Isabel's Daughter

by Judith Ryan Hendricks

  He still didn’t worry about graduating from school and getting a job. He still didn’t have enough sense to get pissed off or offended that people laughed at him. He never thought about money, where he was going to live or what he was going to eat, what clothes to wear. He just took whatever you gave him and smiled his dopey smile. Maybe instead of being a retard, he was really a sort of a higher life-form.

  About halfway home, something halted me in the middle of the road, and I bunched my fingers together in the palm of my gloves for extra warmth. The sun had just dipped out of sight, backlighting the tall ragged outline of Silver Butte. The whole valley was hushed, expectant, the way children are when they’re waiting for Christmas or to see a parade pass by. Suddenly the air was filled with noise—honking, crying, squawking, calling—and I raised my eyes to a twilight sky full of birds—a sprawling, animated cloud of white and silver wings.

  I arched my neck to watch as they passed. My scarf fell away and the humidity of my breath dried on my lips. My cheeks lost feeling and my eyes ran with warm water that turned cold. But the tightness in my chest was gone—in one deep exhalation of dust and smoke. At least that’s what it felt like. And in that instant I knew two things.

  One, I knew that Jimmie John was dead. I couldn’t have been more certain if I’d seen him laid out, still and silent.

  And two, I knew that Amalia and Cassie were right. I did have some kind of ability, some sight that wasn’t usual. I wouldn’t go so far as calling it a gift. A gift was supposedly something you wanted. And I didn’t want this. Particularly since it seemed that I had no control over it. It was depressing to think that for the rest of my life, I might never know the things I wanted to know, but that without warning, at random intervals, some vision was going to be stuck in front of my face. Whether I wanted to see it or not.

  When I asked Cassie if we could go to JJ’s funeral, she said, “No, child. There won’t be one. Navajos don’t want nothing to do with the dead. Even Delbert—and he’s not your traditional Navajo—he won’t go near any house where anyone’s died. Used to be, they’d just punch a hole in the north side of the hogan so the spirit could get out, and then nobody ever goes in that house again. Even now, most of ’em won’t speak the name of a dead person, ’case the spirit’s still close by.”

  “But how could anyone be afraid of JJ’s spirit? He was so…” I groped for words, startled by the knot of tears forming in my throat. “Harmless. Like a puppy. He just wanted to be…friends.”

  I started to cry. For the first time since I’d come to live with her, Cassie came over and put her arms around me. And I let her.

  Will slid into the booth at Mami’s on Wednesday, and the first thing he said was, “I’m sorry about Jimmie.”

  By then everyone in town knew, but other than a listing in the obituaries of the Florales County Sentinel and a tiny mention in the student newspaper, his dying had barely created a ripple.

  Lia, the afternoon waitress, came over with two cups of coffee and two little pitchers of milk. “Hi, kids.” She didn’t even bother to give us menus anymore. She knew we were going to sit there for two hours and drink our free refills. After she went back to the counter, he said,

  “How are you?” It wasn’t something he asked very often, but when he did, I knew he expected a real answer.

  “Okay, I guess. I can’t stop thinking about JJ.”

  “I know. It’s hard.”

  “It’s worse than hard. It makes me furious that no one cares.”

  His thumb rubbed gently over my knuckles. “I just think that nobody knew him like you did. It’s not that they don’t—”

  “Of course it is.” Angry tears pricked my eyes. “Especially at school. All he was to them was somebody to make fun of. Honest to God, Will, you have no idea what it’s like to be the school weirdo. I do.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re not the school weirdo.”

  “Not now, I’m not, but don’t you know why? It’s because of you.”

  “Me?”

  “Of course, you. Nobody wants to piss you off, so they leave me alone.”

  “Avery,” he said patiently, “Jimmie was…He wasn’t normal—”

  I pull my hand away from him. “And neither am I. In fact I’m probably more like JJ than you.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “It is true. If it wasn’t for you they’d be taking my books and flushing my papers down the toilet and putting cow pies in my locker—”

  “Avery—”

  “It’s happened before. You don’t have to be abnormal. All you have to be is not like them. Open your eyes, Will.”

  “When?” His voice was quiet.

  “When what?”

  “When did that stuff happen to you?”

  I turned to the window. “A long time ago.”

  In a few minutes he reached for my hand again. “I used to be kind of jealous of him, you know.”

  “Of JJ?” I frowned. “Oh, please. What could he have that you’d want?”

  “A lot of time with you.”

  Color rose warmly in my face.

  “You always seemed so comfortable with him. And then whenever I came around, it was like you couldn’t wait to get away.”

  “Well,” I said, not daring to look at him, “It’s obviously not like that now.”

  Sometimes a silence between two people is empty, and sometimes a silence is so full of words that you’re afraid to break it for fear of spilling every single one and losing some in the process.

  I decided to make my own marker for JJ. Even though he wouldn’t be buried under it, I felt better knowing he had a place that was his. It was in the area where he used to wander around visiting his Black Mesa clan. Will and I found a tiny bosque where a cottonwood tree and a couple of scraggly willows hung on in dry times and thrived when rains filled the narrow streambed.

  In March there wasn’t any water, but the sandy stream bottom was damp.

  Will helped me take the material out there, driving the Bronco as far as we could, then hauling it the rest of the way in Cassie’s old wagon. I made it from all his little presents, the stones, scraps of metal and glass, twigs, a bird’s nest, an old sneaker with no laces that he’d found in the road. It was just a mound, like the cairns Mr. Hanover said explorers used to build to mark where they’d been. And on top I put the gearshift knob, the narrow end down, wedged between rocks to hold it steady. Cassie gave me a wreath that she made of herbs to lay at the base of it—tansy for life, big sagebrush for comfort, and rosemary for remembrance.

  eleven

  On a glorious Saturday in April, I was working in the garden, pulling the beginnings of weeds, breaking up the still cold red clay, working in a wheelbarrow full of composted manure from Jaimie Rodriguez’s henhouse that Cassie got in trade for a charm to keep his freeloading cousin away. I told her it was an even swap—chicken shit for bullshit.

  It was only about ten o’clock when I heard the Bronco bouncing down the rutted road. The slam of the door echoed slightly and then he must have stopped to talk to Cassie because it was awhile before he ambled around the corner of the house. When I saw him standing there in his faded jeans, the white T-shirt with the Cameron Ranch brand on the pocket, my heart fell straight to the ground.

  “You look like the earth goddess,” he said.

  I recovered myself and laughed. “You mean the chicken shit queen. What are you doing over here on the poor side of town?”

  “I came to steal you away. Get cleaned up and let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “On a picnic. To a special place I know.”

  “Oh, Will, I can’t leave now. There’s so much to do—”

  “Oh yes you can.” He took the hoe out of my grasp and heaved it like a spear.

  “What are you doing, you crazy boy?”

  “I already asked Cassie and she said it was okay. So go wash the shit off you and let’s go.”

  We headed south on Highway 84
between the mesas and buttes carved from thick beds of dusty red, purple, and yellow sandstone. Gnarled juniper trees clung to the slopes in seemingly impossible places. He turned west onto a gravel road and right again onto a dirt track where a sign said RIM VISTA TRAIL, stopping in a small parking area.

  “Should we walk first or eat first?” he asked.

  “I’m starving. Let’s eat.”

  We sat on the Bronco’s tailgate, and he produced a willow basket that contained a feast. We fell on it like starving coyotes—guacamole, tortillas still faintly warm and wrapped in foil, an earthenware casserole full of shredded chicken in a spicy/sour tomatillo sauce, and tiny perfect empanaditas filled with apples and cinnamon and raisins.

  “Who made all this?” I asked him with my mouth full.

  “Sofia, our cook. She’s great.” I had to agree.

  When we’d eaten way too much, he repacked the basket, took my hand, and led me, protesting strongly, out onto a trail marked NUMBER 15, that dropped into and just as quickly out of a small arroyo. I hadn’t noticed from the car, but now I saw that the wildflowers were blooming—red Indian paintbrush, magenta bee balm, white jimsonweed, yellow clusters of yarrow, and pink puffs of Apache plume—all the more spectacular because of the rugged earth that they sprang up from. The smell of sagebrush was thick in the air.

  “I used to come out here with my grandfather,” he said. “The whole area’s full of fossils. This was all a huge inland sea.”

  We climbed around the end of a small ridge and up the south flank, following blue diamond trail markers across a rocky slope through juniper piñon forest. The trail flattened out over a broad sagebrush ridge and, after a few sharp turns, veered north to parallel a sandstone cliff rising above us. Barn swallows darted and swooped, and the high-pitched calls of swifts bounced off the cliffs where they nested.

  There was no shade, but the day was pleasantly cool, and we plugged along for another mile or so, not talking much, just enjoying the views that got bigger with every step. I took off my sweatshirt and tied it around my waist.

  Suddenly we emerged at the top of the mesa, and an immense sweep of a view opened up at our feet—Abiquiu Lake, the rocks of Ghost Ranch, the Jemez Mountains, and the Sangre de Cristos, all laid out like a painting. I felt myself gasp involuntarily.

  “Pretty amazing, huh?” He said it like it belonged to him and he was presenting it to me. At that point, I wouldn’t have doubted it.

  We spread our sweatshirts on the ground and sat down. It was quiet except for a gentle spring breeze, and it was almost like we were alone in the world.

  I sat there, hugging my knees to me while he stretched out in the sun, closing his eyes. I jumped a little when he rested his hand on my back, but he didn’t take it away. His fingers began to move up and down a short stretch of spine above the small of my back. Gently. Following the contours of bone and cartilage. I laid my cheek on the tops of my knees, closed my eyes, and listened to my own heartbeat, the rush of blood through my veins like wind through a canyon.

  Then suddenly he said, “Who are you?”

  My stomach contracted on the food I’d just eaten, making me slightly nauseous.

  “I’m nobody.”

  “Bullshit. That’s just how you keep people from finding out who you really are.”

  “People don’t want to know who I really am.”

  “I do,” he said. “I want to know everything about you—where you come from. What happened to your family. How you ended up here.”

  I turned enough so I could see his face. He wasn’t smiling.

  And so, I told him who I was. I told him the story that I’d never told anyone except Lee-Ann. Not even Cassie. As I talked, my history gathered around me, entangling me like Cassie’s knitting yarn sometimes did when she made me feed the strands out for her to roll into a ball. I felt like I might turn my head and catch a glimpse of Esperanza’s braid or Ridley’s ugly teeth or Charlie with his glasses or chubby little Annette. I had to stop then. Before it got too real.

  Will didn’t say anything at all. He took my elbow and drew me gently but firmly down beside him on the smooth red rock. He tangled his hand in my hair, pulling my face down to his and he kissed me. The way I’d always wanted him to with no steering wheel in the way, no seat belt or console between us. In fact there was nothing at all between us and he was holding my body flat against his and I felt like I’d swallowed fire.

  If I’d thought about it beforehand, it never would’ve happened. I would have convinced myself that it shouldn’t happen, and I would have summoned all my defenses and carried them with me.

  But there was no thinking, no planning. At least not by me. He just showed up and whisked me away to this magic place, and I left all my defenses back in Cassie’s garden. Even as it was happening, I wondered if he’d planned it. When I heard the crackle of the plastic-covered condom, I realized that of course he had, but it didn’t matter. Everything he did to me I wanted him to do, had been wanting him to do for weeks, and couldn’t get enough of.

  Afterward, he wanted to hold me. I was the one who pulled away, scared and disgusted with myself. Not because I’d had sex, but because I wanted him so much that it made me forget everything else. Who I was and where I came from and what I wanted, and what could happen to my life if I made one mistake.

  I pulled my jeans back up, but I didn’t bother to zip them or put my bra or shirt back on. I just sat there, head bowed to my knees. The sun and his hand lay warm on my back while my stomach roiled in the silence.

  He sat up. “Avery.” His hand smoothed my hair off my cheek, and he bent to kiss my shoulder. “You’re not sorry, are you?” He drew back and looked steadily in my eyes, something very few people had the stamina for.

  “I don’t know yet,” I lied.

  I couldn’t wait to get back to Cassie’s. I wanted to take a bath, to wash the smell of him off me so I wouldn’t keep remembering. I wanted to curl up on the couch with a book and a cup of tea and pretend the whole day didn’t happen. But it wasn’t going to be that way.

  When we drove up, Cassie was outside sharpening and cleaning her garden tools. Of course he insisted on helping her and then she asked him if he wanted some tea and to my surprise, he said yes. The two of them sat there for an hour yakking like old buddies. Then she asked him to stay for dinner and thank God, he said he had to get home.

  “He’s a good boy,” she said after he’d left. “Not strong as you, but he’s got a big heart. Maybe he’ll grow into it.”

  I didn’t say anything. I got up and took the cups to the sink. Just as I turned on the water, she said, “I hope he used a rubber.”

  One of the cups slipped from my hand and broke into three pieces in the sink. “Got to get us a new cup, I guess,” Cassie said.

  He wasn’t in school Wednesday. For the next ten days we only saw each other in class or at lunch. We didn’t talk about what happened, but the way his eyes would hold mine made my knees shake. Every night I fell asleep thinking about him. Lying next to him, running my hands along the contours of his arms. His fingers exploring between my thighs, the way he touched me, how it made my breath stop. I really didn’t expect it to feel like that, the dark pleasure of it, the way my body arched up involuntarily to meet his.

  The following Sunday he took me to the Cameron Ranch.

  The first few times he’d asked me, I made excuses. Then, as I got more comfortable with him, I simply refused to go. Then he said he didn’t care if I wouldn’t go to parties or basketball games, but I had to see the horses. The day he told me that his parents were going to Santa Fe to visit friends, I knew there was no getting around it.

  It was the kind of raw spring day that proves April really is the cruelest month. Even though I knew his parents were gone, I was too nervous to talk as we bounced over the gravel county road. I stared unseeing as the gray landscape slid past, conscious only of wiping my damp palms on the legs of my jeans. What if they came home early? What if some of the ra
nch hands mentioned to them that Will had brought me there?

  And then suddenly we were passing through a wooden gate with a sign that said CAMERON RANCH, QUARTER HORSES, and I could see the big white house with black shutters at the end of the drive. He stopped the Bronco on a patch of gravel bounded by logs where a couple of pickup trucks were parked. One had a bale of hay in the back.

  Will left the keys in the ignition and jumped out. When I didn’t move, he looked back. “Come on,” he said impatiently. He was already walking toward the barn. I breathed deeply, popped my seat belt, and got out.

  The barn he led me into was prettier than most houses in Florales. The air was filled with dust and the scent of damp hay and pungent manure and the sharp tang of horse. We stood in the pale sunlight by the door until my eyes adjusted to the dimness of the interior and when we started to walk between the rows of stalls, he laughed.

  “You don’t have to tiptoe. We’re not going to bother them.”

  At first I couldn’t see any horses, but I heard their breath, the creak of floorboards, scrape of hooves. He said they were eating. Then a huge black head shot out from one stall, and I sucked in my breath.

  “Hey, Driver.”

  The horse made that funny little whickering noise as we approached, stretching to nibble at Will’s pocket. “He’s looking for carrots.” He pulled one out of a bucket on the wall and handed it to me.

  “Go ahead, he won’t bite you. No, not like that. Hold it on the flat of your hand and let him take it.” I stretched my arm out as far as I could without getting any closer to the horse.

  The head moved to my hand, and Driver delicately picked the carrot off my palm with a surprisingly dry and pleasant nibbling sensation.