“Rosa,” I said. “Can’t I do that for you?”
She gave me a chimney brush and had me clean out the fireplace instead. I found a dead squirrel lying on the stones. That happens sometimes.
At the community dinner that night I sat with Annie and Aubrey and Zeke at the picnic table, Annie’s sister Jingle Dancing by the bonfire. I told the three of them about Sky and the taipo’o cop, the relief tangible on Annie’s face.
“Well, good, man,” Zeke said, irritable. “Imagine if he makes us miss the Ren fair.”
“Zeke,” Aubrey said. “I hope this isn’t impertinent, but what’s wrong with your face?”
“Hey!” Zeke said, defensive. “Just because I’m not a model!”
“I believe he means the rather enormous bruise,” Annie said.
“Oh, that,” Zeke said, laughing nervously.
He didn’t explain; but none of us pressed it. When the discomfort kicked in, the golden cultural rule of “Mind Your Own Business” was quick to follow.
“Hey,” Zeke said, elbowing me. “What’s your sister doing?”
I turned in my seat and looked behind me. Lila Little Hawk was done Jingle Dancing. Mary sat beside her, the pair of them talking like old friends.
“Corrupting the youth,” I said, standing. “I’ll go stop it.”
I walked over to the girls and heard Lila giggling at something Mary had said. Mary flashed sharp teeth at me in a devilish smile. I feared for Lila’s life.
“Lila’s healing me,” Mary said.
She tossed her long, skinny arm across Lila’s tiny shoulders. Lila simpered at me. Her dark pigtails made her look the picture of innocence, but I was starting to realize that wasn’t the case.
“Jingle Dancing,” Lila explained, when I didn’t get what Mary was talking about. “It’s a healing dance.”
“What do you want, Rafael?” Mary asked. “We’re a couple of busy gals.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled. Secretly I was happy. If Mary was doing better on her own, maybe she could stop making trips to the hospital.
“I have to go find my brother,” Lila announced, standing importantly.
The bells on her dress rattled softly when she walked away. Mary offered me a piece of raisin toast. I took it.
“Sky’s gonna come back to the rez,” I said, mouth full. “He’s with a taipo’o cop right now.”
Mary glanced at me, unreadable. “You sure about that?”
“That he’s with a taipo’o cop?” I asked, obtuse.
“That he’s coming back to the rez,” Mary said.
“The cop said so,” I told Mary. I stared at her.
Mary shrugged. “My gut says something different.”
“The hell would your gut know?” I asked, confused.
“Look, why do you think I keep it so empty?” Mary said. “So it’ll talk to me. If my gut says something’s fishy, something’s fishy. So that’s that.”
“You’re nuts,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“Chyeah.”
At that moment shouts interrupted our conversation:
“Can’t you do anything right? You worthless—”
It was Luke Owns Forty. He and Zeke were standing yards to our left. Zeke’s face was mortified, his mouth open shapelessly.
“How dare he?” I heard Annie say. But Luke’s voice drowned her out again.
“Don’t come home,” Luke spat. He drank from the bota bag on his hip.
“Booze it up, Luke,” Mary said. I don’t think anybody heard her.
“Dad,” Zeke murmured. “You’re—you’re just mad, it’s okay—”
“Can’t do anything right,” Luke was saying. “Shouldn’t have killed Naomi—should have killed you—”
A cold spell shot through me. I wanted to hit something. Maybe Luke had wanted the same. Maybe the bruise on Zeke’s face made a lot of sense.
Deafening silence fell over the commons. Sage In Winter caught my gaze, his eyes wide and sick.
“I think that’s enough,” Paul said quietly.
He stood up. He put himself between Luke and Zeke as easily as if the space had been made with him in mind. Luke started saying something more; but nobody could make it out. He was far too drunk, his words slurring together.
“Zeke,” Paul said. “Why don’t you sleep at our house tonight?”
“I found a half masticated bull in the coal seams today,” Selena Long Way said loudly, just to take the attention off of the guys.
Dinner went on as normal as it could. Paul and Mrs. Looks Over walked Zeke away from the bonfire, Luke staring after them in a stupefied rage. Uncle Gabriel pulled Luke aside and talked to him in a quiet voice. Mary touched my shoulder, and I looked at her, and she looked at me; I stared after Zeke’s receding back and felt somehow to blame.
Probably that was why I made the trip to the Looks Over house when everyone else had gone home. Sky’s coywolf followed me, which made me feel better about the deal. I knocked on the front door and Mrs. Looks Over answered. I asked if I could talk to Zeke. Zeke shuffled outside a moment later, his bony face mortified.
“I’m totally not in the mood,” Zeke mumbled.
“What got your dad so mad tonight?” I asked.
Zeke stared nervously at the spring stars. “Failed my winter test.”
I wondered whether Mr. Red Clay had had a talk with Zeke, too.
“You dad shouldn’t’ve said that shit to you,” I told Zeke.
“Doesn’t really matter, right?” Zeke said. “I mean, if he feels that way, he feels that way…”
“He was drunk,” I said, afraid. “Drunks don’t always mean what they say.”
Zeke smiled grimly. “Yeah?”
“My dad used to get drunk and tell my mom he was gonna buy her a ranch in Maine.”
“Sounds nice…”
Zeke and I sat on the bottom of the staircase. Sky’s coywolf lay down at my feet. Zeke played percussion on the step underneath us. It kind of irritated me, but I pushed the sensation aside.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Not this again,” Zeke groaned.
“Shut up,” I said, even more irritated. “I just want you to know. That someone’s sorry.”
“Does someone really have to be sorry?”
“Dunno,” I said. “It makes me feel better. When somebody’s sorry.”
“That’s messed up.”
“Could you just—” Now I wanted to hit him.
“Sometimes I think I hate my sister,” Zeke said.
I didn’t want to hit him anymore. I rolled my shoulders, tired.
“You know?” Zeke said. “I miss her every day, but…maybe that’s why I hate her. Because I don’t want to miss her. Because if she hadn’t left I’d still be me. I wouldn’t—wouldn’t have to be the kid who wasn’t killed.”
“Do you talk to your mom about that?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Zeke muttered. “Stay with her on the Ojibway rez sometimes.”
“Maybe you should stay with her all the time,” I said.
“But then I wouldn’t see you guys anymore,” Zeke said.
That was powerful. That took me by surprise, humbling me, hurting me.
“I mean,” Zeke said, bursting into forced laughter. “Just kidding!”
“Alright,” I said. He deserved the courtesy of me pretending I believed him.
“See you tomorrow, Loser,” Zeke said, resigned. He turned around and went inside the Looks Over house.
Sky’s spirit guide followed me back to my house. I thought about how there ought to be a world where parents didn’t die. I got my blanket out from my bedroom and lay down underneath the southern oak outside, the moss on the trunk my pillow. The coywolf put his head on my knee. I was expecting to feel foreign emotions, to want to jump out of my skin; but what I felt was familiarity. I felt silence settling in my throat, freckles rising on my skin. I felt my hair tightening in curls, my heart lightening with benevolence. I felt so much love it made me
want to rock shut like a seashell.
“Sky,” I said.
I curved my hand against the coywolf’s muzzle, warmth and fur tickling my palm. I closed my eyes. When I closed them I was sitting in the back of a squad car, watching city lights smudge outside my window. Uncertainty beat the inside of my stomach like frantic wings. I’d never thought of uncertainty as aerial before, but I could see that it was freeing in a way. When you didn’t know what happened next, you didn’t have to plan for it.
And about stomachs: Maybe Mary’s was onto something. A week after Racine first came to the rez she returned to tell us foster care had taken Sky away again. I didn’t even feel surprised; although if I told you I didn’t blame myself, I’d be lying. I steeled myself; and after school the first thing I did was track down Mary outside the Takes Flights’ house.
“I’m gonna bring Sky back to the rez,” I told her.
“Not alone you’re not,” Mary answered swiftly. “Let me wheedle the car out of Uncle Gay.”
“How are we gonna find him?” I asked. “I don’t know where they took him. How do we find out?”
“I told you to leave it to me, didn’t I? But go ask Paul if he knows anything new.”
So I went to the Looks Over house. I went inside; and Paul was already in the front room, gathering up his keys, counting money. He walked around in such a whirlwind he didn’t even notice me until he almost banged into me.
“Rafael,” he said. “Now’s not the time, please.”
“What are you doing?” I asked, alarmed. “You’re not—leaving the rez, are you?”
Paul grabbed a jacket off the coat hook. Yeah, he was definitely leaving the rez.
“You can’t do that!” I yelped, stepping in his way. “They’ll arrest you!”
“Do you really think I care about that right now?” Paul asked roughly, voice rising. “I have to find my kid.”
“You find your kid, and he won’t have a dad to come back to,” I growled. “It’d kill him. If anything happened to you—”
I remembered his plan with Mary. I burned with anger.
Paul looked at me. For a moment I imagined he knew what was on my mind. What he said next didn’t help any:
“I’ve never been the best parent he could have. I never should have taken him when his mother passed away.”
“Don’t say that,” I warned, and felt cold. Was that how Paul could throw his life away? Why was he so damn eager to hurt himself?
“Please step out of my way,” Paul said.
“Are you gonna hit me if I don’t?” I asked.
“No,” Paul said. “I’d never hurt a child.”
Instead of reassured, I felt annoyed. I was eighteen next month. I wasn’t a kid anymore.
“Alright,” I said. “Okay. But you gotta calm down first. If you lose your head, you’ll put Sky in danger. You gotta sit down, sir, and you gotta think.”
Paul dragged his hand through his hair. It looked weird, because his keys were still clutched between his knuckles. He sank down in the chair by the side window overlooking the lumber box. I knelt on the floor in front of him, waiting to see what happened.
Paul drew a deep breath. “Eli was my best friend.”
I stared at my knees. That way he didn’t have to look at Eli’s face.
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Paul said. “What I’m doing with Mary.”
How could he have known that I’d overheard them? Had Mary told him?
“You want to die,” I said, my voice like sandpaper. “I don’t need to know anything else.”
“I don’t want to die, Rafael,” Paul said. “Nobody ever really wants to die. Even people who take their own lives only do so because they’ve run out of resources.”
I tried not to think of Mom.
“What I had hoped for,” Paul said, “was that people would notice what we were doing, and people would realize we need new laws. Perhaps I never thought it would go as far as it has. Perhaps I imagined myself ready to die for my society, but the truth is that dying a martyr is much less shameful than dying a murderer.”
“You’re not a murderer,” I said.
“Your father and I,” Paul said, “are both murderers.”
I didn’t like this conversation anymore.
“Do you know where Sky is?” I asked.
“A contact of mine saw him last in Angel Falls,” Paul said. “He could be anywhere by now. But they won’t take him out of Arizona unless he’s been put up for adoption.”
Adoption? “He’s almost seventeen,” I said, jolting.
Paul gave me a surprisingly soft look. “Adoption isn’t always about finding parents for a child,” Paul said. “I’m glad you don’t know that. I hope you never do.”
For a minute, maybe two, neither one of us spoke. I could feel Paul calming down in the space surrounding him, the air cooling around his hot shoulders, his hot head. I wished that I could see his aura. Like every other color on the reservation, it had left when Sky had.
“I’ll go,” I told Paul. “I’ll go in your place.”
Paul looked at me, like he’d forgotten I was in the room. “Do you know how to drive?” he asked, puzzled.
“Yeah,” I hedged. “I can take my uncle’s car.”
“Gabriel agreed to that?”
“Yeah,” I said, without looking at Paul. It wasn’t exactly a lie. Uncle Gabriel had lent Mary his car before.
Paul hesitated. “Do you know how to page a beeper?” he asked.
“A what?” I asked.
“Hang on,” Paul said.
He went into the sitting room. He came back with a handheld phone, like the kind I’d sometimes seen Caleb use. It was black and blocky, and it fit in my palm. I found out firsthand because Paul offered it to me. Dumbfounded, I took it.
“I’m going to give you a piece of paper with a number on it,” Paul said. “If you dial that number, you can send messages to Skylar. He can’t respond to you, but at least he’ll know someone’s looking for him.”
“Thank you,” I said. My palm tingled.
“I know you love him,” Paul said. Embarrassed, he turned his head away. “I’m counting on that. You have to understand. People with disabilities are the most vulnerable out of any of us. And those who would harm others are always on the lookout for the vulnerable.”
I didn’t know if Paul was trying to scare me, but he’d succeeded. I think what scared me most was that I’d never thought of Sky as vulnerable before. He wasn’t any different from the rest of our friends. He could talk to you if he wanted to; just not with his voice.
The next day was a Saturday. Mary woke me at sun-up and shoved a plate of corn fritters under my nose. I almost vomited; not because I didn’t like corn fritters, but because I hated eating first thing in the morning. She dragged me out of my bed and marched me into the bathroom, where I washed my face in a sleepy stupor.
“I’m not kidding,” Mary said outside the door. “You’d better eat. I know how grumpy you get when you don’t.”
“I’m grumpy all the time,” I said.
I shuffled outside the bathroom, restless. I stopped in my tracks when I saw Mary. At some point she’d changed out of her pajamas and into a neat gray pants suit. The piercings were gone from her eyebrow and nose. The dark makeup around her eyes was subtle, her lips painted, her hair pinned back in a scraggly bun. In the blink of an eye she’d aged ten years.
“You gonna get dressed, or what?” Mary said. She shouldered a sleek gray purse that looked suspiciously like it belonged in Rosa’s closet.
“What am I dressing for,” I scowled, “Grandma’s wedding?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Mary dismissed. “Grandma marries that lady friend of hers, she’ll want us to wear regalia.”
I stomped into my room and threw on new jeans. I pulled on my Kashtin shirt, because those guys were boss. I put on my eyeglasses, downed my corn fritters, and followed Mary out the front door.
The reservation looke
d blurry by sunrise. I couldn’t see why it was Sky’s favorite time of day; but then maybe that was because there weren’t any colors to it. I dragged my feet while Mary led me to the hospital parking lot, unlocking Uncle Gabriel’s black car. I crawled into the back of it, ready to sleep. Mary honked the horn when I nodded off. I jumped, hitting my head on the roof.
“You just woke up the Long Ways!” I screeched.
“Good! Let them appreciate the beauty of a fine spring morning.”
Mary pulled us out of the parking lot. The tires hit the gravel, then the asphalt, the turnpike empty, the desert blinding. The car roared loudly when Mary floored the pedal. I fell off the seat and hit the floor on my knees.
“You’re nuts!” I complained.
“Beating the traffic!” Mary cackled.
She drove us east on the turnpike. I never bothered getting off the floor, but gradually Mary slowed down until I couldn’t feel my teeth rattling in my mouth. I grasped my knees. I kept thinking about what Paul had said: How he didn’t really want to die, but only wanted somebody to notice what was going on. That way they could come up with a better way for us to live. I was the one who had noticed. Did that mean it was my job to come up with a better way?
“You can get up now, squirt,” Mary advised.
I sat up on the leather seat, dizzy. I peeked out the window. The city around us looked surreal, the buildings lopsided, like children’s toys. This was one of those places where you couldn’t feel nature tugging at your navel.
“Here we are,” Mary said.
She parked the car outside a scratchy building that reminded me of an ancient Greek temple. I’m talking pillars and everything. I stumbled when we climbed out of the SUV. The sign hanging under the building’s roof read: “Child Protective Services.” My stomach sank.
“Whatever I say next,” Mary told me, “you keep your mouth shut.”
She walked partway down the sidewalk to a trio of women standing by a trash can, smoking cigarettes. All three of were dressed formal, vests and blazers and white cotton blouses.
“Angela!” Mary said boisterously. She patted one of the women on the back. “Hey!”
The lady jumped. “I’m Josephine,” she said, puzzled.
Overlooked (Gives Light Series Book 6) Page 23