The Mare

Velvet

I woke up feeling sad without knowing why. Then I realized why. I was remembering a time a long time ago when I thought my mom was a witch and I wouldn’t eat what she made me. I wouldn’t eat and at first she yelled at me and then she was worried I was sick. She stroked my hair and asked if my stomach hurt and tried to give me tea with ginger. I was too afraid to drink it, but because she was talking so nice, I told her why. I said, “Mami, I’m afraid a witch might be living in your body.” And then the witch came out. Her eyes got red flame inside them and she left the room angrily; Dante laughed and pointed at me, because I would be whipped, not him. But when she came back with the belt, he shut up and put his hands over his pee-pee. I tried to run, but she grabbed my hair and pulled up my shirt and she beat me until I bled, until Dante was screaming louder than me. Then she sat and dropped the belt, put her hands over her face, and cried. I heard Manuel; he was looking at me out his cracked-open door. I pulled my shirt down.

I got out of bed and went to the window. Over the field across from the house, the sun was coming up. It was perfect-round and burning red. Looking at it made my feelings pull apart.

Then I remembered: My horse lesson was today.