by S. Rose
“My God. How did it happen?”
“Apparently, Vera got boiling mad ’cause the line broke—she jumped up and tried to drive an icepick through his privates.” My hand involuntarily shot over my mouth. “It tore a tendon in his groin. Another inch and she’d have emasculated him. Dad shoved her back hard—pain and fear will do that.”
“I don’t blame him,” I interjected.
“She hit the ice like a felled tree and broke right through the place where she’d been hacking with that pick.”
“What did you do?”
“I staunched his wound with snow and a scarf while my mother struggled. I had in mind to drag her out, as soon as I stopped my father from bleeding to death. Damn—the woman was tenacious. She’d hiked herself halfway out of the hole and looked like she might make it, sopping clothes notwithstanding. Vera always was strong as a mad bull when she was liquored up. She was gnashing her teeth and glowering at me with that wild look in her eye . . . I’d seen that look before. I was suddenly scared spitless. My heart was pounding so hard it hurt. All those times she came after me when I was a kid started swimming through my drunken mind, swirling in a horrific stew of memories from the war . . . not that it’s any excuse. Next thing I knew, I had my hand on her head and shoved her under. I didn’t exactly want her dead . . . just didn’t want her to hurt us anymore. My mother looked up at me once. I could see the whites of her eyes through the water. Then she sank like a stone.”
Even after all these years, I could feel his remorse from across the table. “Your mother terrorized you as a child . . . and you hadn’t fully recovered from the trauma of war.”
“The law seems to agree with you; I hadn’t been home from the psychiatric hospital all that long . . . I shouldn’t have been drinking. Anyway, Daddy seen what I done, but he just looked away all quiet, like he was partway sad and partway relieved. Afterwards he said, ‘I think she hooked a sturgeon. The ice broke. I slipped and fell on the damned icepick when I was runnin’ to help her. Son, your ma’s gone to a better place. You didn’t see nothin’, George . . . you didn’t see nothin’.’ ”
Suddenly, a lot made sense. I knew then that my father suffered from mental illness and had drowned his mother, but he was not a terrible person. He committed one terrible act in the blink of a manic eye and spent the rest of his life regretting it.
“So that night, Dad got stuck in more ways than one, ’cause he was stuck living a lie, or else losing me, too. I thought we could bury the secret and put it all behind us . . . almost made it. Might’ve, if it weren’t for that Hatchet. There’s a special seat in hell reserved for a man who’d plot such evil against innocent people; lucky he didn’t kill even more.”
I shuddered at the memory. “Uh, did you hear about what happened to cousin Timmy?”
“’Course. I read the papers. I kept a scrapbook with clippings for a while. Threw it away a long time ago, but I’ll never forget the things they said about the poor boy—mentally retarded maniac with latent vicious tendencies. What a pack o’ lies.”
“Timmy might’ve been slow, but he was gentle as a lamb,” I affirmed. “Even after what Horace did to ’im.”
“Far as I’m concerned, that Hatchet kid got what he deserved.”
I felt my eyebrows rise. “I don’t think any kid deserves that.” Dad looked contrite; I regretted my judgmental tone. “On second thought,” I said with a cocky smirk, “I expect Horace was well and truly hoisted by his own petard.” I busted out a most unladylike laugh at my own black humor, and he was quick to join me. Dad guffawed so loud that heads turned. Every time I tried to stifle myself, I caught a twinkle in his eye and we started each other up again until he was hacking a smokers cough and I was bent over double, just shy of rolling on the floor.
“Say, did you stay in touch with your wild little Indian friend?” he asked after he’d collected himself.
“Ya sure; I’m spending the night with her over at the rez.”
“That’s good to hear. Ya know, I’ll never forget the look on your mother’s face,” he gagged on a laugh, followed by another cough, “when you two got a hold of my razor—hah.”
“We’ve told that story many times. Aunt Gudrun even snapped a few pictures of Sparrow, sporting her scalp lock . . . for the family album.”
“Gudrun?”
“Ya, Sparrow came home to live with us right after the accident . . .” I faltered. “Shoot—it was no accident. Her mother was gunned down, and her father went to jail.”
“I know . . . terrible business . . . the poor kid. So, Gudrun took you all in after the mess I left?”
“Dad, you didn’t cause what happened that night, either at the Schimschack’s or out on Highway 2. But ya, Aunt Gudrun rented out our old flat, and the four of us lived downstairs.”
“What a lady. They don’t make ’em like Gudrun anymore.”
“Ain’t that the truth. But Mom helped too. She got a job as a secretary to make ends meet, and they both raised us. Sparrow and I went off to UW Madison after high school graduation—Indians get to go tuition free. Sparrow’s smart; she did well freshman year but like you said before, it’s a helluva tough time for a kid to grow up. She had to drop out third semester . . . to have a baby.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.”
“Sparrow doesn’t think so; she loves Little Joe more than anything—he’s two years old now. And get this—they live in her dad’s old house with Great-Grandpa Joe Wind.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. I guess he’s mellowed some with age.”
“He’s the doting grandpa; I suppose it helps that Little Joe’s father is pure Ojibwe.”
“Aha . . . but he won’t marry her?”
“Unless he goes to school or gets a job, Sparrow won’t marry him.”
“Sounds like the feisty kid I knew.”
“She’s also working on a book; it’s about her family. By the way, John Wind is up for parole. I sure hope it’s granted. I keep asking Sparrow to come back to us—Aunt Gudrun is even willing to mind Little Joe while she goes to school, but Sparrow is determined to be there for her father.”
“Your mother and Gudrun must be pretty disappointed, after all their sacrifice.”
“No, none of us are disappointed in her, and Aunt Gudrun certainly doesn’t judge her situation. It’s just that we’re afraid the cycle of poverty will start all over again.”
“Well, Sparrow is still young—she may turn around and make something of herself yet. Don’t give up on ’er,” he said earnestly.
“Not a chance,”I reassured. “Ya know, Dad, I think you and me are a lot alike.”
“How’s that?”
“I s’ppose everybody does the best they can with whatever life throws at ’em . . . but I just don’t give up on people I love.”
S. Rose is a Massachusetts native, happily living in North Central Florida since 2002, where she’s never seen snow again and the only ice is in the freezer. She makes her home in rural High Springs with two dogs, a parrot and two tanks of saltwater fish. When not writing (or cleaning up after her animal companions) she delights in swimming and kayaking the sublime Ichetucknee River, and often swims with manatees during the winter months. Sienna calls these excursions her “daytrips to heaven.” Rose graduated magna cum laude with a BA in psychology from UMASS Boston in 1996. She went on to earn an M.Ed. in school counseling at Cambridge College, Cambridge, MA. She works as an independent educational consultant and advocate for students with disabilities.In 2012, Sienna self-published her first novel, Bridge Ices Before Road, followed by a two-part science fiction saga, Song of the Manatee.
Table of Contents
Half title
Title page
Verso
Dedication
Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
&nb
sp; Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Epilogue
About the Author
Table of Contents
Half title
Title page
Verso
Dedication
Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44