Forget Petaca! Forget Raul!
But did one forget someone once loved? Could there never be accord? Gabriel had recommended patience. The dung beetle was patient: she had seen it shoving a ball, worming it from side to side, attacking it frenziedly. She was no dung beetle. Revolving the delicate cup on its saucer, guiding it around inside the rim, her toes digging at the rungs of her chair, she smelled her own flesh, waited. It seemed to her she had waited more than half her life, waited for someone to love, waited for marriage, waited for sexual adjustment, waited for childbirth, for her babies to walk and talk. Even death had to be waited for. Her own. Her friends. Don Fernando's.
She heard her father-in-law say:
"Let's not bring that toy to the breakfast table....
"This is no place for women ... get out....
"Well wait for your wife to go to bed....
"Take the noisy children away...."
Dressed in one of his charro outfits or in badly pressed whites, whip or quirt in hand, he epitomized Petaca. Blood-shot eyes, battered mouth, scrawny neck—soon death would take them away. And she knew how he feared death; she had heard him mumble to himself. It had perplexed her that Caterina had been fond of him but she let them alone, hoping the innocence of one would offset the vices of the other. Well, it had been a brief affection. She wondered how she condescended to treat him humanely, almost with affection sometimes.
Pouring herself more coffee she tried to shake her mood and said the first thing that came to mind:
"What have you been thinking about?"