Unsung Lullaby

by Josi S. Kilpack

“Yeah,” she said, and now he noticed the irritation in her voice.

  No big surprise. She was often irritated about something, and he hardly bothered to notice anymore. Since finding out she was pregnant, it had been better, but it didn’t surprise him that she’d reverted to her old habits.

  “Never mind, I’ll see ya later,” she said.

  “Yeah, see ya.” He clicked off the phone and dropped it back into his pocket in time to jump to his feet and roar at the three-point shot Harpring had just made. The game was tied. Sweet!

  “Who was that?” his friend James asked when they sat back down. James had been Matt’s best friend since elementary school, and they attended a few games together each season. He’d been married for seven years and had three kids. Luckily for Matt, James’s wife let him go out once in a while. Matt envied all the reasons James had to stay home—a loving wife and three cute kids—but he never said so.

  “Maddie,” Matt said with a shrug, raising his voice in order to be heard.

  “Everything okay?” James yelled back as the Jazz got the ball.

  “She didn’t say it wasn’t, and she always makes sure to tell me when things aren’t okay.”

  The Clippers intercepted a pass and took a twenty-second time-out. The noise of the crowd died down enough that they didn’t have to yell to be heard by one another. James chuckled. “That bad, huh?”

  Matt shrugged again. “It’s okay. Just the way she is, I guess. Did I tell you we think she’s pregnant?”

  “Really,” James said with a smile. “Congratulations—all that practice paid off.”

  Matt grinned at the joke. “Well, we’re not sure. The test came out positive, but with all the hormones and stuff she’s been on, we need an ultrasound to confirm it. But we’re pretty excited.”

  “That’s great,” James said. When the game started again, the Jazz made a basket, taking the lead. Matt jumped to his feet again. “Go, baby, go!” he shouted while James cheered next to him. Maddie’s interruption was forgotten.

  ****

  When Matt got home, the apartment was dark and quiet. He scanned the main area that encompassed the foyer, living room, dining area, and kitchen. The stove light illuminated the kitchen counter that separated the tiny square of linoleum from the boring brown apartment carpet. Three barstools were tucked beneath the overhang on the living room side, and a paper on the counter caught his eye. He pulled it close enough to read.

  False alarm

  He sat on a barstool and rested his elbows on the counter, dropping his head into his hands. A long, strangled breath seeped through his lips as he accepted yet another loss. That was why she’d called tonight—and he had blown her off. I’m such a jerk, he told himself.

  With a frustrated groan, he crumpled the note and headed down the short hallway. Maddie was probably pretending to sleep but waiting for an apology. His saying he was sorry wouldn’t satisfy her, though, and things would get worse before they got better. Eventually her anger would give way to depression, which would hang around until it wore itself out. Then they would try IVF for the third time, and hope would be restored. But with every round, that hope became a little more brittle, a little less comforting. How much more could they take?

  At the end of the hall was the master bedroom. The other investment brokers Matt worked with had nice homes, nice cars, vacations in Hawaii—the works. But he and Maddie were still living the lifestyle of college kids. Two and a half years ago they’d received notice that their apartment complex was selling off the units as condos, and they had the opportunity to buy without a down payment. They liked the area and couldn’t afford anything better, so they decided to transition from renters to owners without needing a U-haul. They liked the idea of earning equity and painting the walls any color they chose, but it was still an apartment, with cheap fixtures and an unimaginative floor plan. Instead of indulging in the luxuries their taxes proved they could afford, they had put all their money into making a baby—forty thousand dollars so far.

  Matt opened the door to their bedroom. Maddie wasn’t there. He checked the guest room and found the door locked. Big surprise. He went to bed alone but found sleep hard to come by.

  It will happen, he told himself, trying to believe it as the thoughts spun and whirled through his head. He didn’t often dwell on the situation they were in, choosing instead to focus his energy on furthering his career and having faith that their waiting would soon be over. But he couldn’t escape it tonight. He ached for a child, for the new life it would give his marriage, for the joy he and Maddie would find in becoming a family.

  But one reason in particular haunted him tonight. A reason all the more powerful because it was the only one his wife knew nothing about.

  It seemed silly even to him, but deep down he believed that if he could create a child with the woman he loved, the woman he was sealed to, it would make up for his misuse of intimacy all those years ago. Maybe it was his idea of what the Catholics would call absolution. He just felt it would somehow make it right—proving to himself and to God that he was a man, ready to be responsible, ready to do things right this time. Yet the one thing he felt could shut the book on that chapter of his life continued to elude him.

  Alone, in the dark, with one more disappointment wrapping around him, it made no sense at all. At times like this, when the memories were raw, he wished he’d told Maddie in the beginning what he had done. He’d come to realize that she likely would have forgiven him when their love was new and fresh and their future looked rosy. But it was too late. Their marriage wasn’t strong enough to support a confession like that now. It would only serve to hurt her, and he couldn’t add to her pain or give her reason to pull further away. He’d felt it wise not to burden her with the whole truth back then, and he had repented and done everything possible to repair what he’d done. But his mistake continued to lie between them, whether she knew the reason or not, and keeping it to himself became more and more uncomfortable with each failure they faced.

  Finally, he put a pillow over his face and groaned, his frustrations demanding an outlet. This is not the way life is supposed to be.

  He removed the pillow and stared at the dark ceiling, glad Maddie had slept in the guest room after all.

  ****

  The next morning, Maddie came out a few minutes before Matt left for work. His company kept East Coast hours, and he arrived at the office by 6:00 a.m. every day. Maddie worked for a company that developed meal plans for hospitals, day cares, and anyplace else that had to meet mandated dietary standards. She worked from nine to five and didn’t often wake up before he left. Maybe she wanted to see him—or maybe she wanted to fight about the phone call last night. He couldn’t be sure. He pulled her into an awkward hug; it seemed as if they’d forgotten how to touch each other this way. She didn’t hug him back.

  “How was the game?” she asked, pulling from the embrace and heading into the kitchen. He sat down at the small table and continued putting his shoes on.

  “Okay, I guess,” he said, watching her every movement. He wanted to make all his thoughts of last night up to her somehow, but that didn’t make sense. “I’m sorry for being so brusque on the phone, Maddie,” he added. “If I’d known . . .” His voice trailed off as he realized that he didn’t know what he would have done or said if she’d told him.

  She didn’t look up, just shrugged as if it were no big deal.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Not really.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  For a moment she paused. “Maybe it’s time to think about adoption.”

  “We agreed, Maddie,” Matt said with frustration. Every now and then she would bring up adoption, and it made him angry for reasons she didn’t understand and he had no intention of explaining. With last night’s thoughts and frustrations still very much on his mind, it was harder than usual for him to have this discussion. She might change her feelings about adoption, surrender to what seemed to
be the easy answer to their problems, but he wouldn’t give up. “We already decided that wasn’t our Plan B.”

  “I feel the same way—I don’t want to adopt either. But Plan A isn’t working.”

  He let out a breath. “We agreed on three in-vitro fertilization treatments.”

  “Yes, we did,” she said with a sigh and turned to the pantry without further argument.

  She looked so sad, it made his stomach tighten. He was her husband; he was supposed to make things better. It was a horrible, hollow feeling to be so helpless. “Is there anything I can do to make this easier for you to deal with?”

  She turned from the pantry with a box of Wheaties in her hand and met his eyes. “Not really.” They held each other’s eyes for a moment, until the alarm on his watch beeped twice, his signal that he needed to be out the door in order to get to work on time. It broke the spell, and Maddie looked away again.

  “You better get going,” she said as she poured the cereal into a bowl.

  “I can stay.”

  “No, you can’t.” Her voice held just a hint of the bitterness he felt sure was roiling within her, waiting for him to say the wrong thing so she could unleash her anger on him. He almost wished she would. Her anger was easier to deal with than her sorrow. “We have another in-vitro to pay for.”

  He vacillated for a few more seconds but couldn’t deny that her real message was, “I don’t want you here.” He nodded and finished getting his things together. “How about we go out to dinner tonight?”

  “I thought you had clients coming into town?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said, deflated. “How about tomorrow?”

  “Whoa,” she said with mock sincerity, holding her hands up, palms facing him, as if in shock. “Let’s not plan too far in the future. Who knows what clients, meetings, Jazz games, or other excuses tomorrow might bring. I’d hate to get my hopes up.”

  “That’s nice, Maddie. I’m just trying to—”

  “Whatever.” She dropped her spoon on the counter with a clatter that seemed to echo through the tension. She looked at him, staring him down, her face tight. “Go to work.”

  Chapter 3

  The school bus backfired as it pulled away from the gravel driveway. Eight o’clock already? Sonja asked herself. She burrowed deeper into the blankets.

  After half an hour of trying to go back to sleep, Sonja gave it up altogether. She was stretching her long brown arms above her head, noting that the room was cold and she needed to turn up the heat, when someone knocked on the front door of the trailer.

  Pulling a large Corona T-shirt over her head, she muttered about who could be out there at eight-thirty on a Thursday morning. When she opened the door, the UPS man was standing on the second step, eye level with her bare legs. It was cold outside, even for January, but she didn’t react to the affront of frigid wind, watching the man instead. By the time his eyes reached her face he was blushing. Few women on the reservation would be so forward, but Sonja put little stock in the modesty and decorum handed down from woman to girl in the Navajo clans. She preferred to stand out—and she always did.

  “Good morning?” she said, cocking her head to the side and enjoying his discomfort. She leaned her back against the door frame and smiled down at him. Sonja Begay Hudson was only twenty-six years old, but she hadn’t aged particularly well. Her hair was no longer shiny, her face too round to be striking, and fine lines had sprung up around her eyes and mouth. But she was still slender, if not a little too skinny, and her legs continued to be among her best features. She liked it when people noticed.

  “Uh . . . good morning, ma’am,” he said, averting his eyes as he handed her a rather large box. Heavy too, she realized as she took it from him. Once unencumbered by the package, he hurried back to his vehicle, and in a blaze of dust and gravel from the rutted dirt road his big brown truck was gone, heading through the nothingness toward Twin Lakes a few miles farther north and only ten miles or so past the border of the Reservation. She was likely his first delivery of the day—but one he wouldn’t forget too soon.

  Sonja smiled to herself and went back inside, slamming the flimsy door too hard and causing the whole trailer to shudder.

  The box was addressed to Mrs. Begay, causing Sonja to furrow her brow. Her mom had been dead for over six months. You’d think anyone who cared enough to send her a package this big, expensive for shipping alone, should have known that. She shrugged. When her mom died, Sonja got the trailer and the old truck. This would be hers too, by default. She hoped it would be something good.

  The package was taped up like Fort Knox, and it took some effort, a kitchen knife, and several curse words to get it open. When she pulled the box flaps back she found a single sheet of paper at the top.

  Dear Mrs. Begay,

  I hope this package finds you and Sonja well. We haven’t been in contact for so long we can only hope this is still your address. We’re moving to a smaller place now that the kids are grown, and in cleaning out the spare room that Sonja and the other girls we fostered had used, we found a box in the closet with her name on it.

  Sonja smiled to herself. Apparently it was hers after all—no default ownership needed. She kept reading.

  We didn’t have the heart to throw it away. We’re hoping you could get it to her. We wish both of you the best and hope you’ll give Sonja our love.

  Sincerely,

  The Petersons

  Sonja snorted. Their love. Their Christian, or better yet, Mormon duty was more like it. Her mom had enrolled Sonja and her two older brothers in the Indian Placement Program, better known as the Lamanite program, when Sonja was twelve years old. Her brothers went to the same home in Provo. She went to a different one in Salt Lake. For the next four years she traveled to the Peterson home for the school year, returning to the Reservation every summer. Her mom had fallen hook, line, and sinker for the Mormons and all their little programs—at least for a while—and took full advantage of everything they offered. Sonja had been baptized too, but like her brothers, she never put her heart in it. At first she had thought going to Salt Lake would be an adventure, but she’d felt like a fish out of water and hated it, begging her mom to let her come home after a month. However, with the three of them farmed out, her mom had only Sonja’s younger sister at home and wasn’t about to give up her freedom just because Sonja was uncomfortable. It wasn’t until Sonja was sixteen that she managed to come up with a plan to keep her from ever having to go to Salt Lake again.

  The Reservation held no great attraction for her; Sonja had as much respect for the Navajo traditions as she did for the Mormon ones. But at least she had friends and could do her own thing on the Rez. And Garrett was there. He was nineteen, Anglo—which made him a forbidden fruit—and lived in Gallup, New Mexico, a few miles off the Reservation. They had become pretty serious the summer before her sophomore year of high school. She’d been furious about leaving him, sure he would find someone else while she was gone. The idea had festered like an ulcer.

  Sonja put the letter aside and dug through the packing peanuts, smiling as she pulled out some dance pictures. The Petersons hadn’t let her go to dances until those last few months, after she had turned sixteen, but she’d been popular with the boys back then, pushing aside the traditions of her people in order to have much more fun.

  Under the photos she found a buckskin dress—it wasn’t even Navajo, but the Anglos in Salt Lake didn’t know the difference. She’d bought it at a summer powwow comprised of several different tribes and taken it with her to Salt Lake that last year. People were always asking her about Indian stuff, and they oohed and ahhed over the treasure. The animal-skin dress fit their Native American perceptions better than the long, multicolored skirts Navajo women really wore. She couldn’t imagine how anyone could stand wearing buckskin, even for the ceremonial dances. She thought the dress smelled like roadkill, and ten years in a box hadn’t helped any. Wrinkling her nose, she threw it aside.

  Digging into th
e box again, she found a pair of jeans she’d hated even then and a few books she couldn’t remember reading. Halfway through the box she came upon a spiral notebook, and whatever might have lain beneath it was suddenly of no concern at all.

  She had assumed this notebook was history.

  The journal was supposed to contain her feelings about the topics taught in her seminary class each day. When she realized the teacher would never check what she chose to write—privacy and all that—she began writing her rampages against the society she was forced to live in for nine months of the year. She hated the continual looks she got, the awkward questions about the Navajo traditions, and the way she never quite fit in with everyone else. She missed the Reservation’s wide openness and laid-back pace, the friends she’d known all her life, and her mother’s low expectations. The journal became her outlet, and it was where she’d recorded the last two weeks she’d spent in Salt Lake.

  Garrett had done the right thing when she had informed him she was pregnant a month or so after getting back to the Rez. Though marriage was optional, she insisted, and he agreed. Once she had the forty-dollar ring on her finger, they moved to Phoenix. Garrett had a job at first, but he lost it and had a hard time getting another one. He eventually found work in New Mexico—right after the baby was born. They named him Walter, after Garrett’s dad. Sonja refused to move back to New Mexico, so she remained in Phoenix, and Garrett came back on weekends as much as he could.

  Garrett had proved to be an okay husband, and he’d gotten her away from her mother’s house and spared her the treks to Utah. But he was dead boring. When Walter was two, Sonja began seeing other men to relieve the tedium of being alone all the time. When Garrett found out, he filed for divorce. Now and then the Navajo Nation Division of Child Support Services (DCSS) would catch up with him and garnish his wages for all the back child support he owed, but then he would disappear again.

  Sonja hadn’t expected things to turn out quite like they did, and although the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) gave her financial help, it wasn’t enough—she still had to work in order to support herself. When she was forced to move back in with her mother on the Reservation, she wished she’d kept the seminary journal. It was the only place where she’d thought to keep track of the boys she’d hooked up with—her insurance plan for getting pregnant and therefore getting Garrett. But chances were good that Garrett wasn’t Walter’s biological father. In fact, she felt pretty certain he wasn’t, which meant someone else was. If she could have found the real father, she might have had a chance of getting more money than the BIA gave her. But she couldn’t remember their names, even that of the one guy who told his bishop. She’d actually had to talk to the boy’s bishop and promise him that she wasn’t pregnant—it had been so humiliating. Of all the guys she’d been with, she ought to remember his name, thanks to all the trouble she’d gone through to assure him he was free of any obligation to her. But she couldn’t remember it any better than she could remember what she had eaten for breakfast two Tuesdays ago. There had been a lot of men since him. Without the journal, there was no way to track any of those boys down.