The Mare I Promised Never to Sell

Sunday dinner

Kevin and Janice had been on the phone every night, I found out later. They had a spreadsheet.

Janice is forty-one, a nurse on the night shift in Grand Island, and she tells you the truth whether you asked or not. Kevin is forty-four, adjusts insurance claims, and explains things in an even voice, as if you might break.

“Mom,” he said, after the pie. “We want to talk about money.”

“Then talk.”

“We know about the bank.” He held up his hand. “Marvin’s wife told us at the funeral lunch. We aren’t saying you did anything wrong.”

“I know I did nothing wrong.”

“Then listen.” He had a folder. He opened it. “There are three ways this goes. You sell the north eighty to Marvin. Which I think you’d hate. You lose the place to the bank. Which none of us wants. Or you sell the mare.”

I put my fork down very slowly on my plate.

“She’s worth real money, Mom. A gray Percheron mare, twelve years old, broke to harness, single and double. They’re hard to find. I found a man looking for one.”

“You found a man.”

“Mr. Brandt. Owen Brandt. He runs sleigh rides and weddings out of Callaway. He lost his mare to colic in the spring and he’s been looking for a match for his gray gelding. He’d pay nine thousand five hundred, cash. That covers all of it, Mom, with three hundred to spare.”

“I promised your father.”

It was Janice who answered, and she did not raise her voice.

“Mom,” she said. “He’s gone.”

“I know where he is.”

“She’s a horse.” She said it gently, in her work voice, the one she uses on families in the hall. “I loved her too. I loved Dad more. But you’re a seventy-year-old woman about to lose everything he worked for. If Dad could see this, he’d tell you to sell her himself.”

“He saw.” I could hear my own voice. It was thin. “He saw it coming. He said it with his last breath. Whatever it looks like, he said. Don’t sell her.”

Nobody said anything. My daughter-in-law got up and started running water in the sink, because she is a decent woman and could not stand to watch.

“Mom,” Kevin said. “He was on morphine.”

I stood up from the table. I took my plate and Janice’s and Kevin’s and I carried them to the sink, and I stood there with my back to them while my hands shook in the dishwater.

“I’m not selling her,” I said. “That’s all I’m going to say about it. Pie’s in the icebox if anybody wants more.”