by Lee Maracle
STACEY PREPARES FOR WHATEVER emergency might have caused Rena to be awakened at two a.m. Sickness, birth, or injury are the only emergencies that would get her mother out of bed this early. She tries to think of any illnesses. There don’t seem to be any. She looks at the store of medicines in her cupboard. Some have been there a long time. They are still good. She decides to take a little of just about everything. She shovels them into her bag. She grabs sheets from the closet. Clean white cotton. Maybe it’s a birth … but who is pregnant that won’t go to the hospital? “Just about anyone,” she answers herself. Birth is a hope. She thinks that anyone with a two a.m. emergency on a Saturday isn’t full of hope. She braces herself for shock. Maybe a drunken relative shot another one? She backs away from the closet and steps on Jacob’s shoe. The clatter of nearly hitting the deck as she trips, and cursing Jacob as she dances herself upright, wake him up.
“Where are you going?”
“To Momma’s. Celia called Momma, and Rena told me to get over. Something has happened.”
“I’m going too,” Jacob says. Stacey does not think this is a good idea. Men are only in the way during medical emergencies. They’re so fragile when they are as young as Jacob; but she is too tired to argue with him.
“You drive,” she says and hands him her keys. She clutches her bundle and remembers she has a pinch of tobacco. “Wait,” she says. “Swing by the river.”
Jacob drives by the river, though he thinks this is an odd request. There is an old cedar there that has escaped logging. It is big and round, and Stacey has taken to talking to it. Jacob stops the car and Stacey gets out. She lays a pinch of tobacco down, mumbling, “We could use some help” to the cedar. Jacob thinks speaking to the tree is even odder than the tobacco stuff; he stares at his mother when she gets back into the passenger seat.
“You do that a lot?” he asks, heaping on the sarcasm.
“No. Not enough, apparently,” she answers.
“Does it help?” This question sounds much more genuine.
“I don’t know. It makes me feel … like … well, like I can get through anything. I have a feeling the anything I need to get through tonight is going to be awful. Let’s go pick up Rena.”
On the way to Rena’s, Jacob prays for Celia.
“Hey,” Rena hollers as they pull up next to where she’s standing in the driveway. “Thanks for the ride.” She throws her things in the back seat. She looks at them for a moment, while considering mentioning how horrified Momma had looked. Then, with a “Gawdammit,” she jumps into the car, complaining to Stacey and Jacob, “If I knew what the hell was going on it would help.”
Jacob swings the car out onto the road.
“If you knew what was going on, it wouldn’t be so exciting.” A half laugh escapes Jacob. The women let go a quick half laugh too. They need to laugh, but the rest of the laughter won’t come. Jacob pulls the car into his gramma’s driveway. It is one of three paved driveways on the reserve. He wonders why no one else has bothered to pave over the gravel leading to their homes. He decides it’s no use thinking about. He stops the car and the women get out. They enter the house without noticing that Jacob is staying in the car. He reaches into his shirt pocket, unravels a cigarette, and prays Celia is all right. He gets out of the car and drops the tobacco by a tree.
In the living room, Jacob sees his grandpa sitting in the dark. The air surrounding Ned has a dangerous texture to it. It is thick with things Jacob dares not consider. He can barely move through it. He sits next to his grandfather. The women are in the kitchen.
“What happened?” Jacob asks.
Ned knows that Jacob wants a simple answer, but he also knows that there are too many threads to this web that a simple answer is impossible. What happened? How does anything like this ever come to his village, to his family? How could anyone let something this terrible visit someone as heroic and as lovely and as sweet as his wife? What crazy train of thoughts, of madness, travels in the mind of the man who did this to a child? What happened? What happened to drive someone to this kind of deep, hate-filled sense of lust? Ned fights for the simple explanation his grandson hungers for, but he can’t find it.
“I don’t know. But what you thought you imagined? What we talked about by the river? You saw it. It happened, not when you thought it did, but it happened.”
Jacob’s shoulders pull in, then down. He wraps his arms around his upper body. He wants his body to be small. He wants to go back in time, to undo this thing he saw, to un-see it. He wants his cousin Jimmy to rise from death, he wants to trot him off in some innocent direction, free of this grisly memory. Jacob hears the sound of defeat in his grandpa’s voice. He shakes with fright. He knows his grandpa is courageous, decisive, and terrible in his determination; but now when he looks at him he sees none of this. He wants more from him, but his grandpa dismisses him with a wave, then covers his face with the same hand. Jacob moves away before the disgust at his grandpa’s weakness can rise up in him. He walks to the periphery of the kitchen, where he can see and listen to the women.
Jacob hears Momma and Judy arguing about getting a doctor. He begins to glean a picture of the emergency from the bits of their argument he can make out.
“One of you has to stop arguing long enough to tell me what to do with this child.” Celia’s voice is tight and full of command. This is the second time Jacob has heard her talk like this. Something strange is going on, the world is being upended. Celia is finding the strength to stay in the real world. Momma is arguing, which he has never seen or heard before, and Celia is taking charge, something else he has never seen before. The child he imagined he had seen is real. Jacob wants to escape, but his feet feel nailed to the floor.
The women stop arguing and Celia tells them to get a sheet from the freezer. How did Celia become the centre of solving this mess? He is accustomed to everyone relying on Rena, Stacey, or Momma for help. Celia is a flake. Jacob loves her, but if he were in any kind of trouble she would be the last person in this family he would call upon to get him out of it. He hears Martha’s voice, speaking soft and sweet to the child. It must have been Martha who had called Celia.
They talk about Shelley’s burns. “What kind of a thing did that crazy man use?” The question sears Jacob’s throat. This must be the same girl. What if he had seen it before it happened? What if he was not some madman, but had been shown something? What if he had seen it in the flesh, the drama unfolding as it happened, and he had done nothing? If any of this is true, he is no better off than if he had imagined it himself out of some perverse hidden desire. His silence may have helped to kill her. If it does, then Ned and Jim are complicit.
“It’s too late,” Judy says. “She’s not going to make it.”
They might have been able to save her if he had run straight to Momma’s with the tale. What if no one had interpreted it that way? What if they thought like Ned did, that he had made it up? He would have a clear conscience now. His body feels drained of all energy. He leans against the wall and hopes it will hold him up until he recovers. He isn’t sure that it’s the same girl. He needs to look. He dares not.
Celia curses the indecision of the women who might have a clue as to what this child needs, and runs for the door. Celia comes through the door too fast for Jacob to move and pretend he’s doing anything but eavesdropping.
“Jacob,” she clips out as she hustles past.
The door is open. The heat rises. The air lightens. Jacob floats to the entrance; the child’s face is aimed at him. It’s her. He imagines that she recognizes him and that her eyes accuse him of cowardice. He wonders why he did nothing when he saw her. The accusation he sees in her eyes stills his blood. Jacob shakes. He can’t seem to keep his feet on the ground. He hears “Move” and he slides to the left and stumbles as Celia passes him carrying a cold sheet. Jacob sees her covering the child in a cold wet clean sheet.
Celia
goes in and comes out again, stops at the maw of the room holding the accusing eyes of the child. She hands Jacob a sheet and says, “Wet it, get it good and wet, then freeze it in this bag. Don’t touch it with anything but these here two bags. Here, put your hands in the bags. Don’t breathe on it. Put it in the freezer. You got that, Jacob? Do you understand me? Tell me you understand.” He hears her voice coming at him, strident and sharp as it punches its way through the thick darkness of the hall.
Jacob lets a “Yes” slide out from his constricted throat.
Her nephew is in a conundrum. He looks like he’s seen the dead rise from the grave. Why in the world is he looking in on this grisly scene, if he doesn’t have the strength to accept what he sees?
The sheet has weight. It helps him feel real. He focuses on its weight; its reality grounds him as he heads for the kitchen. He breathes out, away from the sheet, when he can’t hold his breath anymore. The sink is clean. It smells of alcohol. These women are not taking any chances. He puts the sheet in the sink, soaks it, rinses it, then drops it in the bag and stuffs it into the freezer without touching it. There’s too much food in the way. He puts the sheet back in the water, adds more alcohol. He rearranges the food, clearing the basket. He wets a rag with the alcohol and cleans the basket, then stuffs the sheet back in a new bag, and places it carefully in the freezer.
Ned watches him. Jacob is moving about in the kitchen like he’s in the middle of a nightmare, not at all like he is awake and trying to save a child’s life. Something is up with that boy, Ned thinks, forgetting that he knows what is up with him.
Jacob doesn’t want to feel this guilty. He fetches a chair. Maybe if he does not permit himself to sleep until the little girl is better, the guilt will ease its grip on him. Maybe he could tell her that, and her eyes would not accuse him anymore. She might not survive, Judy had said. Jacob decides that she will. He places a stool very carefully just outside the door. He does not want to disturb the women in case they come out and he sees the little girl aiming her eyes at him again.
Not long after he sits, Stacey opens the door and tells him to fetch another sheet. He does. All night long he boils sheets, then freezes and fetches them.
EVERY NOW AND THEN, Celia feels a wave of nausea pass through her. She wants to beat herself up for threatening to be sick, but it isn’t her who keeps conjuring the desire to vomit. It is her body, operating independently of her need to stay well. There is nothing to be done about it. Her guts can’t accept that this could happen to a child whose grandmother is there with her. Her stomach cannot allow that this has happened to a child whose mother is connected to her, to her mother, to their grandmother. Shelley is thin, halfstarved. They must not have fed her. Celia’s weight grows unbearable; every ounce of once-comfortable fat is tormented by the emaciated body of the little girl. Her bones ache. She shifts, hoping this will relieve her of the pain. She had liked the presence her fat gave her, but now the weight sours inside, shrinks her large presence to a withered worm that wanders loose in her belly, teasing her stomach’s nerves. She glances at Stacey, who is focused on cleaning each wound with hydrogen peroxide. Celia marvels at how focused Stacey is. She imagines that Stacey does not think of how many wounds there are to clean, how hopeless it is to bother because this child is likely not going to make it. No. Stacey has been asked to clean the wounds and, with delicacy and precision, that is exactly what she will do all night and all day if need be. She will dab each wound in its turn without doubting the sanity of what she is doing. Not for a second. Stacey is stalwart and Celia loves her for it.
Every now and then Momma looks at Rena, raises an eyebrow, and signals Rena to give the child a breath through a mask she is wearing on her face.
Rena can barely stand to tend this child, Celia can see it. She looks like she wants to bring up her last meal. Rena is tough, not as sentimental as Celia. It frightens Celia to see her frail.
Judy does not think that anything they do will work; and so, between ministrations, she says this to the women: “Burn victims this bad need to be put in a germ-free tent, chilled, undergo skin grafts, and given oxygen in very controlled doses. This room is not sanitary, cleaning it out with juniper is not enough. If this child survives tonight, and if she gets through the pain, she will likely die of infection.” Every second they spend trying to save her will be damned in the eyes of the law as proof of negligence, criminal negligence, because it was obvious the child had been raped, burned, and beaten. The law requires that they report this. Even if she survives, the scars will be there forever, and they will still be required by law to report it. Judy tries every which way to convince the women to take Shelley to a hospital, but Momma is stubborn. She keeps asking, “What next, Judy? What next?” Judy is exhausted and cannot think of anything more to do.
The sheets they are using are being boiled in juniper berries and washed in alcohol, but Judy does not believe this is enough. “Germs can get through the cloth,” she explains. Celia wonders what kind of world this woman comes from that she cannot see that the women are not going to do anything but try to nurse Shelley back to health.
“Shut up. Shut the fuck up. If you are going to do this, then do it. Or go home.”
Rena hears Celia swear and take on an angry tone for the first time and she laughs. Stacey, Momma, and Judy stare at Celia as if they have just seen their kitchen table do a jig. Martha doesn’t seem to notice that this is the first time anyone has heard Celia swear.
Celia touches her mouth and says, “How did all that gravel find its way in there?” Stacey, Momma, Judy, and Rena laugh the kind of relieving laugh that jiggles away the hours of tension.
When they stop laughing, Celia asks Judy if the sheets they used to make the tents were made of plastic or cloth. Plastic is her answer. “Doesn’t Ned have a roll in his garage left over from when he did the roof on the addition?” Celia asks.
Judy gets excited. “Ned has a roll of plastic?” They send Ned out to the garage to get it. Judy cuts off the first six feet, throws it aside, then cuts more, holding it away from her face. She shapes it and engineers the overlapping flap. Ned busies himself constructing the four poles for the tent. They cut four holes in the first layer of plastic so that they can keep an eye on Shelley or reach in when they need to, then they cover the plastic with another layer.
Jacob helps Ned erect the structure and attaches it to the bed. Both men work without looking at one another, without speaking. Words make breath and they dare not breathe on the child. Judy reminds them not to breathe on Shelley and Celia tells them it’s best that they don’t even look at her, but Jacob does not need this last instruction. Together, Ned and Jacob finish the structure.
The child’s grandmother continues to urge Shelley to hang in there, to keep fighting. “We are making you a tent,” Momma soothes. “Do you like your little tent? Shelley, you’re on a camping trip in Momma’s kitchen.” Celia is not entirely sure what the child has to hang in there for, but she hangs in there all night long anyway. Rena drips Pedialyte into the child’s mouth, drop by tiny drop, every swallow of the fluid making the child convulse. Rena begins to feel like a kind of cruel taskmaster, but she does not stop. Celia believes Judy. She believes the child needs glucose, a sanitary room, and surgical instruments, but she also believes that those sterile things alone will not be enough.
Later into the night, Celia and Judy have found their way, plodding on next to the women who are praying for forgiveness and continuing to minister to the child. Just about the time Celia and Judy have reconciled to doing what they have to do, Shelley’s frail body begins to quiver.
“She is in pain, Judy. Terrible pain.” Momma’s voice cracks when she says this. It crackles like dead leaves on a drought-ridden autumn day. It rakes the room and crunches on the ears of the women with its desperation. Celia does not remember her mother sounding this vulnerable or desperate.
“Oh, God. She needs …�
� Judy starts in with her doctor, hospital, and the law sermon.
“No lectures, Judy,” Momma says. Celia can see her mother’s intense rage boiling to the surface. Judy hears the warning in Momma’s voice and backs down.
“I have painkillers. Can she swallow them? Will she choke?” Stacey’s voice is textured with the same desperation as her mother’s. The women in the room want to scream at someone. They are standing at the edge of the same desperation. Thick desperation swims through the room and into their bodies; one more doubt threatens to swallow them.
“We can crush the pill and jell it, then slide it on the end of a tongue depressor to open her throat. The gelatin will dissolve. Won’t it, Rena?”
“Yes, it should. It’s worth a try.” Only it is Celia who answers. Judy crushes the painkiller and brings it to Stacey who has been busily preparing the gelatin on the stove. Stacey has put some distance between the absurdity of what they are doing and the possibility of it working. She knows Judy cannot do this.
“We aren’t as barbaric as you believe, Judy.”
“I don’t …”
“Yeah, you do. And right now that’s okay. We just have a different slant on how this business of healing works. That’s all.” Celia speaks without the slightest hint of accusation in her tone.
Judy sighs. These women could well be right; she thinks about the hanging herbs, the all-night vigils, the talking to the child, all these things are part of what modern medicine’s proponents refer to as magic, witchcraft, voodoo. Judy has seen them work in less serious circumstances. Every now and then she thinks these things are missing in Western society’s healing practices, but when push comes to shove she wants to see surgical steel and antibiotics, not juniper-drenched cold cotton sheets and jellied painkillers. She wants to hear “scalpel,” not “fight for yourself, child, Gramma is here.” She wants to see clean pastel walls, not moonlight flooding a jerry-rigged tent for a wounded child. The picture of Rena breathing for the child every time her breath gets too shallow or her pulse too slow horrifies Judy, but she isn’t exactly sure in what the horror lies. How can Rena watch the quivering little body with all its burns, then shrug, lean down, breathe, drip Pedialyte, watch, shrug again, lean down, breathe again? How can Rena do this all night and look so ordinary, like she is doing nothing more than tying the child’s shoelaces and getting ready to pick berries?