She sat tall, forward in the saddle. Hips rolled down into the seat, thighs turned slightly over and inward, feet perched in the stirrups. Her back was tall, spine straight and shoulders loose, with the reins hanging freely in her hands, which lay, relaxed, on either side of the saddle horn.
The posture was half instinct and half consciousness. Cosima never felt quite as aware of or capable in her own body as when it was connected to another living thing, symbiotically; two creatures moving, responding as one.
She missed riding during the academic term; partly because of the solitude, the time to reflect and think… and fantasize. But mostly because of Darwin. They had been friends since he was born, a giant puppy of a creature who had eyes for her from the beginning, as she did for him.
Though Darwin's parents, both registered Appaloosas had been snow-capped (white over the rump with dark mottling across their hind quarters), their foal was born white as the Sierra Nevadas in winter, with a spray of black spots across his body, legs, neck and face. Cosima had exclaimed upon his birth, "It looks like he was sired by a Dalmatian!" No one argued with her, and after several lively debates about genetics and the traditions of horse registry, Siobhan let Cosima name the new addition to the family.
"It's not about luck!" Cosima exclaimed, slapping her thighs in exasperation. "His coloring is a relic of the geographic history of the breed! The leopard pattern helped his progenitors survive the winter in the mountains of China; tribal artifacts put his ancestors there centuries ago."
"If it makes you happy, kitten." Siobhan had answered with such adoration in her voice that it could have been understood as condescension. "Of course," she added with mischievous intent, "It also might just be what happened when Lucky and Belle laid down together. A name is a name is name, love"
"Siobhan, I was there, and neither one of those animals was laying down with anyone; I can tell you that for sure!" Cosima sassed.
"I find it hard to believe," Siobhan ignored Cosima's flip, if factual, retort and continued, "that you don't see the hand of fate in all of this, even a little bit. Have you considered, love, why Lucky and Belle? Would it have happened with any other sire? Or dame? Will it happen again? And," she teased, beaming adoration at Cosima, "how would Charles Darwin explain a snow white horse in the middle of a desert?"
"Science and fate are mutually exclusive, S!" Cosima proclaimed incredulously.
"Are they?" Siobhan asked, feigning innocence as a type of ignorance.
"Yes!" Cosima was adamant. "Because there is no such thing as fate! And that is why we're calling him Darwin!" She flung herself down at the kitchen table and set about completing the registry paperwork. "I don't care what other words are on this piece of paper!
The older brunette rose and stretched, shuffling over to her daughter, who was almost a silhouette, lit by the single bulb fixture hanging over the top of the round oaken table. She kissed her daughter on the top of the head before rinsing her coffee cup in the sink and heading through to bed. "I love you, kitten; see you in the morning."
"And we live in a high mountain desert." Cosima mumbled half-heartedly; it a parting shot that she did not expect to land.
"Whatever you say, kitten." Siobhan placated, and Cosima grinned and shook her head.
"I love you, too."
Siobhan Sadler, as a matter of course, never forced her own perceptions, ideals or opinions on her children, perhaps because she saw them each as a gift, entrusted to her by fate. Her responsibility, but never her property. She believed that her job was to bring them from the darkness into the sunlight, to provide them plenty of water and food, and opportunities to run, to read, to play, to work, to sweat and to sing. She trusted them each to find their own way. She also understood, however, that all folks occasionally stumble, so she tried to live a life, steadfast and compassionate, that they might emulate when they lost their way.
So it came as a bit of a shock to Cosima, when, having heard Donnie's detailed report of Cosima's "railway romance," (despite Cosima's dismissal and objection that it was "no such thing,") Siobhan immediately took a stand. "Don't you give up on this girl, kitten. You are both here for the next six weeks; you owe it to yourself to see what comes next."
"Okay, whoa!" Cosima responded defensively, sitting straight up to the edge of the couch that had been cradling her tired frame. "'What comes next?' You guys don't even know this woman. Seriously! And if we're being honest, I don't know her either! So, I can quit whatever I want to quit. It was a train ride; it's done. I'm home, and I have a job to do."
It was Donnie who spoke next, "I know what I saw, Monkey. If that woman looked at me like that, touched me like that, I'd have very little doubt about the rest." A single eyebrow leapt up in implication before he continued. "And, even if you're right and I'm reading her wrong, I can read you like a book, and you haven't had that look on your face since…." his voice trailed off.
"Just don't, Donnie, please." Cosima warned, pointing a finger at him from across the coffee table.
Donnie shook his head and moved his hand to rub the back of his neck. He spoke with measured breathe and firm but kind words. "Okay, okay. But you listen to me Cos, I love you, and I'll be damned if I am going to hold my tongue while I watch you throw away the most gorge…"
"Donnie, sweetheart," Siobhan inserted as she moved closer to Cosima's side, "give your sister and I a minute. Would you please?" She rubbed her hand across Cosima's tense shoulders, working her way around to the far side and squeezing until she felt the young woman melt into her embrace.
Knowing that there was no dissuading their mother on the rare occasions that she decided to assert herself, he stood, "Yeah, sure. Paul's gonna need a hand with the stalls when he gets back any way." He headed through the kitchen and out the side door that led toward the barn.
"Hey," Cosima's shout caught Donnie by the collar as he cleared the threshold and pulled his head back through the doorway, "leave Darwin's. I want to come out and say 'hi' later. I'll muck out after I brush him down."
"Sure thing, Monkey; he'll be happy to see you. I can saddle him up if you want to take a ride."
"Thanks; that sounds great, Gordo." Cosima smiled at him,
Donnie disappeared again, his parting words muffled by the closing door, "Make sure you ask her about the science stuff, S!"
A bemused Cosima rolled her eyes; a laugh stopped short in her chest. She nuzzled her into Siobhan's neck and hugged her before settling back into the couch cushions, waiting for the first question. Mrs. S. focused on Cosima and spoke slowly.
"Is she smart?" Cosima nodded.
"As smart as you?" Cosima nodded.
"Is she kind?" Cosima nodded.
"As kind as you?" Cosima nodded.
"And you like her?" Cosima nodded.
"And she likes you?" Cosima hesitated, a montage of sideways glances, shy smiles, shared revelations, interlaced fingers, flashes of heat, awkward departures, and fictitious flirtations flashed through her mind. She shrugged her shoulders, looking down, hiding her face from the woman who was watching her, assessing her.
Siobhan probed further, "Does that mean 'I guess so,' or 'I'm not sure.'"
Cosima's entire person shifted in demeanor; usually open and effusive and confident, Siobhan watched her daughter wilt, tears springing to her eyes, threatening to spill over the bottom lids, a grimace of pain twisting her brow and lips. As Cosima fought to hold back the torrent of emotion, Siobhan moved to kneel down in front of her daughter, taking her hands and squeezing until Cosima, a solitary tear trailing down her cheek, turned to face her.
"Kitten," the woman spoke knowingly, "twenty four years ago the universe saw fit to bring you into being and, six years later, made sure you found your way home to me. Cosima, you have been blessed with a quick mind and a loving heart, and over the last eighteen years I have watched you put both to the best possible uses. I couldn't ask for a better child, and no one who knows you would ever question your intentions or your character. So why do you?" Siobhan paused waiting to see if Cosima might respond, and when she didn't, sitting silent still, the older woman continued, "Do you really think that just because you were made a little differently that you don't deserve every bit as much of the love that you show others? You know you'll never get it playing games with people."
"I'm not playing games, S! I'm surviving." Cosima's tone was harsh. "I know what I deserve, and I also know what I'm doing."
"Oh, do you?" Siobhan's tone challenged her daughter.
"Yeah I do. I know it's not what you want for me, but it works." Cosima explained. "I get what I need, and no one gets hurt."
Uncharacteristically, Siobhan corrected, "I think what you mean, child, is, they get what they need and you don't get hurt." She rarely made it her habit to force truth onto other people, especially personal truths, and especially onto people she cared for, but her concern for Cosima was pushing her toward that end.
"What is that supposed to mean?" a subtle rage brewed under Cosima's words.
"Do you really want me to tell you, kitten? Because I can't unsay it once it's out." Siobhan warned. Cosima, caught between the fatigue of self-deception and the need for self-preservation, raised her eyebrows in a feeble dare. Siobhan readied herself with a calm, deep breath and then spoke. "What it means, my darling girl, is that you let women use you to make themselves feel better because it is safer for you," and after a moment of silence that hung uncomfortably long between them, Cosima's eyes staring blankly ahead, but beginning to soften, Siobhan continued, "I know you still think about her."
At that Cosima stiffened, eyes fierce once again, "I told you; I don't want to talk about her."
"But Cosima, you have to. She's the reason you do this to yourself. She's the reason you won't believe that this woman, or any woman, might care for you, might actually be capable of loving you. And you refuse to even acknowledge it, let alone work through it, so you're stuck, child. Stuck feeling it all of the time, so mired down in fear that you are missing your chance a happiness." Siobhan's words were gentle now, holding Cosima's heart above the pain she knew they must have been causing.
It had been six years since Emily Callahan had walked away from Cosima's tearful embrace and pleading words to become Mrs. Peter McNamara. Six years since Cosima had held any one… kissed anyone… sent fumbling hands across the landscape of…. any one. Six years of dude wrangling, of bravado and affected flirtation, of false confidence and chivalry. Six years of recreating the illusion of affection, the excitement of romance, filling the well of her heart with sand that made it feel full, yet unbearably heavy at the same time.
They sat in silence a few minutes longer before Cosima, quite to Siobhan's surprise, spoke, "I thought she loved me, S. I was so sure." Her tears spilled now unimpeded. "How can I ever trust my own feelings again, knowing I was so wrong?" Her tone was almost pleading and Siobhan let her hand come up to stroke Cosima's cheek. "I know you don't approve of how I am with these women, but it's what I want. It's what I need. It makes me feel. And, God, it feels so good to feel, to remember what hope felt like, what infatuation felt like…. "
"What love felt like?" Siobhan interjected.
"Yeah," Cosima whispered, she took the tissue Siobhan had retrieved from the table top box. "I'm scared S."
"I know, kitten, but what if you don't have to spend the rest of your life courting memories. You are strong enough; I promise." She stroked her daughter's hair, and the younger woman dried her eyes. "And you don't have to fall in love; maybe just stop hiding from the possibility." The older woman's words were warm and encouraging; she took the spent tissue and offered a fresh one.
"I don't know if I can." Cosima confessed, a sniffle helping her regain some composure, "What if I don't remember how?"
"Well, you'll never know if you don't try, will you?" They smiled at one another.
"No I guess not," Cosima conceded.
"Besides, kitten, the heart is resilient; it wants to feel."
"Yeah?" Cosima asked, genuinely.
"Yes, love." Siobhan affirmed. "How do you think we became a family?" They enjoyed the warmth of each other's presence for a moment before Siobhan ventured a new topic of conversation. "So tell me more about the," she spoke the last word almost euphemistically, "science." and Cosima couldn't help but giggle at her mother's attempt at salaciousness.
"Where do you want me to start." she asked, knowing Siobhan would not be content until she had the whole story.
As she felt Darwin's gait break underneath her hips, she realized she'd been lost in thought, over whelmed by the generosity of her mother's spirit and exhilarated, if a little nervous, about the idea of being open to the possibility of Delphine. Her equine companion had stopped at a tree, recently fallen, across the trail. Cosima considered taking it as sign that she had done enough exploring for one night, and she contemplated turning her mount back toward home, but then, suddenly, she felt the urge to jump.
When she had confessed to Siobhan her initial failure to read Delphine's circumstances correctly, her mother had raised her brow in an obvious critique of the scientific method, which led to a rebuttal from the younger woman that involved an explanation of Occam's Razor and an interesting discussion about the significance of wedding rings. Cosima described Delphine's research, to the best of her recollection, and Siobhan, being the only female rancher in the valley, nodded in understanding as Cosima recounted Delphine's frustration with negotiating space in a man's world. After watching Cosima glow through her recounting of the last few days, Siobhan suggested that Delphine come to dinner sometime soon.
"If you're riding out any way, you may as well head to the Riverside." Siobhan suggested, feigning innocence through her guilty grin.
"What if she says, 'no'?" Cosima worried.
"Then she says, 'no.' But you will have tried. Nothing great was ever accomplished without at least a tiny leap of faith."
She tapped Darwin's side with her right heel and pulled the reins lightly in the same direction, leading the horse in a wide arc away from the tree and lining him back up about twenty feet up the trail; it was an easy leap, but he needed some room to gather his gait. Cosima lifted herself out of the saddle and gave him the signal, "Ha," she breathed, as she gave his midsection a nudge. In a few quick strides, horse and rider were both over the obstacle, Cosima's body simply reacting, as Darwin had vaulted them, lazily, through the air. As she settle back down into the saddle, she felt freer than she had in years. She was just about to urge Darwin into a trot, growing impatient with their slow progress toward the Riverside, when she heard a familiar accent caress the syllables of her name.
"That was very impressive, Cosima." Delphine stepped toward the trail from behind a large Aspen, "and also very impressive was…" she approached the stunned brunette, reaching out the stroke the length of her horse's nose, "who is this stunning creature?"
"Uh," Cosima's tongue took a moment to catch up with her mind; Delphine's presence caught her completely off guard. She had planned to gather her nerve over the entirety of the three mile ride, and they were barely half way through. "um, Delphine Cormier, may introduce you to Charlie Darwin's Luck of the Draw." And as she introduced them she quickly dismounted, sliding between Delphine and her massive companion in order to move the reins into the lead position.
Delphine immediately began laughing. 'Charlie Darwin's Luck…?" she faltered for the ending.
"Luck of the Draw." Cosima repeated, confidence resurging at having some sort of upper hand, even if it was, literally, only a nominal advantage.
"That is quite a name." Delphine observed, appreciatively.
"Well, since you guys aren't close friends, yet." Delphine's smile widened at the idea of yet. "and since I gave him your full name, I could hardly just call him, Darwin now, could I?" Cosima chided comically. The idea of employing the reciprocity of formal etiquette with a horse amused Delphine to no end, and she congratulated herself on the decision to seek out Cosima's company. She already felt more at home.
"C'est vrai," she agreed, forcing an ill-fitting veneer of propriety over the top of her obvious delight. "It is a pleasure to meet you," she spoke the name this time slowly, one careful word at a time, "Charlie. Darwin's. Luck. of the. Draw." She nodded confidently at the last, and Darwin acknowledged her with a muted whinny.
"What's that boy?" Cosima said, dipping her head toward his bit. "Oh, Okay. I'll tell her. He says you should call him Darwin; I guess he thinks your friends already." Cosima shrugged and flashed a toothy grin that melted Delphine's joints and plucked at her nerves, causing them to tingle. The blonde noticed how the setting sun set fire to the Cosima's silhouette, lining her features with a shimmering ribbon of light. And it took every ounce of control she could muster to stop herself from reaching out to touch it. Instead she tucked a lock of her own hair behind her left ear. "I have to say, Delphine. That was pretty fast; it usually takes him weeks to warm up to new folks."
"Well," Delphine offered, dismissively, but holding Cosima's gaze pointedly, "I guess I just have that effect on people."
Cosima nodded slowly, "I guess you do." She reached out and claimed Delphine's hand with her own. "So Delphine, can I ask you a question?"
"Of course, chérie." Delphine, dragged her toe backwards through the dirt as she anticipated Cosima's words, wondering what this startling woman might ask of her, wondering if there was anything she would refuse her.
Cosima fought every urge to affect her words and demeanor, "Delphine Cormier, would it be alright with you if," she paused then started again, "I mean, would you mind if…" Delphine was surprised by Cosima's obvious nerves and wondered if she should brace herself for a blow, but instead squeezed Cosima's hand reassuringly. THe effect was immediate. "Delphine, can I walk you home?"
The question lacked irony, or chivalry, or playfulness, or pretense. It was honest. Cosima had asked to walk Delphine home, and Delphine without pretense answered, "Oui, Cosima, it would be my pleasure."
With reins in her left hand and Delphine's fingers laced in her right, Cosima led them back toward town, trying intentionally to notice the smell of the sagebrush and the riverbank, the sound of the frogs and the crunch of the trail beneath their feet, the warmth of Delphine on her shoulder and the slow crawl of darkness overhead.
She was determined to remember this moment when she laid down in bed tonight, determined to begin forgetting her past to make room for a future.
