49.

Now you, he says. It’s the first and last month of summer. They’ve come for the day: she, her son’s father, her son, a neighbour to take her son on the Ferris wheel and pirate ship. The mother and son have already done all the rides the mother will go on without balking: the Tilt-A-Whirl, the bumper cars, the Scrambler. Rides that stick close to the ground.

No.

Come on.

I don’t want to.

You’re going to.

She looks up at the rickety wooden structure of the roller coaster, listens to the clack-clack of the cars going up. Screams from the far side, the drop. That lurch in her stomach as they stand in line. It’s a long lineup she tells herself but it seems only moments before they’re at the front.

Get in.

I don’t want to.

She finds herself on the small bench seat. He crowds in beside her. They go up. Then the poised instant, in the sky. She screams as they fall, as she knew she would, as you do in nightmares, and as in nightmares the wind catches the scream from her.

That wasn’t so bad, was it?

No. Staggering out, her knees knocking.

Let’s go again.

Okay, she says, despite herself.