I stuffed the coat into one of my empty drawers.
—
L
ast Christmas we hadn’t exchanged presents. Mother had told me and Sam about it beforehand, and though I had grumbled at first, Mother had reminded me that Georgie’s family was troubled—she’d used that exact word,
troubled
—and we didn’t want to trouble them further. And besides, she’d added, we don’t need Christmas presents; we have all we need already, don’t we? And what was there to say but yes, though I would have liked a new bridle, a smarter pair of breeches.
A few days before Christmas we’d built a bonfire. Aunt Carrie was back from Missouri, her mother better. We stood in front of the fire for what felt like a long time. Father put his arm gently around my shoulders. Mother and Idella came out with mugs of cocoa.
“Oh, no,” Aunt Carrie said, smoothing her hand over her plump stomach.
I watched my cousin while I ate and tried very hard to pretend I wasn’t, wasn’t watching or interested in anything at all, particularly. He stayed close to Sam, deferred to him, it seemed. We never drank cocoa. It was too rich, I felt heavy as I drank and so I tipped my mug into the fire. I felt Mother watching me, so I focused on the fire, the smoke and the sizzle.
We were all quiet, that night. It’s tempting to assume we all knew we were on the cusp of something.
Georgie stayed away from me until the fire started to fizzle and the men decided not to add wood. I was over-warm, and seated a foot or two farther away from the fire than everyone else. Georgie left his mother’s side and knelt next to me, but he was silent and I was glad. I uncrossed my arms—the air had a bite to it—and rested my palms on the cool grass, and Georgie leaned back and rested his dry hand on top of mine. We were blocked from sight, it was not a brave gesture. We sat like this for ten, fifteen minutes, and what I felt in that short time, the anticipation, the pleasure, the eerie feeling of bliss—well, this was all still new to me. A week since my cousin had kissed me, and I was another person. Or perhaps not another person, but I suddenly cared about completely different things, and that seemed the same thing.
We had not kissed again, or even spoken of it. But Georgie touched me, now, all the time, held my hand in the barn like it was nothing. We had moved so easily into this; and now I wanted more.
—
T
he next day I sat alone on the front porch steps, watching our quiet yard. Georgie had replaced Sasi in my daydreams. I thought about him more than I had imagined it was possible to think about something, which was to say, always.
The front door whined. I turned, and Georgie stood in the door frame. This all seemed like magic. I had been hoping he would find me, and he had; there was something so delicious about the way he courted me in my home, the way he seemed to always find me. When I saw him now, when I was close to him, my groin throbbed and then there was a slickness between my legs, which seemed to come almost immediately. He smiled back, but his head was inclined and I couldn’t tell if he was shy or smug.
He sat down next to me and put his hand over mine.
“We shouldn’t,” I whispered.
“Everyone’s out back.” He kissed my forehead, and I drew back, stunned, and I couldn’t sort out why: that he would be so bold, kissing me where anyone could see, but also the pleasure of his lips on my forehead.
“Georgie.”
“Can’t I kiss my cousin on the forehead?” he asked. He challenged. He seemed so large next to me; if I had seen him as a stranger in town I would have thought he was a young man.
I touched his cheek. I liked how small my hand was next to his face.
“Did you shave this morning?” It felt thrilling, to have the right to ask this question.
“I did.” He stopped my hand and pressed it to his cheek, then kissed the base of my thumb. I wondered where he had learned to do all this. This Georgie was a stranger to me.
I drew my thumb across his lips; he bit it, gently, and my breath caught. I turned my head because this all, suddenly, seemed too much, too good, and I felt dizzy with the pleasure of it. The large bed of ivy in front of my house was blurry, but then a clear spot at the very edge, which gradually came into focus: my brother. I wiped my hand on my skirt and stood; Georgie jumped up next to me, and I waved at Sam, who had walked around the side of the house without me noticing. He nodded in our direction, his hands in his pockets. Take one out, I thought, take a hand out and let me know you saw nothing.
I put my hand over my mouth and turned to Georgie.
“Don’t worry,” Georgie said, “he didn’t see anything.” But it was all a guess, whether or not Sam had seen.
—
O
n Christmas Eve I sat between Georgie and Sam at the dining-room table.
I wore a gold silk dress that Mother said brought out the red in my hair. It was the last time I would wear it—the bodice had become uncomfortably tight, and by the time I had another occasion to wear a dress so clearly meant for a party, glimmering and unserious, I would be too broad and tall. But I wanted to wear it once more, and ignored Mother’s suggestion to choose another dress.
I wore Mother’s mink stole also. She lent it to me as if I were playing dress-up, which I was, but now the stole felt more mine than hers. Last Christmas I had been fourteen and all the same people had been here.
Father said grace. Georgie caught my hand under the table and held it, briefly. In my quick inventory of the table, everyone’s head was still bowed. The last part of Father’s prayer was for the orange groves. This was not unusual. Mother exhaled audibly.
“Amen,” Uncle George added, “let us all praise citrus.”
My father looked at his wineglass. I knew he was considering how to respond, that the glass simply bought him time. It seemed my father was always buying himself time, had a thousand little tricks he used to think before he spoke.
“Do you jest?” he asked. The word was so formal, like we were reading Shakespeare, and I felt so intensely uncomfortable.
Georgie watched the adults, carefully; I wanted him to pay attention to me, not them. I touched his hand, underneath the table.
“A man can pray for whatever he wants, can’t he, Felix?” Uncle George asked.
My uncle was tense tonight, as everyone was. You could cut it with a knife—the phrase lingered in my head.
Then Georgie’s hand was in my lap, on my knee. It was hot, even through my dress.
“Please,” Mother said.
“It’s true,” Father said. “I suppose.”
Then Georgie was moving his fingers up and down my knee so gently, so rhythmically, that I wanted to moan. He did it for so long—three minutes, four—that I lost track of where he was. He was higher on my thigh, no, he was lower; he was too high, he was not high enough.
I put my hand on his and stopped him. It was madness, to touch each other in front of everyone, especially my brother. My thighs were trembling. The adults were talking about the Gainesville Christmas pageant, which my mother had read an article about in the newspaper; something lighthearted, chosen to counter the doom that had settled on the table, and though it wasn’t working, though Aunt Carrie still looked like she might burst into tears, I thanked God that something had their attention. Thank God for Christmas pageants, I murmured, and Georgie laughed, quietly, but Sam looked at me strangely.
—
I
’d never put much stock in dreams. Sam used to wake from nightmares, choked and panting, and all he could tell me as I held his hand was that he was falling from a great cliff, that a second before he met the ground he woke.
I never quite believed him, because I couldn’t imagine such an insubstantial feeling, rootless, all in my brother’s head. After the bonfire I fell asleep quickly and dreamed of Georgie, touching me. He felt through my underwear, gently, then harder, and then he put one finger inside of me. Then two. I woke not knowing where I was, the pleasure so intense I thought I must still be dreaming. I was on the cusp; I put my fingers where Georgie had, was surprised at how firm I felt against the pressure of my fingertips, the pressure that was felt more deeply here. Then I touched outside my panties, as Georgie had. I was wet, soaked through. Bright sparks flashed against my eyelashes. More, and more, then nothing but the tight, quick pulse in my groin. I rubbed my forehead with my wrist, my hands needed to be washed.
This sort of pleasure wasn’t yet a secret, like it would become later. No, it was a thing that had never existed, so there was no attendant shame.
—
S
am woke me Christmas morning, tapped my shoulder gently. At first I thought it was Georgie.
“If you want to ride,” he said, “you’d better do it now.”
“All right,” I mumbled.
“Merry Christmas,” he added, as an afterthought.
“Merry Christmas,” I said. He watched me as I sat up in bed, rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I smiled, and he smiled back, but his smile was off, somehow. For an instant Sam was inside my head, knew about Georgie.
Sam tilted his head and I felt a great surge of relief: he did not know.
I shook my head at him, and smiled again, to let him know everything was fine, and though Sam nodded, I knew he did not believe me.
I wanted to try a new jump that I’d built out back. In the ring commands were nearly invisible, it was supposed to seem as if you and your horse were in complete and silent agreement. But out here, the ring behind us, Sasi would only listen if I jerked and threw my weight, slammed my legs against his sides, shouted. It was ugly riding, but it felt truer.
I’d left my spurs in the barn. When I squeezed my legs against his sides, normally a command he half ignored, Sasi exploded into an elaborate trot, neck arched, ears forward, paying attention to everything but me.
I’d come out here for exactly that reason: I needed power, I needed him to clear the highest jump he ever had, not for me but because the jump was pointed into that great and mysterious beyond.
I realized as soon as I turned that I’d given us too much space—too long a straight line, too much time and reason for him to run away, for me to lose control. But I felt him gather his legs beneath him, in clear anticipation of the jump. “Yes, yes, yes,” I murmured, in rhythm to his canter. My braid thumped on my back, my vision narrowed, and I was only aware of the particular way Sasi’s hooves hit the ground—the hard sound that made—and the closing distance between us and the jump. It was all instinct now, there was nothing anyone could teach you about this instant before leaving the ground. “Now,” I said, and we flew. I wished Georgie were here, watching. Then Sasi’s left shoulder dropped and I was off, on the damp grass, but I still had the rein, I hadn’t let go. “It’s fine,” I soothed, “it’s fine.” He half pulled, half dragged me away, rearing backward, scared, but also aware of the opportunity: if he could get rid of me, he could run away, listen to his brain, the deep part that told him to go, at any cost.
But I held on. I loved this pony; I would not let him go for anything. After he calmed down, I remounted. I pointed him toward the jump a second time, and we cleared it without incident, as I knew we would. This was how my mind worked, this was why I was brave in situations where others would not have remounted. The fates wouldn’t align to throw Sasi off balance again, not twice in one day. You fell once in a while because that was your due, you rode a horse and expected him to do things he would not have done in nature. You fell once for every hundred clean jumps.
I sneaked upstairs after I had cooled out Sasi and fed him his morning oats. I stood at my brother’s door and opened it a sliver.
Sam had returned to his bed, Georgie slept on a pallet on the floor. I was surprised that they slept apart—Sam’s bed was large, there was room enough for two.
Sam’s arms and legs stuck out at awkward angles, and his hair was matted down to his cheeks by sweat. His brown quilt had fallen to the floor, and his sheet was tangled between his legs.
I looked at him first, almost without seeing him. I looked because he was there. And then Georgie, Sam’s comforter draped over his torso. He wasn’t sweating. Perhaps it was cooler on the floor. He slept almost primly, his arms beside him in straight lines, his bare feet aligned, toes upward.
Georgie shifted, and I saw a brown flash as he threw off the comforter. He murmured, almost a groan, and then I saw his penis, erect through the opening in his pajamas. It was darker than the rest of his skin, had a purplish tint. I’d never seen a man naked, nor talked to anyone about male anatomy, but somehow I knew that my cousin’s penis was erect.
I turned away and closed the door behind me. I felt ashamed, but complicatedly: he should not have shown me that, I should not have had to see, but he had been sleeping, he had not meant to.
Then I felt the opposite of ashamed: I felt a little powerful, like I knew a secret, a moment all my own.
B
oone is coming tonight,” Sissy whispered. “Will you help?”
“Of course.” The stakes were lower now that Mrs. Holmes was gone; everyone knew she was the one who disciplined us. She had left last Sunday, after worship, and would be gone for six weeks. When she returned it would be spring, which seemed impossible: everything was dead now, except the evergreens.
Through the window, night was black. We had just entered what Sissy called the doldrums: February. The sun set by five o’clock; we walked to dinner in total darkness now. Sissy said this was the most boring part of the year, when nothing happened. But I liked the calm.
I was riding again. I’d had to gain eight pounds before Mrs. Holmes would let me back in the saddle; I might have protested more if I hadn’t been riding in secret already.
I still taught the Holmes girls, by my own request, at least for a little while, until they joined Mrs. Holmes at her mother’s house in New Orleans. Mr. Holmes told us to write our mothers and encourage them to attend their Junior League or Garden Club meetings, where his wife would make appearances. It went without saying that all our mothers were members, yet my mother was not. She belonged to Emathla’s Camellia Society, but for the flowers.
I watched Mr. Holmes and decided that he did not seem any worse for the wear, given his wife’s absence.
Mr. Holmes came to our lessons once or twice a week, I never knew when he would appear, a specter perched on the side of the ring. Without realizing it, I began to anticipate his presence.
I lay awake that night until I heard Boone’s rocks. He threw softly but precisely: from the sound it made, it seemed like Boone hit the same exact spot every time.
At the third rock, I rose.
“Sissy,” I whispered. I shook her thin shoulder. “Sissy,” I said again, and squeezed her forearm. She was sleeping in her clothes.
Her eyes opened slowly, and when she saw me she started.
“It’s only me,” I put a finger over my lips. Her warm, vinegary night breath rose. You would think that such a delicate girl in such a delicate situation would be a light sleeper, or would not have fallen asleep at all. She rose and left.
We love each other, she had told me when explaining the gravity of the situation: we can’t go too long without seeing each other. I smiled—she even kept the love of her life waiting. That girl was not on time for anyone.
“Sissy?”
I quickly slipped into Sissy’s bed: there was no moonlight tonight.
“What are you doing?” Mary Abbott’s voice was sleepy. I listened until I was sure she was asleep again. Out of all the girls, she would tell. Not out of spite, but because she was odd, had an odd conception of men, boys, the other sex. Whatever one wanted to call them.
They were no mystery to me. I fell asleep thinking, half dreaming, I was Sissy. They’d only kissed so far. But they would do more, they wouldn’t be able to help themselves. Of course Boone would want it, and this was understood: he was a boy, he had urges, he could not be helped.
When I woke, Sissy stood over me, her hair wet. Rain beat against our roof. We exchanged beds, but I had trouble falling back asleep, could not stop imagining Sissy and Boone’s embrace.
That charged, restless night, the threat not realized: Mary Abbott made no mention of hearing anything.
—
O
n our way to the barn the next morning, the Holmes girls’ necks wrapped with scarves, Sarabeth spoke. “Our father’s coming,” she said happily, “to see me.”
I squeezed Decca’s hand, which I’d been holding, and she looked up at me curiously. I felt light-headed from lack of sleep, and now, happy. I should be more careful. But careful of what? I wasn’t sweet on him; half of camp was sweet on him, the only man for miles and miles, except for the grooms, and they didn’t count. But I liked that he spoke to me as if I were an adult.
“Us,” Sarabeth quickly corrected, but Rachel had already taken offense, was staring at her sister with narrowed eyes.
Sarabeth could afford to be nice now, having already revealed her father’s true intention. There were moments when Rachel seemed mean, but I could never tell with Sarabeth. They were children, sisters who fought over petty things. Sam and I had never fought; further evidence, according to Mother, of how charmed our life was. She had fought with her brothers, and Father with Uncle George. But we were twins, two sides of a coin.
I was sliding the bit into Luther’s mouth when Mr. Albrecht told us that a tree had fallen in our ring last night, crashed into a rail during the storm. I paused and the bit clicked against Luther’s teeth; he shook his head.
“It’s fine,” Mr. Albrecht assured me, stroking Luther’s muzzle, “the tree is small. Most of the ring is still usable.”
Sarabeth led Luther, Decca led Bright past the tree.
“Pat his neck,” I told Decca, as she walked Bright by the tree, “talk to him.”
Bright flung his head up suddenly, the rein snapping.
“There’s a bird.” Rachel pointed. I noticed a faint red scratch on her wrist. “I think it’s hurt.”
I knelt down in the sand. An owl, with its oddly shaped head, was nestled between the branches, so brown it blended into the leaves. It was clearly terrified, had resorted to keeping still because it couldn’t fly. If Sam were here he would have known what to do, whether or not the injury to its wing was reparable. I guessed it wasn’t.
“What do we do?” Rachel asked, her voice whiny.
“Leave it alone,” I said, perhaps too harshly. My mood was spoiled. Mr. Holmes was coming to watch the lesson, and now this. If the owl tried to leave the tree, the horses would spook.
I made a fast decision. Sarabeth was already mounting Luther. Decca was pulling down her stirrups.
“Girls,” I said, “do not come near this tree. The bird is hurt. It might scare the horses. So stay away.” They all nodded obediently, even Rachel.
I stood at the center of the ring while the girls warmed up. I could see Sarabeth out of the corner of my eye. I focused on Decca, who was mastering posting.
Rachel sat on the fence, her slim legs twined through the slats. At first she sat there quietly as usual, her pale face calm. Her hair was braided in pigtails today, which made her look young. All of the Holmes girls had their father’s hair: dark and glossy.
Then, again out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rachel come down from the fence to walk around the ring, timidly, as was her style, but also quickly.
“Rachel?”
“I’m going to look at the tree.” Her voice again whiny.
“Don’t you remember what I said? You’ll scare the horses.” I shook my head in disbelief.
“I just want to see.”
I signaled Decca to slow Bright to a walk. “Rachel,” I said, trying to make my voice a warning.
She acted as if she hadn’t heard, her thin frame tilted forward. Sarabeth had halted Luther and sat straight in the saddle, watching her sister.
“I’m just looking,” Rachel said. “I’m bored to death.”
“It’s almost your turn.”
Rachel continued to walk.
“Rachel.” My voice was high. She looked at me, her head cocked, and I saw she was daring me. My vision was blurry from the cold. “Rachel, sit down. Now.”
She smiled, and for an instant I was relieved—she was going to pretend she had been joking—but then she took another step.
“Father’s coming,” Sarabeth murmured, and Rachel hopped onto the fence, resumed her waiting stance. Mr. Holmes smiled; he was thinking of something else, holding out his hand as if to ward off conversation.
I turned to Decca, my mood ruined. I wanted Mr. Holmes to be happy.
“Ask him to trot,” I said.
Decca flapped her legs.
“Softly,” I reminded her. “Gently. What you ask him should be a secret. No one else should be able to tell.”
“I’m bored,” Rachel muttered, but quietly so that her father would not hear. Decca ran through her exercises, and I turned my attention to Sarabeth. I almost forgot Rachel was there.
“Pinch your knees harder,” I called. “Relax your elbows.”
“Decca’s just sitting there,” Rachel called back.
“Rachel,” Mr. Holmes said, “that’s enough.” Rachel looked as if she might cry. I was pleased by his anger. Rachel deserved it.
“Come, Decca.” And I led Bright to the side of the ring, next to Mr. Holmes, so that Sarabeth could practice on the diagonal.
“Rachel,” I said as we passed, “one moment. And you’ll have an extra ten minutes. I want your father to see this.”
Rachel ignored me. I took mean pleasure in making her wait.
“She’s learning how to change leads. See how she moves her legs? Right one back, left one forward?” Changing leads was an advanced technique, and Sarabeth wasn’t really ready for it, but Luther was so well trained, such an old schoolmaster, that a monkey could have gotten him to do it.
“And he switches.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Like he’s skipping.” Mr. Holmes drummed his fingers on the fence in rhythm to Luther’s canter. Changing leads was something even someone completely unversed in horses could appreciate: it did, indeed, look like skipping. He bit his nails, I noticed. Men didn’t wear wedding bands back then, so there was nothing that I could tell from his hands except that his skin wasn’t rough from riding or another sport or hard work.
“She’s good,” I said. Mr. Holmes nodded. I wanted him to take more pleasure in his daughter’s trick, in the things she could make Luther do already, but he seemed distracted.
I unclipped the lunge line from Bright’s bit.
“Get down?” I asked Decca.
Everything happened at once then. Get down, I asked, but it was more of an order than a suggestion. I had taught Decca to slide both her feet out of her stirrups before swinging one leg over the saddle; this was lucky.
“Rachel,” Mr. Holmes said, almost yelled, his deep voice cleaving the cold air. “I’ve had enough. Enough!” Now I knew for certain that Mr. Holmes was referring to some past wrong of Rachel’s. She had been difficult today or for several days.
When I looked over, I saw that Rachel was gone from her spot on the fence, and Mr. Holmes was striding toward her. My impulse was to laugh: I had never seen Mr. Holmes angry, and it scared me. Rachel backed into the branches of the tree, watching her father, and then she started to speak.
“No!” she said, quietly at first, then louder and louder until her voice had reached a shrill pitch. “No, no, no, no, no, no!” She looked possessed. She was much too old for a tantrum.
“The bird,” Decca cried as the owl flew straight up, out of the tree, and then faltered, diving unsteadily toward Luther. Luther backed up, quickly, his neck arched, his ears pointed forward.
“Thea,” Sarabeth called, her voice trembling. I could barely hear her over Rachel. “What do I do?” I dropped Bright’s rein and hurried toward Luther, speaking quietly and calmly. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mr. Holmes kneeling in front of Rachel, his hands on her shoulders.
“It’s fine,” I murmured, “it’s fine.”
But as I approached the owl leveled out, flying past me so close I might have touched him. His wing was crooked.
“Thea.” I turned and Sarabeth was pointing in the opposite direction, toward the gate I had left open. Bright had backed out of it, and I could see the liquid red of his flared nostrils, the whites of his eyes. His ears were flattened against his head. He reared back quickly, and Decca fell forward onto his neck.
“Slide off,” I yelled. “Slide off!” Rachel was still yelling, and I had to scream as loud as I could to be heard, and still it wasn’t loud enough.
Bright took off then, as I knew he would, and raced toward the barn. It was the worst kind of mistake, a novice’s error, to have left the gate unlatched. And I remembered so clearly not having closed it: an instant of carelessness, in the same category as leaving a girth too loose.
“Thea,” Mr. Holmes said, and he sounded almost calm. “Stop him.” I broke into a run as Bright disappeared. When I rounded the corner, I saw that he was running at full speed now, flat out, as horses only do when they are terrified. Decca clung to the saddle. She wouldn’t fall off now unless she made herself. But she was frozen.
The riding groups had all halted in their tracks, a dozen still horses, ears forward, waiting to discern the cause of the alarm. Alice Hunt watched me, not Bright, her face a mask of horror. That I had elicited a reaction from even Alice Hunt, who never seemed to react to anything, terrified me. Leona stared directly at me, her face wide and blank: she shook her head, once, as if she’d known my teaching the girls would end in disaster.
Mr. Albrecht climbed over the fence, yelling, “Turn him, turn him, turn him, turn him,” until the words acquired a particular rhythm, until it seemed as if Mr. Albrecht was saying, “Tune him, tune him, tune him,” his vowels arched in panic.
“Stop him,” I heard behind me, “stop him now.” The instruction was useless. Decca screamed, a sound so horrible, so close to a moan, I put my hands to my ears. Just then Bright veered left at the head of the trail; Decca fell the other way, to the right. Her head was not kicked: this was also lucky. It could have been kicked so easily. She fell cleanly, slid out of the saddle almost gracefully.
Mr. Holmes caught my shoulder as he sprinted past me, and I fell to the ground.
“Get the doctor,” Mr. Holmes shouted as he passed. “Now.”
Decca’s eyes were closed, as if she were sleeping.
I rose and began to run, in a single motion. I looked back, once, at the girls on their horses, still standing as if statues. Sarabeth had dismounted, was crying quietly next to Luther, did not turn her head when Mr. Albrecht ran in front of her in pursuit of Bright, who might be lost in the mountains forever if he was not found quickly.
I emerged from the cover of the forest into the Square and screamed, “Henny!”—again and again until she emerged angrily from the house mistresses’ cabin.
“Decca’s hurt,” I managed, and Henny yelled to Docey, who had followed her outside, to call the doctor immediately. We ran back through the woods, Henny so far ahead of me I lost sight of her brown skirt. Her speed surprised me. My chest felt like it was boiling, I could hear watery sounds when I inhaled. I slowed to a walk, tried to pace myself. I wanted rain, or snow, or wind. Something to make me feel not so alone. I wrapped my arms around myself.