“I feel really bad about my mom. I can’t stop thinking about that.”
Alvin stops pounding. Carly just keeps looking at the dirt, refusing to make eye contact. In her peripheral vision, she can feel him watching her.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s take ourselves a break.”
They sit on the porch together in the shade. In two straight-backed wooden chairs. Carly takes off her hat and sets it on her knee. Where she can look at it.
A Wakapi woman Carly never met goes by on a bicycle down the dirt road, a thin cloud of red dust following. The woman raises one hand in a wave, and Alvin returns the gesture.
“Hey, Alvin,” the woman calls. “Hey, Carly.”
Then she rides on.
“How does she know my name?”
“Oh, you got to be quite the legend around here while you were away. Now what’s this about your mom?”
Carly lets out a long, unhappy sigh.
“I thought she was lying about Teddy. So she could leave him for this guy. Who she was already sleeping with. I wouldn’t speak to her. I said I hated her, and I called her a liar. I told her I’d never forgive her. And then I didn’t speak to her for months. Literally. Like, four or five months. And then she went off with that guy and got herself killed. And now I come to find out she wasn’t lying. She did a lot that was wrong, my mom, but not that. Not that one thing. And I didn’t know that was the last chance I’d ever have to speak to her. And now I feel like I’m going to have to live with that for the rest of my life.”
“You are,” Alvin says.
“Gee, thanks. You were supposed to say something comforting.”
“Want me to lie to you?”
“No.”
They sit quietly for a time. Carly puts one hand on her hat, where it sits on her knee. It looks just right there. When it’s not on her head.
“We took off out of there so fast, I don’t even know where they buried her.”
“Want me to see if I can find out?”
“Yeah. That would be good. Thank you.”
“See? You’re getting good at that. Told you a little practice’s all it takes.”
Alvin gets up and wanders into the house. Comes back out with two pottery cups of ice water about the size of small buckets. Hands one to her.
“Thanks,” she says and takes a long draw.
“OK. I’ll try to say something comforting. We got a different relationship to our ancestors than the people you grew up with. We still get some help and guidance from those who’re gone. Like they’re gone in one way, but not in every way. We’re not taught to be cut off from our ancestors, like they’re just dead, and that’s that.”
“Wish I’d been taught like that.”
“Never too old to learn,” Alvin says. “Question is whether you’ll stay around here with us long enough to pick up something new.”
Carly never answers that question.
She just looks off at the line of low mountains in the distance, liking the way the sun hits them. Liking the way the breeze blows patterns in the dry grasses between here and there. Liking the way the horses graze in a field across the road. And the way the clouds scud across the navy-blue edges of the sky.
It’s a good sky.
The reason she doesn’t answer the question is because she still wants to reserve more time to think. Before she makes any big commitments.
But she’s pretty sure she already knows.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
There is no such thing as a Native American tribe called the Wakapi. They are fictional.
The land on which I have depicted them living is very real. It’s in Arizona, just where it appears in this novel. It contains the Painted Desert and some of the most impressive landscapes I know. It is haunting and simple, pure, and, in my eyes, achingly beautiful. It never ceases to make me feel awed, insignificant, and inspired, usually all at the same time. I have been both through and to this area on a number of occasions.
In the real world, these lands belong to the Navajo, Hopi, and Apache tribes.
My initial vision for this book was to depict a few fictional members of a real tribe, and I set off to research this tribe with much the same zeal as I set off to research transplant surgeries when I wrote Second Hand Heart.
Here’s what I learned:
A surgery is a finite thing. And, when all is said and done, it is only that: a thing. It is not a human being, a rich history, or a culture. It has limits. It follows the same basic guidelines each time it occurs. Its complexity is nothing compared to a people.
As a result of this realization, I created the fictional Wakapi tribe as a way to show my immense respect for the Native American culture and way of life. Because I ultimately decided it was far more respectful to openly admit that I do not know any Native American tribe well enough to take on their story, or even the story of one or more of their people. A great deal of harm has been done to Native culture by outsiders. My hope is not to contribute to that harm in any way. Ultimately, I decided my goal would be best accomplished by remaining on the outside.
I do realize I am still depicting a version of Native American life in a very general way. I don’t suppose I can have done so perfectly from my outsider position, but I hope I have done it reasonably well, and that my respect shines through.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author and coauthor of nineteen books, including When I Found You, Second Hand Heart, When You Were Older, and Don’t Let Me Go. Her novel Pay It Forward was included on the ALA’s Best Books for Young Adults list, translated into twenty-three foreign editions, and turned into a major Warner Brothers motion picture. Her short stories have received honorable mentions in the Raymond Carver Short Story Contest, nominations for Pushcart Prizes and the O. Henry Award, and citations in the Best American Short Stories anthologies. Along with Anne R. Allen, she recently co-authored How To Be A Writer In The E-Age…And Keep Your E-Sanity. An avid traveler and amateur photographer, she has hiked the Grand Canyon, the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, and many more of the world’s most beautiful places. She currently resides in Cambria, California.
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