getting up and heading for the door, grabbing my jacket on the way. There was still a chill in the air that early in the Kentucky spring and it was invigorating to step out into the morning air, breathing in the fresh smell of new grass and the less pleasing scent wafting from the nearest barn. The smell of manure might not have appealed to everyone, but for me, it was a reminder of home and childhood.
I breathed in the air and made my way over to the stables where my brother Alex was brushing out the coat of a two year old mare.
“She looks beautiful,” I said as I came up to stand on the other side of the stall door.
Alex nodded. “Siobhan is quite a looker.” He brushed her russet coat to a glistening sheen that caught the early morning sun and made the horse look like a copper penny.
“You think we’ll run her next year?” I asked him as I looked over the horse from nose to tail. She was beautiful, but I wasn’t sure if she was one of the horses that we would end up taking to the many derbies we were involved in.
Alex shrugged. “Not sure. She hasn’t been run that much, and I really think that if we had planned on doing that with her, she should have seen a little more practice at this point in her life. I think she is a great horse, but I’m not sure the derby life is the one for her. However, I do think she is going to give us a lot of talented foals.”
Alex was probably the quietest of all the brothers, so hearing him talk this much was a little unusual. The only time Alex had much to say was when he was talking about a horse. Not much for words and usually keeping to himself, he was definitely the most horse whisperer like among us and was more involved with the training of individuals here at the ranch. He was so in tune with the horses that it helped to have his expertise around to help people become accustomed to green horses. While most of our horses were bred here on the ranch, we did keep a group of wild ponies from the Dakotas on one of the spreads of land that was fenced off from the rest. Alex’s house was out there and visiting that part of the ranch felt like entering a wilderness. I could see why my parents had given him that parcel when they were divvying up the land to us. It fit my younger brother’s personality perfectly, and he was never happier than he was when he was among the wild horses.
“Her mother is Spring, right?” I asked.
“Yeah, and her father was David’s Lariat.”
David’s Lariat had been one of Alex’s favorites. A horse that my father had acquired from a Colorado ranch when we were still very young, the horse had been a monster of an animal when we got him. He stood taller than any of our other horses but managed to be faster than almost any horse half his weight. He was a marvel and had produced many of our fastest horses. David’s Lariat had died just a year before, but we still had a few of his offspring around the ranch and would likely see his influence in our derby horses for decades to come.
“Well, even if she isn’t going to run for us, she’s a beautiful girl, and I’m sure she’ll give us a few great runners.”
“What are you up to?” Alex asked as he put away the brush and stepped out of the stall to join me where I stood.
I shrugged. “Just needed to get out of the office for a little while.”
“Already?” He looked at his watch. “It’s early in the day. Why don’t you hire someone to take care of some of the stuff you don’t enjoy? That’s what bookkeepers are for, after all. It would give you a break and let you have a chance to get back out here with the horses where you want to be.”
Alex was perceptive with more than just the horses.
“Yeah, well, I might do that after the next couple of derbies have passed. I’ve got too much on my plate right now to hand it over to someone totally new.”
My brother sighed and shrugged. “Whatever you say. Just don’t be afraid to ask for a little help when you need it.”
I gave him a firm pat on the back and continued on down through the stables, past the stalls that housed our many horses. A few of our ranch hands were leading some of the horses out to graze in the pasture, while some of them were headed to the arena and our track for training. As I exited the other end of the massive stable, I saw Emma atop her horse, Saoirse.
“How’dya do, Miss Emma Lou?”
Emma frowned at me, and I could see her brow furrowing under her helmet. I knew she hated it when I referred to her middle name, Louise, but told myself that someday she would come to think of it as endearing, so I kept up the practice.
She tossed her head back. “Saoirse and I just went out for our morning run. I was about to take her back to the stable and then head in for my lessons. Is Hetty here yet?”
I shook my head. “She wasn’t there when I left the house, but there’s a good chance she’s arrived by now. Better hurry on back, you don’t want to be late.”
My twelve year old daughter beamed at me from where she sat on her horse and headed into the stable before dismounting. I watched her lead her young horse into the stall and couldn’t help but notice how much she was starting to look like her mother. It wasn’t a bad thing, but I did wonder how Emma would feel as she looked in the mirror and started to notice the resemblance she shared with the woman who left her—and me—behind when Emma was just a toddler.
I walked toward the pasture as I recalled the time directly after Kelly left. It had been a shock to me when it happened, but when I had a little time to think it over, nothing about it was too surprising. We had married straight out of high school, and my parents had been opposed to the match from the start. Kelly’s parents were business owners in the nearest town, and ours had been the kind of wedding that made the local papers. Our courtship had been brief — we dated at the end of high school, and because I was an idiot, I had proposed to Kelly not long after graduation. We married and moved into a house here at Killarny Estate and had had a hell of a time for the first couple of years.
Kelly was wild and looking back I could tell she had been just a little too wild for me. It wasn’t something I had noticed at the time, and while it was just the two of us, it was easy to forget that we were stepping into a new world that included all sorts of new responsibilities. Back then we would spend our weekends hopping around the bars in town before heading back to the privacy of our house at the ranch and going at it like rabbits. It was no surprise when Kelly got pregnant, and I was overjoyed, but she didn’t seem too enthused about it. Slowly she warmed to the idea, and once Emma was born, I could see that she really did love our daughter.
Things were never the same though. Kelly never looked at me the same way, and I tried to encourage her to go see a doctor to see if what she was struggling with was postpartum depression, but she wouldn’t listen.
I came home one evening to find all of Kelly’s things gone, a note on the kitchen table, and Emma wailing in her playpen. I had picked up my daughter and the note and read the words through tears as Emma sniffled and buried her head against my shoulder. Kelly was gone. She apologized in the letter, said she was heading to California to pursue her dream of being an actress, and that she was going with her friend, Bud.
Bud was the guy she had dated before me in high school, and suddenly it all started to make sense. We never really heard from her after that, aside from a Christmas card or a birthday present for Emma on the years that Kelly remembered, which were few and far between.
As far as I knew, Emma had no real memory of her mother. It made me sad, but I wondered if it was for the best that she didn’t know what she was missing out on. If Kelly
