Or just retire.
We were finishing dinner when I told Mom and Grandmother I was heading down the hill.
“To check on Sky?” Mom said.
“To ride her,” I said.
EIGHTY-ONE
“ARE YOU SURE the horse didn’t drop you on your head?” Grandmother said. “You need to go to bed.”
“I need to ride.”
“No.”
“Not your call,” I said. “I’m not letting what happened be the last thing I see after I close my eyes.”
I looked over at Mom.
“You got back up the first chance you got,” I said.
“After a month!” Grandmother said.
“After surgery,” I said to both of them.
Mom looked at me, then reached across the table and put a hand on Grandmother’s arm.
“Let her go,” she said.
I went upstairs to change into my breeches, then pull on my boots. It took longer than I thought it would. Bending over to put on the boots hurt way more than I thought it would. But I wasn’t going to call downstairs and ask for a little help here. Emilio, I knew, had left my helmet in the tack room.
Mom and Grandmother waited for me in the kitchen. Grandmother reluctantly walked down the hill with us. She and Mom got Sky’s girth on her, saddle pads, saddle, bridle.
“You guys really don’t need to hang around,” I said.
“Good one,” Grandmother said.
We were walking Sky toward the ring when Gus’s van showed up.
“You called him,” I said to Mom, making no attempt to turn it into a question.
“I was too frightened to consider the consequences of not calling him,” she said.
I stopped to watch his door open, the platform extend, then lower him to the ground. Wondering again what it must be like for him to go through what he had to go through daily. Glad in that moment that Mom had called him. Wanting him, more than anybody else, to see that I could play hurt.
Daniel’s Kia showed up in the driveway a couple of minutes later.
Gang’s all here.
Team Becky.
I hacked Sky slowly around the ring. The up-and-down, just the simple posting, caused me the most pain. Mom had told me the same thing had happened to her when she was back in the saddle. It was just something else my face wasn’t going to show my audience. Every time I passed them, I smiled and gave them a thumbs-up.
The third time around Gus actually smiled back.
“You’re so full of shit,” he said. “Trying to act like you’re not hurt.”
“Now that hurts,” I said.
“Shut up and ride your damn horse,” he said.
When I finished, Daniel was the one to come into the ring and help me down. We walked her back to the barn together, got her saddle off her, found a carrot for her in the tack room refrigerator, hosed her down, let her have a big drink, put her in her stall.
She looked perfectly fine, despite doing double duty today. I was ready for another hot bath, and that shot of tequila.
Grandmother had gone back to the house by the time Daniel and I were back outside. Gus and Mom were where we’d left them near the gate.
“I already knew you were a hard-ass,” he said. “You didn’t need to prove it tonight.”
“Just trying to give you some much-needed positive reinforcement,” I said.
“What I need is a drink,” Gus said.
“Same,” Mom said.
“I’m buying,” Gus said.
He turned his chair around, pulled out a remote from the side pocket of his vest, pushed a button. The doors to the van opened. A minute later he was being lifted up behind the wheel as Mom got in on the passenger side.
“Date night?” I said to Daniel.
“Looks like,” he said.
We watched Gus get the van turned around and head down the driveway and then out to Stable Way.
“You want to have a drink here?” I said.
“Thank you,” he said. “But I have to be somewhere.”
Then he got into his car and drove away. I went up to the house, got the bottle of Patrón, brought it back down the hill, sat down in the straw next to Sky.
“Cheers,” I said.
She looked at me.
“Date night,” I said.
EIGHTY-TWO
WHEN IT WAS TIME for the 3-Star the following Thursday, last tune-up before the National Grand Prix, I was still sore but hadn’t missed a day of riding, on Sky or Tiny, since getting thrown. It was one of the reasons that Gus had started calling me Bad Ass Becky McCabe.
I told him it was probably the nicest thing he’d ever said to me.