“Well,” Gus said. “Almost anybody.”
From inside the barn, they heard a shout of laughter from Becky.
“My daughter and granddaughter might actually do this,” Caroline said. “How crazy is that?”
“Getting less crazy by the day,” he said, “from where I sit.”
“They wouldn’t just be making the team,” Caroline said. “They’d be making history.”
Gus motioned for her to follow him out into the ring, farther away from the barn.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said. “If they both do make it, who will you root for to win the gold medal?”
“Not fair.”
“Won’t hold you to it,” he said. “And whatever you say will stay between us.”
“Maggie,” she said, without hesitation. “She wanted it longer. End of story.”
She looked at him.
“What about you?” she said.
Neither one of them had heard Becky coming into the ring behind them.
“What about him?” Becky said.
ONE HUNDRED THREE
BEFORE A BIG SUNDAY event like the Mercedes, Mom and I would spend Thursday doing light hacking on Coronado and Sky. Maybe a half hour in the ring, tops. Gus had scheduled mine for eleven o’clock.
A little after eight on an uncommonly cool morning for South Florida, I was headed out for a run when I saw one of Gus’s small trailers pull into our driveway. Mom was behind the wheel. She’d spent another night at Gus’s house. It was happening more and more often.
When she got out, she said, “Glad I caught you. Let’s take a walk.”
She was in her riding clothes.
“Going for a run here,” I said.
“I meant a trail walk,” Mom said. “Give us a chance to talk.”
Uh-oh.
“About anything in particular?”
“How about everything?”
“Oh,” I said. “One of those talks.”
“Go change,” she said. “Quickly.”
When we were on our horses and out on the trail, it occurred to me that this trail was where our story had really begun. Mom’s. Mine. Everybody’s. Because we weren’t out here together that day.
“I worry that I never gave you a choice about being a rider,” she said.
I shook my head.
“Nope,” I said. “My choice all the way, Mom. It just took me a while to understand how much I wanted it.”
We rode in silence for a few minutes, out past the barns and the construction sites, unhurried in the morning quiet.
“We have one point to resolve,” she said. “I’m not going to apologize for how much I want this, and that means even if I make it and you don’t.”
“Clear on my end,” I said. “But just because you’ve wanted it longer doesn’t mean you want it more. Because you don’t.”
The trail narrowed again. Mom gave Coronado a kick and got him into a trot. I did the same to Sky, right behind her.
Thinking, I’ve been following her my whole life.
Maybe until now.
“Good talk,” she said.
“You know something?” I said. “It was, even though it doesn’t change the fact that I’m still going to be looking to kick your ass.”
“Wait,” she said. “That’s my line.”
Close to the end of the trail, Mom asked if I was ready to head back. I said I was. The last time we’d been together out here was the day I’d found her.
Just then I heard a rustling in the bushes.
The horses didn’t react. But Mom had heard the same thing. We brought our horses to a halt and at the same moment turned to see the red fox stare at us before running in the other direction.
Mom turned to face me.
“Maybe it’s an omen,” she said.
“Or that fox just didn’t want to take us both on.”
Mom was smiling now.
“I missed you, kid,” she said.
“Missed you, too, Mom,” I said.
We put our horses back in motion and headed for home.
ONE HUNDRED FOUR
WE WERE AT OUR TABLE in the tent, all of us lamenting in the middle of the Friday night Mercedes cocktail reception how much we hated cocktail parties, especially ones for horse people.
“Call off the contest line,” Grandmother said. “I hate them more.”
The event wasn’t officially a command performance for the owners and riders and trainers and various family members. But it was close enough. The owners of WEF were there, representatives of the sport’s ruling bodies, stewards I recognized, local TV personalities, and politicians. And TV camera people. And photographers. I’d never seen the tent this crowded, this hot, this loud.