The Mare

Ginger

Awww! How do people make this simple noise into such a repulsive mix of real and false, the false mocking the real for the two seconds they rub together, throwing it into high relief that way?

Still, it affected me, the way Becca looked at me; she had never looked at me that way. And then the cashier, smiling to hear that someone’s mom was coming, that she was “even” coming, meaning that she usually wouldn’t, but that now, now—

“I don’t think she’s coming,” said Velvet.

“You don’t think?” I asked.

“She said she might, but I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” asked Paul, glancing in the rearview.

“She has to work,” said Velvet.

I said, “On Sunday?”

“That’s what she told me to tell you.” There was no smile/lie in her voice; she spoke as if a little stunned. “She said she’s sorry. She said she’ll call me if she can come.”

We got home and she went upstairs to settle in.

Paul said, “You know her mother could sue us if we do this without her say-so. Are you sure she gave permission?”

“She signed the form. She knew what it was for.”

He didn’t say anything.

We had sandwiches for lunch and then Velvet went to practice. I went upstairs and went into her room the way I usually do when she first comes. There was her open bag, her toiletries. There, on the dresser, was a torn, taped-up, wrinkled picture of a beautiful young boy in a costume, holding his arms out and smiling like a lover; there was a real almost completely dried-out sea horse and something I couldn’t identify until I picked it up and felt it: a piece of blue seashell. I held it and thought: Her mom has to come. She has to.

I went to call the translator.