Free Borrowed Horses by Sian Griffiths Page A

Jersey.
    “No,” Jenny looked wounded, “come on. It counts. It was serious—you don’t know how close my dad and me were. We had a really close relationship, and I almost wrecked it.”
    “Key word: ‘nearly,’” said Dawn, but she sat back and let Jenny continue.
    “It was back when I was in high school. My dad and I had always been really close, like I said, because mamma died when I was just a kid.” Dawn’s hard stare softened. “It was always just the two of us. We’d do all sorts of stuff together that dads and daughters don’t normally do: go shopping, make cookies—he even helped me learn to put on make-up and choose a prom dress.” She looked at Dave and smiled here, and I had no doubt who her date had been. Numbness spread through my cheekbones, tequila’s anesthesia. “But Daddy was never quite sure about Dave.”
    “That’s putting it mildly,” Dave said. “Her old man hates me.”
    Jenny laughed this away. “He never hated you. He just wasn’t sure. And think of things from his perspective: he didn’t want to give his baby to just anyone.”
    I could see Dave fighting with himself a little here, wanting to say, I imagined, that he wasn’t “just anyone,” but he merely smiled at her, making Jenny’s eyes dance again. I still regret you, Dave , I thought. I still do .
    “Anyway.” She turned back to the table at large. “Dave gave me a promise ring my senior year, and my dad hit the roof. He said there was no way he was going to let me marry Dave, and that Dave couldn’t offer me the emotional and financial stability I deserved. That’s exactly what he said: emotional and financial stability.” She gasped, as if astonished afresh by her father’s words, her eyes wide and blue. “We kept at it, saying things we shouldn’t, until I told him that I was eighteen and an adult and he should mind his own f-ing business.”
    “Only you didn’t say f-ing?” Russ was grinning.
    “Right. I didn’t say f-ing. My poor dad. I thought he’d explode or something, but instead he got real pale. I’d thought for a moment that I’d killed him, he was so pale—like he’d had a heart attack or something. Then, he just got up and walked out of the room and I swear to God I’ve never felt so alone in all my life. Dave was back at college, and my dad didn’t say a word to me for weeks. I started to think he’d never talk to me again. I begged him to forgive me and to give Dave another chance, but it was like he couldn’t even hear me.” Jenny stopped. No one said anything.
    Three guys had ever seen me naked, and I was sitting across from one of them, and he was rubbing the shoulder of my friend, his wife. Every time Dave glanced over at me, I felt naked again. Naked and angry and wanting him nonetheless and not wanting him anywhere near me.
    “Eventually he started saying little things,” Jenny said. “‘Pass the salt,’ or ‘are you taking the car tonight?’ That sort of thing. A little more every day until it was almost like normal, but sometimes I feel like that f word is still sticking between us, like, like,” she turned to Dave, “what’s that thing you wedge in a door frame when it isn’t right?”
    “A shim.”
    “Yeah, like a shim. Only instead of making us right or true or whatever, it took something that was true and pushed it out of place and I can’t make it right. Eventually, Dad seemed to settle himself to the way things were. I think he hoped that Dave would get so into college that he’d never come home, but we got married the next summer, and then Dave went to work for Dad, and now everyone’s happy. It all worked out in the end, but I still wish I hadn’t said that word to my dad. I wish I hadn’t hurt him like that.”
    I regretted selling the Pod. I regretted my last fight with Mouse. I regretted not visiting my parents more often. I regretted not calling regularly when I was in Jersey. I regretted the last pair of shoes I bought. Tomorrow, I