The Mare

Velvet

When Ginger dropped me at Pat’s, Pat waited till Ginger drove away — then she took my shoulders and looked in my eyes. “What happened to you?” she said.

“Nothin’.”

“Nothin’? Then why do you look like you got hit by a truck doin’ sixty?”

I looked down and didn’t say.

She let go of me. She said, “Make that a truck doin’ eighty. C’mon, let’s get to work.”

And we went and worked on jumping Fiery Girl. Who did not want to jump. Chloe and Nut watched from their side of the paddock while we trotted around and around and I tried to make her go over the jump and she would not go. Pat yelled, “Be clear! You’re not being clear! You decide and you get your legs on her and tell what you want to do!” But I couldn’t be clear because nothing was clear. There was Dominic’s lips on me and an old man crawling on glass and Shawn dead and his eyes and Dominic’s eyes and my body burning all the time and the noise coming in all night while I lay on the couch, some idiot yelling. I kicked Fiery Girl and told her to jump, but all I wanted to do was look at my phone and see if Dominic texted, even though he hadn’t even once. The only clear thing I could feel was that Fiery Girl was scared of jumping and she was getting pissed at me, and still I couldn’t focus right. She was starting up with this crazy jog-dance when Pat yelled, “Whoa!” and came and took the rein sideways in her hand.

“What are you doing?” she said. “This poor horse looks like she’s hearing ten different things from five different riders, and she’s getting ready to say, ‘Shut the F up!’ ”

“She’s scared of the jump, Miss Pat.”

“I see that. I also see you’re doing one thing with your hands and another with your legs and your head is all over the place.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Dismount. We’re going to get focused and work on trust.”

What that meant was leading Fiery Girl where she didn’t want to go. First I walked her through mud puddles, which she did not like. Then we walked on this piece of shiny tarp that Pat brought out. She didn’t want to. I had to make her, gently. It sounds boring, but it wasn’t. Because I felt her through the line, at first just her normal mouth-self and then something that was soft and round and just starting not to be afraid. And there it was: the leg-feeling. It was in my hands, but it was the same. Dominic and the poor man and Shawn and everything else was there, but it was in the distance and this feeling was here now.

Girl, where I am now is basically a trap house. You don’t wanna come there. But give me your number. Maybe I’ll come see you one night when you’re over at what’s her name, Lydia’s? When the other girl’s got something else to do, maybe I’ll be up around your way.

I thought: He will. He hasn’t. But he will. I don’t have to worry; it’s over there in the corner, waiting to happen.

Then Pat gave me some peppermints and I got my mare to follow me without the line. We walked on the tarp again, and in the puddle, sometimes me giving her a mint. Then Pat lowered the pole on the jump so it was almost on the ground. My horse hopped over the pole and broke into a run. Across the paddock, Chloe tossed her head and ran too; Nut chased her, bucking and farting.

“Can you come next weekend?” said Pat. “Next weekend I bet she takes the jump.”

I said yes, and I meant it.

But I didn’t do it.