I narrowed my eyes. Stan looked just fine to me.
Stan set his paintbrush down, walked toward the porch steps. "If you wouldn't mind helping out an old man, I'd be mighty appreciative," he said as he started walking down the steps. "Time to get back on the horse."
I sighed. Stan had a way of making it so you couldn't say no.
I slipped a ratty tee shirt over my head and pulled my hair back into a ponytail, tucking the stubborn wayward strands behind my ears. Sliding my cowboy boots on, I looked at myself in the mirror. My arms were already tan from working on the house outside in the sun, and my face was starting to develop a rosy glow it lacked when I moved back here from Chicago, where I’d been inside the majority of the time. I was looking more and more like a local, and surprisingly quickly. It almost looked like I'd never left this place.
Inside the barn, my heart raced. It had been a lifetime since I'd ridden. I felt simultaneously thrilled and terrified. What if I couldn't remember how to ride?
Stan was standing outside the stall, tying off a lead rope. "Afternoon, June."
I heard Missy neigh, and I realized I felt just as skittish as she sounded. "I don't know, Stan. Maybe it's not the greatest idea."
"Come on over and meet her," he said. "She's been waiting for you."
"Hey there, girl." I ran my hand along Missy's face, then down her neck, listening to her heavy breathing and the swish of her tail. I breathed in deeply, the smell of the barn that had been so familiar in my youth. Standing there now was like taking a step back in time.
I didn't expect the flood of memories that came rushing back.
~
My sister tossed her head back, long blonde hair falling in curls down her shoulders, nudged the horse with her foot, and I watched her take off at a canter.
"Wait, Abby!" I called. I was still nervous, unsure of myself, afraid I would fall.
"Come, on, silly! You'll have to keep up, June! Ride!"
I felt a gnawing in the pit of my stomach, the feeling of fear. I was six, not new to riding, by any means, but my older sister was always wanting to go faster, jump the horses, take more risks.
"The horse will know you're afraid, June," Abby had said to me, over and over again. "You have to act like you're not. Act like you're brave."
~
Act like you're brave.
As we saddled her up and led her outside, my heart thumped wildly in my chest. I can do this, I told myself. You never forget how to ride.
I took a deep breath, willing my heart rate to slow down, and climbed on top of the horse's back. Sitting tall in the saddle, I inhaled deeply, letting the feeling of sitting astride a horse again sink into me.
Okay, so Stan was right. It did feel pretty good to be back in the saddle.
Stan stood beside the horse. "Look at that," he said. "Like you've been riding every day for the last twenty years."
Abby would be proud. No, I thought, she would be up my ass for not riding for all these years, calling me a chickenshit and laughing at me.
I missed her.
And I missed riding.
"Why don't you try a short ride right around here, something to get your feet wet?" he asked. So I tried it, just around the property until my heart stopped beating its objections wildly in my chest. When Stan gently suggested I go for a longer ride, I was ready.
I rode away from the house at a gentle pace, savoring the feeling of riding again. It started to feel less awkward and more natural as my body remembered how to ride, my movements syncing up with the mare's. I lost myself in the ride, drawing in deep breaths of the mountain air. The landscape fell out before me, hills rising in green grass as far out as I could see, meeting the horizon, the sky this weird mixture of blue and grey. It was a storm sky - that's what my mother called it, anyway.
I missed her too.
I loved this place, loved the land, loved growing up here. It was a part of me that I couldn't escape, no matter where I went. Years ago, I had thought that was the worst thing in the world, when I tried to leave my past behind and start over, divorced from the painful reminders of everything that had happened here. Now, I was beginning to realize that when something was so much an integral part of you, you could never let it go.
Maybe that's why I was having such a hard time getting Cade out of my head.
When I was older, after I'd gotten over my fear in middle school and high school, riding became a high for me. It was freeing, gave me space when I wanted to be alone. When I rode across the hills here, I remember thinking that this was the closest experience in the world to flying.
It must be how Cade felt riding his motorcycle.
I passed the grove of aspen trees. They were bigger now, but the grove was still there, untouched, just like it had been when I was younger. The sight of the trees triggered a memory of Cade and I, out here in the summer evening, so strong that it was like it had happened yesterday. A memory of my first time, with Cade.
~