Jane Smiley: From Horse Heaven

What was it that did it? She thought about this long afterward, obsessed about it, even. What was it that switched her so suddenly out of that blank, satisfied state? Perhaps it was the knowledge that the care he had taken of her was impersonal, nothing to do with her, only a quality of his that he brought to everything, something she responded to, but nothing she could claim. And she hadn't intended to claim anything, had she? This wasn't about claiming, it was about investigating. Nevertheless, whatever it was, whether something she thought or something she saw when she turned her head to glance at him on the bed, her blank satisfaction dissolved once and for all into pure longing. All her powers drained out of her then and there, as lost as if they had dissipated into the stars, and tears began to run down her cheeks. Eileen emerged from under the bedskirt and yawned, then stretched, first backward, then forward, with slow relish. Then she espied Rosalind at the window and crawled over to her, low crawl, pushing with her short back legs and swimming with her elbows. Her head was up and her eyes were bright, and she made a funny picture, but she didn't even begin to relieve Rosalind's sadness.

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Jane Smileyis the author of ten works of fiction, including The Age of Grief, The Greenlanders, Ordinary hove Good Will, A. Thousand Acres (for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize), and Moo. She lives in northern California.

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"From Horse Heaven," by Jane Smiley, © 2000 by Jane Smiley, photographs © Norman Mauskopf, first appeared in Horse Heaven, by Jane Smiley (Alfred A. Knopf, 2000). Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.