After deciding to participate this time, I chose a mare in the distance and approached her slowly. When I reached out to touch her neck, she turned away. She snubbed the hay I tried to feed her as if I’d offered up a cow patty. “Fine, then.” I sat down on a sunny patch of grass and watched the others. Greg’s horse didn’t appear interested in him, either, yet he was persistent. He tried smoothing out her mane, and every time she shook him away, he tried harder. “Figures,” I muttered as I peeled apart a blade of grass. Molly made a garland out of dandelions and put it around her horse’s neck. Alex stood scratching his head, his eyebrows in the upright position as his horse neighed at increasingly higher octaves. Soon the therapist instructed us to round up all the horses and bring them back to the barn. I tried to lure the mare along, holding an even bigger pile of hay a few feet in front of her. She stood there until another horse walked by, then trotted along beside it.

We piled back onto the log bench and waited for the therapist’s diagnosis. “Looks like you’re really starting to come together as a team,” she said, “which is what it’s all about here.”

I was ready to accept the compliment when she darted a finger at me. “Yet again, you just sort of sat back and relaxed during that.”

“I was respecting the horse’s boundaries.”

“Oh?”

“Clearly, she wanted to be alone, and I wasn’t going to force myself on her. No one likes that. Not even horses.”

She put her hands on her hips and nodded slowly. “Fair enough. But did you ever stop and think it might be your approach?”

I shrugged. “I tried giving her hay a few times but she didn’t respond to it.”

“Do you know what the definition of insanity is?”

I mumbled, “It’s doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

“Right. And whatever that thing is, it’s precisely what landed you here.”

Chapter 8

8

NINE DAYS DOWN. NINETEEN TO GO. BY THEN I WAS counting down with dread, rather than anticipation. At the end of group on Thursday, Charlotte told us that we’d be working with just Richard for the weekend, as she would be out until Monday. I was suddenly reminded of the artifice of the place. For them it was just a job; they left at the end of each day and stopped thinking about our problems. Instead they thought about their own: what they’d cook for dinner, their kids’ homework, bills. Still, after Charlotte told us she’d be out, the noise in the room faded and all I could hear was my pulse. As everyone got up and headed outside to the vans, I stayed behind.

“Charlotte!” I called out without meaning to. “I’m not feeling well.”