The Horsewoman Read Free Page B

victories to that point.
    She’d nearly made it to the Olympics in London with Lord Stanley, until the horse came up lame in the spring of 2012. She’d accumulated enough average points the previous year to have already made the short list of ten elite riders trying to qualify for the US Olympic team. That list would eventually be shortened to four, three rider–horse combinations and an alternate after they’d competed the next year at a certain number of what were called “observation events.”
    After what happened to Lord Stanley, Maggie feared that her best shot at the Olympics had come and gone. But she’d kept at it, teaching Becky along the way that the right combination of hard work and talent would bring good results. Maybe even great ones.
    She had always believed that. Until now.
    The nurse poked her head in. “How are we doing?” she said.
    We, Maggie thought. Like they were a team. Like Maggie and her horse.
    “Fine,” Maggie said.
    “Are you sure you don’t want something for the pain?”
    “No, thank you,” she said.
    She’d seen it happen too often with other injured riders who would have taken anything except engine fuel to get back up on their horses.
    The nurse closed the door. Maggie closed her eyes and listened to the night sounds of the hospital.
    But then she was seeing the fox again, and could feel Coronado rising up underneath her, out of her control. Then she was in the air again, landing hard on her shoulder, right before the horse was on top of her, as if she were collapsing into herself.
    Some riders said they went numb when their horses fell on them. Some said they could feel bones inside them snapping like twigs. She hadn’t felt any immediate pain, just the terror of being unable to take in oxygen, even as she felt Coronado try to get his legs underneath him.
    That was the last thing she remembered. She had no memory of them lifting her into the ambulance until she awoke on the way to the hospital and saw Becky sitting beside her.
    “How’s my horse?” Maggie had asked.
    First words out of her mouth.
    Becky had told her Coronado was fine, and how the horse had brought her to the spot where Maggie was lying near the canal.
    “Such a good boy,” Maggie’d said, and then passed out again and didn’t wake up until she was out of surgery.
    Now she had nothing but time to think, and all she could think about was time.
    “The Olympics start at the end of July,” she’d told Dr. Garry, “which means I’d have to start qualifying no later than the spring.”
    “If you don’t qualify this year,” he said, “then you can shoot for next year.”
    “You don’t understand,” she said. “The Olympics happen every four years.”
    When the doctor left, she checked her phone. Only nine o’clock. She felt as if the longest night of her life was just beginning.

SIX
    Caroline
    CAROLINE WAS ABOUT to fix herself a cup of tea when her doorbell rang. She moved stiffly to answer the door.
    She had been a rider herself when she was younger, though she hardly rode at all these days. But her own career, because of the daredevil way she rode—more like her granddaughter than she’d ever admit—had been littered with falls, and injuries to her knees, shoulders, neck, and back that showed themselves with stiffness and a lingering limp. She sometimes thought she had an easier time managing her diabetes than she did all her aches and pains.
    “Sorry I didn’t call first,” Steve Gorton said.
    Caroline managed a thin smile before answering, “No, you’re not,” then waved him in.
    He was maybe six one or six two, and had been an unmemorable college football player at Penn back in the early nineties. She’d looked it up, along with his age—past fifty now. He wore his hair piled too high on top, probably colored it, and shaved it too close on the sides in a way that accentuated his jowls. Even in Florida, he sprayed on his tan. Forever young, or trying like hell to look that way,