Van Gorden 1

Kerisa Van Gorden

Dr. William Woolfitt
ENGL-461-01: Advanced Fiction Writing
13 April 2015
Last revised: 21 November 2016
The Spiders Dance: An Imitation of Moths by Helena Viramontes
I was thirteen when Momma called me into the kitchen and told me that Oma wanted me
to stay with her. I agreed; it was the right thing to do. After all, it was Oma who soaked me in an
oatmeal bath when I had chicken pox at age five, Oma who tied gauze around my knee after I
crashed my bike on a too-sharp turn. Oma was the one who gave me a hiding place from Daddy
when he wanted to make me fast or pray or go to church. Of course it was right thing to do.
Now, I wouldnt say I meant more to Oma than any of her other grandkids. Im sure she
loved us all just the same, but thats hard to know because she didnt show love like Momma did.
Momma snuggled with me and Eleanor while we watched movies and took us with her to Publix
where I always got a free cookie. Oma didnt do those kinds of things, and it wasnt until I
caught chicken pox that I realized she was more than a cranky old lady with no resemblance to
Momma other than a last name they used to share.
The day Momma noticed me scratching the dozens of pockmarks on my skin, she took
me straight to Omas house and left me in her care. Oma ordered me into a bathtub of warm
water and blended oatmeal, saying it would heal my pox-ridden skin. I obeyed at first, but I
almost jumped out at the icky feeling of wet oatmeal. It doesnt itch anymore, does it? Oma
asked nasally, her skeletal hands shoving me back into the water. I flushed until my face was the

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same color as my pockmarks. When Oma finally let me out, she meticulously peeled the clumps
of oatmeal off my skin and out of my hair. I was like a snake shedding its scales.
I liked spending time with Oma after that, and Momma let me. She didnt say it, but I
knew the house was more peaceful without me bungling everything that happened and getting on
Daddys nerves.
So the moment I got off the school bus, I would walk the extra quarter mile to Omas
house with my backpack slung over my shoulder. Once my homework was finished, the two of
us would meet in the living room and curl upto be honest, I curled up; she hunched overon
opposite ends of the leather couch with a pile of books on each of the couchs arms. Even though
we barely spoke or moved, my body relaxed in the knowing that she was there the same way it
used to when I looked at icons before I became too old to believe in windows to heaven.
Now when Momma told me Oma wanted me to stay with her, I could tell it would be
different. Even before Momma said I would have to be homeschooled so I could be around while
she was at work, I could tell. First, because of the way Momma said it, and second, because I
knew Oma was dying. We all did even though none of us, not even the doctor, knew when. We
just knew it would be sooner rather than later because Oma had had her second stroke. As soon
as Momma asked me, I told her I would. It was only right.
When I stayed with Oma, I fed her toddlers mush, and I stroked her hands for hours,
sometimes while reading aloud from The Lord of the Rings and other times while singing the few
Presbyterian hymns she had taught me. The hymns were our secret, occasionally shared with
Momma on those Saturday mornings that she didnt have to work. Oma taught me the words
before her second stroke, but I didnt believe them. I sang more to hear our voices mingling
together than to speak to a god. I believed the words even less seeing her slumped in her

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wheelchair, but I sang for her anyway, and sometimes she would join me for a line or two before
the words turned into wheezes and I had to get her a glass of water.
Whenever I left the house before Momma came in from work, I draped a quilt around
Omas shoulders and left a Mediterranean Lavender Febreze diffuser on the counter. Generally, I
only left to go to CVS. My house had nothing to attract me, what with Eleanor too busy with
college to even tease me anymore and Momma growing more and more hollow inside.
It was almost two weeks Id been with Oma before I decided to take a detour on one of
my CVS trips. Daddys church stood a couple blocks before the store, and I hadnt passed
through that church door in years, but I went in anyways. Inside the nave, I sat down in one of
the metal chairs lining the walls. There was nowhere else to sit; you are expected to stand
through an Eastern Orthodox service. The rough red carpet was better than wood or tile, but it
didnt keep your legs from feeling like they were going to break beneath your weight if you
didnt at least bend your knees.
Across from me, a cluster of icons representing the church members patron saints hung
on the wall. The saints perfectly oval faces were painted with blocky noses and deep-set eyes
with pronounced eyelids. One wore a crown, and another wore only a cloak draped around her
like a bed sheet. One rode on a horse trampling a dragon. I shivered. I had forgotten the
intimidation of this place, the painted eyes of the icons all watching and waiting. They didnt
smile. They stared, and they accused. They wanted me to be with them. I didnt regret leaving.
That was the reason I had to hide from Daddy. When I was little, he would grab me and
growl that the Eucharist was life and I had to take it every Sunday for the sake of my sinful soul.
He would force a prayer book into my hands and jab his finger on the fine type to make sure I
understood how to cross myself and bow and pray. He yelled at Momma for her neglectful

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methods of upbringing, for being no better than an atheist, and Eleanor would drag me out of the
room and tell me to go right away to Vespers and confession afterward. He wont leave Momma
alone until you go, she would say. Cant you see its best for everyone? So I would grab my head
covering, tell Daddy I was going, ignore Mommas trembling lips, and slip out the front door.
At first, I actually went, trudging down Chambliss Avenue, stepping over each crack in
the pavement for Mommas sake. After the dentists office, I would turn right and trot down to
the strip mall that the church was tacked onto the end of. The utilitarian silver back door always
creaked when I opened it, but I was always late enough that everyone was in the nave anyway,
listening to the reader chant Psalm 103. My first instinct was to stay in the back, avoid the stares
of pity and accusation that made me want to dig my fingernails into my palms to keep from
falling apart. But once the priest swung his censer with its clinking bells, I would shuffle to the
center of the room. There, I was shielded from the censing of the church, from the sweet, cloying
smoke that blanketed us like overlapping strands of an ever-thickening web. The incense was
soothing, and I hated it; I hated the way it made me feel like I was losing my thoughts and my
questions that were never answered.
When I stopped caring about the answers, I stopped going to Vespers after Daddy yelled
at me. Instead, I would amble in a zigzag down Chambliss, turn left on 21st Street, and walk
down to Omas house. I liked her front door because it was flat and windowless. The
unwelcoming bare face was a wing I could hide behind. I would ring the doorbell and crack the
door open calling, Oma? Are you here? When I stepped over the threshold, the sting of chopped
onions would sear my eyes and nose. She would step out of the kitchen and lead me by the hand
to the heads of lettuce and raw carrots lined up under the vigil of apple cider vinegar. I would
take the carrots and chop them up for salad.

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The onions for the vinaigrette made my eyes water. Am I crying? No, Oma, Im definitely
not crying. I hate going to Liturgy and Vespers and confession, and Im not going no matter what
they say. I nicked my hand with the chopping knife and cursed. Oma turned to me with a frown.
You shouldnt say things like that, mdchen, she instructed. Youre better than that. I shook my
head. No, Im not. Oma placed her knife on the counter next to the still-whole onion domes and
walked over and wrapped her arms around me. I dont like your Liturgy and Vespers and
confession, either, and I dont understand why a good Presbyterian like your momma agreed to
them, she said. I huffed and rubbed my eyes on the neck of her apron. I didnt believe in Omas
Presbyterian god and predestination any more than I believed in Daddys Orthodox god and
tradition, but I didnt tell Oma that because I didnt want her to yell at me like Daddy did. I could
still pretend with her and enjoy a meal in the moonlight.
Sitting in the Orthodox churchs nave, I wanted to go back to those evenings, but Oma
couldnt eat salad anymore, much less make it. I left without crossing myself, crossed to the
opposite street, and walked down to the CVS. It didnt take long to grab what I needed: more
toddlers mush, distilled vinegar and bleach, Campbells soup, plastic spoons.
When I got back to Omas, the door was unlocked. I frowned and put the groceries on the
bristly welcome mat. When I cracked the door open, I heard Momma crying. She must have
gotten off work early. I hiked the bulging plastic bag back into my arms and walked into the
kitchen. The diffuser had been put away, and the quilt was draped over a chair. Momma looked
up at me with eyes more red than white and tear trails webbing her cheeks. I placed the bag on
the table by her elbow, and I could feel her gaze on me. I took her hand and squeezed it gently.
She whispered, How has my Momma been? Then the tears started again, and she squeezed my
hand so hard the bones crunched together.

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I winced and looked around for Oma. Where had Momma taken her? I licked my lips.
She fell out of her wheelchair yesterday, I said, knowing it would hurt and wondering why I
wanted to say it anyway. It was true, but it was more than the truth of it that made me say it. I
guess I was frustrated. No, I was angry, and not even angry at Momma; she was just the only one
there. Momma looked up at me, and her anger made her cheeks as red as her eyes. I didnt just
let you come here back when youre little, she said. I asked Oma to take care of you because for
some reason, she could do it better than I could! Momma was almost screaming now, and then
she was sobbing. I ran.
I ran to the front door and pressed my cheek against the solid wood. I sank to my knees
and knelt there. The back door slammed shut. My mind wandered and stumbled across the
Trisagion prayers, and I kept repeating the cries for mercy that were imbedded in my brain after
so much forced repetition. When my head fell toward my knees, I reeled it back and looked up
through the window. The moon was rising, a silver sickle. I sighed. Oma would be hungry. I
opened one of the newly bought containers of mush and checked her room.
The room smelled of vinegar and feces, and she had fallen out of her wheelchair again.
She was slumped over her bed, hand reaching for her King James Bible, eyes open and focused.
Ill get it for you, Oma, I said, taking the Bible and curling her stiff fingers around it, Here it is. I
let the mush sit on the dresser until a baby spider fell into it and I threw it away. From the cabinet
beneath the sink, I took Lysol wipes and a plastic bag. I laid Oma out on her bed, taking the
Bible for a moment and putting it on her nightstand. I removed the stained flannel she was
wearing and the oversized diaper and wiped her body clean. I took a pair of underwear and her
silk nightgown from the trunk at the foot of her bed and dressed her like she was a saint.

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When I picked her up, she was no heavier than I remembered, but my arms and legs
twitched so much that I struggled to make the simple turn toward her wheelchair and set her in it
without knocking her head against the metal handles. I put the Bible in her hands. I shivered and
rubbed my arms. Had Momma really gone or did I only imagine hearing her close the back door?
I wheeled Oma out to the back porch, cocooning her in the quilt still in the kitchen before
taking her into the cold night. Im here, Oma, I said, kneeling beside her and opening the Bible
since she wouldnt herself. Im here. Her head fell back so I could see only her neck and the
underside of her chin. I saw spiders scuttling along the walls of the house and crawling onto the
wheelchairs frame. These are the spiders that spin their webs around our muscles and leech the
life out of them until we are bone and skin and the heart is the only muscle left, and they suck the
life out of that, too. They are black, all black, and they danced on Oma like madmen on a grave.
I wanted to join the spiders, to join the dance again because Oma was my partner and
now she was gone; I wanted Oma to spin me around like when I was six and came to her crying
after school because Eleanor told me I couldnt get married until she had; I wanted Omas words
to cocoon me in soft strands like spider silk. For the first time since I was five, I wanted Momma.
Had she really left, slamming the door on her way out? How could she leave and go home like
nothing was wrong? A tear trickled down my cheek, and I let it. Then I let more and more until
they stung and burned. Yes, Oma, Im here, I said, crawling into her lap and brushing the spiders
I saw away. I crawled into her lap, crush the Bible and soaking the silk. Im here.