The Mare

Paul

Ginger wasn’t even going to tell me about the boy. She wasn’t going to tell me because she thought I wouldn’t want to hear it, but it woke her in the middle of the night; I could feel her body pulling against itself as she turned and turned in place like some old animal.

“You’re helping her,” I said. “Ginger, you’re doing everything you can. It’s amazing what you’ve done. It’s amazing what she’s done, and she knows it, and that will hold her in good stead.”

I held her close and stroked her heart, and I felt her slowly become right again: fragile, strangely young, but strong, with the fanatic strength that thin girls sometimes have, more fierce nerves than muscle. I remembered that night she said, “I want to be a woman! I want to be a normal woman!” It was as if her whole body said that now, that she wanted to be a woman, she wanted to protect this girl.

I wasn’t sure I believed what Velvet had told her: that the murdered boy had done nothing wrong, that the girl didn’t know the people he’d been with when he’d died. But right then, it didn’t matter. If she’d asked about Catholic school then, I would’ve said yes.