LONG CHAPTER FOR YOU GUYS. JUST WANTED TO SAY - I HAD FUN WRITING ABOUT THIS. I HAVENT WRITTEN ABOUT HORSES SINCE I WAS 12, SO IT WAS FUN. PLEASE REVIEW. I HOPE THIS CHAPTER GIVES SOME ENCOURAGEMENT AND A BREAK FROM ALL THE ANGST BUT ALSO OPENS UP SOME QUESTIONS.
Henry willed his eyes to open when his fingers failed to find the coffee cup he'd laid out the night before. Hearing the ceramic clink, he quickly filled it with coffee, wishing for just a few more hours of sleep.
And he could have. It wasn't like Emma was begging him to be out there in the pasture with her before the sun even came up. In fact, the past six mornings, he'd barely seen her anywhere inside the farmhouse. From sun-up to sun-down, she was outside. And, in attempt to have a conversation with his daughter, today, he would spend the day outside.
He pulled on his boots and a light jacket, holding his coffee cup close for warmth as he walked out into the chilly spring morning. Walking through the almost thawed but sometimes cracking mud, he couldn't tear his eyes away from the quiet beauty around him. Each breath he took floated a quiet fog in front of him, one that for a split second matched the dusting of fog across the fields around him, rolling over the hills like a silent calming agent. Whispers and tendrils of sunlight itched through the horizon, but kept a low profile because of the fog that worked to temper the brightness that would eventually shatter through the in-between night and morning space that they were in.
He followed the sound of hoofbeats – a few sets of pastures down. A nice walk through the dew-settled grass, finding and losing the lightly worn path meandering from one field to another. As he reached the crest of the hill, he smiled as he looked down to see his daughter completely engrossed in her riding. As he drew closer, he was greeted by Zazu, who meowed and wanted the attention from Henry that he was not getting from Emma. "She leave you out too?" Henry joked with the cat, who, once done with Henry, ran ahead and jumped onto a fencepost, looking out and watching Emma ride.
Elizabeth had always been the horse expert. Henry had learned, but only the basics. He could tell the difference between a good rider and a bad one, but he couldn't tell you why. Elizabeth could look at explain one muscle twitch from the horse that signaled a disconnect between rider and beast. She would point at the way a rider would rotate their left ankle just a bit on the stirrups and explain the reasoning for it. Henry couldn't see that.
But he knew today.
There was no contest. He might not be able to point out the individual mechanics that brought it all together. But he could see the masterpiece. No need for picking away at each separate thing. This was perfection.
Emma's body was one with the chestnut horse beneath her, where Henry couldn't tell where her body began and the horse ended. From what Elizabeth told him, riding bareback was one difficult feat. But not with Emma. Her legs urged the horse on, her core was strong, and her hands bent and extended the reins in complete rhythm to the horse's movements. He watched as she reached the end of the pasture, and with what looked to be complete control, she directed the mare into the curve, the slight bent to her body signaling where and how she wanted to go. Then at the end of the curve, an almost imperceptible tap of her heel urged the horse back into a gallop. Her hair, free of the helmet she'd promised she would wear, flew behind her, curls joyfully catching the glint of the sun.
As he watched her, he was transported back in time. Back four years ago. Back to standing at this same spot. And watching Elizabeth push her horse over and over back and forth through the pasture. She would come into the house, her face red from the burn of the wind drying her tears. Elizabeth had explained that out there she could cry and scream and feel everything. For once she could either think or not think about everything when she wanted. She'd been able to escape and engage at the same time. Grieving the loss of their little girl alone.
Henry wished he could express to Elizabeth how similar their daughter was to her mother. Their coping mechanisms, while they hurt each other, flowed from the same place. When their spirits had been broken, they'd alternated from lashing out to recoiling from the people who just wanted to comfort them. From the countless shouting matches as Elizabeth tried to communicate her pain of watching her daughter executed to the way Elizabeth clawed her way into bed like it was her only place for survival with him, the similarities bombarded Henry. And he knew if he said that to Elizabeth, she'd think that he was taking Emma's side. But it was true. As horrible as everything felt for Elizabeth, he wished she could see it.
And see the smile on Emma's face as she took turn after turn in the field. A smile he hadn't seen in such a long time.
Before he knew it, the coffee in his cup was gone, and the sun pushed into the sky, morning taking over from darkness. As Emma made another turn around the field, he waved her over. She slowed the horse down, bouncing in rhythm as she came to a stop by the pasture gate. The mare, glistening with sweat, stomped her feet, and turned her head side to side.
"Woah, girl." Emma said, and looked up at Henry with a smile, "You're up early." Then she slipped effortlessly off the horse, patting the mare's neck and whispering, "You did so good."
Henry reminded himself that he couldn't just watch her. They needed to talk. But watching her in her element made him want to sit back and just marvel.
"You looked really good out there." He said, unhooking the chain from the pasture gate, pulling it open for her.
She smiled, "Thank you." She led the horse out of the pasture, patting Zazu's head from where he sat on the fencepost. "I think he's a bit jealous." To which the cat meowed his irritation.
"I don't normally find myself agreeing with a cat, but …"
She nodded, "Sorry we haven't had a chance to talk."
He fell in pace beside her as they walked towards the barn by the house. The horse snorted a bit, and Emma said, "I have just been…" As they walked side by side, he was glad that she didn't have to look at him. The eye contact seemed the hardest part when having any conversation with his daughter. "… I just know that tomorrow I have to go back, and I wanted to make the most of everything."
She'd barely been in the house since they'd gotten here. At one point he'd checked to make sure she wasn't actually sleeping in the barn. "To be honest, I've enjoyed the slower pace here too."
Her boots and the hoofbeats from the horse were the only sound for a second. Then, "I don't want to talk about going back." Her voice was quiet but firm. "Means I have to go back."
"Ok." He said. And they walked.
At the crest of the hill, she took a deep breath, "Can I ask you a question?" Trepidation hung in her words.
Without thought, Henry agreed. "Of course." He didn't care if it was a horrible question, painful question, or even a pointed mean-spirited question. At least she was asking.
"How did you ever forgive Mom for what she did to you?"
The question was exactly to the point. And Henry had been prepared for this since Emma had found out about Elizabeth's affair. So there was no dancing around the question or subject matter.
Clearing his throat, he said, "It wasn't easy, that's for sure." Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Emma look over at him with surprise. But he pretended he hadn't seen that. And he continued, "At first, I couldn't even look at her without seeing her as a cheater. We had vowed to be true to each other, and, in my mind, she'd without thought broken that vow after a few drinks."
They reached the barn, and he stepped aside so she could lead the horse into the stall. Following at a safe distance until she'd hooked the horse in, he continued, "We didn't speak for a few months. I mean, she'd come by and see your siblings, but I would call your Aunt Isabelle over to be there while I left. I couldn't even be in the same room without feeling overwhelming anger."
He thought brutal honesty would be something Emma needed. And she was quiet but listening as she started to brush down the warm horse.
She quietly asked, "What changed?"
"I lived without her." He said. When Emma looked over at him for clarification, he repeated, "I lived without her, and I knew there was something missing in my life." He could feel the pain at being separated from his wife, and he said, "I listened to her, we fought, but I heard her that time. I heard how broken she was. How she hated what she'd done to hurt our marriage. And then she left, back to her hotel. And I laid in bed, and I missed her. And the anger was still there, but the need to have her back was enough to at least make me try. Try to forgive her."
Emma grabbed the hoof pick and ran her hand down the horse's leg, like she'd been doing that all of her life. As she picked pressed dirt out of the hoof, she asked, "Did you wish she'd just not told you?"
Knowing where this was coming from, Henry shook his head immediately. "No. Because if that had been the case, I would never have had you in my life." And, leaning against the wall as he watched her, he said, "And you weren't the problem in our marriage. Your presence wasn't the issue. It was that I had pushed your mother away – told her our marriage might not be strong enough to withstand something, that thing being her going to Baghdad for a year. That wasn't an excuse for her, but that was a reason."
Emma moved from one hoof to the next, gently nudging the horse like an expert.
And Henry said the thing he'd been waiting to tell her for her whole life.
"And the moment I held you in my arms at the hospital…" He could see it in his mind, and he quieted down at the memory, "You were so tiny. The smallest of all the kids. You fit…" He mimicked holding a baby, "You fit perfectly in my arms." A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, and he reverentially said, "At that moment, I was overwhelmed with you. Because while you weren't mine biologically, you were mine. There was never any question about it in my mind." Emma had stood up, brushing her hair away from her face and was listening intently as she leaned against the horse. And Henry said, "You were my Emma, in fact, I insisted on the name." Emma raised her eyebrows, and he affirmed, "That was my grandmother's name. I wanted you to have a family name, both your first and last."
It was quiet. And Emma looked into his eyes, and Henry could see the emotions fighting for space. Disbelief, wonder, and then the questioning came. She bit her bottom lip, and then said, "I love you."
Words he'd missed hearing. He fought to keep from jumping in excitement.
She continued, "And I don't want to hurt you. I don't." She put the pick down and walked over to the hose with a bucket to refill the water.
He knew where this was going. And he preempted her needing to feel bad, "Emma, you are my daughter in my mind, and nothing you do will ever change that." She had her back to him, so it was easier to say the next part than if she'd been looking at him. He steeled himself for the words coming out of his mouth, making sure he didn't pause or hesitate in any way, "And part of me loving you is knowing you might want to reach out to Conrad and get to know him."
She whipped around, sloshing water on her jeans in her haste. Her eyes were wide. "Really?"
He smiled, and walked over to take the bucket from her. "All I want is for you to be safe and happy. It just makes sense that you'd want to figure out this stuff for yourself."
"I thought you'd be…" She hesitated and then looked up at him, "Hurt."
He took the water to the trough and dumped it in. "I think I'd be hurt if you continued to push me away because you didn't know how to ask about Conrad." He set the bucket down and turned to her, "But, because you're my daughter, Emma, nothing you can do would change how much I love you. Nothing at all."
She hadn't moved. She stood there, her jeans dripping with water mixed with dirt, her hair cascading over her shoulders, her eyes scanning his for any sign of a lie. Then, like she'd been waiting forever, tears filled her eyes, and her arms opened, and she whispered, "Dad… I…"
And before she could even finish her stumbling words, he pulled her close to him, holding her. Tucking her into his shoulder, he brushed his hands through her hair, and whispered, "Emma, I'm not going anywhere." Her shoulders began to shake as the grown-up façade she'd put on fell away. Her fingers curled around his shirt, as she finally let the pain out.
"Dad, I…" She said through tears, "I didn't think you could still love me… not when I was…" And she swallowed. "And then I didn't want to hurt you when I…"
"Shhh…" Henry whispered, pulling her closer, "I will never stop loving you, Emma. You're my daughter and that's all there is to it."
He didn't know how long they stood there. He didn't care if they walked out of the barn and it was dark. He was just happy to hold his little girl. Feel her breathing against him. Hold her close. When her grip on his shirt loosened, he relaxed his grip, and she stepped back, wiping her eyes.
"I got your shirt all snotty." She said, a slight smile on her face.
"Nothing new, kid." He laughed, "Better than when you would puke with no warning as a toddler."
She laughed, "Really?"
"You were the worst." He said, as she put feed into the horse's bucket, and he flipped the light off. "We'd be sitting on the couch, you weren't feeling good, cause your 'tummy hurt' as you called it…" He stepped aside so she could close the barn door, "And then you'd say, 'Daddy, I don't feel…' and then…" Henry mimicked a sudden gagging sound while using his hands to indicate a fountain, "All over me. No warning. No time for me to put a bucket to your face. Nope. Just all over me."
Her laugh was music to his ears as they walked to the farmhouse. "That happened…"
"Only when I was holding you." He said, walking up the porch steps, "Which was good, because your mother would have just thrown up right on you if you'd done that to her."
"Yeah, she always had a weak stomach." Emma added, opening the door to the kitchen, where Zazu had been waiting. He dashed in ahead of both of them, meowing his protest of being made to wait.
At the mention of Elizabeth, Henry wanted to slowly move into that conversation. So he walked to the fridge, and said, "I was going to make some pancakes. You want some?"
Emma had sat down on the bench to take off her boots. "Trying to bribe me to talk about mom by feeding me?" A smirk told him that she'd caught on. Then she agreed, "Sure. But only if you have chocolate chips."
He'd already guessed, and pulled out the bag of chocolate chips, "I can read your mind, kid."
"Can I go shower?" She asked. "Then, since we talked about what I wanted to, it can be your turn."
He wondered if she'd hold up that deal, but he agreed, "Don't take all the hot water." Then he gestured to his shirt, "I've got to get this snot off of me too."
She laughed as she walked up the stairs to her room, the old stairs squeaking with each step.
And Henry mindlessly made pancakes, one of the things he cooked that every one of his kids liked. The mechanics of it were lost in his thought.
His relief. He thought he'd handled that whole "father" conversation well. And while he wasn't thrilled that Emma wanted to have some kind of relationship with Conrad, at least he'd been able to talk about it with Emma. At least she didn't have to feel she was betraying him if she wanted to connect with her biological father. That didn't stop Henry from resenting Conrad. But he felt he'd connected at least a bit.
His apprehension. Talking about Elizabeth with Emma was never something that had gone well. Even when they'd decided Emma needed a tutor, Henry had told Emma that both him and her mom had decided, and Emma had gone off, saying how she didn't need anyone telling her what to do, especially her mom. Elizabeth had told him about the night of the party, where Emma had flipped her off. And the tension that everyone in the family lived with when the two of them accidentally ended up in the same room – it was enough to make anyone go crazy. And he knew this wasn't going to be an easy conversation. And he hoped that their previous connection would hold and help bolster his side of things a bit more than before.
The sound of bare feet on the staircase pulled Henry from his thoughts into the moment, and he slid a plate of hot pancakes into the island space where she pulled up a stool. "I used too many chocolate chips." He joked.
"Is that possible?" She asked, jumping up onto the stool. She leaned down, taking a big whiff, and moaned, "I've missed these." Her tongue licked the top of the whipped cream off before she sat back and started scrunching her hair with the towel she'd brought down.
Henry flipped the last pancake from the griddle, and asked, "Shower feel good?" She nodded, and he continued, "Your mother always said there was nothing like an early morning horseback ride and a hot shower."
He waited for a snide comment, but she finished drying her hair and set the damp towel on the stool beside her and then dug into the pancakes. Pouring another cup of coffee, he leaned on the island before he said, "Em, we do need to talk about your mom."
Mouth full, she nodded, "What about her?"
McCord women. Always making him spell it out. So he did. "Well, maybe for starters we talk about why you don't even want to be in the same room with her?"
She paused, then kept chewing, just looking at him without breaking eye contact. Then she swallowed and said, "Does that really matter?" Then she took another bite.
"It does." Henry reasoned. "Your mother loves you, and she wants to be there to help you."
Emma sat back. "I don't need her help." No anger. No malice. Just straight to the point.
"I disagree." He countered just as factually. "You and your mother as so similar. And, while she's not been through what you have…"
Emma held up her hand to stop Henry. "Please don't do that."
"What?"
"Don't equate Mom's time in Iran with what happened to me."
"That wasn't what I was doing." Henry argued.
"But that's where you were going with it." Emma said. And Henry knew she was right. "I don't know how to explain it, but I'm still trying to get past everything." Henry realized he should just listen. "And she's at the center of it all. And not that it was her fault, but I can't figure out my feelings when I constantly have to deal with my anger about it."
Henry hated how much that resonated with his own experience.
"I hate being the way I am." Emma said, wiping her face on her napkin. "I hate that one minute I'm crying, the other I'm screaming, and the next, I'm numb." She reached down and picked up the cat that was at her feet, settling him in her lap while she talked, "And if Mom's around, she takes the brunt of it."
Henry knew that was true. He'd seen that one first hand. He opened his mouth, but she kept going.
"And I feel like I don't fit back there. All the people, all the press, the room after room after room, and the feeling of being watched with nowhere to go." She looked dead in his eyes, "I hate it there. And she won't let me come here."
Henry jumped in to defend his wife, "Emma, she just got you back. Why can't you learn to like it there too?"
She rolled her eyes and clenched her right fist. "There I'm this little girl who went through hell. There I have people watching me constantly, not to mention my security detail. And the space is so small, so it feels like eyes are on me all the time."
"That's not any different here."
She shook her head, "It is different. Here I can go outside and ride and ride and ride until I can't move. Agents here watch me but it's not staffers and siblings and constantly wondering if I'm going to break down in front of someone who won't understand." She took a breath. "And if Mom won't let me go because she wants me close to her, how is that not the most selfish thing in the world?"
"Emma…" Henry cautioned, but he was more cautioning himself not to see the logic that really was there. "You don't know how broken your mother was whe…"
"Stop." She said loudly. She acted like she was going to push away from the table, but then she took a breath. And quieted down. "Just stop. Mom's brokenness shouldn't affect me. Because me becoming a whole person again, knowing what I want to do, should be more important than her feeling like a good mom."
"That's not how family works."
"Neither is keeping your kid close to you so you feel better."
God. Henry felt that one. After seeing her so happy here at the farmhouse… he turned his mind to something else, "Do you think there's any leeway?"
Emma scrunched her eyes, then sheepishly asked, "Leeway?"
She didn't recognize the word. He clarified, "Do you think there's any give and take?" She nodded in understanding, and Henry explained, "Is there a medium point where you can interact with your mom without feeling all those feelings?"
She thought for a moment, then asked, "Like what?"
Since Henry had only been thinking about this since the agreement had been made three months ago, he gladly had some suggestions, "Well, what about dinner once a week? Family dinner. You, me, your mom and if your siblings are there, them too."
She just looked at him.
"Or, what about a game night or something once a week?"
Again. Blank stare.
He tried once more, "All I'm asking for is some interaction between you and your mother. Not much. Not anything heavy. Just… something."
It was quiet. And Emma looked off into the distance, and Henry hoped she was considering and not just ignoring. Her fingers slowly petted the cat, methodically.
Then she turned and looked at him. Her voice, pointed but agreeing, said, "One night a week. An activity of my choice. One hour."
Henry was happy with the progress. "I'm sure that can be arranged. What kind of activity?"
Without thought, she said, "Whatever I'm interested in that week."
"Like…" He fished. Emma wasn't someone to give in without a caveat, as they all knew since she'd agreed to the press event only in exchange for a week here.
Emma just shrugged, "I mean like game night, but if I don't want to play games, then bowling or a movie or something stupid like that." She stated, "I just want to choose."
If it was needing to have the control to make the choice, Henry was all about it. "Let me talk to your mother, but I'm sure…"
Emma nodded. Then was quiet. And she said, "I'm really trying, Dad. It's just hard sometimes."
"I know. I know you're trying."
She sat there for a second, then gobbled up the rest of her pancakes. Still with food in her mouth, she jumped of the chair, sending the cant jumping onto the floor. She was lacing up her boots before Henry could ask, "Where you going?"
She pointed to the clock behind him and said, "Three more hours until we have to leave. So. I'm going outside."
