The Mare

Velvet

When I finally talked to my mom, she just yelled at me. I tried to tell her about the horses and she told me that I could get kicked and killed, that a horse in DR had almost killed her. I told her that these horses were nice, and that I was going to ride one tomorrow. She said, You tell those people that I forbid it. Tell them if anything happens to you, they are going to be in big trouble. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll tell them.”

Then I hung up and we watched movies. We watched another movie about the princess. After that, we went upstairs and they showed me my towel and washcloth in the bathroom; they were white with pink flowers. Ginger waited for me to get ready for bed, and when I got in bed she asked if I wanted her to read to me. It was embarrassing, but I said yes and she sat on the bed.

And then I felt strange. I had waked up pressed against my mother and little brother, and now I was alone in a bed with a pink cover and this blond lady sitting there, her face full of niceness with pain around the edges. Why was this even happening? I missed my mom next to me. Instead Ginger was next to me, reading with her eyes down, her voice like white dream horses running across the sky: A little girl playing hide-and-seek goes into the closet to hide and comes out in a snowy country. She meets a man with hairy goat legs. (Like Paul!) The hairy-leg says a beautiful witch has come to the land and made it winter all the time. Ginger looked at me with her blue, blue eyes and then away. Hairy-leg says the little girl has been sent to help, that only she can help. Ginger closed the book. She sat quiet like she didn’t know what to do. Then she said, “That’s all for now, Princess Velveteen.” And she touched my head.

When she turned off the light and closed the door, there was still light from the outside on the wall with tree branches in it. I thought of my mother at home in the bed, with car lights moving on the wall and people talking and playing music in the street. I thought of Dante crying at the bus station — where was he? I thought of my grandfather. Was he there like he said he would be?