Lending Light (Gives Light Series Book 5) (24 page)

"Can I talk to you?" Uncle Gabriel asked.

Warily, I made room between the canned goods on the floor.  He crouched down with me.  I blew a strand of lank, dead hair out of my eyes.

"The anniversary of Susan's death just passed," Uncle Gabriel said.

He didn't need to tell me.  My stomach clenched.  If I had just done things differently that night--

"Rafael," Uncle Gabriel said, "we should have been together for that."

"Wouldn't have brought her back to life," I mumbled.

"I know you're hurting."

He knew?

"I'm hurting, too," Uncle Gabriel said.

It was the first time he'd admitted to it.  I wasn't even sure I'd heard him correctly.  He didn't look like he was hurting.  His face was difficult to read, his fuzzy beard like armor.

"Do you miss her?" I asked quietly.

"Every day," Uncle Gabriel said.  "She was my big sister."

As much as I missed Mary while she was away from the reserve, I couldn't imagine what it would feel like if Mary had died.  I didn't want to imagine.  I wondered what Uncle Gabriel had been like growing up, a teenager who didn't have all the answers, not like the man in front of me.  I wondered if Mom had ever tied her brother's shoes or bandaged his skinned knees.

"Every day," Uncle Gabriel said, with a bitter, unexpected laugh, "I think about how much I hate your father for taking Susan from me."

I didn't know what to say.  I wanted him to keep talking; because I didn't want him hurting anymore.  But I didn't know how to take away his pain.  I was seventeen, and stupid, and often took to hiding in the shadows of my own mind.

"You can tell me," I said inadequately.  "You can tell me how you feel."

"I was against her marrying him," Uncle Gabriel said.  "I actually asked her not to."

I toyed with the zipper of my gray jacket, lightweight and cotton, just to give my nervous hands something to do.  "Because you didn't like him?"

"Because he wasn't good for her," Uncle Gabriel corrected.  "I could see the way he manipulated her from day one.  He found out her interests and emulated them, but once he had her, he told her they were a waste of time.  He befriended her friends to gain her approval, then made her believe they were ostracizing him, so she would cut them out of her life.  At one point he started a fight between Susan and me.  We didn't talk for years."

"You didn't?" I asked, shocked.

"Not until it came out that Eli was committing the murders around the reservation.  Susan finally realized the sort of man she had married.  But I never wanted that pain for her.  Not any of it.  The day we learned the truth was the day she started to die."

I felt sick.  My father had treated my mother like food, something to toy with before he ate his fill.  No wonder we'd never known his hidden iniquity, if he was as manipulative as Uncle Gabriel made him out to be.

"I'm not telling you this to make you hate your father," Uncle Gabriel said.  "He's your father.  You're allowed to love him, no matter what he's done."

"I love him," I said.  "But I think I hate him, too."

Uncle Gabe smiled wanly.  "That sounds exhausting."

It was.

"I want you to understand something," Uncle Gabriel said.  "As much as I didn't want Susan to marry Eli, I got you and Mary out of the deal.  That will never be a mistake."

"Even though I'm such a jerk?" I asked.

"You are not a jerk," Uncle Gabriel said.  "Moody, maybe.  But that's just because your mind is so vast.  It wouldn't be fair to force you into a single mindset and expect you to stay there."

I didn't completely know what he was saying, but I felt shy about it all the same.  I said to him, "Sometimes I worry I'm exactly like my dad."

"Oh, you're nothing like him," Uncle Gabriel said.

"But I look just like him," I said.  "And he gave me all his interests."

"Not all of them," Uncle Gabriel said.

Mom was the hunter.  Not Dad.

"There's more to a person than looks and interests," Uncle Gabriel said.  "There's integrity.  Values.  There's personality.  Eli was the sort of person who wanted all eyes on him.  He was charismatic.  He snapped his fingers and everyone leapt to his attention.  You, kiddo--you're an introvert.  You were like that even as a small boy.  You're a dreamer."

"You don't feel people's feelings?" I asked, brave enough now to broach the subject.

"No," Uncle Gabriel said.  "But I believe that you believe you do."

I guessed that was good enough.

"You should make some veneer for those shelves," Uncle Gabriel said.

"We don't got a lathe," I said.

"It's fine.  You can use the bandsaw."

"Okay.  Uncle Gabe?"

"Yes?"

He stood up.  I chose my words carefully.  We were getting along pretty well right now.  I didn't want to upset that.

"Is there anyone you could call about Sky's dad?" I asked, hopeful.  "Sky's really worried about him.  And I know you know a lot of different tribal councils.  If Paul--"

"Mr. Looks Over," Uncle Gabriel corrected.

"If Mr. Looks Over's hiding on a different rez," I said, "you could find out.  Right?"  I hesitated.  "Please?"

A weird look came over Uncle Gabriel's face, almost like he was going to be sick.  It left just as soon as it arrived.  He nodded.

"I'll see what I can do," he said.

"Thank you," I said.  "Not just for that.  Thank you for...  Thank you."

Thank you for everything, I wanted to say.  Thank you for picking me up when someone else dropped me.  Thank you for taking me in, bringing me up like your own.  Thank you for refusing to hate me while I carried the face of the man who had destroyed your family.  Thank you for making a new family with me.

Uncle Gabriel looked at me, a flicker of emotion in his eyes.  "Don't stay up so late," he advised.  "If you keep reading in the dark, you're going to blind yourself."

"Can I go to church with you from now on?" I asked.

Mom had gone to church every Sunday of her life.

Uncle Gabriel smiled at me.  I pretended he didn't look like he might cry.  "She'll like that, I think."

11

Coming Home

In early August there's an event we call Nuwinuwi, which means Coming Home.  It's sort of like the prelude to the Ghost Dance festivities.  I went out to Aubrey's farm one morning to pick up crabapples.  The Nuwinuwi was all he wanted to talk about.

"I've got plenty of yaupon already--I'm so excited!" he said, his thick glasses nearly flying off his eyes.  "It's the first time Serafine's going to be old enough to understand what's going on.  I think I'll ask Annie to come with me, I wonder if I can get her alone for a little bit--"

He invited me into his house, an ancient, sprawling farm manor.  We sat together under the sloping ceiling in his bedroom, the paneled walls made of dark wood.  A wide, clear window looked out on the hilled crops out back.  In this weather nothing was growing except the sugarcane, tall and reedy and grayish-brown, covered in knots the size of my fist.

I grunted.  "I brought music for you," I said.

"Oh--you did?" Aubrey said, politely interested.

I tossed a Luca Turilli's Rhapsody cassette down on his neatly made bed.  He scooped it up, cautious.

"This isn't power metal," he said awkwardly.  "Is it?"

I gave him a dark look.  "Why?"

"No, no, thank you," he said quickly, stumbling all over himself.

"You want I should bring you Phantom of the Opera next time?"

"Please don't do that," he said.

He sent me home with a bag of crabapples, smaller and sweeter than the domesticated kind, except if you let them ripen, in which case they're sour as hell.  I might have eaten a couple on the way back to Uncle Gabriel's house.  I dropped off the rest in the kitchen--why was Rosa cutting carrots at the island?--and went back outside, following the road to Sky's house.

Sky was already outside his house, setting up his absent grandmother's loom on the lawn.  He turned around, saw me, and beamed.  He made me feel as shy as a five-year-old.

"C'mon," I said, snatching up his hand.

I dragged him off the lawn and north through the reservation.  He'd finally gotten used to being lugged around so much, because he kept up easily with me.  In fact, I got the feeling he had to keep himself from outstripping me.  It was hot outside, and I wanted to visit the lake, but when we arrived there were a bunch of kids on it yet again.  The landscape turned black and white around me.  The trees, the lake folded up in checkers squares, then stacked themselves one on top of the other, a dizzying maze.

Sky touched my hand. 
Do you want to go somewhere else?

The maze unfolded itself, color returning.  "You ever been to the mudflat?" I asked.

We held hands when we followed the lake east.  I almost wanted someone to see us, because then they would know he was mine, even if he pretended otherwise.  Sky swung our hands while we talked.  I asked him whether he'd heard anything from his father and his smile went tight, which I took as a bad sign.  I told him if Annie Little Hawk ever gave him any crap he could just send her my way, but he acted horrified, because of course she'd already sunk her goody-goody claws too far into him.

We came up on the mudflat, a swampy body of water that liked to disappear in the winter months.  It fed into the lake through a thin rivulet in the springy soil around it.  Spiked, russet cattails bowed over the shallow mouth of the water, brown geese nipping at the weeds.  The meadow around us was carpeted in ricegrass, wispy and blond, and wild quinoa, flowers blooming blood red.  Sky pointed excitedly at the strawberry poison dart frogs, no bigger than his thumbnail.  They scampered wetly up the trunks of bent white oak trees, searching for mites and mayflies.

"Eat this," I said.

I sat in the meadow and pulled a ricegrass stalk out of the ground.  I offered it to Sky and he shrank back, but sat with me, grabbing the ricegrass, nibbling on the root.  He seemed to like it.

"We bent those trees ourselves," I said, tossing myself on the ground.  "Dunno how long ago.  We used to use them as markers."

Sky lay down at my side, swallowing the last of his ricegrass.  He put his chin on my belly, running his fingers up and down my tattoo.  My stomach flipped over triumphantly.

A mackerel sky hung over our heads, dark blue dotted with smudged silver clouds.  A lone heron flew between the blankets of white.  A raspberry red sun swelled behind us, hot and humid and angry with August.

"I think I wanna do the Coyote Ceremony," I said.

Sky gave me a disapproving look.

"I know," I said hastily.  The Coyote Ceremony was about penance, about becoming a better person.  Sky didn't think I'd done anything wrong.  "Just...I'll feel better if I do it."

Sky shook his head, but relented.  Sky's fingers found the dimples on my cheeks.  He played with them like they belonged to him; and I guess they did.

"The Nuwinuwi's tonight," I said.  "At two AM.  You know what that is?"

Sky shook his head again.

"Our ancestors come back for a visit," I said.  "They're getting ready to stay with us for the Ghost Dance."

Sky's face paled; which was funny, because it was already the palest face on the reservation.  Where he touched me, I felt discomfited.  I quickly realized why.

"You thinking about your mom?" I asked quietly.

He smiled sickly.  He didn't bother denying it.

"You're gonna like the Nuwinuwi," I promised.  "It's not anything like you're thinking.  But you gotta bring a cup of yaupon tea.  Don't drink it, though."

Why?
Sky asked, puzzled.

"I'm not telling you," I said roughly.  "Don't wanna ruin it."

Sky poked and prodded, but I didn't let up.  He rolled over, resigned, settling back against my shoulder.  He peered at the sky and I carded my fingers through his curls.

Lying in silence with Sky was like holding a million conversations all at once.  I'm not even talking figuratively.  He took my hand and placed it on his stomach and I felt old emotions of his: pain, confusion, hunger.  I wondered how he'd been able to eat all those years ago, stitches in his throat, when an image flashed across my mind--
stomach pump
--and I realized he was sharing his memories with me.  I tried to share memories of my own:  Like the time I first met my maternal grandfather, a Mandan Indian, and he was missing his ring finger, because old-school Mandan used to cut off one finger as a show of fortitude.  I think Sky got the message when I ran my fingertips across his joints and he shivered.  Or maybe he was just ticklish there.

"Wanna see my old house?" I asked.

We got up and walked north, the sun swallowing us.  Farther north the mudflat looped around and joined one of the lake's tributaries, the water clear and still over a bed of flat rocks.  The heron from before skimmed across the water's surface, dipping his bill under in search of minnows.  Tucked into the crook of the mudflat was an old house covered in cobwebs and raw butterfly silk.  The sideways, slanted roof was chipped.  The door to the back patio, once laminated glass, was cracked and dirty, streaked with mud, old leaves, and animal prints.