I went to Still Waters one Wednesday. I thought Anne would be there, and she was. Out by the pool in the sun. I went and lay beside her on the lounge.
“Hi,” I said.
“It´s Wednesday. You usually don´t come on Wednesday any more. I´m glad to see you.”
“I wanted to see you. Talk some.”
“Anything wrong?”
“No, Anne, I just felt like I hadn´t been with you for a while, and I wanted to spend some time.”
“Good. I´ve missed you.”
“Have I been away so long?”
“Not really, of course. You´re always here and always your wonderful self. But I´ve felt the same thing. I´ve missed the closeness we had.”
“Yeah. That´s it. I´ve been around you, but we haven´t been close in a while. When did that happen?”
“I guess it was when you went to Colorado last summer with Will and your folks. When you came back, you were a different person. Still you. Still the Mary I – we all – love. But different.”
“It was a very important time for me, Anne. I saw Mom and Dad being themselves. We sort of submerged ourselves in each other.”
“Will told me. He said it was beautiful, the way the three of you almost swept away all those awful years and loved each other.”
“Did he tell you about the drawing he did out at the ranch?”
“He said he did one of you watching your folks make love.”
“Anne, it was beautiful. My mom burst into tears when she looked at it. She hugged Will for about an hour, it seemed. It made me cry, too.”
“And when you came back, you were different. Better, but I don´t think you realized it.”
“I knew I felt better. More together. Closer to being whole, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah. That´s what it felt like to me.”
I turned and hugged her for a while. She hugged me back.
’S funny, you know,” I said in her ear, “I came back and went to work just like nothing happened, only the whole world was different. I just can´t describe it.” I laid back again in the hot sun.
“First thing you did was talk to Sarah about helping the girls.”
“Was it? Well, almost the first. I always used to shy away from teaching little girls, you know. I just couldn´t handle their pain.”
“Because of your own, you mean?”
“Yeah, but I didn´t realize it then, except that I really felt for Jane. Only began to think about it since we started the Riders.”
“But it was strange, too. You were a hell of a lot better – that is, you seemed so much more at peace. But at the same time, you kind of had a shell around you. Even when I talked to you last summer, after you got back. You understood what I meant, but the shell was still there.”
“Really? Gee, I hope I didn´t hurt anyone´s feelings. I sure wasn´t aware of it.”
“Well, you really didn´t hurt anyone. In the first place, you were pretty much your old self around us.”
“That´s good. You guys are home base for me. Without you all, I´d be lost.”
“Oh, I think that´s going too far. You´re a tough girl underneath it all. It took toughness to get through eighteen years without a mom and still be a great person.”
“Just the same ...”
“Just the same, I know what you mean. We´re all support for each other. Look how Tom´s blossomed out. When we first knew him, he wasn´t sure he´d make it through college.”
“Yeah. Now, we all rely on him as Mr. Steady.”
“Right ... No, with us you were fine. But you really shut the rest of the world out, you know. You put all the energy you had into your work, your riding and the girls. And bless you for it, it´s done them a world of good.”
“They´re coming along.”
“You´re happy with Ken, that´s clear.”
“God, yes. Anne, one reason I came today was to say ‘Thank you´ for wising me up that day.”
“None needed, Mary. You were so funny, though, mooning around like ...”
“Well, that´s over. I don´t know why I didn´t see it.”
“Mary, you didn´t see anything from the time you got home last summer until you finally lit out after Ken Chance.”
“Really?
“Know when we met Ken?”
“No.”
“Last fall, just after Labor Day. We were at the stables one day after you´d won another show. He was there, too. We all got to know him, like him. I don´t think you even saw him.”
“I sure don´t remember seeing him.”
“You didn´t see him at all until Easter, when he was helping out May.”
“And I nearly snapped his head off. What must he have thought of me?”
“Ask him. None of us ever said anything to him, we just used to talk and kid around at shows, and when he´d be hanging out at the stables, drooling over you.”
“Oh, come on.”
“No, really. He´s a big boy, he wasn´t obvious, and he handled it well. But there wasn´t one of us who didn´t see he was crazy about you. We were all rooting for him.”
I just sat there for a while in the sunshine. A lot had happened that I´d missed.
“I feel kind of funny, now. Thinking back, I guess it just goes on from what you said to me – back last spring, was it? You said I needed to have my folks back before I could learn to love.”
“Yeah.”
“Then, when that happened ... Remember what I said? ‘If I didn´t have you, I´d marry the first man I saw. ´”
“I was never too worried about that.”
“Not when I was ignoring the best thing I ever saw.”
“No, it was just that you´re too level-headed to do that.”
“You say that, after I ran barefoot and almost bare ass to him?”
“Of course. You needed time. Time to understand that you were free to love, and time to figure out what it is you want.”
“Good thing it was right in front of my nose, or I´d have missed it ... Hey, I´m roasting. I´ve gotta cool off.”
I took a dive in the pool, and Anne was right behind me.
“So, how´s it going for you? Any problems?”
“None yet, but you never know. We work well together, the sex is great; we don´t always agree, but we don´t fight about it. Just work it out. Pretty comfortable, really. And I love the way Chance goes after things. Kind of like me. Not just business, he´s as adventurous about sex as I am.”
We climbed out of the pool, dried off and wandered back to the house. I settled down on the Big Bed and Anne lay down next to me. Just like old times.
“Guess you had a great vacation. Haven´t heard the gory details.”
I told her about meeting Denise and Jim on the plane and how we all got off to a flying start.
She said, “One of the great things I love about you. Remember when I put up the panty hook? You were the first one to use it.”
“Not by much.”
“You inspired me. Still, you were always so adventurous, so ready to try new things, new guys. Then, when your mom cracked up, you put everything on hold. Now, you´re back in gear.” She fell silent for a moment. “Makes me realize that, never mind the way we all live, except for you we´re all pretty conservative when it comes to sex and reaching out to others.”
“Well, don´t carry that too far. After all, there was Heather, and Sarah and Steve, and all our parents. Not what most people call conservative.”
“Still ...”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. On the other hand, I´ll jump any good-looking guy I see, and Chance is no different.”
So, I told her about Iris, the FedEx girl we´d been loving, and then about the disco with Margaret and how Ken ‘gave her a licking´. “Funny thing happened after that.”
“What?”
“Chance disappeared with Mom.”
“Whose idea was that?”
“Probably Mom´s. He was hard as a rock when he came back inside with Margaret. Margaret told me later she´d gotten off from him loving her breasts. He´s good at that, I know. So, I guess Mom saw a good thing and took off with it.”
“How did you feel about it?”
“Good. I´ve seen Mom in action a lot now, and I know there isn´t a wicked bone in her horny little body. I knew she and Chance would have a wonderful night. The next afternoon, Mom and I got off in a corner and talked about the whole thing. We hugged and kissed and cried for a while. Then we started giggling.”
“Great.”
“You know what?”
“What?”
“I get homesick. For our old gang.”
“You´re here a lot. All weekend.”
“Yeah, but it´s a little different. We´re going two different ways.”
“And?”
“You guys have the business going great guns, and Chance and I are getting the stables planned. By next year, you won´t recognize the place.”
“I know what you mean. We could go on forever with just the art business. But now, we´re running like crazy into this whole new area, VeeCees and VeeJays. Sometimes it scares me, but it´s a lot of fun.”
“Bothers me a little, ‘cause I worry that, somehow we´ll grow apart.”
“Could happen, if we let it. If we forget that we all love each other.”
“Neither of us wants that. I´ve talked to Chance about it, how important you all are to me. He understands, and I think he´s beginning to feel some of it himself.”
“You have another link, you know.”
“What?”
“Will. He misses you. Not that he doesn´t see you and hasn´t made love with you. Not that. He misses the you he had when you were doing horse things together.”
“Oh ... Yeah ... Oh, shit. I told him he didn´t need me any more.”
“He does, Mary. Not to tell him about how a horse isn´t right. You had that right; he knows it himself, now. No, he needs you and your common sense, honesty, and your long, lovely legs around him and you as a part of his art.”
I thought about that. Anne and I snuggled in the cool of the room.
“You know, Anne, I think I can handle that. And I´m pretty sure Chance can, too.”