The Mare (15 page)

So I had to tell Strawberry she could not come see the horses. I told her at recess when she came to see me in the cafeteria. She was quiet and then she said, “It's okay. I won't be here anyway. My mama found a place. I'm going back on Easter break.” And she went to be with the others.

Then they invited me for the day after Christmas. They were going to have a tree. We never had a tree. In school we had one, my cousin Donna had a pretend one, and there was a silver and gold one at the restaurant where we went last New Year's. But my mom never got a tree. At first Dante acted like he didn't care. He said, “Yea! You won't be here!” Then at dinner he acted like a brat, sticking out his tongue with food on it. So I stuck my tongue out too. My mom was so busy slamming dishes down on the table and talking so loud about somebody at work who criticized her that she didn't notice. Until he kicked me under the table and I said, “Mami, make him stop!” And she slapped my head and said, “It's your fault.” And he kicked me and I shoved his food in his lap and he fake-cried and my mom hit the side of my head and told me to go in the bedroom, no food.

I didn't care. I just closed the bedroom door and opened the window and looked out. Outside, it was raining hard and cold. You could see the rain hitting the dirty sill and pouring in the streetlight. You could smell the wet street and see some dirty snow from before. The only thing that was Christmas was colored lights in the window across the street. I couldn't see the people that lived there, but I could see their shadows moving on the ceiling. I could feel my grandfather there saying,
She doesn't mean it. She loves you. She's letting you go have the tree.

I believed him. Still, I wished somebody from here could go with me. My brother. Or Strawberry. I wished Strawberry could go.

We both went to pick her up at the station. Without telling me, Ginger had bought Mrs. Vargas a pair of earrings and the boy a goofy toy that stuck out its tongue when you squeezed it. I swallowed my irritation, but I was embarrassed to be bringing these things, which I pictured them accepting sullenly. But Mrs. Vargas not only smiled to see us, she gave
us
something first, wrapped in a silver and pink gift bag. The boy
was
sullen, but this time he looked up when I said, “Hey there, young man,” and he mumbled something. We went to a diner to exchange the gifts and his quick, pleased glance said he was happy with the toy. Mrs. Vargas had given us a scented candle. We ate sandwiches and this time when we said good-bye to the mother and brother, we all hugged and said Merry Christmas; Mrs. Vargas kissed Ginger on both cheeks. She took my hand and gave me a look that was not flirtatious, but that nonetheless acknowledged me as a man. I thought, Well, she is polite.

Then the boy suddenly stepped close to me and said, “Can I come too?” Ginger spoke quickly: “Maybe next year.” And Velvet frowned; I frowned too, and put my hand on the boy's shoulder to cover it. His mother frowned also, quietly but deeply; she and Velvet exchanged words. Then, with a sideways “Good-bye” in English, Mrs. Vargas pulled her son away from me and down the street. And Velvet smiled again.

While we walked to the train, I asked her what her mom had gotten for her. “The same thing she gets me every year,” she said flatly. “A mug with a flower on it.”

I pictured the tree we had waiting at home, all the gifts Ginger had piled under it. And I felt uneasy, nearly ashamed.

Until we got home and she saw the tree.

I thought there would be snow up where they were and there wasn't. I thought I would see snowmen. But it was the same cold wet with old pieces of dirty snow on the curb and the grass, except lonelier than my street. Right away when we got out the car, I asked to go see my mare, and for the first time Ginger said no, it was late, didn't I want to see the tree? I said please and Paul said tomorrow. And I felt mad. Because it was my Christmas and I even said please.

But then we came in the house. It was dark at first and then Ginger went in the living room and the tree went on and—it was like being in a room I never saw before. Their tree was big, much bigger than the one at the restaurant or even at school; it was like the only thing in the room. And there was all different things on it, colored balls with designs on them, glass birds, candy canes, and angels and animals, and you could see they put them together in a way that was on purpose. There was tinsel hanging on every branch. And there were little white lights, but also big lights in soft colors that reminded me of the game I played at day care, Candy Land; there were wrapped presents underneath. My blood started moving really fast in my body, like music that's too fast to dance to. I thought of Strawberry then, how she talked like a little kid, because that's what I felt like.

“Do you want to open them tonight or tomorrow?” asked Ginger.

“I don't know.”

“How about one tonight and the rest tomorrow?”

I picked a little one and when I opened it I found a silver ring in the shape of a blue butterfly. It was more beautiful than anything I ever had. It made my blood run faster, like something too fast for me to hold.

I remember that night and the next day in a soft haze of joy; the look on her face when I turned on the tree lights, then again when she opened her first present. And Edie, acting like it really was Christmas Day, opening her present, taking part. It was slightly unreal somehow and yet at the same time more real than anything. It was like my own childhood come to life again, my memory of Christmases cleansed of the disappointment and anger, the fighting and silent unhappiness that sometimes was there. What I remembered now was the goodwill, the effort made, the cookies my mother baked from scratch, my father bringing in the tree, Melinda and I putting on the ornaments, saving the most delicate for last. I felt all that as a child, but I took it for granted as how things ought to be. Not now.

That night I couldn't sleep. Everything in me was still going too fast. Also, my stomach felt sick from the food at the restaurant, like I might have to go to the bathroom. I thought about my mom, especially her cooking, how you could feel her in her cooking. I thought about my horse: her rough mane, her powerful shoulders. Her wise wrinkled mouth. Her thinking dark eye. I sat up and turned on the light. I took my cotton-ball box out of my backpack and laid my things out on the blanket: the plastic bell, the red heart, my father's blue shell, my grandfather's sea horse, my one-legged Ginger-doll in her checkered coat and her orange ring. I put my new ring in with them. I thought of my horse. My grandfather said,
Go.

So I made sure their lights were out and then I got out of bed and put on my butterfly ring and my clothes. I went downstairs really quiet and out the door quiet too. I walked on the dark path to the barn. I would've been scared normally, but that night I wasn't. I wasn't scared even when I went into the barn and it was so dark at first I couldn't see at all. The horses moved and asked me to come say hi, and the fast thing in my body got slower. I didn't talk to anybody else, I just went to her. She was curled on the floor of her stall, her head even curled down with her nose resting on the floor like some little animal. When she felt me there she raised her head; I spoke soft to her and she uncurled to stand and come to me.

When horses are curled up and then they stand, it is beautiful and funny, like babies walking. They put their front feet down like it's the first time and they don't know for sure how, they need to go slow and feel on each foot, their body going one way and the other until they find the strong spot and
boom,
they are proud on their legs again. Watching made my heart soft, made me want to hug her. So I did something I never did; I opened her stall and came in it.

Which I should not have done. She wasn't expecting it, and she came to me too fast. I held up my hand like I saw Pat do and I said, “Alto!” like my mom when she means business. And the mare stopped. And I made my head and shoulders soft. I petted her, first her shoulder, then her neck. I told her how much I'd missed her and promised I'd clean her stall the next day because I could smell it was mad dirty. I tried to sing her a Christmas carol but I couldn't remember all of one, so I sang,
Safe under mama's wings, huddling up / Sleep the little chicks until the next day.
I sang it to her until the fast thing was gone. And then when I walked out, I sang it so they could all hear it.

Edie came over that afternoon. Velvet was shy and sweet around her and Edie was nice in a way that seemed unnatural to her. Not that my daughter isn't nice; she is. But there was a subtle theatricality about her manner that, to my surprise, Velvet seemed not only to enjoy, but to match. Each seemed to know her role and to fall into it easily—though what those roles would be called wasn't an easy thing to put a name on.

“Do you want to come to the stable with me?” asked Velvet, her voice lower and sweeter than the one I knew.

“I'd love to!” cried my daughter. And then, when Velvet was up in her room getting a sweater, Edie turned to me and said very soberly, “Dad, I am so glad you are doing this.”

“I am too, I guess,” I answered. “I just wish I knew what it was.”

My best present was from Little Tina. I rode her without a saddle. It was cold and so muddy I slipped and fell off the ramp at the end of the barn and that was even before I got on the horse. Pat said when it was this cold, she used to like to go bareback to feel warm from the horse. And I said, “Can I do it?” And she told me yes, because it was Christmas. And we took off the saddle and when I got on Little Tina it
was
warm all up in my legs. The cold air was on my face but I was warm. I could feel her muscles; it was like I could feel her blood. We only walked and practiced steering, going backward and in a circle and zigzag around things.

But then she started to go at a trot. She did it without asking me. “Whoa!” yelled Pat, but she kept going. So I pressed my butt deep into her body and I talked soft and pulled back on the reins and said, “Whoa”
soft.
And she stopped. Pat came running up and said, “Excellent!” And I was in the sky.

I got some other good stuff too. A pink radio and CD player that said “Princess” on it and earrings in the shape of tiny red flowers and a Celia Cruz CD and a blue Gap shirt with a big zipper in the front. And I met Paul's daughter from his other wife. She was nice.

On the train I tried to talk to her. I told her I knew how hard life is, how cruel people can be. “People are assholes,” I said. “They will say whatever they think will hurt you. You can't listen, and you can't try to please them. If people at school don't like it that you're doing well, it's because it scares them. If you don't want trouble, hide it. Act like you don't care about school. Just do the work quietly and act the same in class. I'll talk to Ms. Rodriguez; she should understand.”

She listened and looked out the window, sort of smiling. I talked about when I was in school, how I didn't fit in. A black woman one seat up across the aisle glanced at me with a curious face. My mother floated into my mind and out. I had only half listened to my mother; I hated the way she was with Melinda, and I did whatever I could to make her
not
be that way with me. My mother was very flawed. But even half listened to, her words built me, and I'm glad she said them. Velvet was already built, but still it seemed she needed words, even dumb ones. So I talked until I ran out of words. Then she put on her headset and played her new radio and I read a book.

When we got to the station, I looked forward to seeing her mother, to connecting with her like we had at the diner, showing her the pictures of Velvet opening her gifts. But her mother wasn't there. We waited outside like always. Snow was finally coming, light and wet, whipping around in the wind. It was getting dark. We stood near the Thirty-Third Street entrance, and the big doors blew hot dry air on us as they opened and closed for the many-faced people trudging in and out of them. Christmas music played from speakers. Dirty, ragged people sat on the ground under the concrete overhang of the building, some with bulging garbage bags. The digital red clock on the side of the station said Mrs. Vargas was fifteen minutes late.

I called her home number; she wasn't there. I called her work number; they said she had left over an hour ago. Velvet looked afraid. I bought her a hot dog from a vendor. A woman with dry dark patches on her face had pulled up her pant legs and was scratching at sores with both hands, her mouth open in concentration. I began to be afraid too. I said, “What kind of neighborhood does your mom work in?” And she answered, “There's white people there.” I wanted to say,
That's not what I asked.
But I understood her. We had understood each other. Mrs. Vargas was half an hour late.

I asked Velvet to go into the station to look for her while I stayed outside with her paper bag of Christmas presents. I called the home number again. Velvet took so long that I began to be scared I'd lost her too. When she came out, she looked like she'd been crying. “We'll wait until it's been an hour,” I said. “Then I'll call the police.”

“No,” she said. “You can't do that.” Her voice was tearful and I knew she
had
been crying. “They might take us away.”

I didn't argue. The hour came. Tears ran down the girl's face. I put my arm around her. “Don't worry,” I said. “We'll go back upstate if we have to.”

“I don't want to go back upstate,” she said. “I want my mama. I want my brother.”

I wound up calling a friend, Julian, an editor at an art magazine, one of the few people from my past who actually had made a plush life for himself—and who, not coincidentally I'm sure, had come from money. I explained the situation and he told me to bring her over, he and his wife were sitting down to dinner.