They came upon a sign that read Welcome to Oglala Nation – Buckle Up! It is OUR law! Here they were. They had arrived. The landscape was stark, desolate with miles and miles of prairie grass. There were so few houses, Elbe wondered if this place was actually inhabited.
“Where are the people?” she asked visibly worried.
“Here and there, I guess.”
They drove by a series of broken down and abandonned trailers.
Elbe pulled out the piece of paper where she had transcribed Maya’s address. She had memorized it, read it so many times she did not need this anymore and yet she could not let go of it. Like a map, the paper made her feel safer, more grounded.
“There is no way I can just drive up to the address right now. Let’s go find a place to stay and regroup and then we’ll head over. What do you think?”
“Absolutely. If that’s what you need, that’s what we’ll do.” Elbe could feel her heart constricting. Why am I doing this? She asked herself. I’ve gone this far without them, why do I need to meet these people? Why was she so sure there was more than one person? She wanted answers. She did not want them. They drove to the nearby town of Allen where they found a motel on the edge of the world.
Elbe wished she had found natural beauty instead of the desolate landscape that surrounded them. She had invented a magical place of poppies and blackbirds flying around the peaks of the black hills. She had wanted to find all of this imagined splendor instead of the austere empty, dusty roads and this motel on the side of a barren road. They walked into the musty mustard deserted lobby. Ring here for service read a small sign on the counter. Elbe pressed it, shyly. She did not want to disturb. Joey pushed it again, this time with more insistence. A man came from behind a plastic curtain that he pushed aside slowly. When he saw Elbe, he nodded, and smiled faintly ignoring Joey. Elbe noticed his toothless grin. It was difficult to say how old the man was or whether he looked Indian. Elbe thought how the man and she did not look like they belonged to the same people and yet she had felt his recognition in the way he had eyed her. This was the first time in her life Elbe had felt claimed. He had seen her. Instinctively, he knew she belonged here.
“We’d like a room, please,” she spoke responding to his recognition.
“We have a $39.99 special,” the man said, looking at Elbe calmly.
“Good. We’ll take that. As long as there are two beds in the room.”
“What? You don’t want to cuddle with me little lady?” Joey snuggled up against her. Elbe found both comfort and embarrassment in his words. She wondered whether her body knew this place, the way the man behind the counter had known her. She wanted to believe she was genetically wired to the somberness of the black hills pushed back behind hundreds of miles of burnt prairie grass. What if everyone were genetically wired to one geographic location? Were there places where we truly belonged, even if we had never been there or carried any memories of the imprints left there by our ancestors? Elbe wished this to be true. She wanted to belong not just to a people but to a place as well.
They climbed to the second floor of a series of outdoor entrances to the rooms. They pushed open the rickety door to their room. It was dark. The sound of trickling water sounded from the closed door of the bathroom. Elbe waited by the door as Joey fumbled for the light. A bare bulb ignited exposing two parallel single beds next to each other.
“We could push them together and cuddle.” Joey smiled again.
“Enough with your cuddling. I’m not one of your conquests Joey,” Elbe wasn’t sure whether she was serious or not. Joey was not either.
“You know I’m kidding right? You don’t actually think I want your nasty pussy, do you?” They both laughed.
Elbe remembered the scars she had seen on Joey a couple of days earlier in the previous hotel room. She pushed the thought away.
“Can I read it to you?” Elbe finally asked Joey as she propped up the pillows on her bed.
“Read what?”
“Maya’s letter.” Her heart was doing this strange flip-flop of a twist in her chest.
“Yeah, read it!” Joey screamed like a kid on his birthday.
“Dear LB.” Elbe paused. “Oh, she wrote Elbe with letters, as in L and B, Weird, right?”
“Why would she do that?” Joey asked.
“No clue,” Elbe answered.
“OK, Keep going.”
Elbe started over.
“Dear LB, Receiving this letter is probably as strange as writing it I’m sure. I recently found out about your existence by accident. You and I are sisters. Not just sisters. Twins. Yeah, I know, it’s weird. I can’t wrap my mind around this one either. Thinking of you out there, another one of me. Well, you’re not me, but you know what I mean, right?”
Elbe looked up and smiled at Joey. Secretly she thought about how the phrase another one of me had been the exact words she had chosen to refer to her twin sister when her mother had given her the letter.
“She’s kinda funny. Well she’d have to be to be your sister,” Joey laughed.
Elbe kept reading. “You can reach me at this address. I know you live far away, but maybe we could meet? Please write OK? I have waited for you my whole life.” Signed “Maya.”
I have waited for you my whole life. That was Elbe’s favorite line.
“I wonder what she does for a living.”
“Hey, at least you know what she looks like,” Joey laughed again. Elbe looked at him sitting cross-legged on his bed. He seemed uncomfortable and smaller somehow. Suddenly Elbe felt that Joey could not really help her get through this moment, this experience. Maybe no one could.
“We’ll drive to the address in the morning,” Elbe finally said, putting the letter away. That night, Elbe tossed and turned in her small motel bed thinking about the moment when she would see her twin sister for the first time. Each time, she tried to picture it, she saw herself staring back at her own image in the bathroom mirror, the way she had done her entire childhood. Soon, Elbe would see herself.
**
The end
Acknowledgements
My heart opens in gratitude to the many incredible people whose energy and magic contributed to the birth and culmination of this book. First and foremost, I would like to thank the late Heather Lewis for her brilliance, generosity and friendship. A big thank you to Akiba Onada Sikwoia for opening the portal to the beautiful Lakota culture. Gratitude to Celia Colmerauer for loving and healing me during during those early years. Thank you to my partner Eva Clemens for allowing me to share all that I have healed and relearned about love. Gratitude to Ginny Root for mentoring me in those early years. Thank you to Wendy Root for bringing me back from the dead, and to Chris Root for a lifetime of friendship. Thank you to Luisah Teish for plucking me out of thin air on LinkedIn, and for introducing me to Harvard Square Editions. In gratitude to Louise Hammonds for her generous editorial input. Thank you to SA Smythe for her masterful proofing skills. I am grateful to Megan McDonagh for her expert cover design skills. And most of all, thank you to my ancestors, and family, including my mother Kalu Fernande Pollefort for the legacy of my roots. There are countless others to whom I am forever connected in gratitude for their contributions, but whose names do not appear here. To all, thank you.
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One String Guitar Page 34