Pony Ride

Every time my nurse Danny opens the door to my so-called apartment, stepping in whisper-quiet on those foamy shoes he wears, it’s like a little widening of the world. And today, with Junie holding onto my hands like I might be about to bolt, hearing him come in feels like somebody pushing the window beside my chair wide open. I imagine bright snow blowing off the hill behind the parking lot and right into the room, lighting up the air like pieces of tinsel shedding off a Christmas tree.

My daughter is a beautiful woman—so gorgeous when she was a child it used to scare me to look at her. But her whole face can go sour in a second. She has a way of knotting up her mouth when something doesn’t sit with her, and now she’s squinting at me hard through all the pretty snow between us, her lips stitched shut over the swell of things she’s making a point of not saying. You said you’d stop using the oven, Mom. What happened to those nice new shoes I got you? Couldn’t you at least try to pretend you like it here?

I’d like to turn away from her with all of her tedious resentment—to call out to Danny in the kitchen, where I imagine him lifting the lid off my lunch tray like there’s something alive on the plate, his sharp shoulders all fluttery under the yellow fabric of his uniform. 

But a mother doesn’t get to look away from her children. At least I don’t think so.

Junie always hated snow. When she was little, she’d sink like a corpse into her chair when I came at her with her snowsuit. Getting her into it was like pouring cement. And now, her fingers in mine are heavy like her little arms and legs used to be when I’d scoop her up off the floor, groaning, “Junie Bee, Junie Bow, in you be, and out we go!”

My daughter is at her wit’s end with me, I know it. 

But what can I do?

Giving in about the meals would be something. All this is costing Davis an arm and a leg, Junie says, and it’s a waste sending those trays back just the way they come.

Not that I asked for my son-in-law’s help. “Get a girl to pop in from time to time,” is all Dr. Miller said. MaineCare would have covered it. It’s Junie and Davis that twisted things around, and it’s on account of them that I’m here, pacing my stall like a horse brought into the barn too early. And the kicker of it is that Junie knows better than anyone how much I hate to be pent up. She knows what it cost me, all those years, to come in from the horses in time to get the house straightened, dinner going, and both of us fixed up just so before her dad got home. She knows.

But she doesn’t care. Or she doesn’t care enough.

Here’s a sad fact: sitting here with Junie’s face right up close to mine, I know exactly why those step-kids of hers won’t warm to her. Junie’s got a big heart in her way, but there’s a kind of chill inside her, too. Kids are like horses—they can always tell about that kind of thing. 

I worried about June when she was growing up, I really did, every time her face flashed with that anger of hers as bright as sheet lightning. But she seems to make out all right. Her Davis is probably okay, too, though I don’t like the needly way of him, or how he makes June out to be stupid, when she’s got more sense about the world in one finger than he does in that professor’s head of his. 

I know they’re both good enough people, doing what they think is best, and what can I do but love them for it? Still, it wears me out, watching Junie’s pretty face knot itself up while it’s Davis this, Davis that. It unties something in my head, and I feel myself start to drift. Up just a little, into the snowflakes still hovering above the ugly, fish-colored furniture that’s in all the rooms here at the illustrious Whispering Pines Assisted Living and Memory Care compound.

#

I should stay put, for Junie. But I can’t help but let my eyes flutter, just enough to blur the sharp edges of June’s face, and that’s all it takes: Junie becomes a little girl again right in front of me, all seersucker and patent leather, her cheeks spit-polished and her hair like fall grass tugged into her new horse barrettes for the first day of kindergarten. I watch her little stockinged legs pedal fast under the table while she stirs her cereal instead of eating it, an eager scowl on her face and her eyes trained on the window to watch for the bus. 

Oh Junie Bee, Junie Bow! Such a difficult wonder of a child.

Junie was always a pill to get out the door. No matter how excited she was for school, it was a wrestling match getting her ready, and I’d wind up practically shoving her down the driveway when the bus pulled up, her skirt catching the wind as she ran down the hill with her lunch box knocking against her legs. And I can’t help but sing out loud, even though a part of me knows I shouldn’t, as I remember how Junie’s small shoulders hunched up when she ran.

“Oh Junie Bee, Junie Bow, in we be and out we go,” I call in a voice that has in it all the excitement of those little girl legs cycling faster and faster down the hill, and I feel my own body begin to lift up out of my chair to follow Junie into the bright fall morning. 

But I can’t go, because June’s adult face is right here in front of me, blocking my way.

“Mother,” she says in a voice you would use to call a dog back to heel.

I swallow my song, and the silence is loud between us. 

“Junie June,” I say, studying her aging face with its handsome lines. “Junie Bee.”

June sighs, and the sense that I know exactly how she feels but can’t put my finger on it is like returning to the kitchen to find the sandwich meant for June’s lunchbox left behind on the sideboard.

It’s all right, though, because Danny is coming out of the kitchen to rescue me. He’s got my little cup of pills in one hand and a glass of juice in the other. 

“Good afternoon, ladies,” he says. 

There’s a polite, teenage way to how he talks that reminds me of the boys Junie used to bring home in high school, even though Danny must be closer to 40 than 14. He looks right at Junie when he says it, like she’s the one he’s speaking to. But I know he’s been listening from the kitchen. Waiting until I needed him. And I know that he’ll mind June now so I don’t have to.

“Danny boy,” I say, which is what I’ve been calling him since the first day he came into the apartment, calling out from the doorway like he was afraid I might come out shooting. I blame my mother for the nickname and the song she sang from her belly when she hung out the wash . . . : “Oh Danny boy, Danny boy, the pipes are calling,” she’d croon. “Oh Danny boy, Danny boy, I love you so!” 

“You’re back again, Danny boy,” I say, maybe a little too loudly. “You remember my daughter, June.”

Danny’s black eyes fold in around the edges and he nods. Junie turns her head, and I can see from the crease in her cheek that she’s smiling like something’s funny.

“Danny boy,” I say again, my eyes on June’s delicate ear, “I’ll take you up on that lunch today, if it’s not a bother.” 

I will Junie’s face back toward mine. I want to see her react to my change of heart; my sudden willingness to eat the bland tray of food her and her husband have purchased for me against my wishes. But June isn’t listening—she’s too caught up looking at Danny. 

Not that I blame her. There’s something rabbitlike about Danny’s features that winds a woman up. I can tell he’s scanning my little shoebox of a pretend apartment with his quick senses, figuring out what trouble I might have got up to since he checked on me this morning. I know he’s seen the remnants of scallions on the cutting board beside the sink and can smell the salty body-smell of the cottage pie I have in the toaster oven I’m not supposed to use except when somebody’s here to help out. Junie must smell it, too, but she’s softened, somehow, with Danny in the room. She thinks there’s a joke between them because she’s used to having something that’s just hers between her and most of the men she meets.

But if Danny is catching her eye out the corner of his when he nods to me, he’s just being polite. He’s upright in that way, no matter what they say about him. I try to stay out of the mix, but I hear people talk, and to be honest, it isn’t hard to believe the rumors about Danny—that he’s been in trouble. Not that it bothers me—it’s the ones that have been in trouble that know something about the world. There’s not a lot of good conversation to be had around here, and Danny and I talk about things that matter more than whose legs are swollen how much and how none of us could have predicted we’d live to see people carrying computers around in their pockets.

If I’m honest, though, what I like most about having Danny around is studying his body. I like how his muscles twitch under his skin. And how his black bird-eyes dart across the jackets of my books, across the lines of my face when he sticks one of those little speakers of his into my ear so I can hear his music.

That’s why I don’t get fussed when Junie lets my fingers drop like litter to dance across the room and put her head close to Danny’s, a smile cutting her face in two. She’s human, after all. And the truth is, Junie can smile all she wants, but it’s me Danny’s stone-black eyes keep tracking back to. Me, just past what would be the edge of most people’s vision, but right at the center of Danny’s attention. It’s hard to say how long June and Danny are gone—time moves around on me these days. But I’m sure poor Danny’s bored to death, listening to June whisper-shout in his ear like I’d need to be able to make out her words to know the kinds of things she’s saying about me.

#

June doesn’t understand about the drift. She thinks it’s something I can’t control. 

But really, why should I even try? 

After all the years I spent taking care of other people—getting called back every time I tried to take just a minute for myself—don’t I deserve to let my mind wander? Honestly, though I’d never tell Junie this, it’s like a gift—like getting back my real, inside-life, long after I thought that part of me gone for good.

“Well, Danny boy, have you dispatched my dear daughter for today, or is she in checking the shower for sinkholes?” is what I say when Danny returns to my side alone.

The thin skin around Danny’s eyes crinkles up like an accordion fan. “She said to tell you she’ll be back this evening,” he says. “That she’ll bring the kids by.” 

“For joy!” I say, and I think I see Danny’s neck go pink on either side of his Adam’s apple. 

“Danny boy,” I say to him, “did that daughter of mine get you turned around? She’s a captivating woman, I know it. You can tell me the truth.” 

I like to tease Danny because he takes it in stride. 

“No ma’am,” he says, smiling his thin smile. “She’s a talker, though, I’ll say that.”

God knows that’s the truth. But I’m not done having fun with Danny. 

“She’s a looker, too,” I say. “I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“Well,” Danny says, “it’s no mystery where she got that from, is it?” 

Danny’s hand lights on my shoulder like one of the catbirds that used to haunt the blackberry bushes out behind the stables. The softness of his fingers makes me think how much I’d like to take Danny out to the farm to see my horses someday, and I tell him so as he leads me into the bathroom to get me ready for my shower.

“Ayuh,” he says, when I tell him he’s got the right temperament for horses.

“Then we’ll do it!” I say. 

Danny doesn’t answer me, but that’s his way. With Danny, you can take silence as assent.

#

My beasts don’t mean anything to June. 

I raised her to be as precise a rider as you’ll ever see, but she’s got no feel for horses. As still and suffocating as our little house up on High Street could get, I never once saw Junie itch to get out to the barn like I did. Still, there isn’t a much prettier sight than a little girl like Junie perched up on a pony, her small mouth set in the same trim line as her knuckles across the reins, holding her mount on the bit like her life depends on it. 

I want to tell Danny that—to describe to him exactly how Junie’s little jaw clenches and un-clenches each time she posts, because I can see her now, riding her neat figure eights at the far end of the ring with her pony’s hooves sweeping the turf underneath them like little brooms over a wood floor. But Danny boy has me stripped down to wash around my nether regions now, and that’s a time we keep quiet for. Anyhow, I know he understands without me saying anything. 

So, I let the water from the showerhead become wind against my waist. I let my horse’s energy collect inside my body. By the time I pass little Junie along the rail, I’m tingling all the way from my seat up to the top of my head. 

The steam of the shower balloons in front of me, making little Junie look like something out of a dream. She flickers in and out of visibility each time she switches diagonals at the midpoint of her figure eight. And as my horse rises into a canter away from Junie and her pony, I think for a moment that I should check him—that I should keep close to Junie so I can see her better through the fog. 

But I don’t. 

Instead, I let my horse gather speed and I watch Junie and her pony flicker like a candle just before it goes out.

I know with dead certainty that June will keep right on riding her trim little patterns like I taught her, whether I’m watching her or not—know it deep enough inside myself that I only feel a little guilty when I turn my horse toward the open gate at the far end of the ring and let him stretch out underneath me. And as we accelerate, the steady beat of my horse’s hooves falling like useless objects out of a purse, I let the reins go—slowly at first, then all at once, so my hands are free to grab Danny’s hair and hold it hard with my fists in my lap. 

“Danny boy!” I laugh, thrilled by the motion underneath me. 

And it isn’t that I don’t know what’s what—but I tell you, the back of Danny’s head bent down over my lap looks for all the world like the lathered-up neck of the horse that’s racing fast underneath my saddle. 

“That’s my boy, Danny boy!” I shout, as the sweet-scented fog of the bathroom closes like a mouth around us. 

And Danny, God love him, doesn’t look up—he keeps right on charging through the fog as it condenses all the way to water rushing between my legs.