The Mare

Silvia

The refrigerator is broken: the seal is worn away and water gathers, I have to clean it constantly to keep black mold from growing, and even so, I can’t keep the mold out of the cracks. When I got off the phone I cleaned it again, pulling everything out again, wiping and wiping. I washed the windows, mopped the floor. The whole time I’m thinking, It’s no good. We don’t belong here. Not in this neighborhood, not in this country, not on this filthy planet where anything good is chopped into little bits trying to join and be whole, but they can’t. My prayers are worthless, I have no grace, and my daughter does not respect me because some fool woman has made her into a pet. My son cries, “You think she’s going to be crippled but you let her go?” I hit him, but I was thinking, Yes, I let her go, like I knew she was sneaking out some nights and didn’t stay awake to stop her. A good mother would stop her, a good mother— A good mother wouldn’t let her daughter get turned into a pet for a few hundred dollars a month.

“And she’s not even worth a few hundred dollars a month!”

I said that out loud and shoved the mop so hard I banged a table leg and my only good vase fell and smashed, and I hit myself to not hit Dante again. I felt his fear and then my shame, coming on fast. I shut my teeth against it, pushing it back. Holding it back, I got down on the floor to pick up the pieces of my one beautiful thing, reaching under the couch for it — and saw the blue shell from the beach at Providence. My poor gift for her, the hope of a woman who gets it in the ass with a man who doesn’t love her. I would’ve smashed it, but surprise stopped my hand. What was this thing doing under the couch? I thought she kept it where she keeps her little things, what was it doing here? The beach; the light between water and sky. I sat on the couch and looked at it; it was broken. A big piece was missing, like it had been snapped off. My thoughts sank so deep I no longer knew what they were. The TV was on but Dante was watching me like he could see what was happening, like it was a picture being drawn. And it was a picture being drawn. She’d just sent three hundred dollars, and I just cashed it. I had it in my drawer. “Dante,” I told him. “Turn that off and get the phone. I need you to make a call for me.”