Eagle, Kathleen (28 page)

"That's
Crybaby," Helen heard herself say. She felt as though she'd stepped
outside herself. The real Helen was watching and listening to the actor Helen
carry on in some crazy dream. She might have been a character in one of Roy's
shape-shifter stories. Whirlwind Woman, maybe, the Arapaho caterpillar, always
spinning in circles and throwing dirt in people's faces. And these were the
people she loved, would never hurt, never.

But
such was her power,
Roy
would say.

"Did
he cry when he got hurt?" Sidney was asking.

"I
wasn't there, but it looked to me like he stood his ground. Maybe he deserves a
new name."

"Who
named him?"

"My
father."

"Hey,
Crybaby." Sidney ruffled the dog's fur and laughed when Crybaby whimpered
and wagged his butt happily. "He doesn't seem to mind it as long as you're
scratching his ears when you say it."

"You
know what?" Carter said. "Sidney and I haven't eaten anything, and
you guys obviously just ate, so I'm going to take Sid over to Big Nell's for a
quick burger. Give you time to whip up some dessert here. Maybe some
coffee?"

"Is
that okay with you, honey?" Helen asked her son.

"Sure."
A quick, bony-shouldered shrug, a boyish grin. "What've you got for
dessert? Strawberry shortcake, maybe?"

"If
you don't mind frozen strawberries." She reached for him, but he'd already
skipped away, so she called his name. He turned, gave her a one-eyed squint,
waiting. "I'm really glad to see you."

He
grinned. "But you were totally surprised."

"Totally."

She
stood staring at the space after her son and his uncle had left it. She heard
Carter's car start. Funny, she hadn't heard it before. No, not funny. Before,
she'd been totally engrossed. A moment ago Reese had loved her, so maybe it
wouldn't hurt so much to turn and look at him now. Maybe.

"Aren't
you going to say anything?"

She
tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry. All dried up, she faced him.
"Only that he's the most important thing in my life, and I have to protect
him."

"Protect
him? Who's threatening him?" He shook his head, the shock he'd been able
to mask now plainly written on his face. "God damn. I feel like I've been
punched in the gut. Can't catch my breath." He, too, glanced toward the
side of the house, where they'd watched Sidney go. "Did it show?"

"No,
and I appreciate that. Reese, I..."

"God
damn."
An echo, softer; as though, looking into her eyes, he had
only one wish for her. "You know, I thought... maybe. I mean, I wondered
why you up and left." The snap of his fingers startled her, jerked her to
attention. "Just like that, quit your job and,
pfffft,
gone."

"I
left between semesters. I was able to transfer because they were phasing out
the—"

"Shit."
Again he shook his head, staring at her as though she'd suddenly transformed
and he was trying to figure out the trick. "You know, I really don't give
a damn how you were able to transfer or what the goddamn BIA was phasing out,
so forget the technical details. What I want to know is—" He spun away.
"Shit."

Oh,
God, he was leaving.

"Where
are you going? Reese!" She went after him, grabbed his arm, made him look
at her again. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm
going back to—I'm going
home."
He shook her off, but the word
reverberated. "Home," he repeated softly, almost reverently, as
though this, at least, was something that made sense. "I need to..."
She was still reaching for him. He put his hands up, putting new distance
between them. "I need to think about all this."

"Think
about what? Obviously you're his... a-and obviously I could have and maybe I
should
have tried to contact you." Her dry throat had been assaulted suddenly
by a thousand needles. "A-at some point."

"It
wouldn't have been too hard."

"I
know. I know that."

"Jesus,
why did you tell him his father was
dead?"

"It
was the least complicated explanation. At the time." She swallowed, and
swallowed again. "I thought it would hurt the least."

"Really?"
He snorted, his eyes ablaze. "Yeah, that makes sense. Dying's
painless." He flung an arm out toward the table, the shady place where
he'd all but taken his battered heart from his chest and laid it in her hand.
"What kind of a game was this, Helen? What was this all about?"

"I
wanted to tell you, but after all this time, I couldn't just..." She took
a deep breath. "I was trying to find a good way."

"You
didn't—"

"I
didn't know he was coming."

"Did
Carter—"

"I
don't think so. He knew I had a son. That's all I told him. That's all I ever
tell anyone. That's the one truth I know, the one that keeps me going. I have a
son."

"But
every time you look at him, there's gotta be another truth staring you in the
face. God, for me it's like looking in a mirror."

"No,
it isn't, Reese. He's not you. He doesn't know you, and it would be—" She
panicked when he turned on his heel. "What are you going to do?"

"I
told you. I'm going home, turn the damn air conditioner up full blast. I need
to think. I need to not be looking at you right now."

She
felt cold, a full blast in the heat of the day. He was going, and with him went
power. All kinds of power, power she didn't even know about, and it all had to
do with who he was and where he was from. It scared the life out of her and
left her cold.

"Don't
try to take my son, Reese."

He
turned, retraced two of his angry steps, eyeing her as if she'd just exposed
something he hadn't seen before. "Why would you think I'd do that?"

"Because..."
Her eyes burned. Weakness. Damn it, she would not cry. "You might think
you can."

"Can
and will are two different words. Isn't that what you teach in school?"

"Can
and may," she said, instructing out of habit. Tiresome habit.

"You
mean, like,
Mother, may I?"
he sneered, his face stony. "I
never really had a mother myself, used to think maybe I was missing something.
But I don't know anything about
may I.
Either you do or you don't."

"I
won't let you, so don't even think—"

"Don't
tell me what to think, Helen." He drove splayed fingers through his long,
thick hair, then tapped his temple with impatient fingertips. "I've gotta
clear everything out of here and start from scratch, and I don't need
you..." The words hung in the air while he drilled her with a chilling
look. "To tell me what to think."

Helen
made the shortcake partly to
keep her hands busy, but mainly because
Sidney had asked for it, and she was his mom. She wanted him to know that he
could depend on her, no matter what anyone else said or did, simply because she
was his mother. She would have the dessert ready soon, and then she would shore
up her grit and go over to Big Nell's for her son. She and Sidney had weathered
some big storms, and together they would get through this one.

"Helen?
We're back." It was Carter's voice, coming through the front door.
"Mmm, this smells a lot better that Big Nell's."

Helen
met them in the living room. "Honey, you can put your stuff in that little
room to the right. There's not much in there, but I made up the bed for
you."

Sidney
headed for the hallway off the living room with his duffel bag.

"He's
gone, huh?" Carter asked, craning his neck for a peek in the kitchen.
"I take it he didn't know." Helen shook her head.

"Obviously
I didn't, either. Weren't you going to..."

"Not
like this. Not taking everybody by surprise."

Sidney
came back on the last word. "The surprise was my idea, Mom. Don't blame
Mr. Marshall."

"Carter,"
came his uncle's correction. "You can start calling me Carter since we're
co-conspirators." He shifted his feet, offered a sheepish smile. "I
hope I didn't cause you too much trouble, Helen. I'm sure you had your reasons.
It'll be okay. You'll see."

She
had nothing to say to that. No predictions. She returned a vacant look.

"And
I think I'd better get my meddling nose pointed west, huh?" Carter
answered his own question with a nod. "You gotta meet my kids, Sid.
Derek's a little younger than you, as it turns out, so I think he'll end up
dogging your heels like a puppy."

"Yeah,
that'll be cool." Sidney was on the move, checking out his mother's
temporary digs, following his nose to the kitchen.

"He's
right. It'll be cool, Helen. Once everybody gets over the shock, and around
here, that takes no time at all. You'll see. It's all in the family. Listen,
I'm taking you off the schedule for the next few days. You need the time."

Sidney
stuck his head around the corner, his mouth already full. "You don't want
any strawberry shortcake, Mr.—Carter?"

"Thanks,
Sid, but if you look at my belt, you'll see that I've had to give up two
notches since we put in the bottomless dessert bar at Pair-a-Dice City. I've
about bottomed out."

"Just
get a new belt," Sidney said, catching a crumb as it fell from his lip and
popping it back in his mouth. "Go shopping with us this weekend. What have
you outgrown, Mom?"

Carter
forced a laugh on his way out the door.

Sidney
chattered about his flight, how he had to change planes and that the Rapid City
airport wasn't very big, but Carter had said that Rapid City was closer than
Pierre because of the Interstate, even though, on the map, Bad River looked
like a little pinpoint maybe halfway in between.

Helen
could tell he was uneasy. He'd taken a major step without consulting her.
Lately he'd been hotfooting it between childhood and adolescence, the barefoot
boy on asphalt. He was Mom's good boy one minute, his own boss the next, and he
wasn't completely comfortable with either role. So he chattered. Some days he
got sullen. Chattering was better.

She
put her arm around his shoulders as he heaped the Cool Whip on the
strawberries. "I'm so glad to see you."

He
grinned. "Looked like you were mad for a minute."

"Surprised."

"It
wasn't like I was taking a ride
with
somebody, even though I didn't know
him exactly, but you do. And he said, you know, you work there and they do this
for employees, and I thought—"

"It's
all right, hon. I'm just glad to see you."

She
sat across the table from him, much the way she had been sitting with his
father little more than an hour ago. It was good simply to watch him eat, the
primal satisfaction of feeding her child. His father's food had gone to waste.
Her fault. Her secret revealed, her shortcoming. It was good to watch her son
eat, but she felt sick to her stomach.

Ah,
but she hid it well.

"How's
the shortcake?"

"I
like it better when the strawberries are fresh, but it's still twice as good as
anything they make at camp." He looked up and gave her a juicy red smile.
"I can't wait to tell Jordan and Scott that I met an NBA basketball
player. They're my bunkmates. Jordan shoots pretty good, but I'm way better
than Scott."

"I
guess Jordan's got a name to live up to."

"Jordan's
his
first
name."

"What
did you think of Reese Blue Sky?"

"I
think he's
big."
Sidney puzzled over a spoonful of whipped cream.
"If him and Carter are brothers, how come they don't have the same last
name?"

"Their
mother died shortly after Carter was born, and their father—his name was
Roy..."

Sidney
had asked about last names several times before. When there was no father in
the house, people generally didn't ask about names. But kids and their friends
did, and the fact that Sidney's name was the same as Helen's father's had come
up. Helen didn't go by Sidney's father's name because she'd kept her name.
Besides, he'd died a long time ago.

Acceptance
without question was becoming more the exception than the rule. Dead wasn't so
painless. No lie ever was.

"He's
the one who just died," Sidney supplied.

"Yes,
Roy just died. He was killed in a hit-and-run... accident."

"That's
the funeral you told me about, where they did that cool Indian stuff."

She
nodded. He should have been there. He should have been allowed to stand beside
his father and receive condolences on the death of his grandfather. But for his
mother's cowardice, he would have. She sighed. There was never going to be a
good time to tell him.

"Anyway,
Roy didn't think he could take proper care of a new baby after his wife died,
so he gave Carter up for adoption. Carter has his adoptive family's last name.
He came back to live with Roy and Reese when he was your age, maybe a little
older."

"Was
the other family mean to him?"

"No,
they were good to him. But there's a law, a federal law..."

The
Indian Child Protection Act. A well-intentioned law, the response to a long
history of non-Indians taking Indian children, legally, "for their own
good." It was part of a terrible history between the two races that had,
the more he'd learned about it, prompted Sidney to look at his mother and ask
why, as though she would know.

She
would know because she was his mom, and she was smart. He'd once trusted her
for answers. But then he'd begun to understand that he looked like
"something else."

Was
his father foreign? Did you adopt? Is he...

He
was hers. That was all anybody needed to know. Anybody except Sidney. And when
he had started thinking of himself as an American Indian and trying to find out
for himself what that meant, all she was able to give him were the books and
the history. When he asked her why things were the way they were, why people
behaved the way they did, it wasn't because she was his mom that he thought she
should know. It was because, for the first time, he'd realized that he was an
American Indian and she was not. She was white. And that was different.

And
the laws were different.

"There
was a change in the law that made it possible for Roy to take Carter back. It's
all very complicated, but Carter kept the name he'd grown up with, and I think
he kept in contact with the family, and it all worked out okay." She
offered a tight smile. "I think."

"Sounds
like a big mess to me. Carter doesn't play basketball. He says he's more the
bookish type." He shoveled a forkful of strawberries and whipped cream
into his mouth, then captured a stray bit out of one corner with a quick
tongue. "I'm both, huh?"

"You're
both." And she wasn't. But she was, first, last, and always, his mom. She
loved him, desperately sometimes. "There's something I have to tell you,
honey, and I'm..." She folded her hands primly on the table. Desperation
was a terrifying thing. "Frankly, I'm a little scared."

"What
did you do?" His fork hand stilled. He stared. "Mom, you're not
gambling again, are you?"

"No."
His worst fear, that his mother would lose control again. His mother with the
prim hands who loved him so much. She had learned to be up front with him on
this issue. "No, but I did come close at a casino in Deadwood. I wanted to
show off a little. It wouldn't have been our money, it would have been..."

"A
bad mistake, right?"

"Right."
She smiled. "I knew that."

"We're
doing fine, Mom. The credit cards are almost all paid off, right?"

"I
shouldn't say I came close," she added quickly. "I was a little bit
tempted, but I handled it very well, I think. I kept my considerable wits about
me."

She
shook her head. She remembered when the gambling thing had been nearly
impossible to talk about. Now it was almost a welcome distraction.

"That's
not what's weighing on me right now at all. I need to talk about something
else." She unfolded her hands, stacked them instead. "There's
something I've kept from you, kept it to tell you when you were older. But now
I can't keep it anymore."

"Keep
what?"

"Keep
him. Keep your father." She looked her son in the eye. "He's not
dead, Sidney."

"He's
not?" His eyes widened. This made no sense to him. "You said..."

"I
know I did. I said it because I was afraid I'd lose you to..." That wasn't
the part he needed to know. "Reese Blue Sky. He's your father."

Not
a flicker in his eyes. No sense. Nonsense.

"Sidney,
I haven't seen him—except on television— since before you were born. He came
back here for his father's funeral, and I was... and that's the first time. I
didn't think I'd ever see him again."

"Aw,
Mom." His dark eyes turned sweet and soft, as did his high-low voice.
"Didn't he want to marry you?"

That
tingling was back in her throat. She pressed her lips together to keep them
from trembling. She didn't deserve this dear child.

"We
never talked about it."

"Was
it like... he didn't want a kid or something?"

"He
didn't know about you." She glanced away from the little furrow beginning
to form between his straight, jet-black eyebrows. "He was on his way to
Minnesota. I always thought about it like he was going off to war, you
know?"

Sidney
shook his head slowly, staring. "The NBA isn't the same as war, Mom."

"Well,
I know that." He doesn't need your rationalizations, she told herself. He needs
facts. "I didn't know I was pregnant when he left. When I found out, I...
I didn't tell him. I moved back to Denver, I had you, and I never saw him again
until now."

"You
were scared to tell him?" he asked gently. "Is he mean? He doesn't
seem—"

"No,
no, he's very nice. He's a very good man, Sidney."

He
thought about that for a moment, working on it the way she'd seen him tackle
his homework, trying to add it all up.

"Are
you gonna tell him?" he asked.

"I
don't have to. He saw you. He knew I had a son, but he didn't know you were
his
son. When he saw you—"

"What?"
His fork clattered on the plate. He leaned forward, challenging her. "I
don't look like him. I don't look like anybody but myself."

She
reached across the little table to comfort, to touch only his hair, but he drew
back, and it wasn't the usual adolescent boy avoiding the grooming hand. He
didn't want to be touched, not now, not by her.

She
gave a tight-lipped, respectful smile as she stacked her hands close to the
edge of the table, her left hand restraining the offending right. "You're
incredibly handsome, all right."

"So
he could tell?" he asked reluctantly. She nodded. "What did he
say?"

"He
was just as surprised as you are, just as confused. It's all my fault, sweetie.
I've handled this very badly."

He
stared at the remains of his dessert as though it disgusted him. What was left
of the cake was bloated with pink juice. His lips were pink with it, too.
Parted slightly. Unmoving. She remembered the time he had gorged himself on
Halloween candy and she'd found him sitting on the floor beside the toilet.
He'd said he felt like throwing up and he wished he could get it over with.
She'd wished she could do it for him.

Finally
he sat back and folded his arms. "Yeah, well, I don't need a father."

"No,"
she said, too quickly. "No, no, no. Now, honey, he's not—"