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F ICT ION
Puissance By Keli Flynn Davidson
“The only reason God put horses and children in our lives was to break our hearts.” Katie’s Irish grandmother had said this often, although sometimes she had bemoaned horses and dogs, or dogs and children. But she had understood this simple truth: Horses break your heart. Katie already knew this, like she knew that horses also break bones and bank accounts and sometimes families. Her father was a watery-eyed failure of a horse trainer, and he stayed with the horses after her mother left and took Katie and her sister with her, and it broke him, or the horses did. Katie wasn’t sure, or maybe it didn’t matter anymore. But despite this, horses still mattered to her, because it was horses that first taught her that love doesn’t know logic, and no amount of knowing could ever stop love anyway. What the Irish mean when they shrug and talk of fate is just that: No knowledge could ever stave off a broken heart, just like no knowledge could ever keep a drunk from his drink. It’s not the knowing that deals the hand of fate, but it’s the knowing that breaks your heart, because the wanting will trump the knowing, every single time.
