Growing Girls Read online

  She was on the porch drawing horse pictures the day Cindy came over to groom Marley. Cindy was standing there freeing Marley’s poodle curls of burrs, and I was going on and on like a proud mother does, bragging about Anna and Sasha and their natural skills at riding at Storybrook Stables. Sasha was too small to have quite the strength and prowess of Anna, but her daredevil spirit allowed her to keep up with Anna if only in that she did not mind falling off anything. A bloody nose here and there, a scraped elbow. No big deal. She would climb right back on.

  Cindy asked the obvious question: We had horses. We had fifty acres of fields and woods upon which the horses could ride. Why weren’t our daughters riding our horses?

  “Our horses?” I said. “Oh, we would never trust them on our horses.”

  “What’s wrong with your horses?” she asked.

  “They’re sweet,” I said. “But they’re wild.”

  Cindy looked at me, curled her lip. She told me she had eight horses of her own.

  “Eight?” I said.

  “I know horses,” she said. “I know wild. Your horses are golf carts.”

  I protested. I tried to explain about Skippy. Cindy offered to come over one day and “freshen” our horses up. She made the point that our horses would probably prefer the riding life to the lazy days out there in the field with all the flies.

  She showed up on a Thursday night with Bob and a bareback pad. She didn’t believe in real saddles. Too much nonsense. She came from a cowgirl culture that said if you could ride bareback you could ride anything. She put a bridle on Blitz, threw the pad on his back, grabbed a hunk of mane, and hoisted herself up.

  “Golf cart,” Cindy said, steering him around. Yeah, well, I sort of knew Blitz was capable. She repeated the process with Maggie. “Golf cart,” she said. “What is wrong with you people?”

  “Mommy, I want to ride Maggie,” Anna said.

  “Can I wide Bitz?” Sasha said.

  Soon enough we were all across the road, over at the round pen we hadn’t even visited since those days when Alex broke his rib, and I was busily apologizing to Skippy for interrupting his days of grazing. Some of the boards had fallen loose but the basic structure was intact.

  Anna had brought along a pad of paper and a marker, because this is what she does. When she is excited about something she has to either draw it or spell it. “How do we spell ‘Maggie’?”

  “Honey, you can ride her, but only if Cindy leads you around,” I said.

  “Oh, come on, Mom,” Cindy said.

  “She doesn’t know how to ride bareback,” I said.

  Yes, apparently, she did. And so did Sasha. By the end of the evening, Cindy had both girls riding around our ring, nothing to it. Anna exuded the confidence of a queen, sitting straight and tall. Sasha approached Blitz much as she did swimming lessons. Just dive in there and go. Blitz is a fat pony, and Sasha is a short kid, the net result being she rode with her legs out as if doing a split. “Kick!” Cindy commanded. And Sasha’s little ankles would barely pop up, but she’d manage to communicate her desire to go forward and Blitz would oblige. Soon Sasha was trotting around the pen to catch up with Anna, who was regally moving as if heading off to bestow gifts upon the king.

  “I just can’t believe this …” I said, repeatedly. My girls were horse people. And my horses were people horses. Here were all these pieces of the dream scattered about our big backyard, and here they were falling into a most glorious formation.

  Skippy and I were standing together, watching Anna on Maggie and Sasha on Blitz, standing there together like two ex-lovers longing to dance. I was scratching his ear, which he loves.

  “Aw, Skip,” I said.

  “Aw, sweetie,” he said, but not in the way anyone else could hear.

  Skippy has always had a thing for me, and I’ve always had a thing for him. Skippy is the mule version of my dog Betty, who is but the dog version of my first cat, Bob, and my second cat, Steve. All the pets I have bonded with, deeply and fully connected with, are the same beings, the same little souls. We are the type of friends who can pick up instantly with each other after years of separation.

  Alex came up to the round pen, saw me and Skippy. “You two look good together,” he said.

  “Yeah, we do,” I said.

  It didn’t take a lot more than that to convince me to climb on Skippy and see what would happen. I borrowed some of Sasha’s courage and Anna’s confidence. How strange to find this benefit of motherhood occurring so early. It was like having your kid turn into a lawyer or a doctor or a representative in pharmaceutical sales; you’re the mom so you get free stuff.

  “Okay, Skip,” I said. “We’re gonna do this. And this time no more Mrs. Nice Guy.”

  I climbed with some difficulty aboard. God, I’m old and creaky. God, my girls are young and supple. Skippy stood there, firm and solid, as I threw my leg over his back and then sat on him. Well, then. I had forgotten what his head looked like from this vantage point, his long ears like weeds in the breeze. “Good boy, Skip,” I said, even though I was thinking, Good job, Mom. Then I squeezed my legs together and Skippy did it: he walked forward. I pulled back on the reins and Skippy stopped. Well, then!

  “I swear he didn’t do this six years ago when I tried!” I said to my little audience. “I swear! He’s a changed mule!”

  “Golf cart,” Cindy said.

  “Hey, girls!” I said. “Hey, look at me! How about me?” I thought Anna and Sasha would be thrilled to see their mom riding, but they were annoyingly more interested in their own achievements.

  Alex was watching me. He was applauding, bless his heart. He knew how big a deal this was. And seeing Anna and Sasha going around with me. His whole family up there, having a happy horse life. I steered Skippy up to him, pulled back on the reins and stopped.

  Alex stood there, all short and horseless. “You, my man,” I said. “You need to get yourself a horse.”

  À Votre Santé, aka “Vortray”: 2001 registered STB gelding, bay, 16.1+ hh (measured), sound for all professions, just didn’t make a racehorse. Drives and rides. His sire is jenna’s Beach Boy and his dam is Christmas Wish. No allergies, no surgeries, fractures, injuries, or illnesses, no past lamenesses, nothing that would affect his ability to be ridden or driven. No behavioral quirks or vices, no feeding concerns or health problems, no areas where he is sensitive either physically or mentally, no traveling or conformational flaws. Current on all health care and shots. He is tattooed and branded. Pacing bred but prefers a trot, could go either way at this point, could do w/t/c or trained to be a gaited pleasure horse. We do have his registration papers and they will go with the adopter for showing purposes, hast driven on the track on 11/03, does everything that is asked of him (leads, loads, ties, cross-ties, bathes, clips), good in a diverse herd, great appetite, experienced shipper, has traveled from PA to Florida and from Florida to Canada for training and yearling sales. Just a sponge waiting to be filled, ready for any job. Sweet boy that loves attention, very calm and loving horse for his age. Gets along well with everyone in our diverse group in turnout. Needs a family of his own. First couple of rides were a breeze. He’ll be a beginner’s horse in a month or two. We have Vortray’s appraisal, he’s been valued at $12,000. He has spent the last several months riding kids and beginners. Absolutely the best horse. Adoption fee Is $3,000. There is a 20% discount If you can pay in full. I’m sure Vortray’s owner had big hopes for him as a racehorse as he was bought as a yearling for a small fortune but not every horse has racing in their heart, he obviously had other plans. He’s such a lover It’s hard to Imagine him having the competitive spirit but maybe racing just wasn’t his thing.

  Alex didn’t want a racehorse, of course. No beginner wants to try to tackle a hot-blooded beast with an innate urge to run a million miles an hour around a track. But this was the horse we went to see after reading that online ad. And this is what we’re towing home. À Votre Santé. “Vortray.” Alex fell in love with him all on his
own, really, with absolutely no help from me, but with the seal of approval from Cindy, who had agreed to come with us to look, and who had agreed to lend us her trailer, and who had said she herself wasn’t going to get another horse, no way, there was no way in hell, she already had eight horses—eight horses!—and she didn’t even have a house to live in yet, just a trailer, she really needed to go about building a house, and a life with Bob, and not spend her money or her energy or her commitment on another damn horse.

  But the trailer she was lending us was a two-horse trailer. That was a fact.

  Strong Fort, aka “Brego”: 1994 TB gelding, 17.2 hands (measured), chestnut, imported from Ireland, former steeplechaser, competed in Ireland and the U. S., sound but looking for a job on the flat or over fences or pleasure, preferably in a family situation with one rider, very sweet horse and easy to handle as long as you aren’t feeding him a ton of sugar. Has some arthritis that shows up the first few steps out of the stall so we would like to have him not go into a heavy working or competition situation, hikes people, good manners, good with other animals, vet and farrier, loads and does everything asked of him on the ground. Outgoing and loves attention. Impressive good looks and amazing disposition! Adoption fee is $1,500. Absolutely a wonderful horse, a big dog type.

  Brego was huge, a mass of muscle and kindness. Cindy was in love with him, tearing herself away. The barn we had traveled to was somewhere deep in godforsaken West Virginia, a mysterious place of fog and temptation.

  There were dozens of horses in the barn for sale, all of them rescued animals, and the longer we stayed and shopped, the more the prices kept dropping. The barn was overcrowded and fall was coming; soon the owners would have trouble affording feed.

  I watched Alex whisper what appeared to be sweet nothings into Vortray’s ears. Tall and beefy and dopey, the horse wore a look that exactly said, “I so don’t want to be a racehorse.” Perhaps Alex was talking to him as he would his patients on the couch: “There, there. It’s okay. You shouldn’t have to pretend to be someone you’re not.”

  Poor Vortray. According to his papers, his dad, Jenna’s Beach Boy, had run the fastest one-mile trot of any horse, ever. And here he was the son, only four years old, and already a failure. A disgrace to the family line. Stuck in some godforsaken barn in godforsaken West Virginia, up for sale and the price dropping fast.

  It was easy to romanticize the situation. Alex knew Vortray’s story all too well: disgrace, failure, shame. Alex had disappointed his own dad, a mathematician famous in math circles. Alex was supposed to follow suit. Alex had little aptitude, even less interest in math. He chose to study religion, which his dad thought hogwash, and psychology, which his dad thought even worse. Alex came into adulthood knowing without a doubt that his dad thought him pathetic.

  “I get you.” That’s what I imagined Alex saying to that big horse. “I completely get you.” They looked good together. Vortray’s nose was big and curved, like that of a Jewish man aging gracefully. Alex was a Jewish man aging gracefully. Vortray had big lumbering shoulders and soft eyes and the disposition of a man who didn’t take himself too seriously. Alex was a man who didn’t take himself too seriously.

  When Alex finally climbed onto Vortray’s back, and rode him calmly around the ring, I told him, I said, “You look good together.”

  “Go, Daddy!” Anna said.

  “Dat!” Sasha screamed. “Can I try next?”

  Cindy said we should take him. Cindy said let’s get out of here. Cindy was tapping her foot.

  Alex took out his checkbook. The owners had already offered to sell Vortray for nearly half of their asking price. Then they told Cindy they would throw in Brego for free.

  “Free,” Cindy said.

  “He needs a good home and we think you’re it,” the woman said.

  “Free,” Cindy said. “You’re offering to just give me this beautiful horse.”

  The woman shrugged.

  “Bob,” she said then. “Bob!”

  “We can’t do it,” he said. “You know we can’t.”

  She looked at Alex. Alex is a sucker for doe eyes. He had long since learned how to become blind to mine. But Cindy’s, well, these were all new.

  “We’ll take Brego and keep him at our place,” Alex said to me. “And Cindy can ride him when she comes over. What do you think?”

  “Of course,” I said. Of course? Two more horses—and gigantic ones, at that. Of course?

  “Two horses!” Anna shouted. “I knew it! I knew we were going to get two horses!” She exploded into cartwheels. She needed a pen. And some paper. She needed to know how to spell “Vortray” and “Brego.”

  Now, I’ve heard about this horse phenomenon. I’ve heard it from Cindy and how she became a woman with eight horses and no house. Our farrier has fifteen horses and no time. Our vet has ten horses and no more room. Something happens to horse people. A gorging. An inability to say no. A welcoming spirit that has you imagining yourself throwing your arms around all the world’s horses: Come, my children, come. I don’t know exactly. But it was happening to us.

  We walked Vortray and Brego to the trailer. My God, they were big. They were just… so damn big.

  “You don’t think they’re too big?” I said to Alex.

  “Well, they are … big,” he said. We seemed to have trouble saying much else. We were in some sort of trance?

  Poor Skippy, I thought. Oh, my poor little mule. Back home he was in charge of the herd, the master of all things, the one who decided who should have the most to eat (him) and the most to drink (him) and the coolest spot in the shade for snoozing (him). These two big galoots were sure to change the happy little society that was our farm.

  “‘God is a comedian,’” Alex is saying, quoting Voltaire. “‘God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.’” The Voltaire kick is on account of the fact that he doesn’t like the name Vortray, so maybe he should rename his horse Voltaire. He has decided that this is too pretentious, but he has not stopped quoting Voltaire.

  We are sick of Voltaire. We are sick of each other. I can’t move. It has taken us four hours to get here, to the intersection of Wilson Road and our driveway. The horses have grown. In my mind they turned first into giraffes and then elephants and soon enough into woolly mammoths.

  I can’t believe we’re doing this. I can’t believe no one is saying, “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

  I can’t move. Anna is snoring. Sasha’s head is so hot. My left leg is numb from some pinched nerve and this entire extended cab smells like salami due to the fact that Sasha did not, apparently, eat her sandwich but rather rolled it up and stuffed it in the cup holder just out of my reach.

  “Well, we made it,” Alex says as we pull into the driveway, inch down the hill. He’s all cheerful. He’s all high on horse acquisition. He’s wondering what the heck is going on as the truck sputters, chugs, sputters, stops dead. Right in the middle of the driveway. We are about one hundred yards from the house, and we are out of gas.

  God is a comedian.

  “This, I cannot deal with,” Alex says, throwing the door open. “I’m leaving the truck here until morning.”

  “Please, let us out,” Cindy says.

  Alex and Cindy and Bob hop out and leave me trapped back here with the snoozing lumps. I hear the clunking and “hep! hepping!” of horses being unloaded from the trailer and the horses finally emerge, remarkably calm, both of them seeming to have survived this trip better than any of us. Big. Oh, my God. Big horses. Will they even fit? Will they trample the trees and will their feet put giant cracks in the earth causing mass flooding?

  Cindy and Alex and Bob usher the horses into the back field. Within seconds those monsters charge, disappearing up the hill and into the fog that promises to lift, a curtain to some kind of strange tomorrow.

  nothing surprises

  me anymore

  NAIROBI, Kenya (AP)—A NURSING DOG FORAGING FOR FOOD RETRIEVED AN ABANDONED BABY GI
RL IN A FOREST IN KENYA AND CARRIED THE INFANT TO ITS LITTER OF PUPPIES, WITNESSES SAID MONDAY.

  May 9,2005

  The stray dog carried the infant across a busy road and a barbed wire fence in a poor neighborhood near the Ngong Forests in the capital, Nairobi, Stephen Thoya told the independent Daily Nation newspaper.

  The dog apparently found the baby Friday in the plastic bag in which the infant had been abandoned, said Aggrey Mwalimu, owner of the compound where the animal is now living. It was unclear how the baby survived in the bag without suffocating.

  Doctors said the baby had been abandoned about two days before the dog discovered her. Medical workers later found maggots in the infants umbilical cord, a product of days of neglect, Hannah Gakuo, the spokeswoman of the Kenyatta National Hospital, where the girl was taken for treatment, said Monday. No one has yet claimed the baby, she said.

  But the 3.3 kilogram (7.28pounds) infant “is doing well, responding to treatment, she is stable … she is on antibiotics,” Gakuo told the Associated Press. Workers at the hospital are calling the child Angel, she said.

  I keep rereading this article, thinking I should be more impressed. Who doesn’t love a story like this? Young man raised by wolves returns to civilization and becomes U.S. senator, or some such.

  Nothing surprises me anymore, at least when it comes to birth, death, and so much of the action in between. Who gave birth to whom, which is raising what. I’ve got a sheep raised by goats, who just had twins and rejected one, which now my daughters are raising, bottle-feeding little Emily four times a day. I’ve got a pregnant donkey that should have delivered three months ago, so now we think she isn’t pregnant, but everyone, including the vet, says, “Just give it a few more weeks.” I’ve got twenty-five baby chicks due to arrive in the mail this Thursday, an overreaction on my part to waking up one morning and finding that we had forgotten to shut the door of the chicken coop one night, so a raccoon came and gobbled up Penelope and Magenta, our two favorite hens.