A Shiner

Eggplant purple with a swirl of pink

Bill woke up with a black eye. Yep. When he came inside yesterday, I noticed he was perspiring from exertion, but then again, I notice everything these days. He mentioned the training session with Rudy was “rough.” Really? I thought he had just taken the colt for a walk.

So, I had a heart-to-heart with him about all the things that his body is dealing with right now. He has chemo AND immunotherapy on board, which is affecting every cell, not just the cancer. The last thing his dear, beautiful body needs is an injury. Healing a broken bone would likely be complicated and would certainly delay his treatment. HE HAS TO BE CAREFUL.

He agreed in that way boys do when mothers/wives make disagreeable noises; when their attention has long since exited the conversation.

This morning’s shiner is quite a work of art, eggplant purple with a swirl of pink and swelling at the tear duct. It turns out, one-year-old Rudy did not want to cross a wet ditch in the yard. Bill decided this would be a good training opportunity. Rudy thought otherwise. At some point, Rudy knocked into Bill, which sent him and his eyeglasses sprawling. Looking at the damage, I repeated the previous day’s refrain, plus words I immediately wished I could pull back into my mouth. “If that horse doesn’t straighten out, he needs to go!”

Bill squared his shoulders but said nothing. When he announced he was getting a weanling last fall, my family looked at me sideways. After he left the room, they conspiratorially asked whether I approved. My husband is 72 years old, after all. What could he be thinking? I thought about this question and answered, “Why shouldn’t he choose joy?” I was secretly as excited as he was. No one knows what the future might bring, and no horse could do better than to have Bill Sullivan starting them out in the world.

Reaching up, I lightly touched the outside corner of his purple eye. Then I repeated a phrase coined by Bill’s aunt years before I met him. He had arrived at a family potluck with two black eyes from the barroom brawl the night before. His aunt, heaping potato salad on her plate, told him the words I said to him now:

“Bill, it appears you were talkin’ when you shoulda been listenin’.”

Does my Beloved need to be careful? Yes.

Should he act his age? Well, can we first agree that you are never too old for joy?

(P.S. Rudy is getting gelded on Monday.)