky seemed to love me just the way I was. I loved her even more fiercely back. She didn’t want me to work harder, or win more, or party less. Or wake up earlier. It didn’t matter to her that Maggie Atwood had been a champion from the time she’d been the age I was now.

She was Atwood, by the way, and I was McCabe because she’d given up my dad’s name after the divorce. I’d kept it. People sometimes wondered if we were even related.

Oh, Sky and I had won our share of jumping events over the years. At our best, we were a perfect, fearless match. Even after Sky had knocked down a rail or two and taken us out of the running for a ribbon, I’d come out of the ring and see that our time was five seconds faster than anybody else’s. And as hard as I tried, I couldn’t feel sad about that.

It was why my trainer, Daniel, had taken to calling me Maverick, after the character Tom Cruise played in Top Gun.

“You have the need,” he’d said, “for speed.”

“I’m not still in pony camp,” I’d said. “I just don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.”

“When?” he’d said. “Or if?”

Where I pushed boundaries, Mom was precise. We were all sure she’d be riding Coronado in the Olympics in Paris late next summer. She was one of the best riders in the country. Trying to prove she was one of the best in the world.

Mom only went as fast as she needed to when she was in the ring. Even when one of her horses refused a jump at the last second, I had never seen her fall off. Other riders, sure. It had happened to me plenty of times. Her? Never.

In every area of life, she stayed in her lane, and excelled there. She wasn’t reckless. Didn’t take chances. Even when she and Coronado got a bad start in the ring, I’d watch her figure things out in the next half minute. Sometimes sooner. Like she’d hit a reset button.

We didn’t need a handyman at Atwood Farm as long as Mom was around. If something broke, she put it back together. A saddle. A bridle. A spur.

Wonder Woman, the horsewoman.

Don’t get me wrong: We loved each other. A lot. We were just different.

A lot.

It’s why Mom and Grandmother—and Daniel—believed that Sky and I weren’t at our best often enough, that I wasn’t the champion they needed me to be.

One of the beauties of our sport is that men and women compete against each other, from the time they’re teenagers until some of them are past sixty.

Maggie Atwood didn’t only aspire to being an Olympic equestrian, she was a serious gym rat. She was on the clock with an exercise class, followed by a session at the gym, and a massage booked for after that. She couldn’t afford to waste precious minutes waiting for me.

Another time fault for Becky McCabe.

Emilio said he’d throw a saddle on Sky. In the bathroom next to the tack room, I got into my riding pants and boots and helmet, came out and took the reins from Emilio and started walking Sky toward the schooling ring. It was then that I heard shouting, saw Daniel and Emilio running toward the main road.

Then I saw why.

Mom’s horse, Coronado, her ride to the Olympics, was coming straight for them, at full gallop, as if he were the one feeling the need for speed.

Daniel took charge, motioning for Emilio to fan out from the out-of-control horse, protect themselves from being trampled.

No shouting from them now. They had their arms out in front of them, trying to calm Coronado, slow him down.

Usually that would have been the rider’s job.

Mom’s job.

But Coronado’s saddle was empty.





TWO



“HE KNEW ENOUGH to come home,” Daniel said to me.

Home meant the barn.

One firm barn rule was that nobody went out on a trail ride alone. Mom had just done it—her idea of being a maverick. Now I had to break that same rule if I had any chance of saving her.

In my heart I knew that if the situation were reversed, Mom would jump on Sky and ride all the way to the Florida turnpike and back if that’s what it took to find me.

Now I jumped off Sky, handed her reins to George, one of the other grooms, and moved closer to Daniel and Emilio, keeping my distance, not wanting Coronado to spook more than he already had.

Then Daniel slowly reached for the horse’s bridle, talking softly to him in Spanish now. As he did, I came in behind them and put a foot in the stirrup closest to me.

“Let me go find her,” Daniel said.

“No,” I said.

He put his hand on my arm. I looked down, glaring his hand away.

“My mom,” I said. “Her horse.”

We had a brief stare-down, until he nodded and let go of the bridle.

Emilio gave me a leg up into the saddle. Mom’s saddle. Her horse. They were connected in the same way I was connected to Sky.

When I was on Sky and trying to get the distance between jumps exactly right, I was never really sure how much of it was me and how much of it was a combination of her breeding and training and instinct and even muscle memory. In those moments of trust between horse and rider, it was as if we were sharing one brain.