Why the Star Stands Still (Gives Light Series) (25 page)

"So fix it!" Rafael burst out.

"Rafael," I said, alarmed.  I didn't want him scaring Mickey.

"Excuse me," Aisling said, sounding testy.  "The only way to treat it is a blood transfusion.  And
unfortunately
," she went on, "we're a pretty small reservation; we don't have a blood bank.  I have to transfer her to the county hospital."

That could take hours, I realized.

"You can't give her a transfusion here?" I asked.

"Well," she said, "I could, but--"

"Give her mine," Rafael cut in.  "My blood.  I'm O.  And we're both positive, so don't bother with the Rh testing."

Aisling rubbed her forehead.  "Look..."

"No, you look," he growled.  I was surprised with him; normally he's very respectful of his elders.  I guessed he was in as much of a panic as I was.  "I just want to take her home, okay?  I want to fix her, and I want to take her home.  So give her my damn blood."

"I can't," Aisling said, her voice strained.  "That's illegal."

For a moment--probably dumbfounded--Rafael said nothing.

"What do you mean?" he finally asked.

"Illegal," I said, my spirits sinking.  A part of me had known this was coming.  "Federal law says you can't donate blood, Rafael."

He took another moment of silence.  I could see the dawning in his eyes, the way light touched their dark depths--an unkind light. 

"Because I'm--?"

"Because you're gay," Aisling said bluntly.

"Aisling," I said, and turned to her.  "I know that's the law, but the law's very gray where reservations are concerned.  You know the FBI can't step in unless it's a Major Crime..."

"Do you want me to risk getting this hospital shut down?" she said.  For the first time since I'd known her, she struck me as completely serious.

"If it comes to that," I said, "I'll defend you.  You know I will."

She chewed on her thumbnail, lost in thought.

"Oh, fine," she eventually said.  "But get out of the room.  I've got to cannulate the both of them."

I've always hated that about hospitals--when they're working on you, and you've got your family with you, and suddenly your family gets kicked out of the room while you're going through a tune-up like the Tin Man on an assembly line.  Seriously, what's the worst that could happen?  They put the needle in the wrong guy?  I don't think that's very likely.

In any case, I stepped outside the door and leaned back against the wall.  I took a deep breath and ran my hands over my face.  And I tried--I really tried--to calm down.

"Skylar?  Honey?"

This time it wasn't my sister approaching me, but Robert Has Two Enemies.

If Mrs. Bright and I go way back, then it's only fair to say the same of Robert.  He's in his forties; he's been a nurse at the reservation hospital for as long as I can remember.

I had cancer a couple of times as a kid.  I'd rather not think about the specifics; there's no use dwelling on the unpleasant past.  But Robert--he was there to help me every time.

Robert tsked at me, his clipboard close to his chest.  I still think it's weird to see all those age lines on his face.  He doesn't look a thing like his sister, Lorna.  He's so slender, he'd probably be better suited as a dancer than a nurse.

"Your kid's sick, huh?" he asked.

I smiled, although I didn't particularly feel like it.  "Hopefully not for long," I said.

"I know exactly what you mean," he said, and buckled down to tell me a long story.  That's the thing about Robert; once he starts talking, you're never quite sure when he'll stop.  We sat together on the tiled floor, the wall behind us the color of caramel.  "When I started dating Reuben, I had no idea how to deal with his kid.  Whiny little brats aren't usually my area of expertise, just ask Mary.  And then she got sick one summer--"

"Serafine was sick?" I asked.  "I don't remember that."

"Ahem, I'm telling the story here."  He swatted at me with his clipboard.  "Guess what?  It was only measles.  I caught it when it was early still and stopped it from spreading.  The man's been crazy about me ever since."

I smiled again, amused.  "Is there a point to this story?"

"Were you sleeping through the story?  Of course there's a point to the story.  The point is:  I'm wonderful.  But the second point is:  Don't worry so much!  Kids are hardy.  If they weren't, we'd all be dead."

I tossed his words about in my head for a while.  "Actually," I said, "that makes sense...crazily enough."

"I know it does, sweetheart.  I'm older than you.  I've seen things you'll never see."

"Unless you mean the inside of a nail salon..."

Aisling poked her head outside the door.  "You can come in now," she said.  "They're nice and cannulated."

I stood up; Robert stood with me.  We went into the cozy little room, and the sight that met my eyes almost cleaved my heart in two:  Mickey on the bed, a thin red tube feeding into her arm; Rafael in the chair at her side, her jacket sitting on the arm rest, a cannula taped to Rafael's wrist.  I thought it was poignant, in some odd way, that they were connected like this, the apparatus running from Rafael's arm to Mickey's.  I thought Mickey looked smaller than her age, and pallid.

"How long?" I asked Aisling, my throat dry.

"It takes about an hour," she said.  She folded her hands, her knuckles cracking, distracted.  "Normally I wouldn't condone this--at all--but we get screened all the time, so at least I know his blood's safe..."

Robert walked over to the apparatus and immediately started examining the tube that fed between Mickey and Rafael.  He whistled with approval.  "This baby's called a Tzanck," he told Mickey.  "They started using it in World War II when soldiers needed blood in a jiffy.  Did you know that?"

Mickey shook her head.  I was glad, at least, to see her responding.

"So you know what that means, right?  You're a little soldier girl."

Aisling glanced at her wristwatch; she excused herself from the room.  "I'll check in on you guys later," Robert told us.  "Parents."  He winked.  He walked out after Aisling, humming a little song.

I drew closer to the bed.  "Can I get you anything?" I asked Mickey.

"No," she said.  "Is Mini okay?"

"She's fine, honey.  She's at home."

"Did this ever happen to you before?" Rafael asked her.  "Getting cold, and then going to the hospital?"

"Once," Mickey said.  "I got cold and I passed out.  I woke up in the hospital.  The landlady had found me."

"Why wasn't that on her file?" I asked Rafael, alarmed.

Rafael scowled.  "CPS."

Mickey tried to sit up.  I rushed to the head of the bed to help her.  She flashed me a small smile.  Either it was my imagination, or the color was returning to her face.

"You're giving me your blood," Mickey said to Rafael.

"Yeah," Rafael said.  Or I think he did.  His voice is so guttural, sometimes I don't always catch what he's trying to say.

"I've got your blood in me."

I couldn't tell what was going through Rafael's mind.  Not until he smiled--that small, shy, beautiful smile I wish I could frame on our mantelpiece.  "Yeah," he said again.

"Mickey," I said.

I reached into my pants pocket.  I'd been meaning to give this to her for a long time; I don't know what had stopped me.  Insecurity, maybe.  Nothing says a grown man can't be insecure.

I took out a small trinket on the end of a thin willow string.  A pilot whale crafted from opalescent skink bones.

I couldn't read Mickey's eyes; they steeled, a defense mechanism, when she reached for the pilot whale and took it from my hand.  She turned the trinket over in her palm, examining it at every angle.

"I can keep this?" she asked, her voice oddly quiet.

"It's yours," I said.

She slipped the willow string around her wrist.  I helped her tie it shut.  She lifted her arm--so small, so thin--and inspected the pilot whale in the low light behind her bed.

She glanced discreetly at Rafael's free hand; and at mine.  The glass whale and the wood one.

"I want to stay," Mickey said.

I don't think Rafael immediately knew what she was talking about.  But I did.  My heart swelled and burst with warmth.

"I want to stay with you guys," Mickey said, a little more desperately.  "I don't--I don't want to go.  No more foster homes, no more skeevy social workers...  I'll be good from now on.  I won't break windows.  I won't look for bears--"

I suddenly understood why she was angry the night of the ghost dance.

"Of course you're staying," Rafael said; and if he was a little too quick, a little too eager, I couldn't blame him for it.  Not at all.

I watched the blood flow from Rafael's veins to Mickey's.  I watched the color returning to her face.

So this is what it feels like to be a father.  To be responsible for another human life.  To love someone so much, you almost can't stand it; and when you think about it, there's nothing you want in return.

It feels amazing.

13

Julius

The leaves on the oak trees turned scarlet and persimmon and gold.  They tumbled to the ground in gentle, windy waves.  The burdock was in bloom beneath the evergreen pines, fuzzy brown pods on the ends of thick, woody stems.

Mickey made a face and pointed out the pods.  "They taste like shit," she said.  "Just like that guy I got to bite at the ballpark.  Can I do that again?"

"No, you absolutely cannot," I said, my palm on the crown of her head.

Mickey giggled.  Nothing was going to spoil her mood today.  Mine, either.  The weak autumn sun peeked out from behind the soft gray clouds.  The reservation was alive with families rushing out to the farmland, wicker and willow baskets on their arms.

Rafael and Mickey and I followed the lane down familiar rolling hills.  Mini mewled imperially from Mickey's willow basket.  I'll let it go this time, I thought.  Like I said, my mood was pretty good.

The plains between the ranches and the farms were set up with stalls, tables, and picnic blankets.  Aubrey chased his young sons just beyond the iron gates.  Reuben and Isaac stood chatting underneath an apple tree, Reuben's arms folded, the tree branches fat with their rosy yield.  A group of very old individuals sat in a circle on the ground and sang supplication to the Great Spirit.  The Great Spirit was generous in autumn.

"Wow," Mickey said, gazing around the site.  "It's like a green festival!"

"It kind of is," I agreed.

We walked among the farm gates, the farmers rolling their pumpkins out onto the grounds.  "Can we carve a pumpkin?" Mickey asked.  "For Halloween?"

"Why would we do that?" asked a baffled Rafael, who had never celebrated Halloween a day in his life.

I jumped in before Mickey could protest.  "Of course we can," I said.  "You pick out the one you like."

Mickey wrinkled her nose at Rafael.  She traipsed over to the Takes Flights' gates, smart girl that she was.  Nicholas waved at her and pointed at the pumpkins on the ground.

A few minutes later and we resumed our walk, Rafael's arms stretched around the gargantuan pumpkin, his face unappreciative and disagreeable.

"Tough," I told him, and smiled.

"I bet the Hopi don't have farms as cool as ours," Mickey said, and skipped along at my side.  Mini hissed with disapproval.  I don't think she liked being swung that way.

We stopped at different farms and picked the scallions and the kale, the leeks and the onions and the peas.  Mini hopped out of Mickey's basket so Mickey could carry potatoes and lima beans.  We stopped at Mrs. Siomme's ranch on the other side of the flourmill and Mickey looked worrisomely at the snap beans and the bell peppers standing between the paddock and the cozy barn.

"What's wrong?" I asked Mickey.

"We're running out of room in our baskets..."

"We don't have to pick everything," I told her.  I touched the back of her head.  "Whatever doesn't get taken, the farmers put it into storage.  That way if you need something in the future, you just come back here."

"Are you sure?" Mickey said skeptically.  "The food's just gonna stick around?"

I didn't need to be told she had probably grown up without a surplus to eat.

"Come on," I said, and climbed over the wooden paddock fence--with difficulty.  When did I gain so much weight?  "We've got enough room.  Let's take some apples."

The cows and the horses grazed lazily on the other side of Mrs. Siomme's fence.  Rafael set the pumpkin down and wheezed.  I led Mickey to a lush apple tree and pointed out the knots in the bark.  She climbed--expertly--and knocked the thick fruit off the branches.  I stuffed them into one of our empty baskets.

"Why don't you guys pick up some honey, too?" Mrs. Siomme asked.

Mrs. Siomme belongs to the tribal council.  She and Dad have been friends since before I was born.  Just looking at her, you can't help but feel calm.  She exudes calm; she speaks calm.  I've never known her not to smile.