//------------------------------//
// A Diamond is Forever 
// Story: A Diamond and a Tether 
// by PatchworkPoltergeist 
//------------------------------//

December, 2008
 

The eight-foot tree is solid white, looped top to bottom in blinking purple LEDs and sparkling gold tinsel, just as she wanted.

Breakfast is fresh waffles, topped with organic blueberries and Vermont maple syrup with a side of sugar-frosted plums, just as she wanted.  

Out of eighty-six Christmas presents, eighty-five are precisely what she requested, down to the smallest detail.

It’s almost perfect. Almost isn’t good enough. Curled in a spiteful little ball atop her armchair throne, Diamond Tiara glowers.

Below her gleams a little battery-powered 2009 Lexus LF-A Roadster with authentic rubber tires, power steering, working floodlights, heated suede seats, air-conditioning, a built-in mp3 player/satellite radio, and cup holders. A pair of fuzzy pink and purple dice dangle from the window. When you honk the novelty horn, it beeps the chorus from Bop to the Top. The platinum-framed license plate reads D.T.  

It’s been custom-made for a filly’s proportions, so her hooves can work the wheel and pedals. The commissioner thought Lucy was absolutely crazy. For this price, it would be cheaper to just buy a real Lexus.

“It’s the wrong color,” Diamond Tiara sneers. “I wanted a yellow one, not silver.” She throws a wad of metallic wrapping paper at it, where it sticks behind the windshield wipers. “I hate it.”

“Santa did his best,” Lucy says.

“Well, his best isn’t good enough.” Diamond snorts and crosses her forelegs. “Or do I not deserve the best, now?”

“Of course you do, Di.” Lucy shakes her head and sighs. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure Santa fixes it.”

The little pony tosses her curls over her shoulders and snorts again. “Good.”

 
January, 2009

 
A goldenrod miniature Lexus LF-A Roadster collects dust in a lonely corner of the Burdock house. Diamond Tiara drove it for an hour and a half, got bored with it, and went upstairs to watch television.

What’s the point of a car when you can’t drive it anywhere?

 
March, 2009  

 
“Hey, Diamond.”

“Yeah?”

“I was thinking of driving up to Raleigh for a little bit of shopping. You wanna come?”

Lucy leans against the bedroom door and smiles hopefully. She did some research, called around, and found an animal-friendly shopping center with lots of high-end boutiques. If they leave in the morning and go on a weekday, they can beat the crowds. During the test run last week the place was a total ghost town. Even if Diamond decides to talk up a storm it’ll probably be okay.

The filly shifts in her beanbag chair. She doesn’t look up from the TV screen, though one of her ears is swiveled in Lucy’s direction. “No, thanks. You know what I like.”

“You sure?”

“…Yeah.” Canned laughter ripples from the speakers as Miley Cyrus fumbles. Diamond’s ear swivels back. “I’m sure.”

When she hears the door close, Diamond sits up. She looks at the door for a while, flicking her tail. The beanbag rustles as she lays back down and turns the volume back up.    

 
May, 2009
                                                    
        
Maria stores the wet bucket in the linen closet, cracks her back, and slinks to the dining room to wait for the floor to dry. The shoes come off first, with a good foot rub for her toes. She slides into one of the soft chairs, eyes closed.

The good thing about houses with no carpets is less vacuuming and there’s no daylong shampooing. Of course, there's sweeping, mopping, and waxing but it’s still better than carpet cleaning.

Mid-afternoon sunshine warms her shoulders as the sound of chirping blackbirds drifts through the open window. Lace curtains flutter in the breeze and the spring air mingles with the scent of Pine Sol.

“Mariiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

So much for peace.

“I’m in the dining room. And come through the back way, don’t you come through the kitch—”

“MARIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

“The dining room!”

The kitchen echoes with little hooves clacking across the linoleum. Something knocks over as the hooves slip and scramble for traction. The clacks start again, slightly slower this time.

Maria opens one eye and cringes at the lines of hoofprints stretching from the kitchen to the dining hall.

Diamond Tiara blinks up at her as she prods a pair of pleather flats with her wet hoof. “…You should really get better shoes. These are really ugly.” The fur on her left haunch is prickly and damp from where she fell, though she doesn’t seem hurt.

“Ay, Diamond! I just waxed that.”

The filly glances behind her and shrugs. “So do it again?” She arches a little eyebrow and blinks. “And if you didn’t make me come all the way in here it wouldn’t have happened. So really, it’s your fault.”

Maria moves her flats closer but doesn’t put them on. “What is it, Diamond?”

“My hoof polish is chipped and you need to fix it.” She holds out her hoof to show: a barely visible splotch in the sparkly white. “Also, there’s a knot in my tail.”

“Isn’t there something we say first?”

The little pony takes a seat. “Now.” She tosses her mane over her shoulder and frowns.

It’s an all-too-familiar sight: a simmering little arc of disapproval that shrinks, but never quite leaves. On good days, it slackens into a neutral line. On bad days, it twists into a sneer or curdles into a scowl. Maria would make threats about the filly’s face sticking that way if that didn’t seem the case already.

Maria never thought it possible, but she misses the tantrums. Those were tornadoes, terrible bursts of noise and fury, but if you let them run their course, they petered out quickly. Diamond’s ugly attitude is a drought: steady, grueling, and slowly dragging down everything with it. No sign of rain since last Thanksgiving.

Diamond Tiara stamps her chipped hoof. “Mariaaaa, now!”

“That’s really rude, Diamond Tiara.” The maid leans forward, one elbow resting on her knee. “You know, I liked it a lot better when you were nice to everybody. And I think you did, too.”

“Tch. You’re just saying that ‘cause I was doing, like, half your work for you.” Diamond wrinkles her nose at Maria’s disappointed frown. She shifts her shoulders and decides to look at the blackbird family nesting in the poplar tree. “Not like being nice ever got anybody anything anyway.”

“You know, in four years I’ve never seen you smile as much as I saw you smile last year. I think you got back more than you think.”

Diamond glances back to Maria. For a second, the frown shrinks. “Whatever.” And then it’s back with a vengeance. “I still have this knot in my tail. You gonna fix it or not?”

The maid reaches to investigate. The tail is a bit tangled at the end, but it’s nothing major. “You’re really telling me you can’t tease out that knot? After all that time doing it by yourself?”

“Um.” The pink filly blinks at her tail, then back at Maria. “Yes?”    

“Yes you can, Diamond. We both know it.”  

Diamond rolls her eyes.

“And if you can’t, now’s the perfect time to learn because you’ll have to fix your own tail soon, anyway. I’ll be taking time off in a couple weeks for Carmen’s quince.”

“Who?” The tiny horse pouts, more than a little offended.

A bit sick of leaning down to talk, the maid places Diamond in the chair next to her. “I told you before, Carmen’s my daughter. She was in the picture I showed you, remember?”

The filly shrugs. “Kinda? But how come you can’t just have the keen-say and just come here after? …And what’s a keen-say?”

“A quince, Diamond. It’s short for quinceañera. A big, special party for girls when they turn fifteen. And Carmen deserves to have her mama there for the week.” She smirks at the look on Diamond’s face. “Yes, there are other people in the world than you, little miss.”

“But why take off a whole week just for a party?”

“Carmen will only turn fifteen once, Diamond Tiara. A quinceañera’s very important; it’s when a girl becomes a young lady.” Maria smiles. “And Carmen’s turned into a wonderful one. …Though I wish she’d invited less people. Girl invited half the school.”

Diamond’s ears prick. “And they’re all coming? Just for her?”

“Just for her.”

“Oooh, are you getting her a car? When they have big parties like that on MTV, they always get a car at the end. This one girl rode in on an elephant! And this other one, she had dancers and people that ate fire!”

Maria laughs. “I don’t think so. We rented a big place, but it’s a bit small for an elephant.”

“Oh.” Diamond Tiara studies her chipped hoof for a moment. Her ears twitch and she’s very quiet for a time. The gears in that pink head are turning. Maria can almost pinpoint the second before the filly declares, “I want one.”

 
June, 2009 
 

A bundle of leggings and jackets go tumbling into a growing pile of discarded clothes. A few socks and a hatbox follow suit. Diamond Tiara takes a moment to adjust the flashlight in her mouth. Behind her, light from the hallway snakes into the room, but not enough to see with and the light switch is too high to reach by herself. Most of the other rooms have a button at filly height, but not this one. Why would it?

Diamond shoves a denim vest and a peasant skirt out of the way and wiggles her way farther in to mine the depths of Lucy’s closet. It’s deeper in here than she remembered. Or maybe there’s more stuff in here now. She digs out another pile of clothes and sweeps the flashlight over shadowy corners.

Something catches the light, a twinkle in the dark waiting to be found. Finally. She switches the flashlight to the other side of her mouth and follows the sparkle. Her hooves feel around in the shadows until she hits something solid. Glass. The filly gets a good grip and drags it out into the open.

Diamond twitches her ears. Keys in the front door. Footsteps. Lucy’s back.

She looks at the glass box, then at the closet door. There’s time to bolt for her room with her prize, but not enough to put everything back the way it was. Lucy would know something’s up.

No footsteps on the staircase, though. Maybe she’s just popping in for a second before she goes back out? Diamond waits.

The downstairs TV turns on, switching voice to voice to voice as the channels flick by. No more footsteps.

The filly relaxes. “Okay. You’re good, Di.”

Lucy never said Diamond couldn’t touch the tiara or made a rule about sneaking around in her room, so she probably won’t get in trouble if she’s caught. At most, she’d complain about the mess.

But if Lucy sees, she’s going to say something about it. She’s going to ask stuff. She’s going to stick around. And this is something Diamond wants to do alone. This is just for her.

Diamond didn’t count on the early return, but that’s ok. This won’t take long, she just wants to see real quick. She gently undoes the latch and opens the box.

The tiara is even prettier than she remembered. It’s small, but with all those little gems packed in together, it’s impossible to ignore once the light touches it. Little spots of refracted light dance on the closet walls and in Diamond’s eyes. It dazzles like a star, gorgeous, five-pointed, and fierce. All a princess deserves.

It says: I am glorious. Look at me. I am perfect. Love me. I deserve everything I have and more. Look at me. There is nothing like me and there never will be again. Look at me. Look at me and love me.

It is the most beautiful thing in the house. Maybe the whole world. More beautiful than Diamond. More beautiful than Lucy.

The filly reaches in the box. Her hoof flinches back as it touches the crown. Careful. Careful… With delicate precision, Diamond lifts it out and up. It hovers above her ears a moment before it’s gently eased upon her head. She knows it’s on tight when the metal prongs dig against her scalp.

Diamond Tiara sets the flashlight on its side so the light fans out at her hooves. She turns toward the triple mirror at the back of the closet. 

“Oh. Oh, wow.”

On every side, from every angle is reflected a lovely pink filly, lavender and white curls spilling across her shoulders. Her blue eyes are wide, as if in awe of something. A little tiara glitters between her ears like the star atop a Christmas tree. Truly, this filly is beautiful. 

Everybody who’s anybody wants to be near her, to be seen with her, at least for just a little while. Nobody would ever want to leave her home. Nobody would ever want to leave her at all. Because this filly is a winner. Everybody loves a winner.

Diamond Tiara smiles, then. It starts out small, but it grows. It grows until her face hurts from smiling so much. Because this filly is her. And surely, this tiara is hers. Sort of…it’s still Lucy’s, but… Diamond can’t say why or how, but she knows it’s hers. She feels right…whole. Like it’s who she was all along, but didn’t know it until now.

“I’m special,” she whispers.

It’s nothing she’s never heard before. Lucy and Maria and a long time ago, strangers on the street have told her so. But there’ve been times, quiet times when she’s by herself, when she doubts. When sometimes she thinks that maybe…maybe…

She’ll never think like that again. Never.

“I’m special,” she says again. “Yeah.”

And one day, maybe not today or tomorrow or next year, but one day everyone else will know it too.

Thinking about it almost makes Diamond want to go and do something stupid like cry, but of course she doesn’t. The filly lifts her head high. Diamonds are hard. They’re the hardest things on earth. Unscratchable. Unbreakable.

Diamond Tiara wipes her eye. The bright flashlight in the mirror is making her eyes water. As she turns to adjust it, she sees something weird.

There’s something on her flank. It looks kind of like a tattoo. A blue five-point tiara, just like the one on her head. There’s one on her other side, too. “The heck?”

Downstairs, Lucy’s voice snaps the filly back to reality. “Diamond Tiara?” Her voice sounds tense.

On instinct, Diamond shouts down, “I didn’t do it!”

“Diamond, can you come down, please? Somebody… somebody’s here to see you.”

 
June, 2009

 
Lucy comes home at six. A little earlier than she expected, but there’s a game tonight and traffic would have been murder if she’d waited any longer to come home. Besides, she can get an early start on dinner this way.

The afternoon rain’s cleared up, but the blanket of thick clouds stuck behind. When she opens the door, the house is dark. The click of Lucy’s heels echo through the house as shadows stretch across the hardwood floor.

Upstairs, a hallway light is on. Diamond’s room is open and dark. So either she fell asleep watching TV again, or she’s getting into trouble, and probably making a mess while doing it.

Lucy should say something. Go confront the pony, maybe get her to help clean up the mess. Not do the whole thing, just help. Easier said than done. Lucy never knows what to say. Everything sounds wrong, comes out wrong, or doesn’t come out at all. Di’s never happy anymore and everything Lucy does just seems to make it worse.

So she stays downstairs and doesn’t say anything at all.

Lucy flops on the couch and flips on the television. MTV’s in the middle of another marathon of 16 and Pregnant. A blonde girl is sulking because her boyfriend never sticks around to take care of the baby. Lucy flips the channel. She flies by about thirty channels (all reality shows, infomercials, newsroom talking heads, and more reality shows) until she settles on TMZ.

The hosts fire cheap shots and trade quips about the baby weight Whatsername still hasn’t lost even though it’s been a whole four months since she’s had the kid. Really let herself go. Meanwhile, another power couple is breaking up. Another may or may not be getting back together. Same old same old.

Lucy glances at the light spilling from the hallway again. Diamond’s awfully quiet up there. An old adage of Maria’s comes to mind: If they’re quiet, they're either in trouble or getting into trouble. Better investigate. While she’s up there, she can ask what the filly wants for dinner. Lucy’s thinking they can share a nice salad or maybe order some Indian food. Diamond loves Indian food.

As she sits up, there’s a knock on the door. Lucy glances at her phone. It’s nearly seven. Too late in the day for deliverymen and this gated community doesn’t allow solicitors. Anyone coming by would have called first.

She can’t see anybody through the peephole and there’s no car in the driveway besides her own. Nothing by the sidewalk, either. Maybe the neighborhood kids are playing ding dong ditch?

Another knock.

After a moment’s thought, Lucy opens the door a crack. Her breath catches in her throat.

Two ponies stand on her welcome mat. Big eyes and little noses, just like her own Diamond Tiara, but bigger. 

One of them is a unicorn, all purple except the bright pink streaks running through her straight mane and tail and weird marks on her haunches. She meets Lucy’s eye and smiles. The existence of other candy colored ponies (much less a freaking unicorn) should probably be shocking, but it’s not.

It’s the normal looking one that bothers her. At a glance, the stallion actually doesn’t look that much different than a regular pony. His coat is a respectable shade of tan, the mane gunmetal grey. It looks like the mane was slicked back with mousse earlier, but time or the rain have washed it out. He’s wearing a little suit and tie.

Lucy can’t stop staring at him.

He stares back, unblinking. His baggy eyes are faintly sunken in and serious. He smiles politely, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Eyes the same ice blue as Diamond Tiara’s.

“Um.” Lucy blinks dumbly at them. “Can I help you?”

“Hello, there!” the unicorn chirps. “My name is Twilight Sparkle and this is Mr. Filthy Rich.”

Mr. Rich nods politely, but from the way he holds himself, Lucy can’t help feeling that he’s liable to go Liam Neeson on the place any moment. When was the last time this guy slept?

“Evening,” he says. A southern drawl lurks somewhere in the stallion’s voice.

“Lucille Burdock…of the North Carolina Burdocks.” The signification is automatic, but silly. Not many North Carolina Burdocks are left anymore.

“Sorry to disturb you so late,” says the one called Twilight Sparkle. “I know talking ponies might seem a little surprising, but we just have a few simple questions to ask you.”

The stallion shoulders her to the side. “Have you seen this pony?” He holds in his hoof (somehow) a photograph. It’s of a little pink foal chewing a fluffy rabbit toy. Little wisps of lavender and white curl around her ears. The eyes are weirdly beady, but there’s no mistaking them.

The fierce, biting twist in Lucy’s gut drives her to slam the door in their faces and put the house on lockdown. But she can’t move. She still can’t stop staring at those eyes.

“Uh. Why do you ask?”

Mr. Rich’s hoof is in the doorway. His eye hasn’t left hers either. “She’s my daughter. Have you seen her?”

Lucy’s left hand fidgets, playing with all the little charms on her bracelet. The evening breeze rolls through the door, rustling the stack of magazines on the coffee table. She rubs the golden horseshoe with her thumb.

“…Yeah. Yeah, I have.”

Filthy Rich is through the door before she’s finished with the sentence.

“Just come on in. Sorry about the mess, our maid is out this week.”

Twilight Sparkle smiles politely and follows. “Thank you, Lucy.”

“No problem.” While the rest of Lucy struggles to catch up after that bombshell, her conversation skills boot up on instinct. “Soooo, where you from? I don’t know if you noticed, but we don’t get a lot of talking ponies around here.”

Filthy Rich hums as he glances from wall to wall, taking in the house layout, the magazines and DVD cases on the tables, the pony-sized recliner near the TV, and the Burdock family portraits that stretch from Lucy to her great-great-great-grandfather. 

“We come from a land called Equestria. I must say, when Mr. Rich requested my help with the famous Diamond Dazzle case, I never thought the search would lead us to a whole other world.” Twilight looks around as well, though with a bit more candor. “As we approached, I saw the rain stop and clouds move all on their own. Why, there doesn’t seem to be any magic here at all, to say nothing of the biophysical makeup of—”

“Miss Sparkle.” Filthy Rich fixes her with a harsh look. “Please.”

“Oh! Sorry, sorry.” The unicorn brushes out of the way. “You go ahead.”

Mr. Rich adjusts his lapels. “It happened six years ago. We were touring statues decorating the famous Canterlot Gardens. A quarter past noon, we observed a great flash of light and were overcome in a snap of wild magic—flux in chaotic magical properties, they called it—bowled us over.” He speaks evenly, slowly. Like he’s given this speech a lot. “When I got to my hooves, Diamond Dazzle was nowhere to be seen. I haven’t stopped searching in six years.”

Lucy stares as splashes of mute celebrity drama roll by on the television. “We’ve been calling her Diamond Tiara.”

And just like that, it all comes out. Once Lucy starts talking, she can’t stop. She doesn’t want to think about what’ll happen when she does, so until that time she fills the void with words.

About how Brian found Diamond in the rain, hiding in a cardboard box between a Tiffany’s and Morton’s Steakhouse. How Diamond was Lucy’s birthday present and has lived here for six years. The shock when she started talking. The time Diamond came down with the flu, how she loves getting her mane brushed, and how her singing voice is absolutely perfect. About how smart she is, and how decisive.

It should be a weight off her shoulders to finally tell someone this. Every word weighs a thousand pounds. It’s in the middle of describing how Diamond hates alfalfa but loves myrtle and butterfly squash that Lucy realizes she’s stopped telling anecdotes and started listing facts. She also realizes it’s because she doesn’t have many anecdotes to tell.

Finally, she asks, “Would you like me to call her down?”

“Yes.” Filthy Rich’s voice cracks. Eyes the color of Diamond’s shine in the lamps’ light. “Yes, please.”

“Diamond Tiara!”

A second later, a shrill voice pipes, “I didn’t do it!”

Lucy can’t help but smile at that. So she was getting into trouble. “Diamond, can you come down, please? Somebody…” She glances at the ponies and sighs. “Somebody’s here to see you.”

The filly appears at the top of the stairs, peering down curiously. The little plastic crown from the senior prom sparkles between her ears as she looks from Lucy to the ponies to Lucy again.

“Come down and say hi, sweetie.” Lucy hasn’t called Diamond sweetie since she rode in her purse.

“Oh. Hi.” Diamond frowns, as if not sure what emotion she ought to display. She’s never introduced herself to anybody before. Slowly, she makes her way downstairs, pausing on the bottom step as Mr. Rich approaches. “Who’re you?”

The stallion kneels. “Hello, Diamond Tiara. My name’s Filthy Rich” The coldness in his eyes melts and a little smile curls across his muzzle. More of that suppressed southern accent creeps into his voice. “I’m your daddy.”

For a while, the filly doesn’t know what to say. Finally, she decides on, “And you’re a pony.” Diamond glances at Twilight Sparkle, who’s politely stepped away to investigate the Edward Hopper paintings in the other room. “I didn’t know there were other ponies.”

“Of course. There’s a whole ‘nother world of other ponies, darlin’. All sorts in all kinds of colors.”

“Huh. Do they live in mansions, too?”

Mr. Rich laughs. A few minutes ago, Lucy never would have thought that was possible. “My family does, but ponies live in all sorts of places. Cottages, apartments… some live in the clouds and some others live in big fancy castles. I actually lived in a boarding school a couple years before—”

“A school?” Diamond’s ears perk up. “Did you have a prom?”

“Not exactly, but the interesting thing…”

The ponies fade into the background as Lucy thumbs through Facebook updates on her phone.

Bethany’s excited about her wedding dress.

The new Chanel bags look good this season.

Don’t think about it.

Geez, look what a mess Lindsay Lohan’s become.

Safe behind the Facebook wall.

What type of cloud is YOUR personality? Take the quiz to find out!

Don’t listen. Don’t dwell.

LOL look at this kid all messed up after the dentist.

Don’t think about it.

But every fortress has a weak spot.  

“Okay,” says Diamond Tiara, a million miles away. “But if you’re my daddy, then who’s…”

Lucy looks up. The filly’s staring back at her.

“Ohmygod...”

All at once, it hits her: every smile, every tantrum, every sulking stomp and anxious gallop. Every single “Can I come too?” and “Look what I made” and “When will you be back?”. In every laugh, every groan, every hiccup, Lucy sees—truly sees for the first time—the beautiful, looming, terrifying truth she’s evaded for five years.

This is not a pony. This is a child.

And her “mother” hasn’t been a very good one.

Diamond Tiara, meanwhile, has moved on to other subjects. “You’ll really like living here, Daddy!” She beams ear to ear. “I think you should have the room next to mine. It used to be a game room, but we can move it somewhere else. You’ll like it. It’s got a great sunset view.”

Filthy Rich blinks, surprised. “Er, Diamond…”

“Yeah?”

The stallion exchanges a look with Lucy. A long look.

Lucy nods. She rubs her arms as she comes closer. Her skirt wrinkles into a wide yellow puddle as she sits with the excited filly.

“Then again, maybe the room by the terrace would be better? A bigger room for a bigger pony makes sense, and the paint job will go really nice with that coat.” She taps her chin and hums. “What do you think, Lucy? Terrace or game room?”

“I don’t think those will work, princess.”

“Sure it will.” Diamond’s ears twitch. She’s not sure what’s going on yet, but she knows Lucy’s not just talking about rooms. “We’ve got plenty of space and everything. I know he's bigger, but I bet he doesn’t eat that much. Lucy, come on! He’s my daddy. I should be with him. Right?”

“It’s not that, Di. And you’re right.” She puts a gentle hand on the filly’s shoulder and takes a deep breath. “Diamond, listen. I think you should go with your daddy, instead. To Equestria.”

“Oh…but…you’re coming too, right?”

For a moment, Lucy considers it. But she knows already it’s not going to happen. 

She runs through a list of things to soften the blow or dodge the question. Maybes, kind-ofs, possiblys, we’ll-sees… excuses. Lots of little ways to sidestep the issue by giving Diamond what she wants. But not what she needs.

“No. I’m sorry, Di. I’m not coming.”

Diamond Tiara takes a step back. “I…” Her eyes grow big and watery as realization sinks in. Her lip trembles. With dawning conviction, she whispers, “…You don’t like me anymore.”

“Oh, Diamond—”

“No!” The filly jerks away from Lucy’s hand. She’s shaking. Her eyes burn with fury as the first tear falls. “Don’t lie to me, I’m not stupid! Well, y-you know wh-what? Fine! I don’t like you either! I hate this stupid, boring house, anyway.” Diamond pinches her eyes shut and sniffs. “Who needs you?!”

Not you. Lucy can feel the other ponies’ eyes on her. She doesn’t dare look. It’s hard to breathe through her nose. Hard to breathe. Something wet and oily runs down her face.

“I’m gonna go home…” Diamond Tiara’s voice fractures, then shatters. “I-I’m gonna go home with my daddy who loves me. A-and I’ll have a pool and I’ll go shopping and to the movies and I’m gonna go to a big school with lots of ponies and EVERYONE will want to be my friend! Everyone! Just you watch!”

“Glad to hear that. Good for you, Di.” Lucy wipes her eyes. Her chest is tight. The lump in her throat strangles her voice into a whisper. “Good for you.”

For a time, a very long time, the only sound is the heavy breathing of a filly trying not to cry. 

And then in a small voice Diamond says, “So…I guess you want this back.”

As the little pony reaches for the rhinestone tiara, Lucy shakes her head. “No, you keep it. It’s a good look for you.”




 
Lucy doesn’t watch them leave but knows when they’re gone. She hides her face in her hands and listens to the echo of an empty house.

It’s half past eight when she wipes the mascara off her face, turns off the television, and goes upstairs, through the hall, and to the right to Diamond’s room. 

The springs of the queen-size bed squeak under Lucy’s weight. She takes in the shelves of expensive toys, the racks of designer clothes, and the line of heart-shaped jewelry boxes along the dresser. She thinks of the dusty Lexus downstairs.

It’s not enough. Diamond Tiara deserves more.