Crossroads ... by Ray
Nobody but Tio Carlos knew just when and where he met Tia Cosmina. The facts died with him and she refused to answer any queries on that subject. Grammer Maze, on that side, thought that they had met in east berlin when Carlos was in the army circa 1960. Abuela Consuela, on the other side, just remembers her stepping off of the train from new york, talking like something between Marlene Dietrich and Bela Lugosi.
Carlos and Cosmina never successfully spawned. All of the in-law nieces and nephews and cousins, once removed were like children to them and we great nieces and nephews like grandchildren. We never got really close to Cosmina on account of our fears and prejudices since she was said to be a gypsy and a witch.
Then in the summer of my fifteenth year, the much celebrated Rev. Dr. _____, a furloughed missionary to bosnia came to town and spoke at our church. At some point during the ceremonies, a clumsy imp trod on one of Cosmina's gouty trotters and she yelled out something in a foreign tongue. After the service, the furloughed missionary, recognizing the foreign cuss words as serbo-croat spoke to Cosmina.
In fullness of time they got to be quite an item, he a widower and she, of course, Tio Carlos' widow. In fair weather they took tiffin, picnic style in her rose garden and he , though a good baptist never objected to a drop or two of homemade plum brandy in his tea. That he would eventually propose nuptials and that she would accept was a given. The only barrier was her occultic paganism. She would not renounce and repudiate the evil works of satan and he could not be unequally yoked to an unbeliever.
In the coolness of an evening in her rose garden, things finally came to a head and..... poop or get off of the pot, he issued an ultimatum. She had to get saved and sanctified and baptized lest they must immediately cease sparking and pitching woo. She countered with a challenge pointing to a wee little yellow striped cooter, no bigger around than a silver dollar wading in the birdbath. If she could by spell cause that reptile to supernaturally grow in size would he remain affianced to her ? So the furloughed missionary, like robert johnson at that infamous mississippi crossroads comprised his faith. All for a septuagenarian piece of fluff.
That that reptile began growing there was no doubt. The cooter, started out about the size of a snuff can and in just under a year to the size of a hubcap as Cosmina had prophesied. The furloughed missionary accepted defeat and he and she were married at a judge's chambers. They all lived happily for ever after for several years, never discussing religion or politics or reptiles until they both passed within a month of one another.
I was the executor of their estates and was left both with the task of keeping Cosmina's secret and returning those four dozen cooters in my collection, varying in size from a snuff can up to as big as a hubcap, back into the Caddo River.....