She is sitting on the airport shuttle with her legs hugging the sides of her luggage, listening to two Spaniards who have just met. As children, their families drove to the same town on the Iberian coast to vacation. In the autumn, the same driving path falls to swamp. Remarkably, their wives share the same maiden name, the rare Rial, which they agree is a surname that carries more than a hint of murder. They notice their mustaches match. They joke over what else matches. Then they begin to swap professional details. Somehow she knows that if she keeps listening one will call the other brother. They will compare travel plans. Their conversation makes the plastic bench harder and the clouds through her tinted window a shade further away from their truth. It is nearly Easter but she hasn’t celebrated it for decades. By the time she rents the car and drives to her mother’s, she promises to have remembered her prayers.
Her reverie is nearly lost when one Spaniard turns to her to ask for a pen. My pleasure, she says, though truly it is not. Bending over to unzip the pocket where she keeps her travel documents, her calf rubs against a disturbance in the fabric. She slips one hand into the silken interior and blindly investigates. The two Spaniards continue chatting. They are watching her and waiting for the pen to emerge, not knowing she has already abandoned that task.
Her fingers meet glass. Her nails tap against it and are met back by echoed taps from within. Her lack of fear is justified. Eight-year-old sons do not deal with partings well. She lifts the jar up from its home, silencing both Spaniards. Inside, garage cockroaches have feasted on a book of postage stamps and move slowly now, engorged. The carcess of a preying mantis lies broken across blades of grass. A fog of quickening breath pulses against the sides of the jar. The least her son could do was make more than one air hole.
The pen is forgotten. Did you leave your bag unattended at any given time? asks one Spaniard. Did you accept a package from a stranger? laughs the other. Good one, hermano, the first one says.
