When the sprinkler system was finished, Allen hosted a barbecue, inviting both sides of the family. It was the first time most family members had met Walter. There were looks and whispers, but a lot of good wishes as well, and with a few cousins close to Walter’s age, he wasn’t left out. Matt drove home that night feeling much more satisfied than he had to this point. They were a family, or trying to be, and they belonged to a bigger one that was helping to ease the transition. Walter fell asleep in the car, and Matt carried him to his room and helped him take off his shoes. For the first time since Walter had arrived, Matt felt like a father. As he shut the door to the room, he realized he liked it.
Chapter 32
Anna got up as soon as the early grayness filtered through the dirty trailer windows, though it was not yet ha-yeli-kahn (dawn). She showered, parted her hair in the middle, and wove it into two braids that hung over her shoulders. Though Navajo women traditionally wore their hair in a bun, she was young enough that braids were acceptable. The trading post was a tourist stop, and typically they hired only full-blood Navajos to work there. Her lighter skin worked against her—or at least it had. But Anna was one of the best weavers her age, thanks to Grandmother’s teaching, which had started when Anna was five years old. It helped that she was willing to weave for hours at a time, five days a week. The tourists loved to watch a weaver at work, and Anna enjoyed few things more than sitting before the loom, even if she was making only small, relatively useless, decorative mats. Another loom was set up nearby with a full rug she also worked on, in between the souvenir rugs. When it was finished, the trading post would sell it for a good price, and she would get a percentage.
When Anna was ready to head out for work, she stood on the back porch facing Tsishaajini (Mount Blanca), the sacred mountain to the east, and recited her morning prayer.
May it be beautiful before me
May it be beautiful behind me
May it be beautiful above me
May it be beautiful below me
May I walk in beauty.
Though some felt the Navajo and Christian traditions were too different to be lived in tandem, Anna saw similarities between the beliefs, appreciating the tradition of her people while respecting the detail of Christianity. The Holy One that the Navajo prayed to was the same God the Christians revered. She did not see the beliefs as going in separate directions, or overshadowing one another, but as two parts of a puzzle focused on care for oneself, for others, and for the land. Grandmother was a good teacher, and Anna credited her with the life Anna had lived thus far. She wished Sonja had taken the time to learn as she had, but she also knew Sonja had experienced darkness that Anna had been spared. Though Anna loved her mother, the men she’d brought home had not been good ones. The abuse Sonja had suffered on account of her mother’s unwillingness to be alone had scarred her, and she had followed a path of heartache and anger ever since. Anna, however, tried to walk in beauty, as most traditional Navajos did. And she tried hard to pass those same beliefs on to Walter.
The sound of footsteps behind her caused her to jump. Sonja was never up this early. But as Anna turned, her face darkened to see not Sonja but José, her sister’s on-again-off-again boyfriend. Anna hadn’t realized he’d stayed here last night. She hurried back inside to get her things, ignoring the fact that he was wearing only boxer shorts with his beer belly hanging over the top.
“Good morning,” José said as she passed him in the doorway. She gave him as wide a berth as possible and stared at the ratty carpet to avoid looking at him. She did not like or trust José and made a point to be around him as little as possible.
In her room she grabbed her bag and took a deep breath. With slower steps, not wanting to look scared, she left her bedroom. José said good morning again, and she ignored him again.
She was within a few steps of the front door when a large hand wrapped around her arm. She froze, and then tried to yank it free, to no avail.
“You should not be so rude,” he said in a gravelly voice that attested to a smoking habit spanning at least twenty years.
Anna took a breath. “My apologies,” she said, yanking once more on her arm and praying in her heart he would let her go.
He didn’t. His thumb began to move in tiny circles on her inner arm. She swallowed. This wasn’t the first time one of Sonja’s boyfriends had made advances toward her.
“Let go,” Anna said in a low voice. José pulled her backward, closer to him. In one fluid movement she spun around, knocking him in the head with her bag and aiming her knee at a much lower target. As soon as she felt his grip loosen, she twisted from his grasp and ran for the door. He caught her ankle just as she leapt out the front door, causing her to crash against the cinderblock steps. Pain shot through her face and down her back, and her nose began to bleed. She pulled her ankle from his grasp and, without pausing a moment, scrambled down the remaining stairs, jumped to her feet, and ran without daring to look back.
She ran down the dirt road for almost half a mile, sure that José was right behind her and that her feet would go out from under her at any moment. When she finally dared to look back, she was relieved to see that the road behind her was empty. As she came to a stop, her chest heaved for breath and the tears overtook her.
Placing her hands on her knees, she took long, deep breaths, trying to calm herself and think what to do while the tears dropped into the dust, disappearing into the starved earth at her feet. Her white blouse was streaked with dirt and blood. She couldn’t go to work looking like this. The blood on her face was dried, but she worried that her nose might be broken. Looking around, she scanned the sagebrush peppered with litter blown across the mesa by the summer wind. Though the sun was just rising above Mt. Blanca, the baked earth still radiated yesterday’s heat and made her dizzy. Seeing smoke from Grandmother’s hogan another quarter mile off the road, she turned in that direction and began to walk through the dry grasses and rabbit brush as fast as she dared, careful not to step in any lizard or snake holes as she hurried across the desolate landscape. Grandmother’s hogan lay at the southernmost edge of the land used by her clan, and Anna was glad she didn’t have to pass any other hogans or modular homes belonging to Grandmother’s family.
After cleaning Anna up, Grandmother made one of her horrid but healing teas and walked to a neighboring hogan belonging to her niece to use the phone and inform the trading post that Anna would be late. While Anna sat on a willow chair, Grandmother washed her shirt and hung it outside to dry. Then she came and sat across from Anna.
“It’s not safe for you to be there.”
Anna nodded. “I can’t leave.”
Grandmother didn’t argue the point. They both knew it was true. Anna was glad Walter was gone for the summer, but he would be coming back—he needed to come back.
“Perhaps it is time to involve the elders,” Grandmother said. “Perhaps they are the only ones who can fix things.”
“Dooda (no), I can’t risk Walter going to live with his father forever,” Anna said, shaking her head. “He needs to be with his people.” Though Grandmother had always helped them, she was of the Tachii’nii (Red Running Into Water People), whereas Anna and Sonja were born into the Ashiihi (Salt Clan). Clans ran through the mother’s line, and with so many generations of fractured women, Anna had grown not knowing her kinfolk. Grandmother had, in a sense, fostered them, and without her care, Anna feared she would have followed the same course as her sister and mother had. Walter needed her to help him avoid the same ruin and learn the traditions that had been lost.
They sat in silence for several moments, both contemplating their options and finding no solution. Anna finally stood, feeling much better, though her face was still throbbing. The small mirror above Grandmother’s sink showed that her nose was dark and grossly swollen. But it couldn’t be helped any more than Grandmother’s tea could do. The dry desert heat had already dried her blouse, and she put it back on. Grandmother replaited Anna’s hair before goi
ng to find someone in her clan willing to drive Anna the two miles to the trading post.
Another girl in another situation would have taken the day off, but Anna’s reality was different. She needed this job, and she needed the distraction.
Grandmother exited through the hogan door again. The door faced east, as was tradition, and as the old woman exited the hogan the morning sun shone through the doorway. Had it been only an hour ago that Anna had said her morning prayer? She lifted her face to the sun and thanked the Holy One that she’d been able to make it to Grandmother’s hogan in safety.
At the trading post, no one said a word about her swollen face. The Navajo were always respectful of one another’s privacy. When her best friend, Skye, stopped in at the end of the day to offer Anna a ride home, even she didn’t ask any questions in front of the others. When they were alone in the truck, Anna told her what had happened.
“Come stay with me,” Skye offered as they bounced along the rutted dirt roads. When they came to the turn that would take them to the trailer, Skye pulled to the side and stopped the truck. “You know my family would welcome you.”
“I have to talk to Sonja first,” Anna said, already having prepared herself for the offer she knew her best friend would make. “And I’ll have to come back when Walter returns.”
Skye pursed her lips and nodded her head, agreeing and disagreeing at once, as she made the turn and headed for the trailer.
They arrived to find the trailer empty, and Skye said she would wait in the truck while Anna gathered up her things. For almost a minute Anna stood inside the trailer, not sure what to do. Should she wait for Sonja? It could be days before her sister returned. Finally, she went to the phone and called Walter.
“Sheps,” a woman said into the phone. Anna had called Walter once a week since he left and recognized the voice as Maddie, Walter’s stepmom. She was always nice.
“May I speak with Walter, please,” Anna said.
“Just a moment,” Maddie said. A few minutes later, Walter was on the line.
“Anna?” he asked, and for a moment Anna thought how sad it was that he didn’t even consider it might be his own mother calling him.
“How are you?” Anna asked. Walter went on to tell her all about what he was doing. She envied him and was once again thankful he had gone. Though she had wrestled with herself over encouraging him to leave the Reservation, worried that he would prefer it there over here, she knew it was best. From the sound of his voice and the report of all he was doing, that knowledge was reaffirmed.
“I’m staying with Skye until you get back,” Anna said when he’d finished.
“Why?” Walter asked without any suspicion, as if it were perfectly normal.
“Well, the house feels too empty without you here, and I’ll be closer to the trading post. I’ll call when I can, but I won’t be here if you need me, so let me give you Skye’s number. Do you have a pen?”
She heard him moving things around, and after a few seconds he said he had one. “Are you okay?” Walter asked, after she told him the number and double-checked it.
Anna choked down a cry. No, she was not okay. Things were a mess, and yet it was her own selfishness that kept her from telling him so. If his father had any idea how bad it was down here, he might find a way to keep Walter forever. Anna couldn’t imagine that, even though she knew Walter was safer there. “I’m fine,” she lied.
“You’ll be home when I get back?” he asked.
“I promise.”
She hung up a minute or so later and wrote a note for Sonja to find when she returned. She packed a bag and ran out to the truck, anxious to get away now that her bases were covered. “I need to stop in and tell Grandmother,” she said as she slid into the cab of the truck next to Skye.
“You okay?” Skye asked.
For the second time in ten minutes, Anna lied, “I’m fine.”
Chapter 33
A month after Walter’s arrival—two weeks since Matt had started acting like a dad—Matt greeted Maddie after work with a smile.
“My, don’t you look happy,” Maddie said as she put her purse down and kissed him hello. “Where’s Walter? Not taped up in a closet, I hope.”
“Funny,” Matt commented. “He’s at the playground.” Noting her look of concern—she never let Walter go out alone—he said, “Don’t worry, I can see him from the balcony, and I check every couple of minutes.”
She seemed to relax—a little.
Matt leaned against the counter. “Remember the walk-through last week?”
“The ones who hated the carpeting?”
“Yeah,” Matt said, having a hard time keeping his enthusiasm at bay. “They put in an offer this afternoon. I guess they got over the carpeting problem. It’s five grand less than our new asking price, but it’s an offer nonetheless.”
Two weeks ago they had lowered the listing price on their condo. It was discouraging to consider taking even less than that, but it was still an offer. “Did you accept it?”
“I wanted to talk to you first,” Matt said. “What do you think?”
“Yeah, it’s a no-brainer,” Maddie said.
Matt smiled. “That’s what I thought too.”
The next night, Maddie came through the door and said hello to Walter, who was playing Matt’s old Nintendo 64 in the living room. He waved briefly and was instantly reimmersed in the game.
“We close on the eighth,” Matt said, once the greetings were over and Maddie was looking at him with an expectant expression on her face.
Maddie’s face fell. “That’s just over two weeks away,” she said. “We can’t possibly find another place before then.”
“Actually, I think I already did.”
Maddie’s eyes went wide. “What?”
“Remember that house we looked at back in February?”
“We looked at a lot of houses in February,” Maddie said, going to the fridge and pulling out some things to make dinner with. Her mood was instantly somber. They had looked for homes then because they’d had a baby on the way. Life had taken several sharp detours since then.
“It was the one in West Valley. The tri-level with the big trees and the fenced-in yard,” Matt continued, hoping she would rediscover her enthusiasm.
“The one that needed a new kitchen? Weren’t the countertops green?” she asked.
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“What about it?” she asked. She pulled out a pan and put a pound of hamburger in it before turning on the stove. Then she washed her hands and looked at him.
“After getting the final okay on the sale of the condo, I went back to the file I’d made of homes we visited and called on a few. The house did sell, but the buyers ran into all kinds of problems. The closing was delayed for a while and they eventually pulled their offer. Not long after that, the listing expired. The sellers decided to try to keep it.”
Maddie nodded and wiped her hands on a dishrag hanging from the oven door. The hamburger began to sizzle. “But they’re willing to sell now?”
“They’re two payments behind and like the idea of not having the realtor fees involved. The price is incredible, Maddie.”
Maddie turned to look at him. “How much would the payment be? With child support and the adoption stuff, are you sure we can afford it?”
Matt grinned. “Twenty-five dollars less than we’re paying here.”
“What!”
“I know, I was shocked too. But we can do this, Maddie.”
Maddie smiled. “Really? I don’t want to work if we get a baby.”
“It still gives us some wiggle room with monthly expenses, and in another year or so I should get a significant salary increase. We’ll have a room to paint and fix up into a nursery, another room for Walter, and a backyard to boot. How can we say no?”
“I don’t know what to say,” Maddie said. “It’s so fast.”
“I made an appointment to go see it tonight,” Matt added, loving the surprise. “
At eight.”
“Eight!” Maddie said, turning back to the meat. “I’d better hurry, then.”
****
Two hours later, the owners of the house went across the street to visit some neighbors so Matt and Maddie could walk through alone. Walter followed them from room to room without saying much. This house hadn’t been one they’d fallen in love with. In fact, it had been on the bottom of their list, partly because back then they had thought they could afford so much more. But reality had shifted, and now the house seemed perfect.
“What do you think?” Maddie asked as they walked up to the top level.
“It’s big,” Walter said.
It wasn’t that big, but he lived in a trailer on the Reservation, and their condo wasn’t much bigger than that. “Which room would you want?”
Walter looked up at her with a confused look on his face. “My room?”
“Yeah.”
Walter looked at Matt. “You’d give me my own room when I’m only here once a year?”
Maddie decided to make Matt answer. He’d been doing much better the last few weeks, but there was still some tension. Walter seemed suspicious of Matt’s attentions, and Matt ran lukewarm as often as not. The silence stretched for several seconds before Matt figured out it was his turn to talk.
“Well, yeah,” Matt said with a shrug of his shoulders as he opened the closet doors in the master bedroom. Maddie looked in and grinned. It was twice the size of the closet in their apartment, and the bedroom had its own bathroom. She was nearly giddy.
“Which room do you want?” he asked. “Other than this one. It’s ours.”
“Well, duh,” Walter mumbled, looking toward the doorway. Matt opened his mouth to reprimand, but Maddie grabbed his arm and shook her head.
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