The Mare

Ginger

That night Paul and I went to bed feeling close, our arms wrapped around each other. When I woke up in the middle of the night, scared and sad from a dream I couldn’t remember, I reached for him, pressing myself against his back. But instead of his name I heard myself say, “M’lindie!” Which is what I called Melinda when I was five. Then I was awake enough to know it was Paul’s big male back I was holding — but still I whispered, “Melinda.” And then I fell back to sleep.

Which maybe isn’t as weird as it sounds. Melinda and I slept together until I was ten and she was twelve.