The Mare

Velvet

I didn’t want to walk, I wanted us to ride in the car and play music. But she said No, we’re going to walk. It felt sad because I remembered how much I used to like it, and she still wanted it to be that way. But my mind was different now and the little things in people’s yards, their decorations I used to think were so cute — I didn’t care about it anymore. There was nothing going on at all, except a old person walking his dog and no music, just some kids’ voices talking from somewhere in the park. How could anybody stand it? And Ginger was trying so hard, like we walked over a little bridge and she said, “Remember the time we shined a flashlight in the water and we saw an eel?” I was basically ignoring her until she asked: “You’re having periods, right?”

“For a year now, Ginger.”

“Do you ever get really, really mad when you have your period?”

I tried to think and couldn’t remember.

“Because when I first started? I remember sometimes I would get unbelievably mad. I was once so mad at my mom I remember looking at the back of her head and wanting to kill her and she hadn’t even done anything. It was scary. And then I started my period and I was like, oh, that was why.”

I pictured Ginger staring at her mom’s head and wanting to kill her. I didn’t know what to say.

“It’s normal, if you feel that way. I feel it too sometimes, but in a different way.”

I said, “Different how?”

“Because I’m on the other end of it. You’re starting to have periods and I’m starting to stop. You’re coming up and I’m going down.”

And I don’t know why, but that made me smile. Not because of her going down. More the way she said it. It made me feel her again, and I wished I could explain: You can’t go into a barn weak and tell horses what to do. Horses are real. They don’t care who deserves what. They do what they do and if you can’t handle it, you shouldn’t be there.