The Heart Always Wins


The location was exotic, but the language of business was international. In a country that was ordinarily oppressively censored and nearly impossible to visit, the yearly festival in celebration of its greatest treasure was heavily attended by enthusiasts from all over the world. Knowing how the game of wealth and privilege was played, it was fairly easy for Ivy to find a French Ambassador who was acquainted with an English Lord who knew an official or three. Fragrant pots of coffee were served in offices with little powdered sweet cakes. Ivy had planned this trip with her usual precision, and her demeanor remained relaxed and professional even as her brain burned with images and ideas. Her originally modest plan had blossomed into a grand scheme, but she had a lifetime of practice in holding her cards close to her chest. She had no clue what she was doing, but no one had to know that, did they? By the end of the second day of the festival, over tiny delicate cups of a pleasant tea, an entire sheaf of papers had been signed.

The trip home had been sleepless. Ivy knew herself, or at least thought she did. Her life had been a series of straight lines. She set a goal, planned her path, and forged ahead with single-minded determination. A series of small victories arrived, almost without her notice. She decided at twelve that she was not interested in the sedate pace of the hunter classes, and she was a top junior show jumping rider by the time she was seventeen. She decided at seventeen that she owed her parents a college degree and graduated from an Ivy League school with honors by the time she was twenty-one. At twenty-two, it was entering the world of international competition. Accomplished by twenty-seven, complete with sponsors and a rich man’s horse. She was thirty-five when she decided she was done being a rider and would start a new life as a trainer with a small string of carefully chosen and sensible warmbloods, and she had achieved that in just under two years. Not that these things were easy. None of them were. But once she was set on a path, she was relentless.

She could no longer claim that, and it shook her far more than she ever imagined. So sleep didn’t come. She watched the red sun set over a vast rippling desert, and the moon rise over a vast rippling ocean. And then she finally came to a conclusion. “Should I even care what anyone else thinks of my decisions?” She thought for a moment. “Nope. I’m here to live my own fucking life.” With that decided, she slept.