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heat, despite the chilliness of the evening.
    “Ah, there’s one now. See!” Constanza pointed down. Then, folding herself like one of those collapsible beach chairs, she crouched close to the ground. Her knees made sharp points under the fabric of her dress. “See what cunning little builders they are.” She pointed at a piece of earth the size of a postage stamp that had begun to jiggle. “That’s the trapdoor. It’s made of silk and mud. Even the hinges are made of silk. And sometimes there is a second trapdoor farther down in the burrow. The burrows are lined with silk as well. Clever?” Constanza looked up, her eyes bright with this small marvel. “And you know, here in the cook yard they always seem to build their little traps within about two feet of a horno.” The smell from the last batch of flatbread was still lingering in the yard. A little burrow lined with silk and filled with the scent of baking bread, very comfortable, Jerry thought.
    Constanza looked directly into Jerry’s eyes as thetwo knelt watching the spider pry open the lid. “Yes, a nice situation for a spider.”
    “I hope they never get into your bread.” Jerry spoke softly. The words simply slipped out. Constanza’s hand began to tremble. They looked at each other.
    “Oh, I never worry about that. I don’t think they’d like the yeast, at least not the kind I use for the flatbread.” Constanza turned her head away and looked at the ground as if searching for another spider or trapdoor.
     
    I hope they never get into your bread…. I hope they never get into your bread …. The sound of her voice speaking continued to hum softly in Jerry’s ears. As they sat down again at the table, the memory of her voice hovered in the room as well. She saw the words now hiding in dark corners, crawling into cracks.
    “I was thinking about your sewing project for school,” Constanza said. “I think in the root cellar there’s an old sewing machine someplace. It’s really old, not electric but with a treadle.” Jerry looked up, her eyes questioning. “You know, the kind you have to work with your foot, pumping the foot piece back and forth.”
    Jerry nodded. It sounded good to her. Themachines in school went so fast. She always felt as if she were on a horse that might run away any minute.
    “You can go down there. Take a flashlight, though, because there is only one lightbulb hanging from a cord. I don’t think the machine is that heavy. With Sinta’s help you could get it up here, or Father Hernandez usually comes over on Saturday to collect the Communion host for mass. He comes early, though, because I bake that first thing. He could help you. Sometimes he sends Sister Evangelina and she’s no use at all.”
    Constanza did not elaborate. And Jerry had no idea what “no use” meant from the point of view of a ninety-four-and-a-half-year-old lady who got up at three thirty in the morning seven days a week to bake bread.
    Jerry helped Constanza finish cleaning up, and then Constanza began her usual pre-bedtime ritual of laying the wood in the hornos. More words pressed against Jerry’s lips, but they would not come out. She wanted to say, “I’ll do it myself. I can do it by myself. I’ve helped you all this week. I know exactly how to lay the wood for the fire. I know which ovens are slow, which fast, in which ones youmust pack the wood more densely, which looser. I can do this all by myself, old lady. I want to help you.” But none of these words came out.
    The moon, a full one, was rising now. The trapdoor spiders had finished their nighttime patrols, and the occasional bat swooped through the darkness. Jerry and Constanza laid the wood in the last of the earth ovens. Then, as every night, Constanza gave a mighty yawn and stretched, first putting her hands to the small of her back and then reaching upward and yawning again. Her arms were extremely long, and tonight as she reached her hands into the dusky purple black of the