The Ties That Bind

by Andi Marquette

  She took a breath and relaxed a bit. "River said he talked last night to a woman who claimed to be Dad's girlfriend."

  I set my coffee cup on the floor and reached over to take Sage's left hand with my right.

  "She wanted to know if Dad had tried to contact River recently."

  "Did he tell her about the letter?"

  "Yeah." Her tone said that she wished he hadn't. "And he of course wanted to know why it's her business."

  Sage started drumming the fingers of her right hand on the armrest again. "She said that he didn't come home last Saturday. He went to work as usual, but after his shift, she didn't hear from him.

  She wasn't too worried because it was the end of a long stretch of work days for him and he had a couple of weeks off and sometimes, she said, he'd go out drinking, especially since his work schedule had been rearranged." Sage made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. "He obviously hasn't gotten that problem resolved. He's such an asshole about it. Anyway, I guess a friend of his called the place they shared on Monday wanting to know where he was because they were supposed to work on some plumbing together. That's when the girlfriend--Tonya--thought something might be up because even though he's a drunk, she said, he never bailed on his friends. I'd give him props for that, but he never showed up as a dad when River and I were kids. And when he did, he was usually drunk and an absolute prick."

  "How come she didn't wonder why he didn't call her?"

  "She said if he was drinking, he wouldn't call her for a day or two because he felt guilty about it." She rubbed her forehead with her other hand.

  "She said that to River?"

  Sage nodded. "He asked the same question."

  I squeezed her hand. "So how'd she get River's number?"

  Sage sighed, still rubbing her forehead. "She didn't. She went through his things and found River's name next to the number for the company he guides for in Montana. She called them, they contacted River, and he decided to call her back, since he figured it must be sort of serious if she's calling her boyfriend's estranged son..." her voice trailed off.

  "Wait a second," I started. "If this Tonya says your dad's been gone about a week, how did he mail the letter?"

  "River was leading a guide trip until Saturday--yesterday. The letter was in the pile of mail he had waiting for him and the postmark on it was a week ago Friday."

  She extricated her hand from mine and reached into her shorts pocket. She pulled out a scrap of newspaper and handed it to me. I recognized it as the article I'd ripped out of the Journal yesterday and taped to my computer. I looked at it, then at her and that thought I'd filed the day before popped right back to the front of my mind.

  "You don't think--" I started.

  Her fingers drummed on the armrest even faster. "The timing's right. And the description of the body seems to match, too."

  "Fuck," I muttered. "If it is--honey, I'm sorry."

  "For what?" She seemed puzzled. "Given his past, his choices most likely put him out there."

  "We don't know that for sure. It could have been a random crime. Maybe he was on his way home from work or something and--" I caught myself. I'd already decided that Sage's dad was the dead man found on the Navajo Reservation. The evidence isn't in yet, I remonstrated myself.

  "Doubtful." Sage smiled, a little sad, emotions I couldn't read flickering through her eyes. "You didn't know him. He was not a nice man. River and I don't have good memories of him and it's a very good thing that Mom threw him out of the house when she did. The only tie I have to him is genetic and that doesn't mean shit to me, no matter what he said in that letter." She stood and leaned in to kiss my cheek. "Thanks for the sentiment, but there's nothing to be sorry about."

  I hugged her close and rested my head on her belly as she stroked my hair. Her voice held finality. She, too, had already decided the dead man on the Rez was her father. "Doesn't matter what you thought of him," I said. "If he is dead, it might still bring shit up for you and River." Like that damn letter obviously did.

  She didn't respond right away, just continued stroking my hair with one hand while the other rested on my shoulder. "I love you," she said after a while and I hugged her even closer.

  "Right back at 'cha."

  She chuckled. "I'll call Mom. See if she's heard anything."

  I reluctantly released her. She leaned down and brushed a kiss across my lips before she went inside. I sat staring at the article from yesterday's paper but I didn't see the words.

  I HEARD THE front door open and close and I washed my hands in the kitchen sink and wiped them on the dish towel. I finished just as Sage appeared in the doorway.

  "Hey," I said, smiling. "How was the studio?"

  "Good," she responded. She closed the distance between us and wrapped her arms around my waist. "Mmm. My sexy girlfriend is making dinner."

  I kissed her forehead. "Thought we'd grill out. I invited Jeff."

  Sage's eyes lit up. "Cool. I haven't seen him in forever."

  "Amy keeps him busy." I grinned. "You want a beer?"

  "I would love a beer."

  I stepped away and opened the refrigerator, crouching to pull a bottle of Rio Grande Pale Ale off the bottom shelf. I stood and removed the top with the bottle opener I'd left on the counter. Sage took the bottle and sipped. She leaned back against the counter as I continued working on the burgers. I'd stacked six patties on a plate and set to work slicing roasted green chile.

  "Jeff told me this morning he and Amy are thinking about moving in together." I kept my eyes on my work.

  "I figured it was a matter of time. He's probably freaking out."

  I glanced at her. My psychic girlfriend.

  "Jeff's always been commitment-shy. Which cracks me up, because he gets so wrapped up in the whole idea of it." Sage giggled. "Remember when we first met and he was seeing Robin? He so wanted her to be 'the one'. But I told him he didn't want that. He picks emotionally unavailable women so he can pretend he tried a commitment and it just didn't work." She took another sip of beer.

  "So you're saying that Jeff is basically a lesbian?"

  Sage laughed and almost choked on her beer. "Something like that. But I think it might be different with Amy. Maybe he figured something out."

  I started slicing tomatoes. "I did." I stopped and looked at her. "When I met you."

  She looked at me for a while, a little smile twitching at the corners of her mouth.

  "I really wanted to be the kind of partner you were looking for. Which requires that I show up game-ready. Every day."

  She cocked her head at me. "How do you think you're doing?"

  I started slicing again. "It's hard sometimes to get out of my head. But I think I'm doing pretty good." I flashed her a grin.

  Sage moved closer and kissed my shoulder. "Better than good." She watched me slicing for a while. I finished the tomatoes and started working on the lettuce.

  "The situation with Dad is bothering me," she announced.

  "How so?" I left the lettuce to soak in a pan and gave her my full attention.

  She took a sip of her beer. "My mom admitted that Dad had been in contact with her over the years and that she'd kept him posted on what River and I have been doing."

  I didn't say anything for a long moment. "Did that piss you off?"

  "A little. I asked her why she'd do that, given that she had to kick his ass out of our lives when I was sixteen."

  "What'd she say to that?"

  "She said that he'd contact her every once in a while wanting to make amends to us so she'd give him our addresses and she told him it was up to him. She wouldn't facilitate." Sage pursed her lips. "Which is better than telling me and River that poor Dad was so sorry and couldn't we just call him once in a while and give him a chance." She paused. "Notice how he never called. Some fucking amends, Dad." She looked up at me. "Maybe I'm not pissed at her. Maybe I'm pissed at him, still." Sage sighed. "Shit. I'm always telling people to let things go and I haven't take
n my own advice."

  I hugged her and she rested her head on my shoulder. "He did send a letter."

  "Because he fucking wanted something," she said, irritated. "That wasn't about amends. It was about digging into another mess that he got into."

  I hugged her closer.

  "Why the hell would he tell us about his job if he didn't want us to maybe look into it if something happened to him?"

  "I don't know." Maybe he was scared. Whether his fear was based on reality was another question.

  "Regardless, he didn't end up on the Rez by accident," she said as she stroked my back.

  "Honey," I reminded her, "we don't know for sure that was your dad." I rocked her gently. "Don't jump to conclusions until all the evidence is in. And even then, you have to see where it leads."

  "Jesus. You sound like Chris." She nuzzled my neck and chills shot down my spine. I buried the inappropriate thought that entered my mind.

  "Well, it's damn good advice. Otherwise we'd be knee-jerking all over hell and gone." I clenched my teeth to keep myself from collapsing beneath the onslaught of her lips.

  She pulled away and studied my face then she shook her head, smiling. "I cannot believe I hooked up with the essence of analytical thought."

  I shrugged, sheepish. "And I can't believe you, a force of nature, took a chance on my boring, rational self."

  She ran her fingers along my jaw and another set of chills erupted down my back. "Balance. I need your clear head as a counterpoint." She kissed me and I pulled her closer. "Christ," she muttered against my lips. "Boring? Kase, you're so far from that it's not even on our map."

  I kissed her again just as Jeff called from the back porch, "As soon as you're ready, I'll start the coals. Except it looks like some already got started in the kitchen," he added, joking.

  We started laughing and Sage pulled away. "Men."

  I removed the lettuce from the water. "You want to see if Chris can find out more about this?" I spread the lettuce leaves out on the cutting board.

  Sage thought for a moment before answering. "No, I don't think so. I'd prefer that things just unfold." Her tone held resigned finality.

  I nodded in understanding and she went out the back door to talk to Jeff, leaving it open. I finished the prep work and pulled a beer out of the fridge for him. Armed with that and the plate of burgers, I walked through the mud room and out onto the back porch. Maybe talking to Jeff about Amy would help get Sage's mind off the reservation for a while. I joined them at the grill and he set to work with the burgers while bantering with Sage. Within a few minutes, the subject of Amy came up and Sage started deconstructing it in her gentle way. Smiling to myself, I went to set the table.

  I SPENT MONDAY morning in my office on campus, organizing the reading list for two of my classes. I checked with the bookstore to make sure what I was assigning was either in stock or en route. Those tasks completed, I worked out at the UNM gym then went home and finished up some research I was doing for Gus Clayton over at the local FBI office. He had concerns that a local neo-Nazi cell might have links to a larger organization with ties to Germany. Fortunately, I didn't find any evidence of that. Since my run-in with neo-Nazis a couple of years ago, Gus contracted with me to do outside research on right-wing activity. Why the hell I'd chosen that as the brunt of my doctoral work I'd probably never know. But at least I could put it to good use and help law enforcement keep tabs on groups and individuals.

  I finished typing up my findings and ran a spell check before reading through it again and saving the document. I e-mailed it to him, shaking my head, bemused. Who knew that two years ago I'd be back in Albuquerque chasing white supremacists around and end up as a sometime-consultant for the FBI? Crazy, how things turned out. My cell phone rang and I glanced at the caller ID before answering.

  "Hey, Mom. What's up?"

  "Hi, hon. Just calling to check in and let you know that Kara's on her way here."

  "Why couldn't she call me and tell me that?"

  She cleared her throat in a way that said, with practiced patience, "because your sister keeps her own damn schedule."

  "Okay. So, how long 'til she gets there?" I put my feet on my desk, annoyed. Tucson to Albuquerque was about nine hours driving. So if Kara remembered to call me when she left our folks' house, I'd have that long to prepare myself for her visit.

  "She'll be here tonight some time. Then I suppose you and Sage had better start looking for her Wednesday."

  "Are you sure she's even related to us? You're absolutely positive you gave birth to her and she wasn't switched with the Grateful Dead entourage's love child in the hospital?"

  She started laughing. "Yes, she's your biological sister. She's a lot like your dad's brother Mike. And my sister. The 'do your own thing' genes from both sides coalesced in her."

  "Maybe she'll just bypass me and continue on to visit Joely," I grumbled.

  "I know Kara irritates you, and I wish that she'd sometimes think about the consequences of her actions. But she loves you very much and she admires you more than she lets on. So the best advice I can give is to just try to find her good points."

  "Shit, Mom." I ran a hand through my hair and stood. "She's so damn flaky. I can't trust her to come through on anything. Joely and I had to just go ahead with Dad's birthday present last year because Kara couldn't get her crap together to do her part." I stalked out into the living room. "After she told us 'oh, no problem. It's a great idea. I'll do this and this and this.' And did she? Fuck, no. So here she is again, pulling the same kind of bullshit. I called her on Saturday to find out when the hell she'd get here and I'm still fucking waiting to hear."

  She didn't respond and I felt her discomfort over the phone as plainly as if she'd voiced it. I forced myself to calm down. "I'm sorry. I just--I don't get it. I don't understand her. Here you and Dad are, total professors. So Joely and I got the academic thing, too. Which makes sense. I mean, we all grew up in the same household. It stands to reason that we'd follow in your footsteps to some degree. But then there's Kara. Miss 'I just can't be bothered with mundane responsibilities.' She's more devoted to her damn trees and environuts than she ever was to her own family." I went through the kitchen onto the back porch where I flopped into one of the chairs we kept out here and stared moodily at the ramada we'd built over the patio at the base of the back steps.

  "Honey, that's not fair," my mom said.

  I snorted.

  "Kara's different in many ways. But she's also a lot like you."

  "Please," I muttered sarcastically.

  "Moreso than like Joely. She's very stubborn like you are and insecure in some ways. But she's also very loyal to her family. She just hasn't figured out where to channel her energy and she's spent all her life in your shadow and Joely's. So she rebels. She keeps her own schedule and does her own thing, trying to carve a niche for herself in the world and in this family."

  My mom. The anthropologist. "Yeah, but even Uncle Mike and Aunt Tess check in before they go flinging off on some new venture."

  She chuckled.

  "So how do I get her to at least check in with me before she shows up on our doorstep?" I stretched my legs out.

  "Maybe change your tone?"

  "What does that mean?" I sat up straighter.

  She hesitated a bit before answering. "She's an adult, honey. Maybe if you started speaking to her like one and interacting with her like one, she'd start acting like one. If you expect her to screw up all the time and behave like a little sister, she will."

  My mom. The burgeoning therapist.

  "Set the bar higher. And let the things that bother you about her go."

  "God, Mom. You sound like a twelve-step program." I sighed and stood again.

  "That's not such a bad thing."

  "True." I relaxed a little. "So how's Dad? Is he going to Guatemala with you next month?"

  "Yes. He managed to clear his schedule. And he's really looking forward to it. He's exploring origin myths of
various indigenous peoples there. He's also collaborating on another religious studies textbook."

  "Glad to hear there's life after the ivory tower," I said, smiling.

  "Honey, it never stops. Speaking of which, when are they going to hire you full-time over there? Adjunct teaching doesn't offer good benefits and you don't get to sit on committees."

  "Which isn't a bad thing, Mom. Committees can suck. I don't know if they'll hire me full-time. They haven't offered and they haven't posted for any teaching jobs on campus in either American studies or sociology. But I'm not worried about it. I'm still okay with the grant money and I've got a couple more articles coming out at the end of the year. Plus, the University of California Press wants me to edit an anthology about extremists. Left and right. That's in the planning stages and it looks like we'll score a chunk of change from the NEH for that." I walked back into the kitchen and took a bottle of Tazo iced tea out of the fridge. "I don't know how I'd be able to teach full-time and do all that shit. Geez. How did you do it all of those years?" I shook up the tea and, bracing my phone between my ear and shoulder, I unscrewed the top.

  She laughed. "Sometimes I wonder that myself."

  I heard their home phone ring in the background.

  "That's probably your father. I'm supposed to pick him up at the library."

  "You'd better get it then. Talk to you later. Love you."

  "I love you, too. Give our love to Sage. Bye, hon."

  "Bye."

  I hung up and took a long drink of tea. I stood in the kitchen a while longer, thinking about Kara and what my mom had said about raising the bar. I hate it when she's right. I speed-dialed Kara's cell. One ring...two...

  "Hey, Kase! I was just going to call you."

  Sure you were. Mom guilt-tripped you. "Cool." I kept my tone light. "Can you talk? Or are you busy?"

  "No, it's fine. I'm on I-10 and traffic's not bad."

  "All right. So for real. What's your schedule? Sage was asking me so she could get things ready."

  "Aww! I love your girlfriend. I'm on my way to Mom and Dad's right now. I should be there around eight Arizona time. I thought I'd leave for Albuquerque Wednesday morning."