July 1964

In a blur, a blind of grass, the horse. Dunes. At your right, ocean collapsing on the edge of Virginia. The flea-bitten mare ahead, returning with her empty saddle. Here comes a horse: head bobbing, miff of sand from lifting hooves, to pause two strides off. The mare, watchful from a red-flecked cheek, and past her, up the beach, you see their horses stop and turn, Aunt Kate and Aunt Kate’s friend with Mikey on the lead behind her. A horse throws, threw, a girl, and she (you, the girl) lands in sand, thumff on her ass on the dune, tumbling. The mare looks at you, on your ass but upright. A girl is thrown but fine. Rolls, sits up, is fine. Miracles happen, every day. Did you think all those bedtime prayers were for naught? Bouncing off your bedroom ceiling? Here, now, on the beach, this is a miracle: three days and five hundred miles ago, you hid in the attic with pencils and waxed paper and traced from your horse book, appaloosas and thoroughbreds and palominos, sweating on dusty knees while the domestic tumult continued below, first floor, second, first, crashes and curses until the sunset in the attic window and you were thirsty and had to pee. Did you never think your prayers would be answered? Your selfish, jealous prayers—tell the truth, did you ever pray for Mom or Dad or the baby, or for Mikey, who’s only six? Tell the truth, you asked God for horses (but did you deserve them? Tell the truth, tell God you left Mikey downstairs while you hid in the attic, every time). That night an ambulance took Mom to Visit Gramma again, and when Mikey whispered Is Mom a drunk? you told him to shut up: You don’t even know what a drunk is, stupid. But this time God said Yes, and lifted you from Pittsburgh by the scruff of your neck. Dad woke you at dawn with a suitcase: Get your clothes on, Meredith. The end of Mom, not known but felt. Dad, dark against your brightening bedroom window, and Aunt Kate smoking in the doorway, ashing into a coffee mug because the ashtrays all broke. Shoes on, Mer, chop chop she said. Big adventure today. Is this what you wanted? You and Mikey climbed into Aunt Kate’s wondrous white Cadillac, but No, your dad’s not coming and No, the baby’s too little—but Don’t worry about the baby, Mer, she’s at your gramma’s (which makes sense, doesn’t it, because isn’t Mom At Gramma’s?). Yes, you prayed, good girl, but did you ever really believe? Now that God has picked you up and dropped you onto the haysilk back of a horse, maybe you will. In the dunes, the flea-bitten mare is watchful, but you’re small, sprawled, so she squares her nose to you to observe the surf. Did you believe in the ocean before you saw it? You knew about the ocean, from school, movies, television, but did you believe? Miracles defy explanation: why doesn’t the ocean run out of waves? Where do they come from? Down on the sand you see one wave, maybe half a dozen, but behind a wave comes a million million more, like this one. This one. This one. The mare lips dune grass. She threw you: you know it, but it happened so quickly you don’t believe it yet. You’re not crying yet. Aunt Kate’s friend points at you; you keep forgetting her name, but it’s her bed-and-breakfast, her flea-bitten mare. Fleabitten doesn’t mean fleas, she said when you insisted this horse is ugly. You wanted the chestnut, but Mikey got the chestnut, so she (the friend) told you that she (the horse) was famous once, won a race, but you were sure she was making it up. Now, Aunt Kate turns her bay gelding, trots down the beach toward you. You’re fine but a moment from now, when she says Mer, are you all right? and you try to tell her, you’ll start crying, tears all over your sandy face (red and ugly as your horse’s). But that hasn’t happened, yet. Right now, it’s still Now: here, now, you look up at what you wanted. A gauze-gray horse in a gauze sky. Ocean folding on a slim blade of shoreline. A horse walks toward you. Miracle: you believe. A horse walks toward you because you believe.