Mom tried to argue, but he waved her off.
“What I’d really like to do?” Gorton said. “Fire her right now and then call her in a hour and fire her again.”
He turned to walk away from them and saw Daniel and me standing in the ring. Gorton, big as he was, managed to squeeze himself through the fence, only to risk getting kicked by the horses around him.
His chest was heaving, his face clenched as tight as a fist and the color of a stop sign.
“Did you hear what I just told them?” he said.
“Everybody heard,” I said quietly.
“You know who could have ridden that horse better than you did today?” he said, spitting out the words. “Anybody.”
Then he turned to Daniel.
“Remind me again why this girl was the one to ride this horse now that her mother can’t?” he said.
Before Daniel could answer, Gorton walked past us unscathed by the horses. We both turned and watched him go.
“He is a bad man,” Daniel said.
“Yeah,” I said, “he is. But when he’s right, he’s right.”
TWENTY-SIX
Maggie
RIGHT AFTER STEVE GORTON walked out of the schooling ring, Becky disappeared for a few hours. She didn’t answer any of Maggie’s calls or texts. She’d finally taken a call from Daniel, who told her that Caroline was convening a family meeting at the house, at eight.
Becky came through the front door on time, still in her dirty riding clothes.
“Are you okay?” Maggie said to Becky.
“Fine,” Becky said in that contrary way she’d had since she was a little girl.
“Honey,” Maggie said. “You’ve lost before.”
“Not like that, I haven’t,” Becky said.
“We all lose more in this sport than we win,” Maggie said. “Matthew Killeen. Tyler Cullen. Rich Grayson. Georgina Bloomberg. Tess McGill. Me.”
“Mom,” Becky said, “I love you to death. But the last thing I need right now is a pep talk.”
“It’s the truth,” Maggie said.
“My whole life you’ve talked about people’s truths,” Becky said. “Trust me, tonight yours isn’t close to being mine.”
Little did she know.
They heard Caroline coming down the steps then. She had changed out of the riding clothes she always wore to the show, as if still a competitor herself.
“Well, well,” she said. “The gang’s all here.”
In jeans and sneakers, she crossed the room, rolling up the sleeves on her Atwood Farm sweatshirt before sitting down in her rocking chair. Daniel was standing near the front window. Becky stood next to him. Maggie had taken the couch. She’d been on her feet enough today. Her bad knee felt as if someone had stuck a needle in it.
She was all talked out by now. Or shouted out. This was her mother’s show.
“Before you say anything,” Becky said to her grandmother, “if this is about the way I rode, I know, okay? I know. I thought I could get him to make up the distance. All of us saw what happened after that.”
“Everybody makes mistakes, kid,” Caroline Atwood said.
Didn’t see that one coming, Maggie thought.
“I couldn’t afford to make one like that today,” Becky said.
“Like we say all the time around here,” Caroline said, “shit happens. And today, all of us stepped in it.”
Maggie watched as her mother rose painfully to her feet. Like mother, like daughter.
“Not the kind of night I was hoping for,” she said.
“None of us were,” Maggie said.
“It is like I told Becky,” Daniel said. “It was a mistake, not the end of the world.”
“Thank you,” Becky said. “I mean that. But nobody’s talking me down tonight.” She grimaced. “Or back up. All I can say is I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t ask you here to get an apology out of you,” Caroline said. “I’ve told you since you were a little girl. Sorry doesn’t fix the lamp.”
“Can I say what I’ve been thinking about since I walked out of the ring, Grandmother?” Becky said. “If you and Mr. Gorton want to find another rider, I’m totally down with that. I did this to myself.”
“No,” Caroline said.
Maggie was watching her daughter now, seeing the surprise on her face. Or maybe relief.
Knowing it wasn’t going to last long. All afternoon Maggie had been arguing Caroline’s decision, but her mother insisted it was final.