“Our Lady of the Quarry,” by Mariana Enriquez, had been about the narrator being just another girl in her group of friends, trying to have fun in her youth. The narrator began the story about a woman, Silvia, she doesn’t like by giving details about her — how she saw Silvia. It comes to the reader’s attention that it’s not entirely a means of comparison why she didn’t like Silvia. Rather, she was more upset that the man her and her friends were interested in, Diego, was interested in Silvia. It’s likely that the narrator is thinking of the events that occur, as if she played the biggest part in it, due to the ending. I think she relays this story because she feels guilty about the events that took place, and in the beginning, tried justifying the feelings. I think she has a guilty conscious about it, and is likely thinking about it as she tries moving past it.
I think that the entire piece takes place recently, but no matter how recent or long ago the events took place, she will always have it in the back of her mind — it will never leave her. I think her perspective really kicks in once we get the idea that she is after Diego, who shows little to no interest in her or her friends in the same way they feel about him. It’s possible the narrator believes the story is about Silvia and Diego from when they met to their deaths. To me, it’s really about her moving through — maybe not past — her guilty conscious. She may not understand that, and she certainly did not understand the lives of others or their feelings or motivations.
When I first started reading the piece, it seemed to be a girl jealous or envious of another woman by looks, comfortability, or by the kicker, a man. Once I read the ending, however, it became apparent that she is battling these feelings of grief and guilt, and that maybe the piece is a reflection, or even a confession of what occurred.
Whenever I first read this, I thought that the narrator was setting up the story to be a “she-got-what-coming-to-her” sort of setup but from her petty perspective, but it would make complete sense to have it be a story told to justify Silvia and Diego’s death due to the narrator’s guilty conscious. The fact that the narrator lingers and explicitly said that the dogs ignored her and her friends just like Silvia and Diego did would also support the guilty conscious, like their “friendship” and feelings of angst were connected to what we can assume to be the couple’s deaths. I also thought it was noteworthy how you said that the narrator “thought she played the biggest part in it” when in reality she arguably plays the smallest part besides her own commentary and insight into the different people in the story. We never even know the narrator’s name, and even with the ending it was Natalia who led them away from the quarry before the dogs attacked Silvia and Diego. She wants to play a larger part in this story, but can’t, and being a bystander like this would undoubtedly lead to some feelings of guilt; due to how young she is at this time this story happened it’s no wonder that she would try to justify the events by a bunch of petty rationalizations.