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This conversation was one that would never be resolved. Illness was something that didn’t affect demons, but I could understand how knowing death was at your heels would make you want to do as much as you could in the time left. Burdening those around you with this news made it all a sad affair instead of a celebration of life.
I understood Catalina’s decision even while Eden’s emotions kept me frozen.
“I just…” Eden began. Heat filled my chest blowing away the hollow electricity of her anxiety and the frigid waves of her sadness.
“None of this matters anymore,” I interrupted, summoning my strength to enter the room. “You argue about things that are no longer relevant.”
“We’re not arguing,” Eden lied.
This was an argument. It was different from how Eden and I argued or even how Eden argued with her friends, but it was clearly an argument. Eden against her grandmothers. The matriarchs of her family who made a decision without her.
“The rot is gone.” I had no intention of adding to the argument or starting another. Eden was being combative because of the emotions that devoured her logic. “Whether you were told about it is irrelevant.”
“Rot?” Lulu’s brows dropped. “What does he mean?”
Catalina’s eyes narrowed at me, still not trusting my nature. “What have you done?”
“My healing does not discriminate. Eden wanted you healed, so I healed you. All of you.”
She gasped, her mouth falling open before she covered it with a shaking hand. Her eyes were glued to me — all of their eyes were. They stared with both horror and gratitude.
Catalina started muttering as she pressed her hands quickly to her brow, her chest and both her shoulders before she clasped her hands together and pressed her brow to her knuckles.
“Lord, forgive me for all my sins,” she whispered in a different dialect. I would have to ask Eden what it was later. I gained the ability to understand it through Eden, though I still didn’t know what it was.
“Sins,” I rolled my eyes. “You’re all quite peculiar.”
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For thou art with me… thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me,” Catalina continued.
“What is she doing?” I asked. What a weird way to thank me for my efforts. I still felt slightly off from it all. Healing mortals was not something I did, and their sicknesses were a sap to my energy in a way healing demons never was.
Lulu followed the ritual and began muttering to herself in turn.
Eden merely leaned back in her chair, her hand resting on the table. Her fingernail picked at the flesh around her thumbnail as she watched them with her nose slightly curled. “Praying.”
“Why?”
Eden said nothing.
I crossed the room and rested my hands on Eden’s shoulders. Their argument had subsided, but that did nothing to quell the storm inside her. “She is well enough to have as many fights about this as you want now. Maybe we should give you all some time.”
“We should go get new scans.” Eden stood. “Just one. If everything is as it’s been for three months the two of you can continue on with your bucket list without me getting in the way.”
“And if it’s not?” I asked as the two matriarchs halted their prayers.
“Then… you’ve given us an abundance of time to argue.”
29
EDEN
Having connections paid off. I confronted my Abuela and Gran about the news of Abuela’s cancer Wednesday afternoon and by Friday, she was off to get her CT scan. Richard, the son of a man who had fancied Gran from church, was the oncologist Abuela had been seeing. One call from Gran and she was hurried in.
Just like that.
Asmodeus’s hand rested on my thigh as we sat at the dining room table in Gran’s kitchen.
Aside from them keeping secrets, I had also been forbidden to go to the scan with them. I argued as much as I could, but once Gran gave me that look, I shrunk back and accepted defeat. Even at her big age, I knew she wouldn’t hesitate to give me a good whack if I thought I could disrespect either of them. I should be thankful. Waiting with Gran would only restart a conversation about how wonderful Richard was. Especially now, married to a demon, I had no doubt her plans for setting me up would eat up our time in the waiting room.
