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Three Snakes (continued from preceding page) Joanie said, “Well whose is it then?”
Pedro and I were both silent, the accusation blocking our windpipes, our words. The air suddenly and ter- rifyingly evaporated. I brought my hand to my throat.
“Let me get this straight,” she said. “You come into my house and chase after my fifteen year old babysitter? The daughter of my friend?”
“No!” was all I could get out.
Joanie turned back to me, hands on her hips. “And you! Look what you’ve done! You’ve ruined everything!”
Her words landed fiercely and I reached for something to hold on to, catching Pedro’s arm. I’d set this whole thing in motion with one sentence on a hot summer night—and now everything was out of control. Even the room seemed to be spinning. I caught Pedro’s eye, his sadness, full and clear like a performer alone on a stage. I knew he was thinking of Maria, his own daugh- ter back home, and that nothing here was right.
“It’s not true. I made it up.” The added, “I don’t know why I said it.”
“Wait,” she said. “You lied?”
I nodded, my eyes beginning to fill. Down the hall, the twins were whimpering.
“About being pregnant?”
I nodded again, my cheeks hot, a certain buzzing in my ears. Pedro touched my arm.
“It’s okay,” he said, his voice so faint the words were barely there.
Joanie looked at him. “It’s okay? To lie about such a thing? To come between us like this?” She shook her head. “Nothing about what’s happened here is okay.”
Pedro sighed, taking a long time to empty his lungs, and ran his hand through his hair.
“I miss my family,” he said.
Those four words turned everything so raw and ex- posed that it hurt to breathe. The three of us stood there unable to move. I wanted to look at Joanie,
but didn’t dare. I wanted to comfort her and have her comfort me. Instead I looked at Pedro who was studying his shoes. I could feel everyone’s loneliness radiating through the floorboards.
Finally I made my way toward the front door, each 45
pull of my legs as if in slow motion, like one of those dreams where you find yourself struggling to escape. I felt their hot, burning eyes on my back, Joanie’s sobs like the sound of a distant waterfall.
There was the familiar slap of the screen door be- hind me and the creak of the second step on her wooden stairs. The evening breeze lifting the heat from my body.
“Those four words turned everything
so raw and exposed that it hurt to breathe. The three of us stood there unable to move”
I would walk home, I decided, wondering how I would tell my mother. If I would tell her.
Behind me the screen door slapped again but I kept walking. Eventually Pedro caught up to me, breath- less and smelling of aftershave.
“Emily,” he said, but I didn’t slow down.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my eyes on the sidewalk, watching my feet move back and forth, propelling me. I wanted a father. My own father.
“It’s okay,” he said. And then he stopped moving. “It’s not you, Emily. All of this—everything—was broken before you said anything.”
But I waved Pedro off and kept walking, the street- lights starting to come on, my shadow stretched long behind me as if spilling the empty parts of me along the otherwise quiet street.
Guyette received her MFA in Creative Writing from Brooklyn Col- lege where she won the Louis B Goodman Award for Best Short Fiction. Her stories have appeared in Calyx, The Little Magazine, Potpourri, and Every Day Fiction, with stories forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine and Persimmon Tree. She lives in a cot- tage just outside of NYC and is currently at work revising her first novel, The Radio Man.