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"Puck," he says "Don’t do this"
He leans over the fence and watches irth over the back of her saddle He looks a lot like Dad now, in this light, since he hasn’t been sleeping and he’s got the lines under his eyes He’s starting to look a little like one of the fishermen, with the crinkled corners of their eyes
"I think it’s a little late for that" I look over Dove’s back at hiet to save the house, and I’ll stay home"
"Would it be so bad, to leave this house?"
"I like it It reminds me of Mum and Dad And it’s not even about the house You know the first thing to go if we don’t have it? Dove I can’t --" I stop and busy e off the saddle
"She’s just a horse," Gabe says "Don’t look at me like that I know you love her But you can live without her You can get jobs here and I’ll send ers in Dove’s et a job and work and be okay I want Dove and I want to have space to breathe and I don’t want Finn to work at the mill I don’t want to live in a closet in Skaretting old"
"Then next year I’ll have h that you can come to the mainland, too There are better jobs there"
"I don’t want to coet it? I’m happy here Not everyone wants to leave, Gabe! This is where I want to be If I could have Dove and h"
Gabriel looks at his feet and works his et into it and he didn’t like the corners he was being pushed into "And that’s worth dying for?"
"Yeah I think it is"
He works a loose splinter on the top of a board "You didn’t even think about it"
"I don’t have to How about this? I won’t race, and you’ll stay here" But as I say it, I know that he’ll say no, and that I’d race anyway
"Puck," Gabe says, "I can’t"
"Well," I reply, pushing the gate open and leading Dove out past hiry about it There’s the old sting, but no surprise It feels like I’ve known all along, ever since I was little, that he was going to leave, and I’d just been ignoring it I think Gabe knew, too, when he started this conversation, that there was no way that he’d keepwe both had to say As I pass by, Gabe snagsHe doesn’t say anything It is like any nu up, when the six years of difference between us was a canyon, me a child on one side, him an adult
"I’ll miss you," I say into his sweater For once it doesn’t smell of fish; it sht before and the smoke fros," he says "I should’ve trusted you both more"
I wish that he’d said it before, before he was sad and scared But I’ll take it now
Gabe letsout the race colors" He looks at ht now"
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
SEAN
It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die
I hear a tap on my cracked door and it pushes open
"How is Skar of the races?"
I open e Holly stands in s ofbut a bed and a sink and a tiny stove shoved under the slanted ceiling, everything turned lavender in the weak esture for hirim as well" After a pause, he pulls a crate of tins out fros folded up He rests his red flat cap across his knees and strokes it like an anio into his stall like this or Corr will feel this on ht as well not step foot on the beach at all"
"Is this about the races?" Holly asks "Are you afraid of the my eyes
Holly says, "Is this because you race for Corr this time? What is it you really want, Sean?"
I presssomewhere inside myself for the quiet that must be there For the certainty I wear every year before every race Every et onto any horse
"Is it the freedom? Don’t bother with the race Come back to the States with rooo as you please" When I still don’t speak, Holly says, "Now, there, you see? So you were lying to me when you told me it was the freedom you wanted We’ve discovered it’s not about the freedoress"
I turn my face away Downstairs, I hear the co it
"So it’s about that red stallion, then, you say? You will lose the race and lose him in one swift stroke of Malvern justice? But you’ve won four years out of six, haven’t you, and aren’t those good odds? So I think it’s not about that, either"