“I smell abutcoming on here,” said Grandma.
“Yeah. Sooner or later, I had a real boyfriend ... well, I mean, he was my partner, that was Walter ... and I had to bring him home, and ... yeah. I kept hoping that she’d have gotten better, but she didn’t. We were going to go to the movies and she did a full-on Satan’s-got-my-sweet-girl meltdown at me, right in front of him ... god, I could havedied.”
It had been over a decade now, and the humiliation was well scabbed over. Which was, ironically, partly Walter’s doing. Selena shook her head. “And you know, we went to leave, finally, and he turned to me in the car and said—I can still remember the exact words—‘What your mom was saying isreallymessed up. I’m amazed you came out as well as you did.’”
“Well, sure,” said Grandma.
“Yeah, but nobody’d eversaidit before. I mean, he saw what was happening and how awful it was and hesaidit was awful and he still loved me anyway and—just—wow. I would have followed him to hell on my hands and knees. I swore I’d never leave him.” She shook her head ruefully at her younger self.
“Well,” said Grandma. “Well. Good for him, then, I suppose.”
“Mom called me up a few days later,” said Selena glumly. “Said she couldn’t support such a godless union and it was the devil on me. Or in me. Around me. Something.” For some reason, remembering the exact preposition seemed important, even though she knew it wasn’t.
It’s not like it matters anymore. Let it go.
She sighed.Let it gowas such wonderful advice, as if she were clinging to the past with both hands and could set it down whenever she liked.God, if only.
Grandma reached out and touched Selena’s arm. Her hands were hard and bony and had calluses along the palms. But they were alsomuch warmer than Selena’s own, and they squeezed once, kindly, and then let her go.
The warmth gave her enough strength to get the last bit out—not that it reallywasthe last bit, but enough of it for one night. “Anyway. She said that she loved me and I couldn’t come home as long as I was with him.” Selena shook her head. “God, I was so relieved. Well, at first, anyway. Going home was the last thing I ever wanted to do. And after that—”
After that, she’d learned that just because someone would tell you that your mother’s behavior wasn’t okay, it didn’t follow that their behavior was any better.
After that, she’d learned a lot of things, most of them much too late.
She could feel tears just under the surface. “Gah,” she muttered. “That’s enough. I can’t talk about this any more right now.”
“No reason to,” said Grandma. “You don’t owe anybody your story. Have another mojito.”
“There’s only ice left.”
“Have some ice.”
Selena barked a laugh and poured the last of the ice into her glass.
“Never went in much for Jesus myself,” said Grandma. “He didn’t seem like a bad sort, mind you, just a little bland. I’m from down by Juárez originally, and his mother got all the attention there. And the saints, of course. Couldn’t move in my folks’ house for saint candles.”
“But you still believe in gods,” said Selena.
“All I know is what’s in front of me.” She pointed a finger.
At the end of the garden, what looked like heat haze swam in the air, and then a little green figure stood there, crouching over a seedling. Selena watched, holding her breath. He shuffled slowly, on his knees, from one plant to the next. Thin green tendrils curled up his wrists and around his shins, giving them a shaggy look. His head was bowed over each plant, like a benediction. A less threatening figure would be hard to imagine.
“Well, there you go then,” said Grandma. “If it looks like a god and quacks like a god ...”
“I’m gonna go talk to him.” Selena sat down her empty glass and stepped down from the porch.
She made three steps into the garden, and the green figure looked up. There were no eyeholes in the mask—was it a mask?—and then the heat shimmered again and he was gone.
Selena took another step and stopped. There was no one there, and no place that the figure could have gone. If he’d jumped over the wall, his silhouette would have been stark against the blazing sky, but he hadn’t. He’d just ... vanished.
This is impossible,said the voice in her head that sounded like Walter.
“You scared him off,” said Grandma Billy mildly.
“I didn’t mean to,” said Selena, feeling suddenly guilty. She’d never had someone run away just because she walked toward them before. Not just run, but vanish completely out of existence. “I didn’t ... why would agodrun away?”
Grandma Billy shrugged. “Like I said, maybegod’s the wrong word. I don’t know. Maybespirit’s a better one. Maybe he’s just a not-a-human person who likes squash plants.” She considered. “Seems right fond of cucumbers too. Don’t know his feelings on zucchini. Anyway, he’s shy.”
