The Mare

Velvet

Driving to Pat’s horses was so different from walking over to the barn; it was like someplace foreign. Chloe and Nut were different than the horses at the other barn; their coats were dirtier, their eyes were softer and more people-y, and they ran happier. Nut liked to take Pat’s hat off her head and run, then Chloe would run with him trying to get it. Chloe did have a long rounded neck and a high head and when I got on her I thought, High, wide and handsome in Beverly’s voice.

When Pat finally let me ride instead of just working, I started working on jumping almost right away. We started out trot-jumping little fences, me in the two-point, holding her mane, her body jerking me forward and then back when she landed, running until I slowed her to go again over the next fence. My heart pounded, but my legs were calm on her and Pat’s voice yelled, “Stay with the motion, don’t hang behind!” and I went over right and Chloe ran.

And then I washed her with the hose and scraped the water off her, and even though her face was sweet, I missed my mare.

I said, “Miss Pat, how is Fiery Girl? Do you think she misses me?”

“Well, she’s an animal. It’s hard to know what they think.”

I soaped Chloe with mint between her legs and I thought, I would know.

“But I have noticed she stands at the door of her stall every day. Like she’s looking for somebody.”

I stopped in the middle of rinsing Chloe. I said, “I know I can’t see her, but why don’t you have her here if she’s yours? Why do you keep her at Estella’s place?”

“Because I don’t have a stall for her and also I don’t think she’d get along with Chloe. I’d have to build a fence to divide the paddock.”

“Oh.”

“But I’ve been thinking about that. She’s lot better now than she was. If you’d help me build a stall, maybe—”

I dropped the sponge and hugged Pat. I felt her be embarrassed and then just like me, and hug me back. “When?” I asked.

“If we can get the stall together by the end of the month, then. It should only take a few days, then a few more days for a fence in the paddock. You can pay for the lessons that way — not much mucking to do around this place.”

I told Ginger and she started letting me come almost every day, even though sometimes I had to wait extra time for Paul to get back from his “office hours.” On the extra-time days, Pat invited me in her house to put my feet up. Her house was dirty. It was normal-dirty, like plates with old food and yellow-y rags and clothes piled up, and also strange-dirty, with little broken things everywhere: toys and a glass cat head with jewel eyes and a scissors stuck in the door where the knob was supposed to be, and the toilet couldn’t flush; you had to stick your hand down in the back of it and pull on the chain. It was like the house was falling down in pieces and Pat didn’t even notice! The first time I came in, her mom was there, sitting in it. She was watching something about horses on TV and when we came in she said, “The queen flew into Lexington last night. She is very excited about the new foal sired by Abdul.” She was a strong old lady with a long neck that came out of her body like a person trying to escape out of a tree trunk. She did home care like my mom. Pat would rub her legs so her veins wouldn’t hurt, like I did with my mom. And she would tell stories about how the other care workers stole but she didn’t, and how she “blew the whistle” when she found this one old man’s good things packed up in boxes on his back porch and he didn’t even know the other shift worker was about to “snatch him bald-headed.”

Pat’s barn was dirty too. All the combs and brushes were filthy in filthy bags, and so were the spray bottles and nasty jars of horse-rub, clipboards and plastic boxes of cards and the greasy towel covering the toilet bucket. Really, there were pieces of dirt on everything, even the old dead webs covering the bars on the stalls and the windows so crusty you couldn’t see out of them. It was also covered with bird shit. There were these birds shaped like fat arrows in nests under the ceiling, and they flew in curves, going on the horses when they came in or out and diving at us while we worked nailing pieces of wood together to make the walls and door of a stall. I was scared of them at first, that they would peck my face, but Pat just smiled and said, “Get back, brother bird!” and they swerved away and out the door.

But mostly me and Chloe jumped. She was different from my mare, lighter, like she never cried in her life. When she jumped, she rounded her back so strong it almost pushed me off, pulled her legs up into her body so soft, and landed on them like a cat. Once she didn’t take the jump, she ran around it, and I fell off and banged my head. I got mad and yelled at her and Pat yelled at me. “That was you, not her,” she said. “She saw you missed the distance and she wasn’t going to hurt herself and you, heinie over teakettle.”

I started loving Chloe. I loved the feeling I got in my legs sometimes when I was on her, like the spot where my legs touched her sides was the best place in the world and we were both in it. I never felt that with Fiery Girl. I didn’t know why and it made me feel bad. I didn’t want to ask Pat about it because I didn’t want to admit it.

I went to see my mare, but only once. Because I wanted to respect Pat’s words, and also because I had to sneak out when Ginger and Paul were asleep and I really didn’t want to get caught this time. When I got the courage and went, the mare seemed like she didn’t like me. I brought her an apple and she ate it. But then she turned her body away from me and looked at the wall even when I hugged her neck and begged her to turn. I said, “Come on. I want to get you away from here!” And I thought to her about Pat’s place and the stall we were making for her. And the leg-feeling, that I wanted to feel it with her. Still, she wouldn’t turn. It was like, even she was mad at me for disobeying Pat.

—

I talked to Ginger about the leg thing. We were in the car at night, “getting lost” on the same roads we always drove. I told her how I could feel it with Chloe and not with my mare. She didn’t answer for so long, it was like she didn’t hear me. Then she said, “Just because you can’t feel it with Fiery Girl doesn’t mean it’s not there. Before my sister died, I didn’t feel love for her. I didn’t even like her. But I did love her. I just didn’t feel it.”

“How could you love somebody and not feel it?”

“I don’t know how to describe it.”

I didn’t say anything. The same trees and houses went past, slanty and shadowy, the same but still strange. Ginger’s music was on, this grown woman singing like she was my age. It was ugly and fake, her making her voice like that, but I didn’t care. I was remembering something from a long time ago.

Ginger said, “Before Paul there was a, a…boyfriend who I had a bad relationship with. We were bad to each other.”

“How?”

“We just hurt each other all the time. It was awful and I always felt bad about it. But I ran into him a little while ago, and I realized there was love between us, even though we acted horrible. I was glad.”

The thing I remembered: being in the car with my father. His free hand under my clothes feeling me all over for money until he found it and he took it. Because I lied and told him I didn’t have it, he kept it all.

“So I’m saying, just because you haven’t felt that thing with Fiery Girl yet doesn’t mean it’s not there. It’s just not right on that spot where your legs are.”

I lied. Why did I lie? The money was for emergencies — was the toll an emergency? Was he right not to see me again or even send anything?

“I used to feel something like that,” said Ginger. “I felt it when I painted.”

“In your legs?”

“No. In my brain. I used to think of it as a radio signal that I had to be alone to hear. I don’t hear it now, but I’m hoping it’s still there.”

“What did it sound like?”

“I didn’t actually hear it. I more felt it.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“I know.” There was a space between songs and I heard her breathe in, then out. The music started again.

I thought, Did my father love me but not feel it?

Ginger said, “I wonder if I can’t hear it anymore because I’m not alone?”

She said it like she was alone. That made me feel alone.

“If so, then I’m glad I don’t hear it,” she said. “I’d rather hear you.”

Does Dominic love me and not feel it?

Ginger reached over and put her hand on my leg. “What’re you thinking?”

“Nothing.”

But I was thinking, No. He feels it. He feels it.