If Wishes Were Horses Read Online Free

horse from the gasoline sign. She imagined herself flying away on him.
    Latrice grabbed the pillow and the two of them grappled with clawed fingers and heavy breaths. Latrice won because she was twice the size of Etta. Etta pressed her hands over her ears, squeezed her eyes closed, and hummed louder, feeling herself spinning and spinning in a desperate wind.
    Then Latrice was right in Etta’s face, the sheer force of her causing Etta’s eyes to pop open.
    “No, I am not goin’. I will not see Roy dead!” Etta yelled, coming up to her knees.
    “You will,” Latrice said, her eyes dark, hot pools. “You have to, honey. If you turn from this now, you will always be turnin’. That is the way your mother went. Is that what you want for yourself? For your child? ”
    Etta, staring into Latrice’s eyes and hearing the cracking of emotion in her voice, went rigid.
    Latrice said with a soft, even tone, “Mr. Roy, bless his soul, has done enough to disgrace himself and you. The only way you can turn that around is to show honor. You have to do that for your child, and for yourself.”
    The words your child echoed in Etta’s mind and in her heart, and she thought of Roy, and of her mother, and of the dear baby in her womb. Pressing her hand to her belly, she got off the bed and got dressed because she knew the truth in all Latrice said. She had had her little hissy fit and felt a bit better because of it.
    Getting dressed turned out to be not so difficult a task, after all, with Latrice helping to shove Etta’s clothes on. “Turn around and let me fasten your bra. Yes, you have to wear panties, it’s cold out there. Here’s two matchin’ stockin's . . . oh, here, let me do it.”
    Etta’s feet were almost too swollen to fit into her black patent leather heels.
    “How can my legs be so skinny and my feet get fat?” Etta said, struggling to get the shoe on her foot.
    “It’s all that Co-Cola you’ve been drinkin’.”
    “Well, I can’t drink hardly anything else—and I don’t know how it can be the cola. I keep peein’ it all out.”
    “Salt,” Latrice said, jamming on the other shoe. She would not allow Etta to wear her black dressy sandals instead, as she pronounced them too flashy.
    Then Etta was standing before the mirror, and Latrice was saying of the dress, “It looks right nice.”
    “It looks like a tow sack died black.”
    Latrice made a scolding sound and brought out the string of pearls Roy had given Etta as a present on their wedding day. The pearls did help the dress.
    “I look a lot like Mama,” Etta said in a small voice.
    At that moment, she saw the stark resemblance to her mother’s exotic elegant looks. Roy had always said Etta drew him with her elegance. “You have the kind of class that’s born in, Precious,” he’d say so very proudly.
    Latrice said, “Here . . . let me comb your hair.”
    Etta sat on the vanity stool and closed her eyes, enjoying the sensuous tugs on her scalp, and felt a child again, took refuge in the feeling. Latrice hummed “May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You,” with a blues tone.
    Etta fingered the pearls, felt their cool smoothness, saw Roy’s eager joy when he had given them to her. She recalled his smile, his frown, him sleeping, him eating, all of the pictures coming over her in quick waves, making an ache in her chest that hurt so badly she felt she could very well die right there. A lump in her throat, she quickly twisted, looking up at Latrice and trying to hold on.
    “Oh, Lord, Latrice . . . I just keep wishin’ things had been different. I think if I had not lost the baby right at first, or if I could have gotten pregnant again right away, we would have made it. Roy really wanted a child. I know that would have made a difference.”
    She wished she hadn’t said some things that she had to him, either. Wished she had not let other things go unsaid. Wished for a second chance with all she had learned. Wished to turn back the clock, and