Horse People: Stories

Monstrosities

75 Monstrosities B ecause Nelle Fenton is who she is, her lawyer, Willie Ambrose, comes to her house whenever she needs him. He is there on a hot Friday evening in September 1920, with the papers necessary for Nelle to bring suit against her father. They are locked in a bitter dispute over her mother’s estate. Nelle’s father lives in Pennsylvania ; Nelle’s animosity is not lessened by distance. Nelle’s husband and their six sons are inside, having supper. Nelle and Ambrose occupy wicker porch chairs in the dusk, the burnt end of summer. Nelle sips cold champagne. Ambrose drains his glass of iced tea. He is heavyhearted about the suit. “If you can avoid this kind of trouble in your own family,” he begins, but she plucks the papers from his grasp and signs them. “He has kept money from me,” she says, “money that’s mine. I can’t reason with him.” Ambrose doubts that. He met Thaddeus Scott, a less fierce version of Nelle herself, during a Christmas party at this very house and liked the old man, full of stories of the Far East, the Klondike gold rush, and South America, where he took his family when Nelle was seventeen. In Brazil, Nelle’s father had caught malaria, sunk low, and nearly perished . Nelle pulled him through, the old man said. She ordered the physicians to administer quinine and directed nurses to bathe her father ’s head with alcohol and feed him lemonade and broth. 76 Two peas in a pod, Nelle and her father, down to their jutting noses and drooping lids, as if regarding the world from beneath a curtain. Nelle hands the papers back, and Ambrose slides them into his briefcase. “I’ll hold on to these for a couple of days,” he says, “in case you change your mind.” “I won’t.” “Have you talked this over with Richard? Have you tried writing your father a letter?” “Oh, Richard happens to agree with you. Would you like to stay for supper?” “Thank you, but I . . .” Ambrose stands up. He’ll eat another meal by himself tonight, a plate prepared by his housekeeper. He is lonely. Oddly, Nelle, with her husband and sons, her horse-breeding and hunting, strikes him as lonely too. She’s a fine-looking woman, but without humor. He says, “Another time I’d like to stay, but tonight I’d best be getting back to town.” He imagines Richard Fenton trying to keep order in the dining room with six restless boys. Richard’s sister Iris, the boys’ companion and tutor, must be there too. Iris Fenton’s life, a spinster’s dependence on a brother and sister-in-law, could not be easy. The sun sinks lower, and the sky is a lavish spill of gold and pink. In this light the mountains, thirty miles west, disappear. In the Fentons ’ pasture, a cow moos and another answers. Cicadas tune up in the lindens along the driveway. He has said good-bye, yet he can’t move. He bursts out, “Don’t do this. Quarrels like this, suits in the family, always end with broken hearts. Two peas in a pod, you and your father . . .” He is crying. Where did these sudden tears come from, these sobs wracking his chest? He drops the briefcase and covers his face with his hands. His brain is white-hot, churning. Nelle says nothing. He might as well be weeping in front of an animal, for all that she reacts. He presses his handkerchief to his eyes and forces himself to breathe slowly. After a long time he is aware of 77 crickets chirping, birdcalls, the breeze in the leaves of a tulip poplar. He wrings the handkerchief in trembling hands and blows his nose. “There now,” says Nelle. They are still alone. “You’re not ill?” she says. Shaking his head, he reaches for his glass. He pours melted ice over his dry, sandy tongue, sets the glass down, and starts for his car on feeble legs. Nelle won’t tell anyone. He’s certain. She is the only woman he knows who wouldn’t, not from discretion but because she’ll simply forget. This would not be important enough for her to remember , his breaking down. He has reached his car when she calls, “Willie. Your briefcase.” She has followed him, and as she hands...