As soon as the dog had disappeared, I saw Savannah emerge from the barn with rectangles of hay clamped beneath her arms. Horses from the pasture began to canter toward her as she tossed the hay into various troughs. I continued moving forward. She was brushing herself off and getting ready to head back into the barn when she inadvertently glanced my way. She took a step, looked again, and then froze in place.
For a long moment, neither of us moved. With her gaze locked on mine, I realized that it was wrong to have come, to have shown up without warning like this. I knew I should say something, anything, but nothing came to mind. All I could do was stare at her.
The memories came rushing back then, all of them, and I noticed how little she’d changed since I’d last seen her. Like me, she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, smudged with dirt, and her cowboy boots were scuffed and worn. Somehow the hardscrabble look gave her an earthy appeal. Her hair was longer than I remembered, but she still had the slight gap between her front teeth that I had always loved.
“Savannah,” I finally said.
It wasn’t until I spoke that I realized she’d been as spellbound as I. All at once, she broke into a wide smile of innocent pleasure.
“John?” she cried.
“It’s good to see you again.”
She shook her head, as if trying to clear her mind, then squinted at me again. When at last she was convinced I wasn’t a mirage, she jogged to the gate and bounded through it. A moment later I could feel her arms around me, her body warm and welcoming. For a second it was as if nothing between us had changed at all. I wanted to hold her forever, but when she pulled back, the illusion was shattered, and we were strangers once more. Her expression held the question I’d been unable to answer on the long trip here.
“What are you doing here?”
I looked away. “I don’t know,” I said. “I just needed to come.”
Though she asked nothing, there was a mixture of curiosity and hesitation in her expression, as if she weren’t sure she wanted a further explanation. I took a small step backward, giving her space. I could see the shadowy outlines of the horses in the darkness and felt the events of the last few days coming back to me.
“My dad died,” I whispered, the words seeming to come from nowhere. “I just came from his funeral.”
She was quiet, her expression softening into the spontaneous compassion I’d once been so drawn to.
“Oh, John… I’m so sorry,” she murmured.
She drew near again, and there was an urgency to her embrace this time. When she pulled back, her face was half in shadow.
“How did it happen?” she asked, her hand lingering on mine.
I could hear the authentic sorrow in her voice, and I paused, unable to sum up the last couple of years into a single statement. “It’s a long story,” I said. In the glare of the barn lights, I thought I could see in her gaze traces of memories that she wanted to keep buried, a life from long ago. When she released my hand, I saw her wedding band glinting on her left finger. The sight of it doused me with a cold splash of reality.
She recognized my expression. “Yes,” she said, “I’m married.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I shouldn’t have come.”
Surprising me, she gave a small wave of her hand. “It’s okay,” she said, tilting her head. “How’d you find me?”
“It’s a small town.” I shrugged. “I asked someone.”
“And they just… told you?”
“I was persuasive.”
It was awkward, and neither of us seemed to know what to say. Part of me fully expected to continue standing there while we caught up like old friends on everything that had happened in our lives since we’d last seen each other. Another part of me expected her husband to pop out of the house any minute and either shake my hand or challenge me to fight. In the silence a horse neighed, and over her shoulder I could see four horses with their heads lowered into the trough, half in shadow, half in the circle of the barn’s light. Three other horses, including Midas, were staring at Savannah, as if wondering whether she’d forgotten them. Savannah finally motioned over her shoulder.
“I should get them going, too,” she said. “It’s their feeding time, and they’re getting antsy.”
When I nodded, Savannah took a step backward, then turned. Just as she reached the gate, she beckoned. “Do you want to give me a hand?”
I hesitated, glancing toward the house. She followed my gaze.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “He’s not here, and I could really use the help.” Her voice was surprisingly steady.
Though I wasn’t sure what to make of her response, I nodded. “I’d be glad to.”
She waited for me and shut the gate behind us. She pointed to a pile of manure. “Watch out for their droppings. They’ll stain your shoes.”
I groaned. “I’ll try.”
In the barn, she separated a chunk of hay and then two more and handed them both to me.
“Just toss those in the troughs next to the others. I’m going to get the oats.”
I did as she directed, and the horses closed in. Savannah came out holding a couple of pails.
“You might want to give them a little room. They might accidentally knock you over.”
I stepped away, and Savannah hung a couple of pails on the fence. The first group of horses trotted toward them. Savannah watched them, her pride evident.
“How many times do you have to feed them?”
“Twice a day, every day. But there’s more than just feeding. You’d be amazed at how clumsy they can be sometimes. We have the veterinarian on speed dial.”
I smiled. “Sounds like a lot of work.”
“They are. They say owning a horse is like living with an anchor. Unless you have someone else help out, it’s tough to get away, even for a weekend.”
“Do your parents pitch in?”
“Sometimes. When I really need them. But my dad’s getting older, and there’s a big difference between taking care of one horse and taking care of seven.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
In the warm embrace of the night, I listened to the steady hum of cicadas, breathing in the peace of this refuge, trying to still my racing thoughts.
“This is just the kind of place I imagined you’d live,” I finally said.
“Me too,” she said. “But it’s a lot harder than I thought it would be. There’s always something that needs to be repaired. You can’t imagine how many leaks there were in the barn, and big stretches of the fence collapsed last winter. That’s what we worked on during the spring.”
Though I heard her use of “we” and assumed she was talking about her husband, I wasn’t ready to talk about him yet. Nor, it seemed, was she.
“But it is beautiful here, even if it’s a lot of work. On nights like this, I like to sit on the porch and just listen to the world. You hardly ever hear cars driving by, and it’s just so… peaceful. It helps to clear the mind, especially after a long day.”
As she spoke, I felt for the measure of her words, sensing her desire to keep our conversation on safe footing.
“I’ll bet.”
“I need to clean some hooves,” she announced. “You want to help?”
“I don’t know what to do,” I admitted.
“It’s easy,” she said. “I’ll show you.” She vanished into the barn and walked out carrying what looked to be a couple of small curved nails. She handed one to me. As the horses were eating, she moved toward one.
“All you have to do is grab near the hoof and tug while you tap the back of his leg here,” she said, demonstrating. The horse, occupied with his hay, obediently lifted his hoof. She propped the hoof between her legs. “Then, just dig out the dirt around the shoe. That’s all there is to it.”