Mary knew there were black widows in the house. This morning, while reaching for a jar of tomatoes, she had seen one in the cupboard and had carefully caught it in a glass with a playing card and carried it outside to the lilac bush, careful not to injure it, planning on not telling a soul about it.
Then, when she was sweeping up some dust around the hearth, she thought she saw two more, darting into a crack in the fireplace. What if it was an infestation? What if one bit the child?
Still, it was important to keep it a secret from her sisters. Important because if she told them, she would have to do something about it. And she couldn’t bring herself to call the exterminator, to arrange to have them killed. That would put her in bad stead with the whole of the arachnid kingdom. And then one of them would surely bite the child out of retribution. Ants, roaches, flies she was happy to spray, stomp, gas. But spiders…there was something special about spiders. Something deserving of her respect. Besides, she needed all the friends she could get…
