
From Aurelie Sheehan’s story “Horse, Girl, Landscape” (NER 26.3, 2005):
If your eyes, if Lara’s eyes, drift from the horse, you’ll see a blue Volvo station wagon and a red Toyota Camry. Last week, Lara took her friend Jane to get an abortion in the red Camry. She dropped her off, went shopping, and then picked her up again after four hours. It wasn’t like she was shopping because she was callous. In fact, she couldn’t really concentrate. She and Jane usually did this together: a Saturday morning, in and out of the stores, spending their allowance, exchanging high witticisms, engaging in petty theft. When Jane was in the building—Lara couldn’t really picture what was happening, she didn’t want to imagine, embody, the scraping—Lara didn’t have a clue what paperback she should pocket, or if she actually needed new nail polish, or if she truly wanted this sweater-jacket they were selling at Raja of India. She walked around town. She ran into a couple of kids from school and they smoked behind the pizzeria together, and then she shrugged goodbye and left, keeping Jane’s secret.
Later, looking out at the river, she had another cigarette.
And then she got back into the red Camry and returned to the clinic and there was Jane, sitting on the concrete steps.