mouth before she could think.
“I’ll be by in fifteen minutes.”
“Cool.”
With trembling hands, Tessa plaited her hair into two braids, just in case Dad let her ride one of Grandpops’ horses.
Randall leaned on the split-rail fence, watching his daughter and father ride off across the pasture. The horses pranced and shook their manes, happy to be out beneath the sun on a fine hot day. Tessa looked tiny on Blue Boy’s enormous back—this sight would terrify Anne—but Blue Boy, although larger than Frisk, was easygoing, a big, softhearted, lazy baby who wouldn’t know how to run away with anyone.
His father looked good on Frisk, looked almost like the man he used to be, before his seventy-seven years and a knock-out punch of grief started dulling his mind.
Today Randall and Tessa arrived to find Montgomery Madison clean-shaven and pretty much dressed, except that he’d forgotten to take off his pajama top and wore it like a striped shirt tucked into his trousers, which happened to be corduroy … perhaps, Randall thought, giving him the benefit of the doubt, because he felt cold. A lot of older people did feel cold all the time.
Randall couldn’t tell whether or not Tessa realized her grandfather was wearing his pajama top. She ran into his arms happily, hugging him, and when he proposed going for a ride, Tessa probably wouldn’t have cared if her grandfather had been wearing a swimming suit and parka.
Randall wished he could be with them, but over the years his father had had to sell off some horses, or not replace them when they died. He really couldn’t take care of more than these two. Randall had had his daughter’s company during the drive out and would have it on the way back, so he let the two of them go off together. When they went over the hill, he turned back to inspect his father’s house.
Right now this house held more memories of the past than dreams of the future, Randall thought.
He’d grown up here, luckier than probably any one human being on the planet had a right to be, the son of a physician father and an artistic mother, baby brother to his adoring and fascinating older sister Evangeline. He’d learned to ride a horse before he learned to ride a bike, he’d swung from a rope into the pond at the foot of the meadow, he’d had friends spend the night in his room when he was six, in the barn loft when he was ten, and in sleeping bags out in the woods when he was twelve, all of them involved in fantasy adventure games, pretending to be Lewis and Clark discovering the Northwest Passage.
When Tessa was born, Randall had envisioned her spending long weekends and summer days at her grandparents’, riding, swimming, reading mysteries on rainy days. But Anne found just about everything about the farm too dangerous for a little girl: disease-carrying ticks could hide in the tall grass, not to mention snakes, and horses threw people, breaking their necks, andGod knew what lurked in the black mud at the bottom of the murky pond.
And these days, Anne wouldn’t let Tessa spend any time alone with Randall’s father. He was too forgetful, she insisted, and she was right. Some days Mont Madison’s mind was as clear as a bell, but other days it seemed fogged over, scratched deep.
Randall studied the outside of the house. White clapboard with dark green trim, it was in pretty good shape; Randall had seen to that. He paid a carpenter to keep the gutters, roof, storm windows, and stone steps in good repair.
Now he entered the house, as everyone did, through the mudroom leading into the kitchen. When his mother had been alive, this room had been green with potted African violets and scented with geraniums growing in both windows, but after Madeline died two months ago, Mont kept forgetting to water the plants, so Randall had had to throw them out. That had been oddly difficult, as painful as burying a beloved pet, for the geraniums were ancient, huge twisted survivors with fragrant fuzzy
“I’ll be by in fifteen minutes.”
“Cool.”
With trembling hands, Tessa plaited her hair into two braids, just in case Dad let her ride one of Grandpops’ horses.
Randall leaned on the split-rail fence, watching his daughter and father ride off across the pasture. The horses pranced and shook their manes, happy to be out beneath the sun on a fine hot day. Tessa looked tiny on Blue Boy’s enormous back—this sight would terrify Anne—but Blue Boy, although larger than Frisk, was easygoing, a big, softhearted, lazy baby who wouldn’t know how to run away with anyone.
His father looked good on Frisk, looked almost like the man he used to be, before his seventy-seven years and a knock-out punch of grief started dulling his mind.
Today Randall and Tessa arrived to find Montgomery Madison clean-shaven and pretty much dressed, except that he’d forgotten to take off his pajama top and wore it like a striped shirt tucked into his trousers, which happened to be corduroy … perhaps, Randall thought, giving him the benefit of the doubt, because he felt cold. A lot of older people did feel cold all the time.
Randall couldn’t tell whether or not Tessa realized her grandfather was wearing his pajama top. She ran into his arms happily, hugging him, and when he proposed going for a ride, Tessa probably wouldn’t have cared if her grandfather had been wearing a swimming suit and parka.
Randall wished he could be with them, but over the years his father had had to sell off some horses, or not replace them when they died. He really couldn’t take care of more than these two. Randall had had his daughter’s company during the drive out and would have it on the way back, so he let the two of them go off together. When they went over the hill, he turned back to inspect his father’s house.
Right now this house held more memories of the past than dreams of the future, Randall thought.
He’d grown up here, luckier than probably any one human being on the planet had a right to be, the son of a physician father and an artistic mother, baby brother to his adoring and fascinating older sister Evangeline. He’d learned to ride a horse before he learned to ride a bike, he’d swung from a rope into the pond at the foot of the meadow, he’d had friends spend the night in his room when he was six, in the barn loft when he was ten, and in sleeping bags out in the woods when he was twelve, all of them involved in fantasy adventure games, pretending to be Lewis and Clark discovering the Northwest Passage.
When Tessa was born, Randall had envisioned her spending long weekends and summer days at her grandparents’, riding, swimming, reading mysteries on rainy days. But Anne found just about everything about the farm too dangerous for a little girl: disease-carrying ticks could hide in the tall grass, not to mention snakes, and horses threw people, breaking their necks, andGod knew what lurked in the black mud at the bottom of the murky pond.
And these days, Anne wouldn’t let Tessa spend any time alone with Randall’s father. He was too forgetful, she insisted, and she was right. Some days Mont Madison’s mind was as clear as a bell, but other days it seemed fogged over, scratched deep.
Randall studied the outside of the house. White clapboard with dark green trim, it was in pretty good shape; Randall had seen to that. He paid a carpenter to keep the gutters, roof, storm windows, and stone steps in good repair.
Now he entered the house, as everyone did, through the mudroom leading into the kitchen. When his mother had been alive, this room had been green with potted African violets and scented with geraniums growing in both windows, but after Madeline died two months ago, Mont kept forgetting to water the plants, so Randall had had to throw them out. That had been oddly difficult, as painful as burying a beloved pet, for the geraniums were ancient, huge twisted survivors with fragrant fuzzy
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