A muffled knock made me jump clean out of my coat. I nearly hit my head on the roof of the oven as I pulled back and shook the mitts from my hooves. I cantered to the front door, but froze with my hoof on the knob. I smoothed the apron over my best dress; I checked my mascara in the polished sheen of the doorknob and flashed it my painted-on smile.

He was waiting...

A twist, a push, and there he was. I could barely see him, though, because in both forehooves and in his mouth he was carrying so many yellow, white, and blue flowers that he looked like a bush!

“Honey, I’m home!” he exclaimed, and with a flourish he slipped the flowers between his teeth into my forelegs. “Happy Mother’s Day.”

An indelicate squeal escaped my lips and my eyes began to water, but he just laughed and pulled me close.

The sand-brown suit he wore felt a little rougher than it looked—more on the corduroy side of things than the linen. It was a good, sensible suit, sleek and narrow. He’d slicked his brick-red hair back with a pomade as simple and classic as his clothes; instead of the heavy, heady chemicals that oversaturated most product, he smelled of coffee and rye, with a hint of fresh sweat.

He smelled good.

I gasped silenty as his forehooves snaked around my barrel. He tugged at my apron strings, and before I could recall how to breathe he’d slipped the garment from around my neck... and draped it over his own. “You let me take care of that,” he said with a smile, and he brushed past me, his shoulder trailing along the length of my body. “In the meantime, there’s somepony who’d like to say something to you.”

He left me there on the doorstep. I barely noticed, as my eyes were locked on the cutest, sweetest, most adorable thing I had ever seen. She was dressed in the prettiest little powder blue sundress, a perfect complement to her pastel pink coat, and a matching hat so big and floppy that it would have been comical if it wasn’t so endearing.

“Happy Mother’s Day!” the filly cried, the words parroted but sincere. She leaped at my forelegs and squeezed them tight.

I gushed about her dress; I fawned over the flower she gave me. I stroked her pale yellow mane as I carried her inside even though her hat had kept it reasonably tidy. Soon we were lost in stories about school and play, tales of friends and teachers and seemingly insurmountable challenges.

All the while I could not stop smiling.

Then came the tinkle of silverware on plates. Out he swept from the kitchen, looking quite the dashing waiter with bowls and platters lining his foreleg and back. He even had a soft white towel draped over his foreleg like a busboy at a fine restaurant. Quite dashing indeed...

Supper was excellent, from the pasta primavera to the baked eggplant filets to the merest dinner roll. He’d used different spices and flavors than I would have—the lemon sauce that accompanied the eggplant was a nice surprise—but they were all great decisions on his part. He was easily the better cook. Contrary to what my mom always said, some stallions have hidden depths after all!

Maybe I should send her a letter.

He surprised me with a blueberry tart too, but the bigger surprise came afterward when he sent our filly to bed early with barely enough warning for me to wash the fruit from her cheeks. She easily coerced me into reading her a bedtime story, of course, but after that…

The walls here aren’t thin.

He held me gently in his hooves that night, and for hours, it seemed. He called me his lady, his darling, his sweet. I called him my love and meant it. He moved in a way that kept me twisting until I knotted up inside and fell into the colors of my sharp cries. He told me that he was going to make me a mother again for Mother’s Day and I was so far gone, lost in a pair of eyes as warm and as blue-green as his coat, that I almost believed him. I don’t know how many times the ceiling burst apart into stars; the intimate valleys between the peaks were the moments I truly felt alive. He was so patient, and so determined to make the night last.

But now it is morning.

Now it is morning, and my purse is a fair amount lighter than it had been the night before. I’d spent more than I’d like to admit. Throughout that one short night, from the first smile on our little girl’s face to the breathless eternities spent under the light of the late spring moon, it had felt well worth the price.

Now I lie alone, wrapped in a sodden sheet upon a sodden mattress, my head beneath a pillow to muffle my loneliness. My husband is gone, and our little girl is gone, because they were never here.

I’d paid for a fantasy, and he’d delivered, but fantasy cannot last. Reality tore my fantasy apart, and my heart along with it.

Reality is a well-dressed, tender prostitute who agreed to be my husband for one night and to treat me the way I wish I could be treated. Reality is a mare with a severe hormone deficiency, genetically cursed to look like a filly throughout the entirety of her adult life and begrudgingly playing a boring and unusual part for unreasonably good pay. Reality is an empty breakfast table, an empty wallet, and an empty heart. My reality is that no matter where my life takes me I will never get to be the mother I long to be.

I could be a father...

I’d eagerly pay for another fantasy if I could. I’ve never needed one more badly than I do right now.

I can see that face from the reflection on the doorknob in my mind's eye. I remember the practiced contouring and the nervous eyes, the perfect mascara and the painted-on smile. It wouldn’t be the same, seeing myself in the mirror now. The magic is gone; the illusion has shattered. I would still see a stallion’s face beneath it all. That is not my face. That was never my face.

Maybe someday I’ll see the real me in that mirror…

That day will never be Mother’s Day.

Author's Notes:

Sometimes I don't feel it for weeks. Sometimes it's every time I take a step or say a word or catch a glimpse of my flesh. Sometimes it's not so bad. We had a nice Mother's Day, she and I and him. I wouldn't trade them for the world. Then I couldn't sleep again. Here we are.

Am I the only one?