CHAPTER 9
Nate’s heart feels as if it could be breaking.
“What did you just say about my mother?” he asks.
Michaela is stunned by his reaction. She wants to speak but the words don’t come. The wide eyed Nate shifts his focus from Michaela to Cassy.
“I just....” Michaela starts.
“Quiet.” Nate says.
“Go to the trailer Michaela. I want to talk to Cassy. Alone.”
Michaela is dumbstruck.
“Cassy didn’t tell me anything. Steven did. I’m sorry I crossed the line.”
“Leave.” He shouts at the top of his lungs.
Michaela darts towards the trailer, she keeps on running until she reaches the river side.
This is too much. What does he have to say to her that couldn’t be said with her in the room?
Back in the stable Nate grabs Cassy’s hand with force. His aversion is evident from the expression of disgust on his face.
“Is it true? You knew her? She was here? She lived with me? She loved me?”
The tears start to fall relentlessly from his eyes.
“Tell me.” He shakes her and says.
“ Tell me now. For the sake of God. Please don’t lie to me this time Cassy. Was she here?”
Cassy’s eyes fill up with tears.
“Yes.”
The word escapes her lip with the intention to destroy. Their friendship, his sanity, her trustworthiness, their love and everything in between.
“ Please hear me out Jon. I always intended to tell you.” She says, reaching out to hold him.
He violently shakes off her touch.
“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare touch me. For years I told you how I abhorred her. How I abhorred her indecency and incapability to be with her own child. You saw me rant, on and on about her being filth. And you never said a word....”
He continues crying.
“ Why? Why Cassy? Why?”
He sits on the stool near the entrance while she sobs at the corner.
“I thought she was a whore. I thought she gave up me up so she could keep the men flowing in. I thought she abandoned me. And you let me think all of that, while you knew the truth.”
Cassy breaks the silence with a deep sigh, curbing the cry.
“ She worked here.” In a timid voice she carries on.
“ She was the one who got this business running. At that time there weren't many who knew their ways around the horses. She use to do everything. She use to bath them, braid them, train them. All; with you by her side.”
Nate clenches his fists. She never let him away. She was nothing like he thought of her to be.
“She bought the youngest fellies and colts. And she brought them up with love.”
A long pause follows.
“ She was breathtakingly beautiful.”
Cassy begins to sob.
“ And she loved me. She loved you even more. You and I would ogle at her whole day doing the most minimal jobs. And suddenly you would make a run towards her. She would pick you in her arms with unmatched affection, and you would smear her face with wet kisses. That made her giggle so hard that she flushed like the cherry blossoms.”
She pauses yet again, to regain the strength to continue.
“ My parents worked as her servants until they were killed in a riot . It was later that I discovered Steven had survived the attack and was admitted to a hospital. Yet she fed me with same hand that she fed you, she stroked me the same, she scolded me the same, she punished me the same, she loved me the same. Until a man arrived.”
She doesn’t want to continue anymore. But she knows she has too.
“He would help her with the horses even though he was too handsome for that job. I remember it all like yesterday. They would spend time together, whether with the horses or with us. Then one day your mother fell ill. She had overworked herself. Her eyes wouldn’t open and she would lay on the same bed for days. Meanwhile, he cleaned up for her. She was too weak to deny the help. He had a good heart. When she got well, she thanked him with company and food. They became friends. And later on the inevitable happened. They fell in love.”
‘stop me.’ She begs Nate from the bottom of her heart. But there’s no point saying it out loud. So she continues like a sadist, “ Only a fool would not recognize the disloyalty that functions in open. And your father was no fool. When he arrived here for his yearly visit, he could very well identify the affair between his friend and his wife. So he served her an ultimatum. End this or leave me. But leaving him meant leaving you and leaving me, and leaving the fillies and colts and mares and stallions. So she agreed to end the affair.”
She cries. But Nate is not going to offer her a shoulder. For him this is her insolence.
“What happened.” He asks.
“ Late at dawn, when she thought no one would be awake, she lit herself the very first joint. She smoked in the backyard. But she had never smoked, so after a few puffs she flicked it into the dark. And went to the stable to meet her lover for the last time. “
.
.
.
“What she didn’t realize was that the joint fell into the dry grass and the house caught fire. Your father was on a trip to the city. I remember being surrounded by smoke while I ran outside shouting for help. Nana thankfully was in the hospital. The servants ran for their lives. The horses neighed and every one panicked. You mother came running out of the stable, looking for you. But you were nowhere to be seen. She went inside the burning house to retrieve you. You were unconscious for hours. Some toxic gas the doctors had said, entered your lungs. For all we knew, we could have lost you that day. But you were to live, we knew that better. Your father arrived an hour later, he threw your mother out of his life like a carcass. And when you woke up, it was clear that you had lost your memory. You didn’t remember her. The first person you ever loved.”
The silence breaks as Nate starts to cry inconsolably. And so does Cassy. After all they both had lost the one who had loved them with all of her being.