Adele Evershed

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He had a Ralph Lauren fleece hanging on the back of the door. I studied the logo with the same intensity he was using to scan my notes.

In another life, I went to polo matches – nothing like that scene in Pretty Woman, just damp fields in Simsbury. No tents, no sundresses, although there was champagne – well, prosecco. People wearing old money in Hunter boots and wax jackets, braying and jostling for prime position. But the horses were magnificent in that way things are when you’ve only ever imagined them, and then suddenly they appear, loud, steaming, like they were the missing part of you all along.

“Do you like polo? Do they even have polo in North Dakota?” I asked. His eyebrows furrowed. I pointed at his jacket, a miniature man lifting his mallet, ready to bash a ball – is that what it’s called? He started to talk, but I was plucking invisible strings. Ball? Puck? Wood, like in bowling? His eyes drifted to my fingers pressing an imaginary fingerboard. “I play the fiddle,” I told him. “It was supposed to be good for my ADHD.” Of course, it wasn’t a fiddle the doctor suggested—it was the violin.

He twisted in the chair; it squealed, and my baby kicked in warning.

“So, Rosamund – the ultrasound.”

“Yes. A girl, I’ve got a name picked out.”

He paused. I played Della Jane’s Heart on my ghost fiddle. Della was the name I’d chosen after hearing the song on KACL. Mother would never approve – which suits me fine.

“I’m so sorry. Before, we could have offered a procedure, but what with Roe…” He tailed off. “Is there any way you could move back to Connecticut?”

I got in the car and drove for hours. I love the way the land opens out here, everything just grass and sky. No pretending you’re something you’re not. Eventually, as dusk settled in, I found myself reaching the edge of Theodore Roosevelt Park. It was the first place I fell in love with here – the place that made me decide to stay. The Nokota arrived, their hooves becoming my heartbeat. The herd had a new pinto foal – vulnerability in mismatched socks. The Park Service called the horses feral, tried to get rid of them, but people objected, so they’re still here.

When I got to the bar for my shift, Annie was washing glasses, her belly straining against her thin cotton dress. She smiled and said, “Uffda,” an exclamation I’ve adopted, though I can’t quite pull off in my New England accent. “Everything okay with the baby, Rosie?” I nodded. “Here,” she went behind the counter and handed me a bulging plastic bag, “I got these for you from the Sisters. Did they tell you the sex? The way you’re carrying, I’d say it’s a girl.”

Later, in my motel room, I unpacked a rainbow of bibs, two softly yellowing onesies, and a rattle.

But it was the tiny socks that finally made me cry.

Adele’s prompts were: during a major life event, horse/s, a musical instrument

Adele Evershed is a Welsh writer who moved from the Valleys to the American East Coast. A Pushcart-nominated poet, her work has appeared in Poetry Wales, Trashcat Lit, Comstock Review, Literary Mama, and Modern Haiku, among others. She is a recent recipient of a Touchstone Award for individual haiku.
Her poetry collections include Turbulence in Small Spaces (Finishing Line Press) and the forthcoming In the Belly of the Wail (Querencia Press). Her flash fiction includes the novellas-in-flash Wannabe and Schooled (Alien Buddha Press), as well as A History of Hand Thrown Walls (Unsolicited Press).

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