David passes a long glance at Emma, while keeping the car on the road.
“You know, I must say, I loved it,” he says, after a few minutes of silence.
“What? Loved what?”
“The snake. I can’t get that snake out of my mind. I’ve never been so alive with the Holy Spirit,” David says.
“Uh huh.”
“What did it feel like, Emma?”
“What?”
“You know. What did it feel like, Emma? When the snake bit you?”
“Like I was in a dream,” she says. “Like it was three a.m. and three p.m., and Christmas and the Fourth of July at the same time.”
“Did it hurt?”
“I don’t recall,” she says. “But I don’t think so.”
They turn off the highway just as the sun is falling beyond the skyline into a winding gravel driveway.
“Home,” David says. “We’re here.”
Emma clutches her fists tightly against her abdomen.
David reaches with his right hand and places it over hers.
“It will be okay,” he says. “It is meant to be right with the Lord.”
They stop and park in the gavel drive in front of the 1970s-era ranch-style home underneath a pecan tree that has lost its leaves for the winter. The last flecks of remaining sun seep through the barren branches and Emma feels a cold breeze against her cheeks when she opens the door and gets out of the car.
The driveway crunches in their footsteps as they walk toward a side door. David opens a screen door, and someone on the other side opens the wooden door. Before them stands a woman with outstretched arms. She’s wearing a dark green dress, and has hips wider than her shoulders and hair completely gray.
“Emma,” the woman says. “Welcome. I am Mary, mother of David.”
Emma is startled.
“She loves that line,” David says, laughing.
“Well, it’s true,” David's mother says. “So I might as well say it before the Lord every day as long as he lets me, Praise be to God.”
Emma steps into kitchen, and David’s mother closes the door behind them. His father walks into the room. David reaches for Emma’s hand. He clasps it, and she feebly responds by clasping it loosely back. She looks out the kitchen window into the darkened sky.
David’s father speaks.
“So this is what the Lord hath brought us? Shall it be good? Our heavenly Father, we ask you if this is thy will?” he says in a loud tone, with a nasal pitch.
Emma clears her throat, and looks at David’s father, dressed in dark slacks and a dark blue shirt, with graying, smoothed back hair. He’s taller than David, by a few inches, and he gazes down on Emma from afar, without approaching her.
“Good evening, Sir,” she says. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“You look like your father,” he says. “He’s a good man of God. I don’t know about all those snakes. But, he’s a good man.”
“Snakes?” Emma asks.
“Snakes.”
“Emma was bitten by one father,” David says.
“David likes the s…” Emma says, before David clinches her hand, tightly, cutting her off mid sentence.
“Emma, I, uh…let’s go sit in the parlor,” David says. “Father, I’m sure you would like to join us.”
“Let me get you all some eggnog,” David’s mother says, giggling amid words. “Pentecostal style – heavy on the egg, without the nog.”
“David,” Emma says, pulling at his hand. “Why don’t you show me around first?”
David walks Emma through the house, showing her the parlor, before walking her down a hallway lined with bedrooms.
“That’s my parents on the end,” David says.
“I see,” Emma says. “Where is yours?”
“Mine is here,” he says, turning to the right. “It’s the smallest. But it has the best view.”
David points to the window, revealing a small pond outside lined with trees surrounding the water glistening in the slight moonlight.
“I love a good window view,” Emma says. “Let me see how yours stacks up.”
Emma walks to the window. She spreads her arms wide, reaching side to side, and places her face in the middle of the pane, gazing out.
“Nice,” she says, looking back through a cocked eye to see if David is watching.
David is looking through some papers on his desk, talking nervously.
“Yes,” he says. “I love a good view too. That’s something we share in common. Maybe we can have a good view together.”
Emma is carefully studying the window as David talks. She notices it is only latched in one spot – a twist lock in the center when the top and bottom panes connect. She turns slowly away from the window, back toward David, so she can see him, but she runs her left hand across the center of the window, so that her hand bumps against the latch.