Steal the North: A Novel

by Heather B Bergstrom

  If God, with his “infinite wisdom and mercy,” didn’t see fit to give Beth what she wanted most in this world, and what she was slowly killing herself trying to get, maybe I should be thankful he finally “called her home.” Now she can rest. No more herbs. No more blood. Emmy told me about the warnings in the library books. In some ways Beth was never of this world.

  “I don’t know why, sweetheart.”

  “I want my aunt. She loved me the most.” She sounds about seven years old.

  “We all love you, Emmy.”

  “I thought Reuben loved me the most. But he doesn’t love me at all.”

  “Yes, he does.”

  She shakes her head.

  “Did he tell you he didn’t?” I ask.

  She thinks for a second. “No, but he said he didn’t need me, which is the same thing.” It kind of is. “I want to go to bed.” She tries to get up but can’t. Her legs must be asleep. I get up and help her stand. “I want to go to bed at your house, in the room with my old crib. I want to go to sleep there. Not at the hotel.”

  That room—Emmy’s bedroom by every definition—has always been too painful for Beth and me to use. Which is why Beth kept her sewing machine and I store my fly-tying station in the master bedroom. Beth used to keep the night-light glowing in Emmy’s room during her short pregnancies. But that stopped, I guess, when she stopped wanting me to know.

  “Come on then, sweetie.”

  “Don’t make me talk to Mom.” She grabs my arm. “I hate her. Just let me lie down.”

  I try, but Kate ambushes us. We’re all four in the living room. Kate insists Emmy talk to her right now. Spencer is beyond frustrated, standing with his hands on his hips. His beeper sounds, and he actually throws it out the front door. He and I both tell Kate to let the girl rest awhile first before talking.

  “Look at her, Kate,” I say. “You’ve done enough to her and Reuben for one day.”

  Spencer takes Emmy’s arm out of her mom’s grip. “You’re crossing the line,” he says to Kate. He safely escorts Emmy into the bedroom and closes the door.

  Kate turns on me. “You men. What the fuck do you know?”

  “Shut up, Kate.”

  She looks at me. “I think I will.” She sits on the couch. “I don’t know what comes over me.”

  I sit in my recliner. “Don’t fuck it up with Spencer.”

  “You mean like I fucked it up with Jamie?”

  “You know I don’t think that. Can’t you hear yourself? I’m not the bad guy. You should’ve told me.”

  “Told you what?” She implores me with her eyes not to bring up what I’m about to.

  “About the truckers. I could’ve borrowed money or gotten a second job.”

  “You were lucky to get the job you had.”

  She’s right. Full-time factory jobs around here can be tough to secure, especially at seventeen. I put my head in my hands.

  “Please don’t blame yourself, Matt. It wasn’t just the money. I’d been called a whore. I was shunned by the very people who watched me grow up. I was too young to handle it all. Too young to know that I really wasn’t what they said I was. I wanted to destroy myself. I wanted to forget Jamie.”

  We sit for a moment in silence. Quietly I ask, “How did Beth handle knowing what you were doing?”

  “It hurt her terribly, as you can imagine. That’s why—” She pauses, which, when it comes to Kate, can’t be good. “That’s why she finally told me to go make a new life somewhere with Emmy.”

  “She didn’t.”

  “She did, Matt. My leaving here was her idea.”

  “That makes no sense.” But of course it makes perfect sense. All along I’d thought Kate left of her own accord. Beth.

  “Don’t tell Emmy,” Kate says. She wipes her eyes, which are filled with tears, as are mine. “It would crush her, especially now, to learn Beth had anything to do with the two of them being separated.”

  What I wouldn’t give to be out in my boat right now, to find a secluded cove on Lake Roosevelt to camp for a day or two with my tent, cooler, and barbecue. I always wanted to take Beth to a cove for a weekend, or even just one night, to zip our sleeping bags together and hold my wife under the stars.

  Kate speaks. “Do you ever regret the day you came walking into that crazy church—was it with your pudgy cousin Randy or Ralphy? Reggie?” She’s trying to lighten the mood a bit.

  “Only when I’m around you. Never around Beth. Or Emmy.”

  “Nice.”

  “What did you say to Reuben?”

  “What any parent would, I suppose.”

  “Help me out here, Kate.”

  “That my daughter has to finish high school.”

  “Why not here?”

  “The requirements and standards are different in each state.” She sounds like a teacher. “Emmy’s on track for college in California. U.C. Berkeley.”

  “Berkeley? Don’t the students there hang out in trees protesting all day?” Kate laughs. “That seems a bit much for Emmy.” She doesn’t respond. “Well, doesn’t it?”

  “Academically, no. She’s in the top of her class.”

  No wonder the kid needed a desk in the bedroom. I never studied over summer break—seems against nature.

  “Emmy’s smarter than I am already,” Kate says. “And I have a master’s degree.”

  “I’m proud of you for that, by the way.” She thanks me. I tell her, “I tried to get Beth to get her GED in case something happened to me.” Kate looks at me in a way that tells me she never thought about that scenario. But I certainly did. I took out extra life insurance policies on myself without Beth’s knowing. I worked out plans with my parents and siblings.

  Before Kate can respond, Spencer comes out of the bedroom. “Let’s go for a beer, Matt,” he says.

  “Matt doesn’t drink,” Kate says. “And it’s only noon.”

  “It’s never too early to start with you around,” he says. I think he’s joking, but I can’t be sure. And a beer sounds excellent. I’ve had beers over the years with my family. My sister gets a kick out of my having a margarita with her every year on her birthday. Just one. Beth never asked, so I never lied. I never asked her if Kate was hooking, so Beth never lied. I get up.

  “Don’t go into that bedroom,” Spencer says to Kate. “Emmy’s sleeping.” Kate starts to protest. “I mean it. Leave our daughter alone.”

  I like that. Spencer really loves Emmy. I’m jealous of the four years he’s had with her.

  “Ready, Matt?”

  “What am I supposed to do,” Kate asks, but I think she’s also joking, “while you asshole men are off drinking?”

  “Start peeling potatoes for dinner,” Spencer says. He grins at me but not at her.

  We spend a few hours in a restaurant bar. One thing about beer, it’s never overrated. We talk about my job, his job, the 1979 NBA championship, which the Sonics won. Has it been almost twenty years? We talk about my family, Beth, Kate. Spencer is smooth with the female bartender without flirting. Three different ladies approach him. He lets them down easy, but again without flirting. I’m impressed and way out of my league. I get uneasy when he leaves to make a call after his beeper goes off. It had taken us a few minutes to find it in the yard. Spencer offers me his condolences several times and also a job in Sacramento. He says if I don’t want to work for him, he knows businesses hiring. The housing market is booming, and labor unions are looking for guys. I thank him but tell him it’s too soon. He makes sure to tell me more than once that it’s a standing offer.

  Surprisingly, when we get back to the house, Kate is making food. “Don’t worry, Matt,” Spencer says when I tell Kate it smells good. “I’ve never had her cooking before either.”

  He goes to Kate and ruffles her hair with both his hands. They’re a sexy couple. I don�
��t know how else to describe it. Maybe it’s the multiple beers talking.

  Kate bought more beer at the store. She pops one open for me and one for her. I’m already light-headed. If only Beth could be here, minus the beer. How happy she’d be to cook in the kitchen with her sister. I try to not see Beth, gown bloody, smashing those bottles. I’ve never been more terrified in my life. And poor Emmy had to witness it.

  The girl sleeps on. Kate has peeked in on her half a dozen times. Finally I take her some water and a small plate of her mom’s stir-fry. “It’s just me,” I say. She sits up. “Drink this.” She takes a few swallows. “Can you eat some?”

  “I’m not hungry. Did Reuben call?”

  “No, sweetie.”

  “I’m still tired.” I leave the plate of food on the dresser. I ask Emmy if she wants me to turn on the night-light so the room’s not so dark, but she says no.

  “Leave Emmy here for the night,” I tell Kate.

  “So Reuben can come over?”

  “Stop it. He’s not coming over. He went back to the reservation.”

  “Not even to tell her good-bye?”

  I shake my head. “It would hurt too bad.”

  “We’ll be back in the morning,” Spencer says. “Good night.”

  “Tell her she can call me, no matter how late,” Kate says.

  They leave. I take a few moments to regroup. Kate wasn’t always such a bully, and she doesn’t hold a candle to her dad. I think Kate not only armored but armed herself too heavily when she left here on that bus for California. Maybe she had to. If only Beth had inherited some of Kate’s courage and kick, and Kate some of her sister’s gentleness. I go in to Emmy. I make her sit up and drink a swallow of water. “Your aunt would want you to eat.”

  “She’s not here. She left me. She left us. I wish Mom had died instead.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Maybe.”

  I grab the desk chair and place it close to the bed. I sit down in case she wants to talk some more. I can’t look at the crib.

  “Reuben knows how to be hungry,” she says. “He said hunger is part of being Indian. I miss him.” She still seems about seven. “But not as much as you miss Aunt Beth.”

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “You won’t be okay after I leave. You’ll be all alone.”

  “I’ll be okay if I know you are.”

  That’s not what she wanted to hear. “I want to go to sleep.”

  I grab a beer from the fridge and head out front to drink it on the steps. I hear Reuben’s nieces and nephews in the trailer next door. I see Teresa pass by the kitchen window. She doesn’t see me because I turned off the porch light. Beth has been in the ground—unbelievable—for more than twenty-four hours. It seems longer. It seems shorter. Beth. I put my head down. My journey without you has begun. Rest, my darling.

  Kate and Spencer arrive early. I have to admit that Emmy wouldn’t eat last night. All morning she’s been curled up under the covers, even her head. Spencer tries tempting Emmy with her favorite flavor of Ben & Jerry’s. By noon we are all three exasperated. Emmy may be shy, but she’s also stubborn. Kate goes in alone to be the heavy. At this point, whatever it takes to get Emmy to eat. It’s been more than twenty-four hours.

  “Enough, Emmy,” we hear. “You have to get up. If you don’t eat, you’re going to get sick. We have to pack. We’re leaving in the morning. I know you’re hurting terribly, honey. Things will be better in California. Come on now and get up.”

  Spencer and I pace in the living room. Suddenly we hear movements and thuds. Would Kate actually drag Emmy out of bed?

  “Spencer! Matt!” Kate calls. We both dash in there. Emmy sits in the corner, by the crib. On the bed and around the floor beside it are the paper birds from the mobile. Was Emmy sleeping with them? She wears the dress Beth made for her. She must’ve changed during the night, but she forgot to button the front. Her bra shows. Kate tries to reach and button the dress, but Emmy pushes her mom’s hands away. Emmy looks up but makes no eye contact with anyone. She coughs. Her throat sounds parched. Then she gags. Spencer passes Kate the water glass so she can hand it to Emmy, but Emmy pushes it away abruptly, and it spills. “Damn it, Emmy,” Kate says. “I’m your mother. We have to leave here.” She sounds panicked.

  This is the bedroom in which Kate slept off her hangovers and the bruises from truckers. No wonder she wants to leave. I always thought, back then, I was providing Kate a place of reprieve, and in some ways I guess I still was.

  Emmy covers her ears and begins to rock back and forth.

  “Give me a minute alone with Emmy,” I say. “Shut the door.” I kneel down beside her. “Do you want me to go get Reuben?” She makes eye contact with me. “Will you drink if I get him?” She nods. I gather up the paper birds and put them, for some reason, in the crib. Then I go into the living room. “Kate, I want you and Spencer to leave. And I don’t just mean leave this house. I think you guys should leave Moses Lake.”

  “Without Emmy?” Kate asks. “No way. And where did she get that awful dress? Has she been wearing it all summer?”

  “No, Kate, just for the healing. Beth made them matching dresses.”

  Spencer interrupts. “What were you saying about our leaving?”

  I take a deep breath. “I think you should leave Emmy with me for one week. I’ll get her on a plane back to California. She needs more time here.”

  “You mean with Reuben?”

  “Yes, Kate, with Reuben. Is that so bad? She needs a proper good-bye. She needs to be around Beth’s garden and her things for a little while longer.”

  “No,” Kate says. “The sooner she gets back to California, the better.”

  “She can stay,” Spencer says.

  “No,” Kate insists. “She is coming with us right now. Go get her, Spencer.”

  “Hell, no. I’m not dragging our daughter—”

  “Our daughter?”

  “You ever question that again,” Spencer says, “and we’re over.” He means it.

  “You owe me one, Kate,” I say. “I’m not one for calling in favors. But you owe me.”

  Kate takes a minute.

  “You saved my life, Matt. I’ve never forgotten. You took care of Emmy and me when nobody else would—not Dad or Jamie.” She breaks and starts to cry. “I love you like a brother. But Emmy is my baby.” She puts her hands on her belly. I remember how swollen it was. How miraculous Beth found it, and it absolutely was. “She’s coming with me.”

  “I swear on your sister’s grave—” I hate the sound of that. “I’ll have Emmy on an airplane in one week. Reuben will make her go back. He already told her to leave and that he didn’t need her. He did what you asked. She has to hear him say that was a lie.”

  “He’ll ask her to stay.” She looks desperate. She’s met her match in Reuben, as far as sway with Emmy.

  “He never did,” I remind her. “He loves her enough to let her go. That’s been proven. I beg you. Let me do this for Beth. Emmy’s the only baby she and I ever held between us.”

  Kate’s shoulders slump.

  I pull out my last card, one I will never use again. “You didn’t see what Emmy did that night, Kate. Her aunt smashing jars, gown bloody, hair all—”

  Kate puts her hand up. “Stop.” She puts both hands over her face.

  “Nor did you see her in that hospital room, all the tubes and gauze. Emmy did. She can’t leave here with those images still so fresh in her head.”

  “Okay,” Kate murmurs. “Okay. She can stay for another week.”

  “You guys need to clear out of here right now. Reuben won’t come back into town unless you’re gone. Emmy won’t drink until she sees Reuben.”

  Kate uncovers her face. For the first time I see her age, the wear. Life hasn’t been any easier for Kate than it was for
Beth.

  “Our plane tickets aren’t until tomorrow,” she tries.

  “We can stay in Spokane tonight,” Spencer says. He told me over beers that it’s been challenging from day one with Kate. “Matt, thanks.” He shakes my hand. “There’s no one in the world we trust more with Emmy than you. I’m really sorry about your wife. She sounded like a wonderful woman. The offer stands for work in California. Let’s go, Kate.”

  Kate hugs me for a long time. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it back in time.” She kisses me on the mouth. Her breath is warm. “Take care of my little girl,” she whispers. “Just like you used to. Just like you always took care of my little sister.” She lets go of me and looks around the place. She closes her eyes. She’s either praying or speaking to Beth. Her lips move.

  Spencer puts his arm around her shoulder. If he can still be tender after this week, he’s in it for the long haul. “Let’s go, baby,” Spencer says to Kate, nodding once more at me.

  * * *

  Teresa isn’t home, so I go to the hospital where she works. I inquire at the front desk, then wait in the lobby. It’s not in my nature to interrupt a person at her place of employment, but I don’t know what else to do. “Matt?” Teresa looks surprised when she walks into the lobby.

  “Hello, Teresa. I’m really sorry to bother you.”

  “What’s the matter?” She takes off her nursing cap and points to a more private corner.

  “Do you know where I can find Reuben?”

  “I don’t.” She looks away.

  “Please, Teresa. Emmy’s messed up. She won’t eat or drink.”

  “I’m sure he’s not doing any better.”

  “He’s stronger than she is.”

  “That’s what people think,” she says. “I happen to know otherwise.”

  “I’m going to the reservation to look for him.”

  “Don’t go up there.”

  “I am.”

  She stares at me so hard I get even more uncomfortable. “Wait here,” she says. “Let me make a phone call.” She leaves. I’ll be happy not to see the inside of a hospital for a while. How does Teresa do it every day? To feed her kids, I guess. Why doesn’t she have a steady man? I’ve seen men of all colors hanging around her trailer over the years, but never for long. A man brought her a washer not that long ago. I’ve seen Indian men bring her fish. It’s none of my business. She comes back with a slip of paper. “If my brother knew Emmy was suffering and I didn’t help.”