How we cite our quotes: ("Abbreviated chapter name," page)
Quote #7
"Fruit and coins are strewn by [the ceiba tree's] trunk and the ground around the tree bulges with offerings. Celia knows that good charms and bad are hidden in the stirred earth near its sacred roots. Tía Alicia told her once that the ceiba is a saint, female and maternal. She asks the tree permission before crossing its shadow, then circles it three times and makes a wish for Felicia." ("Palmas Street," 43)
So Celia doesn't believe in religious mumbo jumbo...but she does like to hedge her bets. In this case, her interaction with the supernatural is a spontaneous response, learned in her childhood from an unconventional aunt.
Quote #8
"Her body starts to sway, and her clasped hands rock beneath her chin until it seems she is all loose, swinging angles. And then, as Celia watches, the little santera's moist eyes roll back in her dwarfish head until the whites gleam from two pinpricks, and she trembles once, twice, and slides against Celia in a heap on the sidewalk, smoking like a wet fire, sweet and musky, until nothing is left of her but her fringed cotton shawl." ("Baskets," 160)
Yes, that's right. She spontaneously combusted. Again, the big surprise isn't that the santera evaporates; it's that Celia merely bends over and picks up her shawl. It's as though this kind of thing happened every day. (We're not even sure that next of kin were notified.)
Quote #9
"'Lourdes, I'm back,' Jorge de Pino greets his daughter forty days after she buried him with his Panama hat, his cigars, and a bouquet of violets in a cemetery on the border of Brooklyn and Queens." ("Grove," 64)
Far from being dismayed by her father's posthumous return, Lourdes takes great comfort in her father's company. Since he is the only person she feels sympathy with, it's really her only chance for real companionship and possible emotional healing.