Six Shorts 2017: The finalists for the 2017 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. Victor Lodato

have memories like elephants,” he said. “He just remembered turning the one way.”

      “He was a mean little shit,” she said. “That’s what I remember. His hobby was clotheslining me with low branches. He liked that crippled boy more.”

      “When this ends, sell the carousel horse to a collector if you don’t want it.”

      “You say that every visit,” she said.

      “Let people fight over him at an auction.”

      “And you didn’t pay that man no money for Buttons,” she said. “That’s just the story we gave mama. You told him the horse was hurting, and you were confiscating it. You said you could do it one of two ways, but both ended with us taking him home.”