She saddled Micah, who was waking slowly, and led him outside into the lightless morning. It was miraculous, riding’s immediate effect on her: the slackening of her limbs, the slowing of her heartbeat, and the deepening of her breathing; even the full return of her senses—the realizations of the smells of fresh hay and the loamy arena and Micah’s lemon-scented, freshly washed coat, of the feel of the firm but supple leather reins between her fingers.
Most of the kids at Camp Marigold didn’t like riding Micah. He was a brown dun past his prime, and he looked stocky and dull next to the sprightly, shiny Thoroughbreds. The unskilled and impatient riders found him stubborn; the rich ones found him common. But Mo took a liking to Micah and he to her. She’d been riding since she was a child, but she had never been a prizewinner; she felt sure that Micah had never been one either.
She looked across the arena to the dining hall painted the same burnt red as the barn and beyond to the beginnings of the trails leading to boys’ camp and the lake. In the distance were the Berkshires with their fleshy treetops, the mountains rounded against the now dark blue sky. Mo had heard about a lot of beautiful places in her life, but no one had ever mentioned Connecticut.
She was lost in her thoughts until she spotted Jack, the camp director, jogging up the hill below the stables and waving as he got closer. She sat upright and brought Micah to a halt. Mo waved back to Jack, then began to trot Micah to the barn so she could put him in his pen and return to girls’ camp before she needed to explain herself. But Jack continued toward them, then stopped at the fence and beckoned her over.
“Morning, Mo,” he said, cheerful and out of breath, leaning against the fence for support.
“Hiya, Jack,” Mo said. “Have a good run?”
“Mmm.” He stretched a calf against the wooden fence’s bottom rung. Jack was in his forties and handsome. He had a head of thick graying hair that he was always running a hand through.
“And who’s this?” he asked, outstretching his hand above the fence to pet between Micah’s ears. The horse leaned into the touch.
“This is Micah,” Mo said, hopping down. “I hope it’s all right I’m out. I’ll get back before anyone wakes up.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Alone time is important, Mo.” He kept his eyes on the horse, scratching the top of its head. “Hi, Micah,” he cooed.
“He’s a sweet boy,” Mo said.
Jack often played poker or billiards in the staff lodge with the younger counselors; he clearly wanted to establish himself as some sort of cool avuncular figurehead by drinking and staying up late with them. She had trouble with this sort of boundary crossing, but she liked Jack anyway; he asked questions and made friends easily. She was slightly ashamed that, though she was at least ten years his junior, she normally went to bed before him.
The orange sun began to rise over the Berkshires. Jack took a deep breath and looked around the camp’s sloping greenery. “Ready for today?”
“I suppose,” Mo said. “Not quite sure what to expect.” It was time to get back to her section to shower off the equine smells before the rest of the counselors woke up.
“You’ll be great,” he said. “Just be yourself.”
—
Back in December, Mo’s twin brother, Benji, and his fiancée, Jade, were home from London for the holidays. They were sipping wine in her parents’ kitchen, cleaning up after a dinner of roasted chicken and root vegetables, and Benji and Jade were trying to convince Mo to come out with them that night.
“It’ll just be us, Paul, and Oliver,” Benji said. “Maybe David.”
“Where are you going?” Mo asked, drying a dish and handing it to him to put away.
“Dunno.” He shrugged. “Probably just O’Shannon’s or something.” That was the local pub, where they always went when they were all home and caught up on old times while they got obliterated.
“You should come, Mo!” Jade was nice enough, and enthusiastic about everything. She and Benji had met at some swanky bar in London: He was a banker, and she worked in marketing. Mo thought Benji was too smart and too interesting for Jade, who seemed to have no bite to her; she appeared to be the kind of person who breezed through life having never second-guessed a decision, having never been anxious about an unforeseeable future. She was pretty and agreeable, as she seemed to know, and so why wouldn’t things come to her?
But Mo was tired and full, and she knew she’d likely be expected to stay somewhat sober and drive them all home at the end of the night, and as much as she loved Benji’s friends, she would have liked to catch up with them without Jade there, as Jade seemed so conscious of gender divides that she always clung to Mo as the only other woman at such events. She would make pithy asides about lads being lads and roll her eyes at their dirty jokes, jokes that Mo actually enjoyed.
“Mo,” Benji said, a wide grin on his face, preparing to tease her, “if you keep saying no to every social invitation, we are eventually going to stop asking you.” He sipped his wine, and Jade playfully swatted him on the arm.
“He doesn’t mean that,” she said.
“I know,” Mo said, miffed because obviously she understood Benji’s sarcasm much better than this girl who’d only known him for two years.
“Hey”—Benji put his wineglass down on the counter and raised his hands, grinning, as if to say “Not guilty”—“Not my fault if you die alone.”
She was used to his bone-dry humor, and had been conditioned to laugh at or at least shrug off the most brutal teasing from him over the years. She was surprised to find that this last remark hurt. And she could see from Jade’s stunned expression that Benji had most definitely crossed a line.
Benji took note of the silence in the kitchen. “What?” he said.
What Mo hated most was Jade’s apparent distress, as if Jade too was truly afraid that Mo dying alone was an absolute possibility.
“I’m going to bed,” Mo said, abruptly placing her wineglass down and retreating to her childhood bedroom.
—
As a kid and a teenager, Mo had latched on to her brother in school and become an accessory to him and his friends, which she had hoped made her seem like a cool girl, who mostly spent her time with boys, instead of a desperate one. On the weekends, she rode at Silvershoe Stables, keeping to herself, intimidated by the tight-knit clans of prissy girls there. She wasn’t as wealthy as they were; her family knew the owner of the stables, and they got an even better discount due to Mo’s additional volunteer hours there, which she performed happily.