Grass (Arbai, #1)

by Sheri S. Tepper

After long thought and meditation, Father Sandoval had decided it was perhaps the same thing Rigo wanted—the thing called intimacy. Though neither of them would set themselves aside long enough to work for it. They wanted family, but they wanted it on command, like water from a spout, ready when they turned it on, absent otherwise.

She ignored what he had said to Marjorie about riding, ignored his advice to the Yrariers. It did not fit her picture of him, so she struck it from his image as she built him anew, according to her own needs—the gospel of St. Sylvan, according to Stella, his creator.

“Do you know of the uncertainty principle, Marjorie?” “I am educated,” she snorted, very much annoyed with him. “Then you know that with very small things, we cannot both know where they are and what they are doing. The act of observing them always changes what they are doing. Perhaps God does not look at us individually because to do so would interrupt our work, interfere with our free will….”