A Rainbow in Paradise

by Susan Aylworth

  "Yeah. Take a number," Logan teased, his eyes not nearly so angry as his words. "Everybody wants to check up on me lately."

  "Hey, can you blame us? Ask yourself when's the last time you looked this bad."

  Logan chuckled mirthlessly. "Yeah, I do look a bit like something that's been beaten and left for dead."

  Chris grinned. "Not quite that good, actually." He paused while Logan snorted, then lowered his voice. "You know, she's not doing any better than you are."

  Logan groaned and dropped his head in his hands. "Please, Chris. Don't tell me. I've spent so many sleepless nights worrying about her. I can't forgive myself for what I've done to hurt her, yet I don't know what I could have done differently. I tried staying away from her, but you see how well that worked..." He let the thought trail away.

  Chris laid his hand gently on Logan's shoulder. "Maybe you couldn't stay away from her because you're not supposed to. Maybe she's the one, Logan."

  "Don't you think I want that?" Logan jerked up, throwing Chris's hand off him and jolting into a half-standing position that looked poised for a brawl. "Don't you think I'd have given anything if I thought she could be?"

  Chris kept his voice calm. "I don't think you ever seriously considered the possibility."

  "How could I?" Logan looked half-mad with pain and guilt. "Chris, you know the promise I made to my generations. You're one of the few I ever told about it. I can't go back on that. I can't! I wouldn't be who I am if I violated that promise."

  "And what exactly was that promise, Logan? Say it again. Say it aloud so we can both hear it."

  Logan let his eyes drop shut with a heavy sigh. He had repeated these words so many times, both to himself and others. He had no doubt he could say them in his sleep. He probably had, more times than he could count. “I promised them they wouldn't be without heritage as I was. I swore they would inherit an honorable heritage of their own from a mother who is a child of the desert, and a daughter of Dinehtah."

  Chris waited a few pregnant beats before murmuring, "And who's to say Eden is not that woman?"

  "Oh, come on, Chris! You know she's not. She's belagaana, not of the People."

  "I didn't hear anything about her having to be Navajo."

  "But you know what I meant."

  "I know what you said."

  "You're trying to confuse me." Logan's eyes looked confused, Chris thought. They looked downright bewildered. "You're just trying to make me think that what I want is what I really need."

  "And why not?" Chris asked, ever so sensibly. "Can you find a better mother for your children than someone you love as much as you love Eden?"

  "But my promise—"

  "What of your promise? You promised the mother of your children would give them an honorable heritage. Granted, Eden's dad isn't much to brag about, but she's an honorable woman from good stock—"

  "Just not—"

  "Shh. It's my turn. You can give your children a fine, strong heritage with Eden as their mother. You told them you'd marry a desert child. Tell me Eden's not that. You know she is. She was born here on the high desert just as you were, and she loves it just as much as you do."

  Logan nodded, remembering the snake, their day at White House. He had known then that Eden was a child of Dinehtah. "But that's cheating," he said finally. "It's like changing the rules to fit the circumstances."

  "Why not?" Chris asked. "You're the one who made the rules." He paused while he drew squiggly lines in the sand with a twig. "You know, Logan. You remind me of a king in one of those silly fairy tales who won't do the right thing for everyone because it would break the law. All along he keeps forgetting that he's the king and he made the law. He can change it if he pleases, any time he pleases."

  "You're just trying to confuse me," Logan said again, but with less passion in it.

  "I'm trying to make you see sense. You and Eden are perfect for each other. You have been from the beginning, and in your heart of hearts you've known it. You're afraid to make that commitment to her because you can't help remembering how hurt you were by having a belagaana mother who ran out on you. Along the way you've conveniently failed to notice that Eden isn't anything like your mother, that she is loyal to a fault and would never run out on a husband or a child, that she loves this desert as much as you do, that she even loves your traditions. She is the mother you promised your children, Logan, but you're going to lose her if you don't get your head out of the sand."

  Chris stopped, afraid he may have gone too far. Logan sat like a wounded thing, curled in on himself, hurting. It took some time before he lifted his head and looked at Chris with pained eyes. "How can I be sure?"

  Chris softened as he touched Logan's shoulder. "How can anyone ever be sure?" he asked. "Life is full of risks. But you know what your heart is telling you. There are people you trust, too, people besides me. Go to them. Get their advice. Then you've got to go with what you think is right."

  Logan stood, calmer than he'd been in some time. He clasped Chris on the shoulder. "Thanks, buddy. You are a good friend, better perhaps than I deserve."

  "You deserve the best," Chris answered. "That's why I want to see you with Eden."

  For the first time in nearly a month, Logan smiled. "Maybe I need to think about that," he answered.

  Chapter Ten

  Logan pulled his pickup truck into the dooryard of his grandmother's hogan. It looks different, he thought. But of course, there was a kinaalda going on last time I came here. That would account for the changes. He failed to notice that the last time he had come here, he had been with Eden. Eden's presence changed everything.

  You know what you're doing, don't you, Redhorse? his little voice niggled as he waited for his grandmother to acknowledge him.

  "Yeah," he answered aloud. "I'm doing just what Chris suggested. I'm going to those I trust for advice."

  You're going to your grandmother first because you already know what she'll say. She will be grateful you got rid of that belagaana woman. You won't even have to ask. You're not giving this a fair chance.

  "Since when is anything fair?" he grumbled aloud, afraid to recognize the truth of what his little voice was sharing. Ella Redhorse came to her door and motioned him inside. Minutes later, he sat at his grandmother's table, sipping strong coffee from a tin cup and listening as the old woman complained of pain in her hip and how the cooler weather affected her joints.

  He wondered how he would bring up the subject of Eden, and then realized he wouldn't have to. "Where is your pretty belagaana friend?" his grandmother asked. "Didn't you feel like bringing her with you today?"

  He took a long, slow sip of the rich coffee. "She has gone home to Phoenix," he answered.

  Ella made a sound deep in her throat that might have been agreement, or a scoff. "She is a good woman, I think."

  Logan dropped his coffee cup, scalding himself with the hot liquid. He grabbed a rag from the sideboard and began wiping up the mess, careless of the small burns on his hands. "I thought you didn't like her," he said after a moment, trying to regain some degree of composure. "I thought you called her 'one who laughs at us behind her hand.' "

  "You're right, I did," Ella answered. "When I met her, I thought she was like others I had met. I thought she would be one to tell the sheep how to eat grass." Ella used the phrase Navajos often used for busybodies who stuck their noses into everyone's affairs. "Then I saw her at Celia's kinaalda. I think now that maybe I was wrong."

  "You? Wrong?" It was a good thing Logan hadn't poured more coffee yet, because he surely would have spilled it again. In all the years he had lived with Ella Redhorse, he could never remember her admitting to a wrong, even when he'd angrily rubbed her nose in it.

  "Yes." Ella nodded her head soberly, as if this choice required deep reflection. "I think now I was wrong about your Eden friend. She is not of the People, but she is a good woman, and you are a better man when you are with her, my son."

  "I—" Logan stopped in mid-sentence,
sitting with his mouth open. Of all the things he had imagined his grandmother saying, this was not one of them. Was it possible she was right? Dared he even hope?

  "Why did she go to Phoenix?" his grandmother asked after a time.

  ''She has work there, a home. She owns a business."

  "Did she want to go? Or did you send her away?" Again Logan found himself without words. He had always thought of his grandmother as perceptive, but this! "I guess I sent her," he finally answered, feeling guiltier than ever.

  "You were afraid to see she might be right for you."

  He stammered, then, unable to find suitable words, he answered, "Grandmother, when did you become so wise?"

  "I have always been wise," his grandmother answered. "You just have not always been wise enough to see it." Logan chuckled as he said a fond good-bye.

  * * * * *

  "So you've come to me to make up your mind for you." Reverend Phelps stood up from his desk and paced a few steps. "Why me, Logan? And why didn't you just make up your own mind?"

  Logan hardly knew how to answer, especially since he wasn't sure of all the answers himself. "I can't say for sure," he answered. "I came to you because I have always been able to trust your advice, and because I knew you wouldn't mislead me, at least never deliberately. As far as making up my own mind goes, I did what I thought was right in the beginning and it only seemed to hurt—not just me, either, but everyone involved. It was Chris McAllister who suggested I ask for advice from people I trusted. He told me I might be making a mistake I would long regret."

  "Does it feel like a mistake?"

  Logan nodded. "So far, yes, it does, but when I choose the woman who will be the mother of my children, I'm making a decision that will affect many unseen generations. Frankly, that terrifies me. If that choice is a mistake, it's one they will all have to live with."

  "That's true," the reverend said, drumming his fingers on his desk. Then he turned to Logan. "You know I can't really advise you on this decision. It's too personal. You are the only one who can make this choice."

  "But I was hoping you'd have some wisdom to share, at least."

  "Then again, I might be prejudiced. I like you, Logan, and I like Eden, too. I might just be swayed to suggest what I think is right for the two of you without considering those future generations that have you so concerned."

  Logan waited, suddenly realizing the good reverend was coming to a point.

  "What I think I maybe can do is pass on some good advice that was once given to me. The man who told me this was a faithful man, a believer not of our faith, a fellow you'd call belagaana. He was also a very wise man indeed. He died some years back, but not before he'd taught me more than I could ever learn in a lifetime on my own. I wish I knew half the great wisdom about people that this fine man might have shared with me."

  Reverend Phelps filled a paper cup at the cooler, then slowly drained it, letting his words so far sink in. "I went with this man to an ecumenical conference many years ago when I was just beginning my ministry. He was approached by a man who was having trouble with his wife. That man wanted my friend's advice on whether the children should live with him or with his ex-wife, once the couple had separated. My friend gave him a long look, then he said very soberly—and Logan, I've always remembered this. He said, 'The best gift a man can ever give his children is to love their mother.' "

  "Well, the man who'd approached him said, 'No, you don't understand. I don't love their mother anymore. I want to know whether the kids will be better off with me or with her after we separate.' Then my friend gave him a gentle look and said again, 'The best gift a man can ever give his children is to love their mother.' He wasn’t telling him not to divorce, if that was what the couple needed to do. He was telling him that even if they separated, he still needed to treat his wife, or ex-wife, with the love and respect due the mother of his children. He knew that loving was an action, not just a feeling. So that's my advice to you too, Logan. Whoever your children are, whatever their tradition, whenever they come, the best gift you will ever give them will be to love their mother and to always treat her with love." The reverend sat again behind his desk. "So, are you sorry you came?"

  Logan didn't feel sorry. He didn't look sorry, either. "No," he said, as his grin grew and widened. "No, I'm not. In fact, I think that was exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you, reverend."

  "Don't mention it."

  Logan left the church offices feeling lighter and happier than he had in some time. He practically ran up the street toward where he had parked his truck. As he neared the vehicle, he noticed another familiar truck pulling up outside the Kachina and shifted his gait, jogging toward the cafe.

  "Logan," Esther said as he approached the family group. "We didn't expect to find you here."

  "We looked for you out at your place," his father said in Navajo as he took his son's hand.

  "We've been worried about you," added Celia.

  "I'm fine. I'm doing just great," Logan said, feeling it for the first time in a month.

  "You haven't sounded great when we've talked to you lately," Esther reminded him.

  "Not since Eden left town, in fact." Celia gave him a sly grin.

  That was like Celia, Logan thought, always saying out loud what her elders only hinted at. "I thought maybe I'd make a trip down to Phoenix," he said, testing the waters. "See if maybe I could have a little visit with a woman I know there."

  "See if maybe she'll come back to you?" Celia asked.

  "Celia," her mother said, following it with a rapid chiding in Navajo.

  Celia didn't seem to mind. "Are you going to ask her to marry you?"

  "Celia!" her mother said again, and this time Albert joined Esther in warning Celia that she should not try to teach the sheep how to eat grass.

  Logan smiled. "Would you mind if I wanted her to marry me?" he asked the family in general.

  Albert looked at Esther and they held the gaze for a moment, then both fired warning looks at Celia, who paid no attention at all as she answered, "I wouldn't mind. I think Eden's really cool."

  "Celia," her mother said again, but Celia went on.

  "She's not like other belagaanas, Logan. You saw the way she acted at my kinaalda, almost as if she is one of us. She's beautiful, and sweet, and I think she's just what you need."

  "Celia!" Esther chided, then said to Logan, "your sister has been spoiled, I think. It is not our place to say what choice you will make in this."

  "But you wouldn't mind, would you, Esther?" he asked, seeing the approval in her eyes.

  "No, I wouldn't mind," Esther answered slowly, "And neither would your father, though it would pain him to say so."

  Albert grumbled a few rough words in Navajo.

  Esther only smiled. "You know,” she said, “after he saw her at the kinaalda, Old Man Manypersons said he liked your friend so much that he’d be happy to adopt her as his daughter if you wanted him to—not legally, you know, but for ceremonial purposes. That way she could come among the Dineh with a clan heritage of her own.” She yawned as if she hadn’t just dropped a huge bombshell into his life, changing his world forever. “So, Logan. Will you join us for some lunch?"

  "Nah. Thanks, Esther, but I don't think so. I have a long drive to make today, and the sooner I get started, the sooner I can get there."

  "You wouldn't want to be late," Celia teased, poking at him just a little.

  "I fear I may be about a month late already," Logan answered. He heard Celia giggling in the background as he jogged back to his truck.

  * * * * *

  Eden sighed as she set the phone in its cradle. "That was Geneva," she told Laurel, the bookkeeper and payroll clerk for the Old Woman's Shoe who was already doing double-duty as a backup teacher.

  "Is she sick, too?" Laurel answered as she cleared away the remains of the afternoon snack. "She didn't look well when she left here after lunch."

  "She took a nap and when she woke up, she was running fever o
f a hundred and two," Eden answered. "She's calling to let us know she probably won't be able to take her early shift tomorrow."

  "I don't know how we'll replace her," Laurel said. "Almost all our backup staff is sick."

  "I know," Eden answered miserably. "If we're lucky, some of those who caught this bug early may be almost ready to come back."

  Like other businesses that dealt with the public, the Shoe had gone through its share of flu epidemics over the years, but they'd never seen anything this bad. "It's probably a blessing that the children all have it, too," Eden said as she pulled out her backup call list. "If we weren't already down by a third of the kids, we wouldn't have enough staff to stay open."

  "We still might not," Laurel said, responding to the ringing telephone.

  Eden waited until Laurel had finished. "I hope that wasn't another teacher calling in."

  "Nope. It was Mrs. Jarvis," Laurel answered, naming one of the women whose three children were regulars at Eden's day care. "She said the children weren't very sick anymore, and asked if we'd still take them in the morning."

  Eden grunted. "She knows better than that. We've never taken ill children before, and we can't afford to start now, though the way we're going, half these kids are likely to come down with this bug before the day is over."

  "At least that's only a couple more hours," Laurel said, looking at her watch.

  "Omigosh," Eden said, noting the time. "Who was supposed to have the curriculum for the last activity time?"

  "Miss Dana was working on it yesterday," Laurel answered. "When she called in this morning, she said it was all prepared in the second drawer down in the teacher prep cupboard."

  "It was Thanksgiving stuff, right?" Eden asked as she began to dig through the drawer. "Pilgrims and turkeys and such?"

  "That's what I remember," Laurel answered.

  Eden dug through the drawer, looking for the cutouts Dana had prepared and realizing how her politics had shifted since she'd begun to think more of how her native friends saw the holidays. “Not everyone is quite so thankful for Thanksgiving," she mumbled. Then, laying hands on the file, she realized that, politics or not, she was grateful for an activity she didn't have to prepare. That would make this next hour ever so much easier. She grabbed the file of Pilgrims and turkeys and a bottle of glue, some plain white construction paper, and crayons for the children to write their names. "Come on, everybody! Come to the tables!" she called as she gathered the playing children around her.