He unfolded the newspaper article. From the Albuquerque Journal: MORE ARRESTS IN LAST YEAR’S METH LAB SHOOTING: JURY TRIAL SELECTION TO BEGIN IMMEDIATELY.
After the adrenaline rushed his bloodstream, Joseph set the article down, absently smoothing its edges.
GLORY
It was eight P.M. March winds blew, rattling the windows, reminding Glory she hadn’t washed them since the last wedding, that Valentine’s Day event with the heart-shaped, four-layer, pink fondant cake that dyed her fingernails fuchsia for days. Juniper sat at the table taking notes from a library book that Joseph suggested she read. Glory sipped her second glass of red wine, impatient for the slight buzz that made her edges blur. More annoying than waiting for that numbness was that she had made it two weeks past the anniversary of Dan’s death and hadn’t died of grief.
She snapped her fingers when Edsel tried to distract Juniper with the once-controversial, paid-for-in-full canvas fire-hydrant toy she’d bought him, but Juniper merely reached down, patted the dog’s head, and kept on reading. Eventually he lay down on the floor next to Cadillac, groaning to let everyone know the extent of his disappointment. Joseph took the dog on walks the days he came to homeschool, and now Edsel insisted on a daily walk versus his previous pastime, couch loafing. He’d muscled up, and Glory had to admit, his coat looked great.
Glory held her library book open on her lap, reading the same two sentences over and over: “The heat is a presence. Palpable and relentless, it rolls over Albuquerque like a hot iron.”
Maybe Joseph lived in a different part of the city, somewhere higher in elevation, and instead of like an iron, the temperature was more like a warm hand against your neck. With a mountain view and spectacular sunrises. Less traffic. And the scent of a piñon fire warming adobe bricks. And strolling mariachis. I have to stop drinking wine every night, she thought, and set down the glass.
Juniper shut her book and stretched her arms. “All this stuff Copper Joe wants me to do is way harder than public school. I’m ready to go back now.”
“Very funny.”
“What’s funny about it?”
Glory shut the library book. “If it’s that simple for you to change your behavior, why didn’t you do it months ago?”
“Maybe I wasn’t ready, okay?”
“Not okay. It’s selfish. Do you know what you put Caroline, Lois, and me through?”
Juniper ignored the question. “What if I sign a paper saying I promise I won’t hit anyone ever again?”
“It’s too late. I officially withdrew you from school. The subject is closed.”
“That’s real understanding of you, Mrs. Solomon.”
“What can I say? Actions have consequences.”
“What is that? Some kind of old saying that doesn’t mean anything? Whatever. I’m going to bed. Come on, Caddy.”
“Let him out to pee first, Ms. McGuire,” Glory said to the girl’s back as she walked down the hall, the collie following. Time alone sounded great, and it was, for about fifteen minutes. Then the alone part hit. What she needed was someone to chat with about anything that was going right. She thought of Joseph, but tipsy as she was, she feared she’d say something stupid, like “I want to sleep with you,” and then she’d have to explain it wasn’t about romance, it was about ten minutes of feeling something other than this endless yearning for something she couldn’t even name.
Definitely not calling Joseph.
She called Caroline and got her service. She called her mom, then remembered it was her bridge night at the Senior Center and she wouldn’t be home for an hour. She called Halle. “Hey, Sis. You have a minute to talk?”
Her sister sighed. “Gee, I don’t know. Do you think I left you all those messages for the fun of it?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why didn’t you call me back?”
“Because I didn’t want to hear you say, ‘I told you so.’ ”
Halle was quiet for a moment. “Is that what you think I do?”
“Not every time I see you,” Glory hedged, regretting the words already.
“Oh, please. Don’t try to soften the blow when you’ve already delivered it. The truth is, I’m never sure how to talk to you, Glory.”
“Why not?”
“Because you don’t really open up to me anymore. Not just me, either.”
“That’s not true. Is it?”
“Let me say this before I lose my nerve. You won’t ask for help. You act ridiculously stoic, and, trust me, you’re not fooling anyone. Even Mom agrees with me.”
Indignation rose up, making Glory’s heart beat faster. “Halle, my husband died.”
“He sure did, and that sucks. What I want to know is, how long do you think you can get away with ignoring your family by using that excuse? I for one don’t think Dan would appreciate it.”
Glory picked up her wineglass again and studied the ruby red liquid in the glass. Halle might as well have stuck a baling hook into her heart. “Never mind. I actually called to see what was up with you. Bye.” Glory hung up the phone, and suddenly the wine tasted wonderful, so she shut the phone off and finished her glass. Whether Halle called back or didn’t, any conversation would be like the iron in Albuquerque, palpable, relentless.
She folded laundry, made and refrigerated shortbread dough. Checked her e-mail in case someone wanted to get married. Not this week. Edsel followed her every move, and finally she took a good, hard look at the little dog and admitted she didn’t give him enough exercise. Yes, he was tiny, but, no, that didn’t mean she could skip his walks on days she felt sorry for herself. It wasn’t fair to the dog she’d adopted and called her own. “Harness,” she said, and the greyhound launched himself, landing in her arms, and began licking her face. “We’ll do this every day from now on,” she promised him, and took him outside. The little dog pranced, not minding the wind or the darkness.
They walked to the oak tree. From there, the chapel looked more like a lodge than a church. Edsel peed upon the tree for so long Glory had plenty of time to ponder her sister’s words.
Was Halle right?
On the year anniversary she’d expected some sense of closure. She’d said good-bye. Meant it when she said she hoped heaven was everything Dan dreamed it was. Other people had uncanny experiences when someone died. Comforting signs, good omens. Did her loss have to be so freaking ordinary? She tried to imagine Dan walking back into her life again. Would he be angry she’d turned his private refuge into almost as public a place as the oak tree? Allowed pirates into the place he prayed his most private prayers? Certainly he would have straightened things out with Juniper. She’d be on the honor roll, learning woodworking, sitting on the corral fence laughing at something he said.
She let Edsel back into the house and checked the goats. Nanny was miserable, and who could blame her, her sides stuck out eight or nine inches more than usual. Days ago, Glory had forked straw and shavings into an empty stall, creating a birthing place for Nanny that was five inches deep, but Nanny wasn’t having any of that. Tonight Glory herded her inside with water and pellets, shut the gate, and listened to Nathan bleat. He could stand nose to nose with her. Mesh wire was the only barrier, but try explaining that to a billy goat. Nathan wanted Monday Night Football, meat loaf on Thursdays, sex three times a week whether Nanny was interested or not. “Get over it,” she told him, and turned his oat bucket upright, throwing in a handful of feed, which distracted him immediately. She went indoors, locking locks and shutting off lights, trying to think of a way to apologize to her family for shutting them out. Maybe she’d never get over losing Dan, but as painful as it was, life did go on.
At six, Juniper came running into Glory’s bedroom, bounced onto the bed, and grabbed hold of her shoulders. “What is it?” Glory said, sitting straight upright. “Is the barn on fire? Did you call 911?”
“Nanny had twins. Adorable baby twins! Get up, Mom! You have to come see them right now. You have to.”
They s
at on the barn floor, shavings clinging all over their pajamas. Juniper took pictures of the teetering babies. “Two girls,” Glory said. “Would you like to name them?”
“That depends. Are they going to end up as Easter dinner?”
“Nope. They’re going to give us milk and help us make goat cheese to sell, and you know what that means.”
“More chores.”
“What if it meant a raise in your allowance?”
“That would be a miracle.”
“Juniper, why do you always think of the worst possible outcome?”
“I’m just following your example.”
Glory was struck mute. When the barn phone rang, it startled her. It had been so long since she’d used it, she’d almost forgotten it was there. She got to her feet to answer it, and on the way she spotted one of Dan’s gloves lying across the fence rail, stiffened into the shape of his hand. She slid her fingers inside it, then picked up the receiver. Who on earth calls before seven A.M. unless it’s bad news? Please not Lorna, please not her mother, and please not Halle or Bart or Joseph or Caroline or anyone who wasn’t ninety-nine years old and ready to go.
“Honey, it’s Caroline.”
“My goodness, you’re up early.”
“Sleep is just a good idea. I bow to the god caffeine. I’m afraid I have some news that can’t wait for a reasonable hour.”
“Caroline, you’re scaring me. What is it?”
“It’s Juniper’s father.”
“Oh, no. Did he die, too? How much more does that girl have to go through?”
“No, he’s very much with us. As in here, in town, apparently. He wants to see her. You’re going to have to break this to her somehow.”
“But he abandoned her. He can’t waltz back into her life when he feels like it, can he?”
“I’ve already scheduled their meeting with Lois. She and I will act as support during the session. Glory, you still there?”
“I’m here.” Glory leaned around the post to look at the babies. The kid with the latte-colored blaze made her way out of the birthing pen. Suddenly she discovered the springs that all goats seem to have in their hooves. She reared up, fell down, got back up, and then she had it—what Dan called “a case of the sproings.” The only thing funnier than newborn goats leaping around were baby ducks discovering their first puddle. “Yes,” Glory said. “Give me a while, Caroline. I’ll call you back.”
She hung up and pressed Dan’s glove against her cheek. He would have gone straightaway to Juniper and told her, Your father’s back. Let’s go talk to him and see what he has to say. Not Glory. She would rather stop breathing than break Juniper’s heart one more time. She watched from the stall entrance as Juniper baby-talked and gently stroked an exhausted Nanny. After a while Glory would figure out how to say it, but right now, all that mattered were the newborns. She opened the stall gate and walked inside. “Looks like they’re getting the hang of things.”
“Oh, my gosh, Mom! I thought of the perfect names. Wait till you hear.”
“Tell me.”
“Karma and Patience. From Shgun. It was Blackthorne’s karma that he had to remain in Japan, and it was his patience that allowed him to capture Ishido. In the book, it says that the moment you accept your karma is when learning begins. Kind of like what Joseph told me. Let one wild feeling take over and it will lead to another. Patience makes you strong. Isn’t that great?”
“It’s terrific,” Glory said, putting her arm around the girl with the impossible grin. “Now tell me what you want for breakfast.”
THE WESTERN BLUEBIRD (SIALIA MEXICANA)
BY JUNIPER McGUIRE
You might expect to see a bluebird in a meadow, but your chances are better if you look in the forest.
Bluebirds are not entirely blue. Gray, white, and dull blue for the females provides camouflage. Deep cobalt blue on the males, except for the drapes on his shoulders that make him look like he’s wearing a chestnut brown shawl.
In the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz Judy Garland sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” which the American Film Institute ranks as one of the best songs of all time.
When sailors log 5,000 miles at sea, or cross the equator for the first time, they mark their passage by getting a bluebird tattoo on their right hands. When they come back the other way, logging 5,000 more miles, they get one on the left hand.
Bluebirds are “secondary cavity nesters,” which means they move into other birds’ abandoned houses. The entrance must be no larger than an inch and a half in diameter or starlings can get in and steal their eggs. Look three to five feet aboveground for a bluebird’s nest. Chances are the nest will face south or east.
The bluebird is the state bird of Missouri, New York, Idaho, and Nevada.
One Navajo story says that two bluebirds stand sentry at the Creator’s door.
Bluebirds have long been associated with happiness in essays, plays, novels, and memoirs, which means that you write the truth about your life, no matter how unpleasant.
JTM: Now this is more like it. —JCV
Chapter 11
JOSEPH
Joseph sat on the front porch of his cabin, throwing the tennis ball for Dodge. He worried that if he didn’t make the dog stop and take a drink now and then, he would collapse. All around them Joseph felt spring pitching hardball. Too bad there wasn’t a way to warn the plants. All that sun feels great at first, but in no time it’ll crisp your leaves and there won’t be enough water to go around.
In three weeks his family expected him to drive up, park his car next to his father’s truck, and to sit down while his mother fed him twenty thousand calories because it was common knowledge that a forty-year-old man couldn’t be trusted to feed himself. He needed to wrap things up here, which prior to Glory and Juniper meant packing a suitcase and gassing up the car. But Juniper was responding so well to the homeschooling he hated to go.
He threw the ball long, watching Dodge run toward the lake. The dog loved to swim. He nosed around the shoreline upending turtles and displacing frogs. But with children racing by and campers taking walks wherever they pleased, Joseph would soon have to keep Dodge leashed. The dog brought the ball back and dropped it at his feet, looking at him hopefully. “Give me a break,” Joseph told him.
Should he drop him at his father’s farm, where he’d have to fight his way into the herd hierarchy? If Joseph moved back to Albuquerque, would walks in the ninety-degree heat suffice? There were eleven dog parks, but he’d driven by those places, sun-beaten and grassless. Dodge lived for his daily swim. He didn’t mind that Joseph had to go slowly on hikes. All that meant was that he could race back to check on Joseph and cover twice the distance.
The matter of Glory was not so easily resolved. Imagining a day going by that they didn’t talk was difficult. Juniper, that wild streak in her, her street smarts and courage … she was an embryonic autodidact if ever there was one. While Dodge slurped water from his bowl, Joseph walked to the lake’s edge, where segmented horsetails shot up, their stems marked by distinctive brown rings. Dodge raced by him, crashing through bushes and scaling rocks, and jumped in the water. When you pulled the sections of horsetail apart, they made a popping noise. Juniper would rattle the keys on the keyboard and report to him:
Equisetum is a rogue in the plant world because it reproduces by spores instead of seeds. It’s non-photosynthetic! One-hundred-million-plus years old! A survivor of the Paleozoic era. As close to a living fossil as any plant can be, and guess what? It’s Pre-Columbian!
He could tell her that when Grandma Penny ran out of steel wool, she sent Joseph to the lake to pull up a handful of horsetails to show him how good a job they did on her cast-iron kettle. Like papel de lija, sandpaper, its abrasiveness can turn a rough thing into a smooth thing. Not everything comes from a store.
Examining Nanny’s DNA profile led Juniper to research the Dead Sea Scrolls, written on goatskin. DNA results had proven that the pieces of skin had been taken from th
e same goat, or its relative, and allowed scientists to order and date the holy text of the Jewish religion.
I don’t believe in religion, Juniper said. What has God ever done for me?
But Joseph watched Juniper singing to the dogs and currying the horses. Looking at the past was warming her up to the idea of a future. God was patient.
“The girl is coming around all on her own,” he had told Glory yesterday, which was code for “I have to leave you both and I don’t know how to do that.”
In return, Glory said, “Butterflies are hatching,” which was code for “I can’t talk about your leaving because then it will be real.”
Weddings, butterflies, goats, and dogs; Glory would be fine after he left. She was the kind of person who soldiered on. The abundance of female energy in his life made Joseph dwell less on his aches and pains. The impossible oak tree resisting his efforts to capture it on film couldn’t compete with a homemade peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and an hour of conversation filled with laughter.
Back at the cabin he sat down on the porch steps, and Dodge, stinky and wet, whined. He looked at the ball and then up to Joseph, as close as they got to a common language. “Thirty-six more times.” Joseph counted down until he reached zero and stood up and walked inside to the kitchen. “We’re putting the ball into the drawer now,” he explained, showing Dodge and closing the drawer.
Joseph sat in front of the computer, looking at the photos he’d chosen to finish his project. The disc was at the copy shop, and soon they’d call and say the prints were done. He’d ordered five comb-bound sets. One for Juniper, one for Fidela and the boys, one for Lorna, and two spares.
He didn’t need to look to feel the dog staring at him as he waited for his beloved ball to reappear. How the heck did Glory get any work done? What did she know that he didn’t? Dodge sent out pleasepleaseplease vibes and Joseph gave up. “No mas today, comprende?”
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