Set Me Free (5 page)

It was like a bolt of lightning. As soon as I stepped out of the car into the skinny gravel drive and glanced up at the empty
windows of the house on Antler Hill, surveying all that ranchland, I felt a shiver. I understood. Here I was in my homeland,
but I wasn’t on the reservation anymore. Don’t get confused; I was still angry. This smart-ass white guy from New York City
shows up, this
pretender,
telling everyone he’s building a school for our kids, and we’re supposed to jump up and down? No, thank you. I knew all about
the Elliot Barrows of the world: at Harvard, they lined up one by one to shake hands with me, the noble savage, mightily impressed
by my ability to imitate the smatterings of pedigree.

All the same, standing there on what would become the main
drive, looking at this tangle of ranchland, wondering what the hell Elliot Barrow thought he was going to do with forty-seven
arid acres, I smiled to myself. He was walking toward me with his baby in his arms. All the time I could see him talking,
holding his mouth next to her ear. Her sturdy body faced out toward me, her hands flapped in the air. Then he stopped and
broke into a grin, and held his baby out in front of him. He said something loud, for my benefit, but I couldn’t hear him.
The wind took his voice away.

But in that moment, I felt him, the weight of him, without words getting in our way. I saw the way I might come to know him.
I saw that he was someone I might trust. A father holding his baby daughter, telling her something he thought she should know
about the world. The wind died right then, and I heard what he was saying. “Here comes the story man!” That’s what he was
telling her; he was talking about me.

I paused, doubting. How convenient for him! A storytelling Indian! I was tempted, momentarily, back to the safe harbor of
rage. He thought I was going to tell some cute little Indian stories for him? I reached for the keys in my pocket. But he
approached, and I heard him continue, explaining to little Amelia, “Mr. Fleecing has come all the way from the East Coast
to tell us stories about Beowulf and Tatiana and Becky Sharp and Sancho Panza.” As he pronounced each of these names, he swayed
his little girl back and forth. She laughed as she saw me. “He’s coming to help us.”

I knew from that moment that I loved him. I was ready to love someone. I loved him the way warriors love each other in times
of war. The way they talk about fishermen up at Celilo. We were entering into an enterprise together. I knew that I would
love him for the rest of my life, which was lucky—and not just because I loved Amelia—but because when you hate someone outright,
you can leave him behind, but when you love someone first and then hate him later, you have to stick around. His very presence
complicates you. And so it was with us.

A
MELIA

Portland, Oregon
Tuesday, September 24, 1996

P
laying the violin was, for Amelia, the best thing and the worst thing. It was breathing and it was drowning. It was useful
and it was stupid. It was private and it was showing off. She could not remember a time when she hadn’t spent her evenings
with the warm wooden chin rest scalloping her chin, when she hadn’t felt the high, vibrant notes pulsing through her fingers
as they perched on taut strings, when she hadn’t known that the resulting sounds were both as definite and as fleeting as
color or taste.

Amelia’s first memory of music centered on her father, her serious, wise father, blasting Mozart piano concertos from his
record player—practically their only possession at the time—out onto the open land surrounding them. She realized this memory
must have come from her early childhood, at two or three, for there were just a few of Ponderosa Academy’s outbuildings to
be seen. All she could remember was the movement of the violins over the grass, the piano notes shimmering the creek, chords
in the clouds, tinkling arpeggios resonating off the piercing blue sky, and her father’s voice, pointing: “The meetinghouse
will be there. And the science building over there. And over there, maybe we’ll have a swimming pool or a gym of some sort.
We’ll want to clear land for a basketball court. These kids love to play basketball.”

Music had always been with her. But it had not always been natural. It had not simply flowed from her fingers, as she’d sometimes
heard her father brag. No, it had been built into her, like a sturdy bit of shelving. It served a purpose. She had started
playing a sixteenth-size violin at the age of three, because Elliot believed it was necessary to her development. She kept
playing. When she got good, Elliot drove her to Bend for a weekly lesson with Mrs. Mercer, the former first chair of the Oregon
Symphony. Amelia liked Mrs. Mercer, sure, but what she really liked was the escape from Stolen. Last year her best friend,
Lydia, had been the one to drive her. The drives had been the most fun of all.

But the truth of it was—and Amelia kept this close—that the moment she stepped onto the campus of Benson Country Day Conservatory
for the Arts, she knew she didn’t belong there. She was not talented, she was accomplished, and those were two very different
things.

Still, Amelia had assumed that she would spend her Benson year growing increasingly proficient. It would be worth it. She
would study with Jackson Rice, the violin teacher for whom she’d auditioned. He was famous, only twenty-five, a former prodigy
who believed that only a former prodigy could teach gifted children. Amelia would get better little by little; that would
be enough.

She never believed that in the space of five short weeks, she would soar as the music raced and liked through her body with
speed and light and urgency, and then, horribly, the entire shimmering world would come crashing down around her. She couldn’t
have dreamed that on this evening she would be standing by the window in her dorm room, the receiver hot in her hand, persuading
her father to let her come home. Back to Stolen. Now. She couldn’t have dreamed that lies would flow out of her so easily.
Though Amelia was not, by practice, a liar, lying was worth it if it meant she could get out of Portland fast.

Amelia had waited until any hint of crying had left her voice. She’d made sure that her roommate, Sadie, had left the room.
But
confronted with Elliot’s endless, loving support, she was afraid she’d cry again. She was tired of pretending she was both
fine and mature.

Elliot’s voice was soothing. “Honey, no one wants to
make
you do anything.” He paused. “I’m just so disappointed for you. Mr. Rice seemed—”

“Jackson,” interrupted Amelia. “He wanted everyone to call him Jackson.”

“Well, I know how much you were looking forward to studying with”—Elliot paused again, then said the name carefully— “Jackson.”
Amelia could hear him trying to match his tone to hers. He didn’t want her to believe he was disappointed. “It’s just highly
unusual that he would accept another offer at the start of a school year.”

“I know, Dad, but not every school inspires the same loyalty as Ponderosa.” She tried to laugh, sound lighthearted.

Elliot said, “Are you sure you’re all right, ‘Melia? Are you sure that’s the only problem? Losing your teacher?”

This was the perfect response, because it gave Amelia the chance to regain her composure, to retreat into familiar, eye-rolling
sulkiness. “God, Dad, do I have to cry on the phone for you to believe I’m homesick?”

“Of course you don’t, honey.”

“It’s just that everything is weird here. And if I have to work with that other teacher until they hire a replacement, I don’t
think I’ll be…” Amelia cast about for a phrase that her father would get. “I don’t think I’ll be using my time to the best
advantage. You know what I mean?”

No response.

“Dad?” Amelia went on. “Are you really worried about the money? Losing the semester’s tuition?”

Elliot laughed. “No, honey. You’re talking to an educator. That’s what the money’s for.” She could hear his distraction.

“If it’s not the money, why do you seem so hesitant?”

“Oh, sweetheart, I was just thinking about how good it will be to see you. And how great it will be to have you back here
in case my Big Plan works out.”

This sounded like her dad. “Big Plan?”

“Well, it’s a little premature to call it that, and if I confide in you, you must promise not to tell anyone yet. Especially
Lydia.”

“Dad, what is it?” She remembered how contagious her father’s enthusiasm was.

“If things come through, I think we might be dabbling in the theater here at Ponderosa before too long.” He paused for effect,
then announced: “Shakespeare!”

“Oh,” Amelia said, realizing again why she’d been so ready to leave Stolen in the first place. Ponderosa was exactly the kind
of place where “dabbling in the theater” would be earth-shattering news. “Oh,” she repeated, trying to drive the boredom from
her voice.

“Be sure not to sound too excited.”

Amelia was swept with a wave of remorse. “Dad, honest, I am excited.” She tried to bring the conversation up a level, to tease
her father. “I was just wondering what Cal thinks. I’m sure all he hears is more work for him. You know. He’s Cal.”

“He’s not in the loop on this yet. I’d appreciate your discretion.” Elliot’s voice was tinged with a familiar reprimand.

“I was kidding,” she said.

“Yes, of course you were.” He could sound so stern.

“I won’t tell anyone, I promise,” she said. “Besides, who would I tell? I’m not even back yet.”

“Yes, that’s right. How are we going to fix that?” Elliot’s voice carried so much love that Amelia started to cry, this time
with relief. She didn’t care if he heard. He agreed to pick her up on Saturday. It was the earliest he could get away.

By the time Amelia hung up, she already felt halfway home, halfway back to the world that no one at Benson could even begin
to understand. A sense of safety surrounded her; she often felt this way when she was reaching the end of a particularly challenging
movement, where the fast shifts and high positions, the rapid bowings and measures of thirty-second notes all felt like physical
obstacles that she was somehow miraculously surmounting.

She allowed herself to luxuriate in this sense, but before Sadie came back to their room, before the warmth faded, Amelia
required herself to unfasten her violin case, to lift open the velvet-lined inner compartment where she stored her resin,
and to hold the money in her hand. Eleven brand-new bills. One thousand and one hundred dollars. The money was green and thin
and crisp and light. But most of all, it was wrong. That was why she had to leave.

H
ELEN

Milton, Vermont
Saturday, September 14, 1996

It wasn’t until a week after Elliot Barrow’s phone call that Helen let herself speak about him. She thought she’d dampened
that rush of emotion for good, but leave it to old Michael Reid to recognize the burning underneath the surface and call her
on it.

They were lounging on the brightly painted Adirondack chairs lined up in a row, facing Lake Champlain. It was sunny and bright
and astoundingly green, a day that someone from New York City could truly savor. The perfectly mowed lawn tickled Helen’s
bare feet as a breeze skipped over the afternoon. A damp Ferdinand took turns lolling in the sun, swimming in the lake, and
gobbling crackers from Michael’s outstretched hand. There were cocktails— martinis, mixed by Michael himself—and small matching
bowls filled to the brim with salted peanuts, guacamole, pita chips, and freshly made hummus. This was life at the Reid estate.

Perhaps “estate” was too extravagant a word; surely Michael would say so. Yes, he was one of the Vermont Reids, and yes, he
had made a pretty penny in his own right with his film work, but he detested being called wealthy. And though he maintained
an apartment in the city and summered here on the lake, he would be quick to point out that his apartment was a modest loft
in Chelsea,
that the house on the lake was a rustic cabin he’d inherited from his grandfather, and that really, he was no film star, just
a humble aging theater queen. More than once, Helen had kept herself from commenting that only the rich call three-thousand-square-foot
lofts “modest” and twenty-five acres of lakefront property “rustic.”