"These apples are prepared," she would say. And every time she switched them out, I would watch. Her routine was always the same. The new fruit carefully placed on the small altar under the framed picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The bowl of apples, fresh flowers, and a votive placed on a white lacy fabric. Usually the candle had a picture of Jesus or another saint depending on Mom’s mood. She would lovingly decorate her table and spend a few minutes each day praying. Asking the Virgin to protect us, and our home. Maybe if Mom had done some elaborate gesture, voodoo dance, or animal sacrifice it might have helped my skeptical mind to consider believing. Nothing my sixteen-year-old brain could conjure to invoke the kind of power it would take to make the apples work ever happened.