by T. Greenwood
“She’s from here, from Chinle, but I know her from Flagstaff,” he said. “She’s got an old Airstream?”
The man smiled. “Only one person staying here tonight. You tell me her name, and I’ll show you to her site.”
“Shadi Begay,” Ben said. The magic words.
The man slapped him on the back, grabbed a pencil from his back pocket, and scratched a map of the campsite on a napkin.
Ben drove along the bumpy path; it was barren land spotted with scrub foliage and a few trees. When he saw the Airstream in the distance, his heart hammered inside his ribs.
It was dark, but as he pulled into the drive, his headlights illuminated the trailer. Ben caught his breath. In white paint across the side of the Airstream, someone had scrawled DIRTY SQUAW PUSSY in giant letters. The door had been dented, one of the windows smashed. There was cardboard and plastic duct-taped over the hole.
Shadi came outside of the trailer, wearing a flannel robe and boots. Her hair spilled over her shoulders like ink. The smoke from her cigarette curled up into the bruised sky.
Ben got out of the truck and walked quickly to her.
“What are you doing here?” Her voice was flat.
“I went to find you, in Flagstaff, but you were gone,” Ben said. “I was worried. And then your neighbor told me that something happened. What happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” she said.
He reached his hand out and took hers. Her skin was warm and so soft it felt almost liquid. He squeezed her hand.
“Were you home?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I was at the studio at school.”
“Thank God.”
“They would have killed me, Ben.”
Ben rubbed his temples. The idea that someone had gone to her home, had hoped she’d be there, was almost more than he could fathom.
“You should go,” Shadi said, flicking her cigarette ash to the ground. “I don’t need any more trouble. Nobody’s going to come for me here, unless they’re following you.”
“Listen,” he said, squeezing her hand, smiling. Anxious. “I talked to someone, a girl who was there that night, at the party. She saw what happened. And she’s going to go to the police.”
Shadi let go of his hand and folded one arm across her chest. She took a long drag on her cigarette and exhaled. “How do you know she’ll really go?”
“I just do,” he said. It was taking everything he had not to touch her. “I trust her.”
She flicked her cigarette to the ground and stomped it out.
“Why are you here, Ben?”
“I just told you,” Ben said. “I went to find you, and you were gone. This is what we needed, Shadi, someone to come forward. Someone the police would listen to. She has a friend who was there too. This will happen.”
Shadi looked up at the sky; the moon was bright. She closed the screen door of the trailer. “You want to go for a walk?” she asked. “There’s an overlook not too far from here. You can see down into the canyon.”
He nodded, and she led the way.
They watched the moon set over the canyon, the rocks below them glowing in the waning light. He told her what he knew now, about what happened that night.
“Ricky was so afraid of Spider Woman,” she said. “He really believed that if he was bad, his bones would wind up on her tower in the canyon with the rest of the naughty children’s. So he never made a fuss. Not even when he was provoked. When Daddy was still around, he’d get drunk and egg Ricky on, try to get him to fight back. But he wouldn’t do it. Daddy called him a pussy. Said someday somebody would beat the shit out of him and he’d deserve it.”
“Jesus,” Ben said.
They stood together until there was nothing but darkness beneath them, until they couldn’t even see their own hands anymore.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
Ben felt his body fill, expand. He could have floated up above the canyon, a hot air balloon rising over the rocky spires.
Silently they made their way back to the trailer, stumbling awkwardly over the unfamiliar terrain. By the time they got to the Airstream, they were both breathless, their legs and arms scratched from the brush.
“You can come in,” Shadi said.
Ben nodded and followed her up the steps into the trailer. She lit a kerosene lamp, and the inside of the trailer was illuminated in soft light.
“You don’t listen,” Shadi said. “No matter what I say.”
Ben shook his head. “I tried,” he said. And he felt tears welling up in his eyes. “I really did.”
Ben thought about Sara at home, imagined her asleep in the wide expanse of their bed. He thought about the swell of her belly, the way her eyes fluttered in sleep, her brow furrowed into a scowl. He thought about how he had disappointed her. About how many times he had failed her. His leaving her might actually set her free. Even if she hated him. Even if she never spoke to him again. Even if it meant he would never know his daughter. His daughter.
He looked at the corner where her loom usually was. It was empty now.
“What happened to your loom?”
“They built a campfire with it, right outside my trailer.”
“No,” he said. “Christ.”
Shadi blew warm air into her hands. “Brr. It’s cold.”
“Did you at least finish the blanket you were working on?” he asked. “They didn’t destroy that too?”
Shadi shook her head. She stood up and went to a cupboard underneath the built-in sofa. She pulled out the blanket, unfolding it. She laid it across the tabletop, gently traced the patterns with her long fingers.
“May I?” he asked, and she nodded.
He touched the sunset colors, could almost feel their warmth, despite the chill inside the trailer.
She sat down in one of the kitchen chairs. “I started making it for Ricky. For his new apartment.”
He touched the woven colors, the descending sun. “What is this?” he asked, touching a lone strand that hung loose from the rest of the blanket.
“It’s called the spirit thread,” she said. “The Diné believe that when you make a rug or a blanket, a part of your spirit or soul becomes trapped inside. The spirit thread allows the soul a way to escape.”
He touched the string, thought about escape. About freedom.
“I want you to have it,” she said.
He shook his head.
“Please,” she said. “It’s the least I can do. For all you’ve done.”
How could she not know what she had done for him already? How could she not know that she was the only thing he thought about, the only thing that mattered, the one true thing in his life now that everything else was gone?
And then a hot current ran through his body, and he was moving toward her, touching her face with his hands, running his thumbs across her cheekbones. Tracing the line of her jaw. He could feel that fluid skin, and he just wanted to sink into her like a warm pool of water.
She closed her eyes, nodding, and he turned the key on the kerosene lamp. It was as though they had been swallowed into the belly of an animal, it was so dark. He reached for her and tore at the flannel robe, at the soft cotton nightgown she wore underneath. He dropped to his knees and yanked at her boots, feeling the scratch of her wool socks on his face. He kissed her foot, her calf, tasting the tendons, tracing the muscles with his tongue. Her body trembled, her hands clawed at his back.
She stood up and they moved together toward the bed at the back of the trailer. She pressed her hand against his chest, pushing him away, but then leaned her ear against it. The feel of her cheek against his bare skin was almost more than he could bear.
He slipped her nightgown over her head, the cotton as soft as her skin but with none of that crazy warmth.
“I need to tell you something,” she whispered, her lips grazing his earlobe.
“What?” he asked, touching his tongue to her neck, tasting the bitter musk of the absinthe oil she
wore.
She was breathless, her entire body quivering. “I didn’t come here because of Ricky, because I was afraid of those boys. Those men. Whoever did this.”
He inhaled the smell of her. The oil, her skin. His eyes burned.
“What do you mean?”
She touched his face. “I came here because of you,” she said quietly.
“I don’t understand.” He felt like he’d been running; he couldn’t catch his breath.
“I need you to promise me something,” she said.
It was so dark he couldn’t see her. He reached for her face and felt cool tears on her cheeks.
“Anything,” he said, burying his face in her neck again, in her hair."Anything you want.”
“Tomorrow. You need to make a choice. And once you’ve decided, you can’t go back. Not even if it’s the wrong choice. Not even if it hurts someone. Not even if it hurts me.”
Blood rushed to Ben’s temples.
Shadi took both of his hands in hers. She rubbed the back of them with her thumbs. “Don’t mistake this for love. We share the same sorrow. And you think if you can fix mine, take it away, then yours will go away too. But it doesn’t work like that.”
Ben was shaking his head. He squeezed his eyes shut, and in the darkness he saw Dusty’s empty rain boots standing by the front door. They were red with black spots, like ladybugs. The mud from the puddles she had splashed in still hadn’t dried the day after the accident. And he remembered thinking she couldn’t be dead, not when there was fresh mud on her boots. Not when her raincoat was still wet, hanging on the hook in the hallway.
“You need to do what is right,” she said. “And what will make you happy.”
“This is right. This makes me happy.” He was crying now.
“Promise,” she said. “Or go.”
Somewhere a coyote howled, and it was the sound of his grief, of their shared loss. The sound of pain, the melancholy moan he’d been carrying in his body since he was eleven years old. He thought of his father’s empty drawers after he was gone, the cockeyed hangers in the closet. The empty shelf in the medicine cabinet and the vacant look in his mother’s eyes.
The coyote wailed, and their bodies moved together, pressed together until he couldn’t tell where he ended and she began. And he knew she was right. It was time.
When the first pale light of dawn glanced across his face, he reached for a blanket. It was cold, and he was naked. The air in the cold trailer was like an icy breath. He opened his eyes slowly and saw that he was tangled up in the blanket Shadi had made, but Shadi was gone. Only the vague smell of absinthe and sweat lingered in the air. She must have known that he wouldn’t be able to leave if she were still there.
He wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and walked out of the trailer. Sunrise and a soft layer of snow glistened, glittering in the light of a new morning. He promised Sara he would be home before she woke up. And he’d made a promise to Shadi. And later, as she slept with her cheek pressed against his naked chest, to himself.
His cell phone didn’t get reception until he got to Winslow. He would call Sara, apologize for being late. He would tell her he was sorry. That he was on his way.
Then he would tell her everything else. In person. He owed her that.
He pulled into a gas station for coffee and gas. He stretched and yawned and got back into the truck. He clicked his phone on and saw that there were six messages. Jesus. He felt that old familiar anger welling up inside him. And a new, wonderful and terrifying resolve.
Just calling because I can’t sleep. You’re probably still at the reception. Love you. Beep.
Delete.
A long sigh and then click.
Delete.
It’s midnight. Maybe I’ll call over to Ned’s. Shit.
He thought about deleting the remaining messages but went ahead and listened.
Ben … a whispery static. Benny, I’m scared. There’s something going on outside. There’s a car parked across the street and some guys … goddamnit it, where are you? Beep.
Oh God, Ben, I’m calling 9-1-1. Beep.
His hands started to shake and some of the hot coffee spilled on his lap.
Frank’s voice. Ben, it’s Frank. Where the hell are you? Beep.
And that was it. The last message. Shit, shit. He scrolled through until he found Frank’s number and pressedSEND.
Frank picked up after the first two rings. “I don’t know where the fuck you are, but you better get your ass down here.”
“Where are you? What happened to Sara? Is the baby okay?”
Frank’s voice grew fainter. “Jeanine, talk to him. I can’t fucking talk to him.” Ben heard the rustle of the phone being passed over to Jeanine.
“Oh, Benny,” Jeanine cried. Her voice was raw. He could barely understand her. “Just get to the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale.” She hung up before he could ask any more questions, and as he pulled out onto the highway, the bars disappeared from his cell phone.
He didn’t remember the drive back to Phoenix. His eyes were blurred with tears. His hands ached from gripping the steering wheel. By the time he pulled into the hospital parking lot, the memories of everything that had brought him here had faded like a hazy dream, leaving his mind blank and his joints crippled.
He stopped running only to check in and find out where Sara was. By the time he got to her room, he was clutching his chest, wondering if he might be having a heart attack. Frank stopped him at the doorway, held up his hand, and said, “Stop.”
“Where is Sara? Is she okay?” Ben craned his neck, trying to see into the room.
Frank pointed his finger into Ben’s chest and pushed so hard, it felt like a weapon. “I don’t want to know where you were. I don’t want to hear any goddamned excuses. I have no idea what you’re wrapped up in. I don’t fucking care right now. What I want to know is what you were thinking leaving her alone at the house. How could you think it was okay to leave her by herself?”
“What happened, Frank? I just want to know what happened. I just want to see Sara.”
“Goddamn you. Goddamn you,” Frank hissed, his eyes burning a furious red. He wiped at them as he began to cry.
“Please let me see her,” Ben said. “Please let me go to her. I’m sorry.”
When Ben entered the room, Jeanine rushed out, holding her hand across her mouth, shaking her head.
Sara lay in the bed, her face colorless, all of that sunshine faded. Ashen. She was staring out the window. She was hooked up to an IV, clear liquid dripping down a meandering tube that crept under her skin, tethered there with a strip of surgical tape.
Ben touched her feet, and her legs jerked reflexively away from him. He moved to the side of the bed and sat down in the chair next to her. He leaned toward her, brushed her hair out of her eyes.
“Sara,” he said, but before he asked, he already knew the answer. “Sara, what happened?”
She didn’t speak. She didn’t move. She just opened her mouth, silently, as though someone had stolen her voice. As if she’d been completely emptied out. The color drained from her face. She was a husk. A shell.
“I wish I were dead,” she said.
Later, he would get the story in fragments. The two men who pried the patio doors open, the ones who crept into the living room while Sara cowered in the locked bathroom upstairs. Sara had told Frank that one of them kept saying, You sure this is the right house? Then where the hell is the bastard? And then the sound of their footsteps coming up the stairs, the slam of the nursery door, the slam of the bedroom doors. Maude whimpering. Hey, look at this fucking dog. Some watchdog, huh?
And while they looked for him, Sara crouched in the bathtub.
Where the fuck is he? He’s not here.
He wasn’t there. Jesus, they finally came looking for him, and he wasn’t there.
Wait. Did you hear that?
Sara had slipped and fallen in the tub, which was still wet from an earlier bath, and they kicked
the door down. Came at her, ripped back the shower curtain.
Jesus, who’s that? He didn’t say nothing about a girl.
Please, she said. Take whatever you want. I’m pregnant. Just don’t hurt me.
Then: Let’s get the fuck out of here.
It was Frank who told Ben about the blood. That the paramedics found Sara in the bathtub, sitting in a pool of her own blood. That the fall, the stress, had been too much. It was Jeanine who slapped Ben across the face when he apologized, who pounded her fists against his chest. But it was Dr. Chandra who told him the rest. Sara was lucky to be alive, she said. During the C-section, she had started to hemorrhage. They gave her a transfusion. But it wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t enough. If Sara had gotten to the hospital sooner, then the baby might have been saved. But there was too much blood lost. It was too late.
It was too late, they said. And to stop the bleeding, they needed to perform an emergency hysterectomy. It was the only way to save her life. They couldn’t save the baby, but they could save Sara.
Sara.
Sara stared out the window, untenanted. Every bit of light snuffed out.
Later, as the sun set, the sky like the inside of a blood orange, the nurse brought the baby to them. To say good-bye. They should take photos, she said. It might seem grim now, too difficult, but if they didn’t, they might regret it later. There was a company that could touch up the photos, Photoshop out the bruises and discoloration. She would give them a brochure. Sara leaned over and vomited into the plastic bin they offered her. And then she curled onto her side, facing away from Ben.
The nurse said to Ben as Sara trembled silently, “We have a certificate for her, with her footprints.”
Ben sat down in the visitor’s chair and held out his arms. The nurse gently offered him the bundle. “I’ll give you some time. As much time as you need. Just hit the buzzer when you’re ready for me to come take her.”