The Mare

Silvia

“You don’t need to ride a horse — you need your own feet on the ground. Take your dumb face out of the mirror and listen to me! There’s no man out there you can trust, and if you forget that, next thing you know, your belly’s out to here and you’re watching the door for somebody who never comes.”

She said, “Mami, I’m thirteen,” and put on more of that greasy lip gloss, which I grabbed away so hard I crushed off the tip. She yelled like she does, like a stupid animal, like she can’t even talk, “Na-urhhh!” like an elephant or a cow. I mocked her and laughed at her. I said, “You think I don’t know how old you are? The day I gave birth to you was the loneliest day of my life. No one was here except your aunt Maria, she was the only one, and she was already half dead.” She didn’t care, she just grabbed for the lip gloss. “Listen, you ungrateful girl, I’m trying to educate you. Watch yourself! Men are babies screaming for love. They get it, they throw it across the room until it breaks and then start screaming again. And always some dumb woman comes running. It makes no difference to them if it’s you or the one before you or the one after you or the one down the street.”

She said, “Just because my father—!”

And I took off my house slipper and slapped her face good. She started crying and I said, “You think that hurts, llorona? Wait till he hits you.”

She said, “He wouldn’t hit me,” and I hit her again. Because I knew it. I was right. If I push her enough, she always lets the truth out. She can’t hold anything back.