The Language of Hoofbeats Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2014 Catherine Ryan Hyde

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477824689

  ISBN-10: 1477824685

  Cover design by Georgia Morrissey

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014935298

  Contents

  1. Jackie

  2. Clementine

  3. Jackie

  4. Clementine

  5. Jackie

  6. Clementine

  7. Jackie

  8. Clementine

  9. Jackie

  10. Clementine

  11. Jackie

  12. Clementine

  13. Jackie

  14. Clementine

  15. Jackie

  16. Clementine

  17. Jackie

  18. Clementine

  19. Jackie

  20. Clementine

  21. Jackie

  22. Clementine

  23. Jackie

  24. Clementine

  25. Jackie

  26. Clementine

  27. Jackie

  28. Clementine

  29. Jackie

  30. Clementine

  31. Jackie

  32. Clementine

  33. Jackie

  34. Clementine

  35. Jackie

  36. Clementine

  37. Jackie

  38. Clementine

  39. Jackie

  40. Clementine

  41. Jackie,Three Months On

  About the Author

  1. Jackie

  We were more than halfway to this new town whose name I’d forgotten again, and something was brewing in the back of the van. Not with the kids. With the pets. Given the two choices, we were probably getting off easy.

  First I tried ignoring it, but there was a clear escalation of minor hostilities involved. The cats were all tucked away in individual carriers, but the dogs were loose, and carriers would not stop Peppy, the youngest dog, from harassing cats. Nothing would. Except maybe a county’s worth of distance.

  I looked over at Paula in the driver’s seat. Her small features and fine, straight nose in profile. She was staring at the road ahead and didn’t seem to notice. Maybe she was lost in thought. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

  I looked over my shoulder at the kids.

  “Quinn,” I said. “See if you can stop Peppy from picking on the cats.”

  Before he could leap into action—and with Quinn, that would not be much of a time lag—Paula said, “He shouldn’t take off his seat belt while we’re moving.”

  I have to admit this: it filled me with a sense of comfort to know that Paula was mentally here in the van with us after all. That we were still within her scope of conscious awareness.

  “Peppy,” Quinn barked, and it was funny to me, the way that tiny-for-his-age eight-year-old tried to make his voice sound authoritative. But, of course, I didn’t hurt his feelings by saying so. “Come! Now!”

  Peppy leaped onto Quinn’s lap, and the van fell blissfully silent. Quinn wrapped his arms tightly around the little troublemaking beagle mix and slipped a finger under his collar for good measure.

  “Good job, Quinn,” I said.

  “Thanks, J-Mom,” he said back.

  The girl, Star, withered me with one of those classic teenage death-ray stares of disgust. Armando never stopped looking out the window. He looked intense, maybe even more so than usual. Possibly over the line into distressed. But with Mando it was hard to tell.

  I sat forward in my seat again, feeling a sense of relief at leaving the problems in the van behind me . . . well, literally behind me. If only for a moment.

  “How much longer?” I asked Paula. “We must be getting close.”

  “I’m not sure. Look at the map.”

  I plowed through the glove compartment and found the map. Unfolded it. But I’d forgotten the name of the little town again. As I think I might have mentioned. So I used my finger to search in a broad radius east of the Bay Area, hoping to stumble on it and be reminded. It didn’t work.

  “What’s the name of this damn place again?”

  Paula’s brow furrowed, but she said nothing.

  “Sorry. I mean, this place. This very nice place.”

  “I swear you have a mental block.”

  “Possibly. But I’ll get over it. Can you please just remind me?”

  “Easley. As in, ‘We could Easley be happy there.’ ”

  “As in, ‘We could just as Easley live someplace else.’ ”

  I didn’t look up from my map when I said it. Coward that I am. I didn’t bother to look over to see if Paula was miffed. It pretty well went without saying that she was. Or maybe “hurt” would be a more honest way to say it.

  “Sorry,” I said. For about the tenth time in as many days. “At least I can’t forget it again. Now that I’ve so memorably used it in a sentence.”

  I found the dreaded town of Easley on the map. Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “Holy crap, that’s a long way.” Not that I didn’t know where it was. Not that I hadn’t driven there. Once. But it hit me all over again, in a different way. Far more real.

  “From where?” Paula asked.

  “I’m not following.”

  “A long way from where?”

  “From where we live. Lived.”

  “Right. I know. But the point I’m trying to make is that we don’t live there now. So maybe you can reset your odometer. The one inside your head. So you’re not measuring distances from a place that’s not even relevant anymore.”

  I fell silent.

  I’d like to claim I was doing the suggested internal work. I wasn’t. I was bathing in a moment of grief. It had never occurred to me, before that moment, that Napa County was no longer relevant.

  We stood in the cavernous living room of our new rental home. The floors were hardwood; the walls, wood-paneled; the massive fireplace, stone. Words echoed. The kids and pets were elsewhere, checking out the new digs. The place was empty except for Paula, who I sensed was about to leave as well. She had a veterinary practice to tend to. Not that it wouldn’t wait a few minutes. But I knew her. She wanted to be there. She wanted the discovery of something new.

  “I’m going into town to check out the new clinic,” Paula said. “Hopefully, the moving van will get here while I’m gone. I’m sorry to leave you alone with all that. Don’t unpack anything. Don’t do anything I should help with. I’ll be back as soon as I can, and we’ll tackle it together.”

  “Where’s Star?” I asked. “I haven’t seen her for a while.”

  “She’s not in her new room?”

  “She wasn’t last time I looked. I could go check again.”

  “No, it’s okay. I’ll see if I can find her before I go.”

  Paula trotted up the carpeted stairs, her boots making a muffled brushing
sound with each step.

  Quinn trotted into the living room, followed by three of the four dogs—Cecil and Jocko, the black Lab–type dogs, and Wendy, the poodle mix.

  “I like it,” Quinn said.

  My heart filled up, the way it always did when Quinn was . . . well, anything. When he was what he always was. When he was Quinn.

  I wanted to invite him to come sit with me, so I could pull him close and put one arm around him. But there was nothing to sit on. I reached one arm out anyway, and he came close and tucked underneath it. Quinn never tired of being close.

  “You don’t mind having to share a room with Mando?”

  “No. But I think he does. Maybe we could clean out that big barn for him.”

  “Did he say he minded?”

  “No. But I still think so. You know he’d never say anything like that.”

  “The barn. Hmm. Maybe. We’ll see. Let’s go with this for now.”

  Paula trotted down the steps again, shaking her head. Then she disappeared out the front door. A wave of heat washed in and made me feel weak and tired.

  “Have you seen Star?” I asked Quinn, looking down into his small face. His hair was red, not bright red but a dark coppery color, and wild. His skin was almost absurdly freckled. It was hard to look at him without smiling. “We’re not sure where she is.”

  “Think she ran away again?”

  “No. I wasn’t thinking that at all.”

  “I can’t find the cats, either,” Quinn said. “Not one of them. It’s weird. Like aliens came or something.”

  “The cats are in the master bedroom. So they can’t slip out the door in the confusion.”

  “They don’t get to go outside here?”

  “Not right away. You have to keep them inside for a while in a new place. Until they understand that it’s home.”

  “Oh,” he said. “I didn’t know that.”

  Quinn hadn’t experienced pets before coming to us. And we’d stayed put until now.

  The front door opened again, along with another blast of heat. Paula leaned in, her fine blonde hair windblown, but in a way that looked nice. Paula always looked nice, no matter how hard she didn’t try.

  “I don’t see her,” she said. “But don’t freak out. It’s a big property. Lots of places she could be. And I don’t have much time. So the fact that I couldn’t locate her in about thirty seconds does not mean she ran away again.”

  “I wasn’t worried she ran away again.”

  “Then why did you want me to go find her?”

  “Oh. Because . . . I was worried she ran away again.”

  Paula shot me a crooked, slightly rueful smile. She reflexively pushed her wire-rimmed glasses higher on the bridge of her nose. Paula always reminded me of those teen movies about the nerdy girl who turns into a beauty at the end of the film—by taking her glasses off and not much more. But Paula was beautiful with them on. Then again, so were the girls in the films.

  Then she disappeared, pulling the door closed behind her.

  I looked back down into Quinn’s eager, hopeful face.

  “Want me to go find Star, J-Mom?”

  “If you can. That would be great.”

  He ran to the door, followed by the small galumphing canine herd. All except Peppy. I ventured a guess that, if I were to look, I’d find Peppy sitting outside the closed door of the master bedroom.

  Quinn held up his hand like a stop sign, and the dogs skidded to a halt.

  “You stay here,” he told them, sternly, imitating a tiny version of an adult disciplinarian. “Until you know this is home.”

  He ran outside, slamming the front door.

  I looked around the living room as though more appealing options might suddenly appear. The heat, the emptiness, the sheer monumental nature of the task of building a household all over again, the fear of the hypervisibility so unavoidable in small-town living—it all ganged up on me at once. I wanted to flop onto a couch, or a bed. But that was impossible. So I flopped onto the hardwood in a corner of the massive room, my head in my hands.

  The dogs settled on all sides of me, which felt comforting.

  A few minutes later the front door creaked open again, so I looked up. Dark dots swam in front of my eyes from the pressure of the heels of my hands.

  Quinn looked relieved, so I felt a slight relief as well.

  “You okay, J-Mom?”

  “I’m fine, honey. Just hot and tired.”

  “Star didn’t run away. I found her.”

  “Is she coming home?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe not very soon.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s across the road talking to a horse.”

  2. Clementine

  I stood at the living room window, holding back the curtain with one hand, alarmed to see someone on our property. Anyone. I’d given no one permission to come onto the place. It was only a young girl, but that’s not the point. The point is more about simple property rights. If this girl had been raised correctly, she would have known better than to do such a thing without express permission.

  And especially she had no right to go anywhere near Comet’s corral.

  “Vernon, who is that?” I asked.

  Vernon was sitting at the dining room table, as usual, his temple on one palm, reading the paper and ignoring me. Or not fully hearing. I could never tell. And I was never sure which was worse: if he could completely tune me out, or if he was perfectly aware of every word I said but choosing not to reply.

  “Vernon!”

  Still nothing.

  I rapped on the glass, hoping to frighten the girl away. No response.

  It seemed to be my lot in life these days, wondering whether I was invisible to those around me, or just a nuisance they chose to ignore.

  “Vernon, there’s a stranger on our property, and I want to know who it is. And I’m not going to stop talking to you about it until you look up from your newspaper and take some responsibility for the fact that I exist.”

  A deep sigh from him. Then he looked up. Our eyes met. Just for a moment I wished I hadn’t pressed the issue. Then he looked away.

  “You’re the one standing by the window,” he said, “so you would know more about who it is than I would.”

  “I told you. It’s a stranger.”

  “If it’s a stranger to you, it’s likely to be a stranger to me.”

  It was my turn to sigh. But mine was less resigned. More agitated. I was quite frustrated, and in no mood to make a secret of it.

  “You are absolutely maddening,” I said, but under my breath. It was not a remark I intended for him to hear.

  I opened the front door, the heat of the day blasting me in the face. I stepped out of the glorious air-conditioning and into the summer sun.

  “You there!” I said.

  The girl glanced at me over her shoulder, still leaning on the top wooden rail of the horse corral.

  I couldn’t tell how old she was. I’m no good at that anymore. The older I get, the more they all look like children to me. She could have been as young as thirteen or as old as sixteen. Her limp brown hair was long, and cut into bangs in front, but bangs that were too unkempt, and hung over her eyes. Her skin was bad, breaking out in blemishes.

  The way Tina’s had been at that age.

  I quickly set that image outside myself and slammed the figurative door on it as hard as I could.

  Then that impudent girl just looked away from me and back at the horse again. She reached a hand out, and Comet approached it, which made me furious for reasons I couldn’t quite sort out.

  I stormed over to the corral.

  “Now see here. This is private property, and that horse belongs to this family, not to you. I’ll thank you never to set foot on anybody else’s property without
getting their permission first.”

  Still she had her hand out to Comet, who nuzzled around in her palm.

  It just about made me see red.

  “Are you listening to me? Can you hear me? That horse is very high-strung and not safe to be around, and I will not be responsible for your medical bills if something goes wrong, because I did not invite you here.”

  I heard a voice, a little boy, yelling.

  “Star!”

  That’s what he called out. I had no idea who the boy was, or why he would call out that word. It certainly didn’t sound like anybody’s name.

  I watched him jog up to where we stood.

  “Star, J-Mom is looking for you. I think she wants you home.”

  At that point I tried on the idea that Star might be a silly name for the girl, but I still wasn’t sure.

  The girl ignored him.

  “Is this your sister?” I asked the little boy. It may seem as though it should have been obvious, but they looked nothing alike. Maybe one of those modern families where each child is melded in from a different marriage.

  “Sort of,” he said, which was meaningless.

  “Who on earth are you?” I asked him.

  He pointed across the road to the empty rental, the big rambling wooden farmhouse. “We’re moving in. Right there. I’m Quinn Archer-Cummings. This is Star.”

  “Now why on earth would I not know they rented that place again? Wouldn’t the real estate people think I’d want to know? How can anybody even keep a secret like that in a town the size of Easley?” Though, at the back of my brain, it did register that we were scheduled to get a new large-animal veterinarian in the area, and that vets have to live somewhere, like everybody else.

  Of course, my words were not serious questions directed at the little boy, but he didn’t seem to know that.

  “I dunno,” he said with a shrug. “I just got here. Star. Are you coming, or not? What am I supposed to tell J-Mom?”

  “Tell her I’m busy,” the girl said.

  The little boy stood a moment, watching his own feet, as though fascinated by the way his athletic shoes sat on the dirt. Then he shook his head and began to walk away.

  “Little boy,” I said, because I’d forgotten his name already. I could only remember that it was something odd.