The Hummingbird's Cage

by Tamara Dietrich

  I looked at Trang. At the toddler in his lap. At the faces of the other children gathered around the table. What was I seeing? Except for Laurel, nothing but dark eyes, dark hair on dark heads. Nothing unusual. I looked from one face to the next, sifting through . . .

  Till I realized: this was precisely what Jean was talking about.

  Nothing unusual.

  Aside from Laurel, the faces were nearly indistinguishable from one another. Southeast Asian . . . Diné . . . hair, features, skin . . . so similar . . . so familial.

  Cousin, kin, clan.

  Jean sighed with pleasure and shifted on the log.

  “Athabascan,” she murmured.

  I reached back to my U.S. history lessons and dredged up what I could about Athabascans. Crossed from the Asian continent thousands of years ago. Their descendants became the Inuits in Canada. Then much later some turned south and migrated again—latecomers, compared to other tribes. And their descendants became the Apache, Hopi, Zuni—and the Navajo.

  “They crossed the Beringia on foot,” said Jean, still watching Trang. “Followed the migrating bison south along the Rockies. They retain so much of the look of their Asian forebears, don’t you think?”

  In my mind’s eye I could see with utter clarity what she was describing. The slow southward progression of clans at the end of the last ice age. If you stretched back far enough, Trang and the Begays could easily share common ancestors.

  Unlike those first immigrants, of course, Trang didn’t cross the land bridge into Alaska. He rounded the globe from a different direction entirely—to connect through sheer happenstance with cousins a thousand generations removed.

  Millennia of separation until—a homecoming.

  “It wasn’t an adoption,” I murmured. “It was a reunion.”

  “At any moment”—Jean nodded, uncapping her flask—“we may see a unicorn.”

  * * *

  We were back in the great room saying our good-byes before heading out when Jessie led me toward the kitchen.

  “Let’s pay our respects to Begay’s grandmother. She’s old as they come, and all this”—her hand circled in the air—“all this is hers.”

  I knew the old Navajo tradition was matrilineal, and it was daughters who inherited livestock and land. But I didn’t know it was a custom still followed.

  The kitchen was crowded with women talking animatedly in English and Navajo. Seated in a chair against the far wall was a petite, wizened woman, her white wisps of hair twisted into a traditional bun. She wore a red velvet blouse cinched at the waist with a sash, a black skirt to her ankles and soft deerskin boots. Slung over her shoulders was a simple gray blanket with stripes of white and black. The lines of her face were so deep-set, they didn’t seem so much the wrinkles of age as the fissures of natural erosion.

  She turned in our direction as we paused in the doorway. Then she said something in Navajo and beckoned us closer, her face breaking into a delighted grin, her thin lips parting over teeth almost too white, too perfect. She watched as I approached, her brown eyes probing mine . . . just like Olin at breakfast under the oak tree.

  “Yuhzhee,” said Jessie as the room quieted. “This is Joanna.”

  Slowly, deliberately, Yuhzhee raised a wrinkled hand, stretching to touch my face. I had to bend for her to reach. Her fingers were thick, the tips as worn as weathered wood.

  I’d never been around someone of such great age before. Jessie and Olin were old, certainly, and my Oma had been in her seventies when she passed, but this woman felt . . . ancient. She didn’t seem weighed down by the years, but buoyed by them. Weightless as a cornhusk doll. Or a carving out of cottonwood root.

  She said something in Navajo, and I shook my head. “I’m sorry—I don’t understand.”

  I peered about the room for someone to translate, but no one seemed inclined to do so. Finally, a young woman stirring a pot on the stove spoke up:

  “She said you shouldn’t be here.”

  I pulled away from Yuhzhee and straightened. Shouldn’t be here? I might be a newcomer, but I wasn’t a stray cat scratching at their door.

  “I was invited,” I said stiffly.

  Jessie laid her hand on my arm, shaking her head as if I hadn’t understood.

  “No,” the young woman continued, not unkindly. “You’re a welcome guest. She means there’s somewhere you need to be. Something you need to do.” She shrugged. “This is not a bad thing.”

  The old woman was urging me closer again. And again I leaned down, if more reluctantly.

  This time, Yuhzhee fingered a lock of my hair, examining it curiously. She said something and the women in the room burst into laughter. I glanced around in confusion.

  The young woman at the stove spoke up again. “She says you have pretty hair. The color.”

  My hair? Pretty? I never imagined I’d ever hear that compliment again. Especially from a Navajo grandmother in deerskin boots.

  And then, of all things, Jim’s snarling face flashed in front of me, hurling insults, threatening worse. The man might be invading my sleep or appearing like an apparition in night visions, but this felt different. This felt like an ambush.

  Habit alone should’ve had me bracing for impact. For the familiar surge of panic to freeze me in my tracks.

  Instead, I felt prepared. Strong.

  My hands of their own volition curled into fists.

  Slowly I straightened, Yuhzhee’s eyes locked steadily with mine, and behind them I sensed a message she was trying to convey. A question, awaiting an answer.

  I felt ready.

  “Can you tell her I said thank you?” I said.

  The old woman needed no translation. She nodded and gave me another pearly, perfect smile.

  Have You Ever Heard of

  Little Orphan Annie?

  Simon and Laurel were at the edge of the woods, cutting evergreen boughs for the mantels. I could see the two of them through the side window—Laurel pointing out the branches she preferred and Simon tackling them with a pair of loppers, then stacking them in the snow in a growing pile. It had snowed for real last evening, and Simon was wading knee-deep in powder that came up to Laurel’s hips. Now and then, if she seemed to struggle in a drift as they moved from tree to tree, Simon hoisted her over his shoulder like a sack of grain, her long toboggan cap of red and green swinging down his back as he cleared a path. I could hear her peals of laughter from here.

  By morning, the snow clouds had blown off to the east, leaving behind a radiant blue sky and snow so blisteringly white it stung your eyes. Another shiny day.

  Simon’s cabin was already filled with the scent of pine from the blue spruce—an eight-footer we’d cut that morning and set into a cast-iron stand in the living room—and the wild turkey that was roasting in the oven.

  I was sitting in the middle of storage boxes, rummaging through lights and ornaments to decorate the tree before dinner. I pulled out tangles of green cables strung with round bulbs. I peeled tissue paper from glass ornaments—balls of every size and color, stars with long spires and tails. There were delicate bird nests, toy soldiers, carousel horses, a tiny cuckoo clock.

  At the bottom of one box was a cardboard container the size of a board game, orange and yellow, stamped with a green Christmas tree. It looked well used, but still in good shape. The printing on it read, Cartoon Character Christmas Tree Lights and Made in Japan. The design was outdated, antique. On the lid were drawings of each character and its name. Some I recognized—Dick Tracy, Betty Boop, Little Orphan Annie, her dog Sandy. As for the rest, I had no idea who they were. A bald man in a black vest and red tie named Andy Gump. Another man with a feckless expression named Moon Mullins. A surly boy in a blue-brimmed hat, his arms crossed, named Kayo.

  I lifted the lid. Each figurine was in its place, like eggs in a carton. The paint was bright, but so roughly
done it had to have been done by hand. And not very artfully, either. These figures looked like something a child would treasure, not a grown man.

  I got up and peered through the window again. Laurel was loading the cut boughs into Simon’s waiting arms, higher and higher, laughing as he pretended to buckle and stagger under the weight. She saw me watching from the window and waved, still laughing. When had I ever seen her laugh like that?

  Simon spotted me then. He stopped staggering and stood up straight, dropping the branches in a heap as he waved, too. Laurel cried out in dismay and began to scold him.

  I went back to the box with the cartoon character lights. I picked it up again, brushed off the lid, then placed it at the foot of the tree. They could be a family heirloom, passed down from father to son. Simon could have found them in the general store, or special-ordered them. Maybe they were a gift from a friend who appreciated vintage things, and discovered them tucked away in some old shop.

  But I knew none of that was the case. I knew those cartoon lights were Simon’s. That, when he was a boy, he’d helped string Little Orphan Annie and Smitty and Kayo around his family’s tree. That it was an experience close to his heart, a warm memory he’d carried with him since.

  The way today would be for me.

  The stamping noise on the front porch meant they were back with the evergreens. They burst through the door, and Olin, who’d been napping on the couch, sprang up to take the boughs and carry them to the fireplace, exclaiming how fine they were, while Laurel and Simon pulled off their boots and hung their coats on pegs by the door.

  Simon padded over to me in thick wool socks, blowing on his bare hands to warm them. He was windblown, his cheeks ruddy. His tan was faded enough that a sprinkle of freckles showed through.

  “Brrr. The frost is really biting today.” He embraced me from behind as I looked the tree over, and laid his cold cheek against my ear.

  I rubbed his arms. “It got your nose pretty good.”

  “I think we even spotted Jack Frost in the woods out there. Isn’t that right, Laurel?”

  Laurel was at the fireplace with Olin, holding her hands to the fire.

  “Jack Frost isn’t real,” she said. “That was a rabbit.”

  “Was it a jackrabbit?” Olin asked, his mustache twitching.

  She pulled a face at him. “Ho, ho, ho.”

  Jessie called out from the kitchen. “They back yet? There’s hot cocoa for those who want it!”

  I turned and gave Simon a quick kiss. “You guys go on. I’ll stay here and do the bough thing.”

  As Simon passed by the fireplace, Laurel planted herself in front of him and raised her right arm high. “Let’s show her the fireman’s carry,” she said.

  “The what?” I asked.

  In answer, Simon leaned down, grasped Laurel’s raised arm and swung it behind his neck. When he stood straight again, Laurel was slung around his shoulders like a fur stole, giggling, while Simon held her right leg and arm with one hand, anchoring her in place.

  “The fireman’s carry,” Simon said before turning to head toward the kitchen.

  Laurel’s head popped up from his shoulder, her hair swinging. “They use it to rescue people,” she called as they disappeared through the door.

  Their low voices carried from the kitchen as I arranged the evergreens and pinecones on the mantels—the one in the dining area and the other in the living room. I’d found rolls of gold satin ribbon in one storage box, and cut and tied them into bows, placing them here and there among the boughs. I stood thick beeswax candles at either end of the mantels, and lit them. They smelled like honey.

  I stepped back and studied the effect. Simple, but not plain.

  Laurel padded out from the kitchen, a mug in her hand. “This is yours, Mommy.” It was almost too hot to drink, but not quite. Exactly the way I like it. Topped with tiny, melting marshmallows.

  Laurel stood in front of me facing the fireplace. She took my free arm and wrapped it around her, holding it with both her hands, which were warm now. I marveled at how much taller she seemed. As if she’d sprouted inches since the summer. I leaned over and kissed the top of her head.

  “It looks happy,” she said quietly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a happier fireplace.”

  We’d never decorated a mantel for Christmas before, so I didn’t doubt it.

  “Me, either.”

  She tipped her head back to peer up at me. “I like it here.”

  “Really? What do you like about it?”

  “I like Oma and Opa. I like Simon and the dogs. The horses.” She paused, lowering her head again to look at the fire. “And I like you. You’re not like back home, scared all the time.”

  I drew a deep, steadying breath.

  Out of the mouths of babes . . .

  So. Despite all my efforts, I hadn’t been able to shield her. Not from everything.

  Not from me.

  “You used to be only two colors. Maybe three, on good days,” Laurel said, as if she were drawing me in crayon. “Now you’re all of them.”

  I couldn’t speak for a moment. And I couldn’t disagree with a single word.

  “I think . . . I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me. Thank you.”

  She tipped her head back again. This time she was smiling up at me.

  “You’re welcome.”

  I leaned over and kissed her again. “Want to help with the tree?”

  We started with the strings of lights. Before long, Jessie, Olin and Simon came from the kitchen to join in, Jessie ordering Olin about to make sure the lights were well distributed around the tree.

  The last string to go up was the one with the old cartoon figures. I handed the box to Simon. He stared at it thoughtfully, moving his hand slowly over the characters on the lid as if he weren’t standing in that room anymore but in another one, at another time. A smile flickered. When he looked up again, I was still studying him, seeing the boy he’d been and the man he’d grown into. I reached to brush his cheek. He caught my hand as I pulled it away, and kissed it.

  Then he turned to Laurel, who was fingering the yarn manes of the tiny carousel horses. “Look, Laurel,” he said, holding out the box for her to see. “Have you ever heard of Little Orphan Annie?”

  When every ornament was in place—every shiny ball and spired star, every wooden soldier and nesting bird—we stepped back, waiting for Simon to plug the lights into the outlet. Right before he did, he warned us that the strings were old, that if a light had burned out since last year it could break the circuit for an entire string. Maybe we should have tested them first, he said, before we went and put them all up. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to lower our expectations or build the suspense. Probably both.

  He plugged it in and the tree lit up at once. No light had burned out; no circuit was broken.

  “Whoa,” said Laurel.

  “Wait till the sun goes down,” Jessie said, making a small adjustment to an ornament. “Then you’ll really see something.”

  * * *

  It was time to set Simon’s little table for dinner. Jessie spread a damask cloth and handed Laurel linen napkins to roll and slide into copper rings. I took the white plates she’d stacked on a kitchen counter and began to space them around the table.

  When I was finished, I noticed something was off.

  “Jessie,” I said, puzzled, as she set a basket of cutlery on the table. “There’s an extra plate here.”

  “Is there?”

  “We’re five, not six.” I took up the extra plate.

  “There’s six napkins, too,” Laurel said, counting them off.

  “My, my,” Jessie said absently. “What was I thinking? Well, just set ’em aside.”

  Finally Jessie called everyone to supper. Pal and Tinkerbell trotted out from the kitchen
and slipped under the table.

  The turkey was a deep golden brown, with cherry and chestnut stuffing, set on a platter of roasted vegetables. Laurel leaned into it before she took her seat, and sniffed.

  “Can’t wait,” she said.

  “You have a biscuit, honey, to keep you,” said Jessie.

  Simon took on the turkey, dismantling it as efficiently as if he did it every day.

  “I do appreciate a man who knows his way around a carving knife,” Jessie said.

  “Then, ma’am,” said Simon, “what you need is a short-order cook.”

  He was serving up the turkey slices when I heard it: a distant rumble that seemed uncannily familiar.

  And utterly out of place.

  It was so faint I thought I might be imagining it. No one else seemed to notice.

  Until it came again—a faint roar now, but growing louder.

  “Does anyone else hear that?” I asked.

  Simon, Jessie and Olin exchanged glances. Laurel closed her eyes, frowning in concentration. The roar was growing even louder, coming even closer, until it was clear it was a powerful engine heading toward the cabin.

  Laurel dropped her fork on her plate with a clatter. “It’s the lady!”

  She pushed off from the table and raced to the front window, wiping condensation from the glass to stare down the road.

  The lady?

  It couldn’t be, could it? Here? Now? After all this time?

  I left my chair to join Laurel at the window, wiping at the glass, too, staring out in disbelief. The road was empty, still packed with snow from last evening, lined with bare deciduous trees and bottom-heavy firs. Anyone trying to make it up this mountain in anything with tires and a motor, let alone a motorcycle, would have to be crazy as a wildcat.

  So, yes, I thought: Bernadette.

  In another moment, we saw her, her Harley breaking through the forest road at the edge of the clearing, moving steadily but not fast, tires skittering and sliding in snow that nearly buried them. It had to take considerable skill to keep the bike upright and plowing through two feet of powder.