"Anyway, she loved horses a lot, my mother. When she was growing up she had a horse she said got lonely sometimes? and he liked to come right up to the house and put his head in at the window to see what was going on. "What was his name? "Paintbox." I'd loved it when my mother told me about the stables back in Kansas: owls and bats in the rafters, horses nickering and blowing. I knew the names of all her childhood horses and dogs. Paintbox! Was he all different colors? "He was spotted, sort of. I've seen pictures of him. Sometimes--in the summer--he'd come and look in on her while she was having her afternoon nap. She could hear him breathing, you know, just inside the curtains."