The Mare

Ginger

The next day I asked her if she wanted to ask me any more questions like she did during the night. She said no. So we went out of the room and ate breakfast with Julian and Carolina.

Then I took her to meet a cousin at Penn Station. Dante was with her, but he barely nodded at me when I said hello. The cousin was an exhausted-looking, heavyset woman with eyes that were hard, quick, and reactive. Without looking at me, she patted Velvet and greeted her in Spanish. She didn’t seem to realize I was there until Velvet hugged me good-bye. She finally said good-bye to me and then, as they were walking toward the subway, she added, “Thank you,” as if she’d realized she hadn’t even greeted me.

People of my color.

Her tone when she said that: forthright, courageous. With the purity of expression I had recognized at first sight. It made my heart hurt.

I went into the station and sat down to wait for my train. It was not very crowded; the usual businesspeople were at home, celebrating with their families still. The people seated around me were slumped and threadbare, carrying their possessions in shopping bags or cheap canvas totes. A bearlike young black man in baggy too-long pants with torn filthy hems paced around cursing at somebody on his cell phone. A dry-haired stringy white woman my age sat very erect, gripping a purse and a computer bag. I knew none of them were homeless because you had to show a ticket to sit in this area. But somehow even this stringy woman with a purse had a homeless feeling about her.