by Lisa Wingate
What if he was the only person I’d ever feel that with?
But how could I possibly explain this—him, this place—to my parents? This was as far from home, from what James and Karen wanted for me, as the other side of the moon. They would never understand and neither would Jace’s family. Nana Jo, Gwendolyn, the aunts, even Uncle Rube had all made their opinions clear.
Is she legal? Uncle Rube’s question repeated in my head as I came to a stop behind a line of traffic waiting to enter the festival parking. A teenaged girl with an orange flag smiled and waved as she directed customers into the parking area, where a stocky man in a Choctaw Labor Day Festival T-shirt efficiently guided cars into parking spaces.
Somewhere in the distance, the powwow drum hushed as my car came to a halt, and I sat with my hand on the keys, the final beats ringing in my ears. I looked at my cell phone on the passenger seat next to the card with Jace’s number on it.
Maybe I should just get on the road, call him after it’s too late to turn back, and let the decision be made by default. By then, I would be focused on home, on James in the hospital and Karen trying to salvage things from our house. Life would be filled with the usual static, like white noise preventing me from hearing anything else.
Is this where I’m supposed to be? There was a peace here, a connection to this place, to Jace and Shasta, Autumn and Willie, to an unexplored part of my heritage. There was a sense of membership here that went beyond the questions about my father and the circumstances of my birth. If I never found the answers to those questions, I would still belong to this place, to the tribe.
I turned off the ignition and waited while the family next to me unloaded baby strollers and wagons from their van, then I gathered my courage, stepped out of my car, and hurried across the parking lot. For once in my life, I was going to find the backbone to tell someone how I felt.
I was halfway to the festival grounds before I realized I’d left my cell phone and Jace’s number in the car, so I headed toward the Reid booth, hoping either Shasta or Jace would be there.
Shasta was just handing the cash box over to her mother and buckling Benjamin into a stroller when I turned the corner. “Hey!” she said, smiling. “We’re going to watch Cody play softball for a while before we go to the carnival. Want to go with us?” Glancing over her shoulder at Gwendolyn, she waved in a quick, curt way that told me they’d probably been fighting again. “We’ll be back later, Mama.”
Occupied with arranging some silver jewelry, Gwendolyn nodded without looking up.
Shasta snorted as she gave the stroller a push, and we started toward the ball fields. “Mama’s mad because Cody’s playing softball, and I asked her if Benji could stay with her while I watch. She thinks Cody ought to be keeping Benji this morning, and I should sit at that stupid booth all day, helping her. Then, when I pack up Benji to take him along, she’s all over my case, thinking I’m going to let him wander off at the ball field, and someone’s going to steal him or something. I swear, she’s never happy. The only thing that would make her happy is if I didn’t have kids at all.”
Looking down at Benjamin in the stroller, she pressed her lips together and swallowed hard, her face filling with painful emotion. “I just don’t…” Her voice cracked, and she squeezed her eyes shut momentarily, then shook her head and turned back to her son, who was swinging his legs in the stroller while playing with the toy from a McDonald’s Happy Meal. “I don’t understand how she can look at him and think he shouldn’t be here. He’s so amazing. Every time he comes running to me with one of his books, or when I watch him in his bed at night, I can’t imagine my life without him, you know? I don’t want some baby I might have ten years from now, or even five years from now after I graduate from college or something. I want my Benji. I want my baby boy, just the way he is. If I’d waited, I wouldn’t have him. Mama just thinks it’s the end of the world that I didn’t go to college.” She glanced sideways, waiting for me to say something, and I stood trapped in a tug-of-war of emotions. On one end of the rope there was Juilliard, my parents, and all the markers of success they wanted for me. On the other end there was Benjamin, with his sparkling eyes and his wide baby-toothed smile, holding up his toy and gazing at his mother with unqualified adoration and love.
“Just because you have a family doesn’t mean you can’t go to college,” I said finally. I knew I was talking to myself as much as to Shasta. Juilliard will take years, I thought as Shasta leaned over Benjamin and babbled something while he giggled and reached for her. Do I really want to wait that long? Do I have to? Who makes the rules, or do we only invent them ourselves?
“I know.” Shasta sighed wistfully, rubbing her swollen stomach. “One of these days.” Pausing to pilot the stroller across a drainage grate, she changed the subject. “I didn’t even ask about you, how did things go this morning? Last night after we came in, Jace told me about the map to the Clay place. Did you find anything?” Her face opened in hopes of an Oprah-worthy story of my reunion with my father’s family.
“Dead end,” I admitted. “There had been a Thomas Clay living there, and his parents had the right names, but he had a hunting accident when he was young, so there’s no way he could be my father. The information from the courthouse computer must be wrong.”
She grimaced with genuine sympathy. “I saw Jace helping take down the art show a while ago, and I thought it was awfully soon for y’all to be back—unless you hadn’t found anything, I mean. He was busy, so I didn’t get to ask him about it.” She slipped an arm around my shoulders. “I’m sorry. But at least you’re narrowing down the possibilities, and I can ask Jamie to look some more on the computer. Eventually, you’re bound to find the right people. In the meantime, you’ve got us, and we’ll just keep trying, right?” Tightening her grip, she pulled me close, so that we staggered along behind the stroller like partners in a three-legged race.
“Thanks.” Leave it to Shasta to find the bright side. Her optimism was as beautiful as she was.
Her lips spread into a wide, white smile. “Boy, you should have seen Lana after you two left. She was hotter than a biscuit on the griddle, I’ll tell you. She’s been hollering at kids in the bounce house all morning long, and as soon as Jace got here, she grabbed Autumn and Willie. I’m sure they’re sick of her and the bounce house by now. You better get up there and rescue them. It’s the big red-and-blue blow-up castle-looking thingy on the lawn, right by the capitol building.”
A heavy sense of disappointment settled over me because I wouldn’t be able to spirit Autumn and Willie away from Lana. In fact, after I was gone, Autumn, Willie, and Jace would be all hers. She could step in, play pseudo-mom to the kids, keep working on Jace. The idea was sickening. Was there really a chance that he would fall for someone like Lana?
“I can’t,” I admitted, even though the reality stung. “I have to go back home to Kansas City, at least for a little while. My mom—my adopted mom—called, and my dad’s in the hospital. They’re doing an angioplasty tomorrow, and I need to be there. I didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye to you and…” A flush burned hot into my cheeks. “And to Jace. You’ve both done so much for me since I’ve been here. Not everybody would do that for someone they barely know.”
Shasta glanced sideways, and I wondered if she could tell that my need to see Jace went so much deeper than just saying thank you. “I feel like I’ve known you forever.”
“Me, too.”
She stopped walking as the stroller wheels became mired in a patch of gravel. I picked up the front while she lifted the handle, and we carried Benjamin to the paved sidewalk.
Pausing to catch her breath, Shasta dumped gravel out of her flip-flops while leaning on the stroller handle. “Jace is probably somewhere around the capitol building, helping move the art around. They’re putting all the winners downstairs in the main hall this year, sort of like a court of honor, then the other people can go ahead and take their paintings back and put them up for sale, if
they have vendor booths here on-site.” She slipped her footwear back on and tugged her maternity T-shirt over her stomach, then regarded me with a meaningful look. “Jace wouldn’t want you to leave without saying good-bye.” I blushed again, and she pressed her lips into a trembling, downward line. “I don’t want you to leave at all, but I hope your dad’s surgery goes all right.”
“It will. He’s in good shape, except for too much fatty food in his arteries. Thanks for everything you did for me,” I said. She held out her arms, and we hugged across the stroller. “I’m going to miss it here.”
Scoffing, she pulled away. “You’re coming back.”
“I want to.”
“You’d better. Cody and I are in the book under C. W. Williams. Call me when you’re coming, and I’ll get the travel trailer ready for you to stay in…unless I’m at the hospital having a baby. But if I am, you can come anyway.”
I laughed, and we hugged again, then said good-bye. I watched her walk away, pushing the stroller, her long hair swinging back and forth across her hips. When she’d rounded the corner, I started toward the capitol building, threading through the crowds of shoppers perusing arts and crafts and buying fair food. Vendors greeted me as I passed.
“Good morning, sister,” an old Choctaw woman said as I rounded the aisle. She was perched on a bar stool, weaving a bracelet from brightly colored string. Her hands moved deftly as she spoke.
“Do you know if they’re still taking down the art show?” I asked, standing on my toes to see across the park to the capitol building.
“I think so.” She squinted up and down the aisle. “I saw a man pass by with a painting a few minutes ago.” Her fingers moved skillfully over the thread, creating a woven geometric pattern.
“Thanks,” I said, and hurried on toward the council house, where I found Willie and Autumn playing tag in the bushes by the front entrance. Bolting from his hiding place with his sister hot on his heels, Willie launched himself at me, capturing me in a leg lock. “Safe, safe, safe!” he hollered as I staggered toward a flower bed, then caught myself against an oak tree. “Safe!”
Autumn tagged him anyway. “Are not. Base is the front door, dummy.”
“Is not!” Sticking out his tongue, Willie tightened his grip.
“Now, is that nice?” I frowned at him and then at Autumn. “What would your dad say if he saw you two calling names and making ugly faces at each other?”
Autumn twisted her lips to one side and crossed her arms over her chest, and Willie shrugged both shoulders, then slid down my legs and ended up sitting on my feet. “We wanna go on the rides.” His face brightened hopefully, as in, Maybe you could take us there. “Dad has to do the awt show.”
“Arrr-rt show.” Stressing the r, Autumn checked her new Russian watch. “They have to take the paintings down and get them ready for the people to take back to their booths, but they were supposed to be done three and a half minutes ago.”
“There he is!” Willie pointed toward the building, unwinding himself from my legs and popping to his feet as Jace came out the door. “Hey, Dad!”
Jace held up a hand, smiling at me as he crossed the distance between us. He seemed surprised to find me there with his kids. “Where’s Lana?” he asked Autumn. “You two were supposed to be with her at the bounce house.”
Autumn rolled her eyes, jutting her hips to one side in a maneuver that reminded me of Shasta. “Somebody stuffed a T-shirt in the air thing, and it made a pop, and the bounce house fell down. Lana’s mad. She told us to get out of the way so the guy could fix it.”
Taking a step back, Jace looked toward the deflated castle, where Lana was bent over the compressor with a workman, her tie-dye camisole top affording a nice view, even from here. Laughing and talking as the plastic castle slowly reinflated, Lana seemed completely unaware that Jace’s kids had wandered away. “Oh…,” he muttered, “Okay. Well, it looks like Dell’s here just in time to go grab a snack and head for the carnival with us.”
“Cool!” Autumn cheered, but I barely heard her. Jace’s smile was making my body tingle. I wanted to spend the afternoon with him and the kids.
“I…” I was conscious of everyone watching me expectantly. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I have to go home.”
Jace’s grin faded. “Is something wrong?” Sizing up the answer from my expression, he turned to the kids. “Tell you what, guys. Why don’t you try the obstacle course over there for a minute? Stay where I can see you and let us talk all right? Then we’ll head to the carnival.”
“Okay.” Sighing glumly, Autumn gave me a quick hug. “See you later.”
“Bye, sweetheart,” I answered, clinging lightly to one of her braids as she pulled back. I wanted to help take away the lost look in her eyes, to fill the void she felt, being at the festival without her mother for the first time. Unwillingly, I pictured Lana slipping into that role.
After studying me for a moment, Autumn took Willie’s hand and dragged him toward the obstacle course. “Come on, Willie. The adults need to talk.”
Jace waited until they were out of earshot, then leaned against the tree. “Is everything all right?” He seemed blindsided and confused, worried.
“Yes.” Down the hill, Autumn stopped at the edge of the course, released Willie onto the monkey bars, then sat down on a bench, looking back toward us. “No…I have to head back to Kansas. My dad—my adopted dad—is in the hospital, and he’s having an angioplasty tomorrow.”
Jace’s bewilderment changed to sympathy. “I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do? Are you okay to drive?”
His concern only increased my desire to stay. “I’m fine. I just need to be there for the surgery.” There were a million things I wanted to say, but I couldn’t put any of them into words.
Jace seemed to be at a loss as well, as if he were also trying to decide what should happen next. What did we do now? Continue to share polite niceties? Say good-bye? Swap addresses? Exchange phone numbers? Make promises, or part ways, never to cross paths again?
The idea was starkly painful.
He looked down at the grass, his arms folded over his chest, his mouth a thin, determined line. “Be careful, all right?” he said softly. “I’m sorry you didn’t find what you were looking for. Your birth family, I mean.”
I did find something. Pressing a hand to my lips, I tried to form my thoughts into words. If I let this moment slip away, I would regret it forever. I felt something with him, a connection I couldn’t explain and didn’t want to lose. “Jace, I’ll be back. I want…”
Lifting a hand, he silenced me, then just stood there, staring into the grass as the breeze teased dark strands of hair over his forehead. I wanted to reach up and gently sweep the hair back into place. “Don’t come back, Dell.”
I drew away, stung, wondering at his meaning.
He traced the outline of my chin with the backs of his fingers, and electricity raced through my body. “Come back to research your family if you want to, but don’t come back for me.”
All at once, I understood. He was cutting me loose. He wanted this to be good-bye, forever. “Jace, I feel…” Never in my life had I tried to explain such powerful emotions, such a deep longing. “There’s something here…with you. I feel it. I know you feel it, too.”
“You don’t belong here, Dell.” He swept a hand toward the capitol building, the festival, the mountains. “This place is a stop on the path for you, a scenic turnout on the road to finding yourself. Go home. Go to Juilliard. Travel the globe and fill it with music. Don’t be in such a hurry to write all the answers in your book and settle down to a regular life. Once you do that, there’s no going back.” On the lawn, Willie squealed, and Jace glanced sideways, checking on the kids. “You should be out discovering the world, trying on different lives to see what fits.” Willie squealed again, and Jace took a step away, squinting toward the obstacle course.
I caught his hand, pulling him back. “This fits. We fit.”
He wouldn�
��t look at me, but remained focused into the distance, his lips in a melancholy smile. I wanted to take that sadness from his mouth.
“This fits,” I said again.
“You only get one chance to be young.” He shook his head at something happening on the lawn.
I was never young, I thought, following his line of sight to where Willie was standing atop the monkey bars with his hands in the air like the king of the world. By the bench, Autumn had one fist on her hip and was motioning for him to get down. I recognized myself in that stance. I was always the miniature grown-up, worried, afraid, my thoughts taken up with adult problems. I was never the king of the world, standing triumphant atop the monkey bars.
Jace turned to me, studying me so intensely that I felt it.
“I don’t want Juilliard.” Tears pressed into my eyes and I wiped them away impatiently. “Everyone wants it for me, but I don’t want it. I love music. I love the way I feel when I play music—like I can forget everything, sail away from it and be someone new.” The way I feel when I’m with you. “But I don’t want a life of always having to perform. The symphony in Europe was exciting at first. It was fun being away from home, seeing something new each day, experiencing the world on my own, playing music. But after a while, it was so much traveling, so many people, so much noise, so many expectations. People were trying to make me into something I’m not. That was why I didn’t come home and try for Juilliard last year. I don’t want that life. I want…quiet. I want a normal life.”
He sighed softly, and his tone was empathic when he spoke. “You don’t know what you want, Dell. What you want is going to change so much over the next few years. I can tell you that because I’ve been where you are. We’re at different points in life.”
“I don’t care about that.” I felt the familiar sting of rejection, a fresh desperation in the part of me that had always believed no one would ever really want me.