Page 57 of Snake-Eater
“Silent prayer! What good isthat?”
“God hears everything, you know!”
“Yeah, but Selena doesn’t, and this is about making her feel better.”
“I can certainly hearyou,” said Selena, fighting a wild urge to laugh.
Grandma looked unrepentant. “Don’t know what good a Catholic priest is if he’s gonna act all demure and modest. Might as well get a Unitarian.”
“Some of my best friends are Unitarians,” said Father Aguirre. “That nice young man who comes in from the Fair Trade Association is Unitarian.”
“Which one?”
“The one you keep ogling.”
“Oh, him! Man, I gotta convert.”
Father Aguirre leaned against the fireplace. “It is a tenet of faith that trials endured in this life will be rewarded greatly in heaven,” he told the ceiling. “Another twenty years in a town with you, and surely I will stand among the saints.”
Grandma Billy squinted at him. “What’re you implying?”
Selena suspected that they were hamming it up a bit for her benefit, but she was grateful anyway.
She went out on the back porch. A scorpion perched at the edge, raised its claws briefly at her, then scuttled over the side.
“Oh . . . hello . . .” she said to it.
“Something there?” asked Grandma, poking her head over Selena’s shoulder.
“Scorpion,” she said. “A big one.”
“Big ones are better. Not much more than a beesting.”
“So everyone keeps telling me. It went under the house.”
“Oh, well, out of harm’s way there.”
Father Aguirre cleared his throat and both women looked up.
At the far end of the garden, a roadrunner stood on the rock wall.
Selena took a step back.
It looked nothing like a cartoon. It looked like a dinosaur.
The roadrunner turned its head to look at Selena out of the other eye. She thought of reptiles, lizards, dragons. Its long tail swept up like a sword.
“Please don’t be mad at me,” said Selena out loud. Her voice was shaking, but she had to say it.
This part was easy, even if she hadn’t rehearsed it. She had a thousand scripts for apology, well worn as river stones.
“Whatever I’ve done to offend you, I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intent. Please let me know what I can do to make it up to you. I’m Amelia’s niece. I ... I want to be on good terms with anyone who was a friend of hers.”
“Huh!” muttered Grandma Billy. “Ought to be apologizing toyou, not the other way ’round—” and then Father Aguirre shushed her.
The bird stared at her. It turned around and stamped again.
Selena took a deep breath and stepped down off the porch. She could feel her shoulders hunching up, but that was fine, that made her smaller, and now she wanted to be small and harmless, she wanted this desert spirit to accept her apology and leave with nothing left owing between them.
