Come to the Edge_ A Memoir - Christina Haag [92]
He took my hand, and we ran across Central Park South to choose the horse we liked best. When the carriage entered the park, it was quiet, and the fog rolled beside us. It wasn’t cold, but we huddled, cocooned under thick wool blankets. A sliver of moon, and all around, familiar shadows of the old limestone buildings that framed the park, the shapes and turrets we’d known since childhood.
He spoke first. He was intrigued by the way the last year and the time apart might have changed us. Our relationship would be different and, he believed, stronger. His voice sounded sad, but he said that he wasn’t.
“Few people are so lucky to have what we do. I have a lot of hope.”
I had hope too. My trust was frayed, but I had hope.
“Can you forgive me?” His head fell so that it rested on mine, the weight I’d longed for somehow painful, and we passed that way through the dark trees. “This is the first time …”
I waited, listening to hooves on pavement, listening to his breath.
“Yes,” I began.
“It’s the first time I thought I might lose you.”
Before Christmas, on our way to stay with friends in Vermont, we drove upstate and looked at land near Albany. It hadn’t snowed, but the ground crunched under our feet without give. What did I think, he asked, while the real estate agent waited in the car.
I hadn’t wanted to go, I think now, because I knew what “land in Albany” meant. That he was thinking about it somewhere down the line, a life I feared might subsume me. I thought of his cousins’ wives, one in particular. She was ten years older than I was, smart and elegant, and although I didn’t know her well, she had always been kind to me. It was nothing she said, but her face held such sadness, even as she smiled. Like a memory of pleasure but no longer.
Before we left, he told the agent no. He agreed it wasn’t right. And he asked me then, in that cold field toward the beginning of a new year, whether I could see myself living up here someday, and whether I thought I’d always be an actress.
I said yes to both.
We’re in a field in New Jersey not far from his mother’s house. We wear jackets and the sun is out. October bright. That night, we’ll have a fire. At the far end of the field, there’s a bank of trees near a brook, and the leaves are a shudder of pale gold. I’m on Frank, and he’s on the new horse, the black one, and as he leans down to pat the glossy neck, I think how gentle he can be.
We’ve warmed them up and take one quick canter around the ring. I rub my thumb along the rein. I know what comes next. It’s what he’s thinking of, has been all along. As we drove and talked of other things. In the stable with the saddles and the leads. And without question, once the barn door opens.
I see it in his face, a certain widening of the eyes. The way his jaw gets tight but he could be smiling. He’s thinking of the feeling—the flying flat-out run across the field. The feeling where your heart beats against your throat and you know you are alive.
I’m thinking of it, too. How I’ll dig my heels down this time, knot my fingers halfway up the mane if I’m afraid. How I’ll hold the horse close like a lover. I won’t think about the rest: the pocket holes that pit the field, a slip, a break, a twig. That I’m an average rider at best. I’ll keep my eyes burrowed on those trees ahead and pray I hold my seat. I’ll find the part in me like him that craves the rush of speed.
I don’t know why it is, but I feel safe. It may be because he believes in me. Or the way I know we’ll laugh when we reach the other side. Out of breath, relieved, sated. And after a break, when the horses are ready, we’ll go again. Each time, it will be easier, faster. Longer. Until I say no. I can always say no. He won’t go without me. He’s told me this, and I believe him.
There’s something in this jeweled day. A thrill. A grace. That I am with him before the leaves fall. That we share this like a secret, this pushing back at fear, at death, on the backs of his mother’s horses.
He turns to me