Free The Girl of the Sea of Cortez by Peter Benchley

salt. Clothes took forever to dry, and felt clammy.
    This was a breeze from the north. It was dry and fresh and sweet because it had traveled over the highest part of the island, where cacti and wild desert flowers grew. It was a small thing, but Miranda’s life was made of small things, good and bad, and because the breeze was good she was pleased.
    They walked inside the house and began to prepare the fire for the evening meal.
    “I saw a giant manta ray today,” Paloma said at last.
    “That’s nice,” said Miranda, without looking up from the fireplace where she was smoothing out the dead ashes before laying new wood.
    “It was wounded. I think it got fouled in a fisherman’s nets.”
    Miranda started to say “That’s nice” again, but it seemed inappropriate, so all she said was, “Oh?”
    “It didn’t move well. There were ropes hanging out of the wound. It must have been in very bad pain.”
    This time Miranda had nothing to say, so she nodded.
    “I wanted to help it, but …”
    “God will take care of it, He will decide.” Miranda spoke fast, as if spitting the words out in a rush would add emphasis, would convince Paloma not to meddle. It was like a person in an argument he knows he is losing who decides, as a last recourse, to shout.
    “Well then,” Paloma said, “he seems to want to let the manta die in agony, or get eaten by sharks.”
    “If that is His will, so be it.”
    “So be it,” Paloma repeated. She did not intend to argue with her mother. It was an argument that could have no winners, only losers.
    “What fairy tales are you telling now?” It was Jo’s voice, and it came from behind Paloma.
    She spun around. Jo was slouching against the doorway, a smirk on his face.
    “Nothing.” Paloma could not know how much Jo had overheard, but she did not want to discuss the manta ray with him. A big, wounded animal was something Jo could visualize in only one way: price per pound.
    “Giant devilfish, wounded and bleeding, cared for by nurse Paloma,” Jo snickered as he came into the room. “Why do you listen to this foolishness, Mama?”
    “Now, Jo …” Miranda said, and busied herself with the fireplace.
    “Sometimes I wonder if you ever leave the dock,” Jo saidto Paloma. “I think maybe you sit here all day and make up tales.”
    “Think what you like,” Paloma said.
    After a moment’s pause, Jo asked, “Did you really see a big manta ray?”
    “Yes.”
    “And it didn’t attack you?”
    “No!”
    “It must have been really hurt. Devilfish are mean.”
    Paloma didn’t argue. If Jo wanted to believe that, she would not disrupt his fantasy.
    “How big was he?”
    “Big,” Paloma replied. “Bigger than this room.”
    Jo whistled. “ He’d bring a fancy price.”
    “See, Mama?” Paloma said. “He hears about an injured animal, and right away he wants to kill it.”
    “Well, Paloma,” her mother said, “that is how we live.”
    “A lot you bring into the house,” Jo said. “Have you ever brought home a single fish?” He held up a finger. “One fish? Even one?”
    “I …”
    “You what? You nothing. Where was this manta ray?”
    Paloma gestured vaguely. “Out there.”
    “Out where?”
    “In the sea.”
    “I know in the sea. Where in the sea?”
    “It doesn’t matter. He’s gone.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Because I hurt him and he flew away.”
    “You hurt him how?”
    Paloma did not think before she spoke. “I pulled some of the ropes out of his wound and it hurt him.”
    Miranda stood up. She looked stricken. “You what ?”
    Jo said, “You got that close? I don’t believe it.”
    “Don’t believe it then,” Paloma said, knowing that Jo believed every word.
    “You what ?” Miranda said again.
    “Don’t worry, Mama,” Paloma said. “There wasn’t any danger.”
    “She’s right, Mama,” Jo said. “There wasn’t any danger, because it didn’t happen.”
    Miranda looked from Jo to Paloma and back again, not knowing what