The Mare

Ginger

I didn’t think she would want to go, especially because it turned out that Joanne wasn’t even riding on the day that we could go. It would be two girls she didn’t know. But she did want to. She had to think a minute before she said yes, and she didn’t smile when she said it. But I could feel she really did want to go. I respected her for it. Whatever had made her uncomfortable about Spindletop, she wanted another look at it.

So I made her a sandwich the night before and we got up at five a.m. and drove through the in-between time of dark and light, no cars on the road, just us. She was tired and quiet, but I felt her sensitivity to the in-between time. I remembered when my mom made me go to camp with this organization called Camp Fire Girls; I hated it, and she said I had to go anyway because it would “build character.” I thought that was the stupidest thing, and I didn’t even believe she meant it, I thought it must’ve been what somebody else told her. But this, the drive at dawn to an unknown situation — it felt like that. Character building.