Mary Gaitskill - The Mare

“Mami, I’m sorry. I wanted you to be proud!”

“Ay, mi niña. Pride is for fools and rich people.” She stopped crying when she said that; she wiped her eyes and spoke calmly. “Because of your pride, you will never come here again.”

“All right, Mami,” I whispered. “Yes.”

Then there were no words, just our arms and our chests, beating and breathing into each other. The trees blew in the wind above us. My mami rocked me and said deep and rough: “Your ribbon. Your horse.” And I knew: She was proud.

Dante came and wrapped his arms around us.

Pat went to walk the horse around. I stood alone as the other riders led their horses — and their parents and trainers — back toward the barn and the parking lot beyond it. I saw Paul coming toward me, and I went to meet him. He said he’d gotten into a conversation with another trainer, that she was going on about how she’d never seen a horse pick up its performance so radically before, that the animal rode like it “was possessed” on that final course. He asked where Velvet and her family were, he said that Becca and Edie wanted to take a picture of us all together, with Velvet and her family too. I felt numb. In the years I had been married, there was no “family photo” with me in it.

“Paul,” I said. “I don’t think they’ll want to.”

“Why not?” His face darkened. “She didn’t give permission, did she?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

He didn’t say anything; he just put his hand on my shoulder.

And that’s when they came back. Mrs. Vargas with her arm around Velvet, and Dante looking quiet and emotional even at a distance. Silvia’s eyes fell on me and in them I saw peace with a triumph that sharpened as she came closer. All right, I thought; it’s all right. And it was. She embraced me and said something that Velvet did not have to translate: “Gracias.”

Then we went to have our picture taken with Becca and Edie — the first time I had ever been in a picture with them. Silvia initially said no, that she was too tired and looked terrible. But she was finally part of it too, and she smiled big. It was incredible.

She told me that Ginger didn’t know and I believed her — I could see it in the way the woman greeted me when she first saw me, happy and ignorant, even when she should’ve been able to see my face and hear my voice. My daughter was safe and I had her back and they would find out soon enough. My body was tired, but my mind and heart were floating up in the sky. It was fine with me to eat and have my picture taken with Ginger’s family. To walk through the barn and see the horses. To have my picture taken with Velvet’s horse. It was even a little fun.

The pictures they took that day showed a lot. Me and Ginger and Paul and my mom and Dante, then me and Ginger and Edie and Edie’s mom, who’s got Ginger’s head, basically, in a lock. Me and Pat and Gare and Fiery Girl. Me and my mom and Fiery Girl. Everybody with my horse, looking at the camera with her head up and sideways, showing her kind but watching eye. Everybody smiling, even Ginger smiling all the way, Dante smiling like Chester Cheetah, and my mom smiling with her eyes closed in like three pictures, the sky very blue behind her, and random people turning to look — even they’re smiling, except for the old woman carrying the empty ribbon-bucket someplace out of the picture.

The pictures also don’t show a lot. They don’t show Jeanne from Spindletop telling me I could come train there as a “work-study” and me smiling even though I knew I would never do it. They don’t show the sea horse in my shirt pocket, broken into dust except for its nose bone. They don’t show Dante looking out the back window laughing at Beverly and Pat in the parking lot, yelling at each other while we drove away…or me walking on the block where I met Dominic forever ago, my ribbon with me so if I saw him I could show it to him. How I saw him but he was with Brianna and she was getting a bump. Gaby told me I was young, and I would meet somebody better for me. But my heart hurt, hurt for real, so much it woke me up at night.

When Ginger sent us the competition pictures, my mom framed one and put it on her dresser. The others she gave to me. But after I saw Dominic and Brianna like that, those pictures seemed far away, like something that’s only real for kids. Like butterflies bursting out from a shampoo bottle or a cereal box in a commercial. The time I spent with Pat and the things we talked about — it was real. Same with Ginger. Except it can’t exist anywhere but, like, in the car when we drove at night, listening to music, Ginger singing in her pinchy voice.

But sometimes when I wake up hurting I think: Fiery Girl. The feel of her body, her neck and the butterfly place between her leg and hoof. That was real. How I took her out at night and she reared up on me and I stayed on her until I found her. How she came back to me when I felt worthless and she nosed on my hair. How she wouldn’t let me hug her in the field but I loved her anyway. And mostly how I finally had the leg thing with her, in the last part of the competition, in front of people. Where my legs touched her sides and it was the best place in the world and we were in it together. Like with Chloe only more strong and deep, too deep to show in pictures or to talk about with Ginger or even Pat. Or anybody except maybe Dominic, and I can’t talk to him, maybe ever. Instead I hold on to the leg feeling, and I rub it on my heart like medicine. And it’s real then, real in my room, real everywhere. I sit up and look across the street at Cookie’s wall with the horseshoe hidden inside it. I don’t know when my mom will let me go see Fiery Girl again. But I know I will. Even if I don’t, she’ll always be with me. But I don’t think about that. Because I know I will, even if I have to wait and take the train to see her when I’m eighteen and everything is different. Maybe I’ll have my own baby then, or maybe I’ll be in college, that would make Ginger glad. But whatever is happening, I know I will see my mare again.

I would like to acknowledge and thank the following people and organizations for their moral and practical help in the writing of this book:

Sarah Fink, Celina Martinez, Karen Murphy, Rashena Wilson, Joanne Beard, Michael Zilkha, Emma Sweeney, Jean Strouse, Jennifer Sears, T. Kira Madden, Marguerite and Andres San Millan, Peter Trachtenburg, Rima Liscum, Angie Cruz, Ralph Sassone, Peter Franklin, Rene Falcon, Nancy and Catherine Locke of Hyde-Locke Stables, Renee Petruzzelli of Horse Heaven, The Southlands Foundation, The Jentel Foundation, and Ragdale.

Most especially I would like to thank Denisse De La Cruz and equestrienne Sarah Willeman: Your patient, generous help was invaluable.

I would also particularly like to thank David Weiss and Melanie Conroy-Goldman of Hobart and William-Smith Colleges for giving me more time than allotted at the Trias House, essentially providing me with a writing retreat for four months.

Finally, I am grateful to the wonderful children I met through the Fresh Air Fund. This book is not about those children, but it would never have been written if they had not been in my life.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

Alfred Music Publishing: Excerpt from “Wildfire,” words and music by Michael Martin Murphey and Larry Cansler, copyright © 1975 and renewed by Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. Reprinted by permission of Alfred Music Publishing. All rights reserved.