The Same River

by Lisa M. Reddick

  Too much, she thought, as her stomach tightened. She didn’t know this person, needed to let her go. She selected all the messages in her inbox and hit the DELETE key.

  “Are you sure?” the computer asked her.

  She clicked yes.

  The door opened behind her, and she jumped.

  “Hey, sweetheart, sorry I didn’t call first. Did I startle you?” Jess’s mom walked over to her and ruffled the stiff ends of hair that were just growing back in. Jess liked the way it felt, like an animal’s fur. She looked up at her mom’s dark brown eyes, so much like Monica’s, and now laden with sadness. First the loss of her younger daughter, then her husband, and now this. Jess felt a pang of what her therapist called survivor guilt jar her; over the past eighteen years, it had only grown stronger, more present, through causing her mother yet more suffering and activating the unimaginable grief that pulled constantly at Barbara’s features. What she must be feeling when she looks at my lopsided face, my torn skin; what nightmares this must have caused her . . .

  “I brought you some new lotion. I know you like this one, so I went all the way down to the co-op to get it for you. Lavender and rosemary? One year you gave me a bottle for Mother’s Day and said it was your favorite. I spoke with Dr. Sheldon, and she says they may be able to let you go in the next week or so.”

  Jess rested in the familiar cadence of her mom’s voice. For a moment, it carried her back to her childhood home. Her dad was in the next room, reading the paper, drinking his evening glass of wine. Her sister was upstairs, on the phone, and their dog, Lappy, lay comfortably on her bed, resting her old body and sighing along with the sounds of the house. One, two, three . . . Jess shook herself, realizing that she should pay attention to what her mother was saying.

  “That’s great, Mom.” She measured her words carefully, trying to remember how to sound as normal as possible, show her mother the progress she was looking for. “I’d love to get out of here. Leslie brought my computer over today. I just deleted all my emails, hope there wasn’t anything important.”

  “You deleted all your emails? Really? Not a bad idea, I guess. Just remember, Jess, sweetheart, you have to have patience. I know it’s a good sign that you want to get going, but this is a long process. You’ve done so well, surprised all your doctors and therapists, but your healing is taking its own time—a time we all need to respect. Once you’re out of the hospital, I’m sure you’ll feel the pull of your life again.”

  Jess stopped while her thoughts swirled. She was learning how to control them, how to contain them. It was like riding on the rope swing when she was little. At first she swung around the old maple tree, twisting randomly and out of control, out over the green pool in the river and back, sometimes hitting the rough bark, sometimes letting go into the cool water, sometimes just swinging. Then, finally, she learned to use her body in a way to control her swing. She grabbed the rope, swinging her thoughts from one side to the other . . .

  “Leslie called the house this morning after she brought your computer and said it would be a good idea if I brought Miko by to see you. He’s been a really good boy, but I know he’s missed you. He’s waiting for you out in the car, I’ve cleared it with the nurses and asked them to bring a wheelchair.”

  An unexpected feeling lurched through Jess’s body. It was as if she couldn’t control it, or the feeling came on so strong that her damaged mind couldn’t even name it. Miko. She could smell him more than she could imagine him; he was just outside. Soon she would be petting his ears, burying her face in his thick fur. The strange feeling coursed through her body: expectation, her old life, memories of his last, shrill, desperate barking from inside her truck.

  The nurse came in with the wheelchair, and Jess stepped in carefully. Her body felt suddenly stronger. It had a place to go, a reason to move through the world and toward what she loved. This was the best she had felt since the accident, her mind sliding to one side and allowing a sense of who she was to come into focus. She was quiet while her mother pushed her out into the hall and down to the elevators. She tried to get up when the elevator doors opened and stumbled into the elevator car.

  “I can walk, Mom. I don’t need that chair.”

  “Sweetheart, are you sure? I’ll bring it with us just in case.”

  Her mom looked worried and a little surprised. Jess held on to the cold silver railing, which suddenly felt new to her, as if it were her link to somewhere important, the next step. The drop made her dizzy, but she held on and walked slowly out into the lobby, clinging to her mother, who was still pushing the wheelchair. She didn’t want to stop and felt the momentum of the swing carry her out over the river, laughing into the sunshine, free of the tubes and the constant exams. Her legs felt strong and determined, like she was making her way up the final switchback on a difficult trail. Her mom’s old red Volvo was out in the parking lot. She could see Miko’s black-masked face framed in the backseat window. Tears ran down her face; Miko was waiting for her, as he had been that night; at the end of this tunnel, he would be there for her.

  The open space around her startled her, and she felt dizzy. Her mom grabbed her arm, letting the wheelchair roll aimlessly into the parking lot. There it goes, just like my email, Jess thought.

  “Are you okay? Let’s walk more slowly. I know you’re excited, but we have a lot of time. Miko has been waiting a long time to see you—he can wait a few moments more.”

  Jess drew in a breath, and her tears grew stronger. She was coming back, back into her life, yet there was something, a shadow in her mind, that hadn’t been there before. She swung farther out over the river and smiled.

  When the car door opened, Miko locked her gaze with his and looked for a moment right into her. Then he bolted out and wagged his entire large body, and Jess sat down on the parking lot pavement and let him move all over her, licking her ears and snuffling her neck. She felt a wave of sadness come from him and wash over her. He suddenly lay down on the pavement next to her—his place, she thought. He could protect her now. His big heart, her boy. She bent her head down and buried her face in his neck. They needed each other in ways that no one could understand. And now they were bound into a small pack living in a world that was open to attacks. Right now, on the hard pavement of the hospital parking lot, she believed she could begin again.

  Miko swung over onto his side, and she rubbed his belly.

  “I know I should have brought him over sooner. But I wanted you to be strong enough, strong enough . . . well, for this.” Her mom watched over them protectively. Cars passed slowly by them, looking for parking, noticing the crying woman and her beautiful dog. Jess felt as if she were in a movie and suddenly wanted to run for cover, hide with Miko, and watch from the protection of the forest.

  Her mom came over and helped Jess to her feet. Miko jumped up expectantly. “Let’s go over there, on the grass in the shade. I can leave you two for a while. I’ll get the wheelchair and take it back inside. You have plenty of time.”

  Jess knew what that meant, having felt time stretch through her days like long yards of thick taffy, though she was never sure if it was from the medication or the damage to her brain, or simply the nature of hospital time. She longed for the quickness of busy days, focused on her work, on the river, loping along with Miko through the underbrush, looking for signs of spawning salmon.

  She lay back in the grass, feeling the firm, cool ground under her. She let the weight of her body hold her down, and she could feel how different it had become. Lighter, she thought, and vulnerable and weak on one side. Miko lay down next to her and sighed. She closed her eyes and took in his scent, his softness, his certainty. Rolling toward him, she put her arm around him and let her body relax into the ground. She was home, and she knew that in a few days, this would be the way it was.

  She looked up through the branches of the maple above her—a native tree, casting flashing shadows. She thought for a moment of the person who had planted this tree, probably seventy ye
ars earlier. That person had decided that a native tree, a tree so many would look out on from the windows of their constricting rooms, would be best. Each year, this tree shed its leaves and pulsed with new life in the spring. Jess could almost feel the coming out-breath of spring in it. She shifted her foot so that it was just touching the tree—another connection, another relationship. Her mom wandered the parking lot, looking for the errant wheelchair, and Jess laughed to herself and brushed Miko’s coat.

  This moment, she thought. This moment.

  PIAH

  Piah reached out in her sleep to one-year-old Libah lying next to her. The early light was just coming in through the smoke hole above her. The morning sounds of the forest and the waking camp stirred with the others in the small home. Libah rolled in response to her mother’s touch and began to nurse. Piah startled as she felt the hot skin of her baby against her own. Her own body pulled away in protective response, and Libah began to cry. Not my baby, Piah thought. She touched Maika’s shoulder and woke him, placing his large hand on their daughter’s back. He looked into her eyes with a kind of shock and desperation. Piah felt a tightness in her throat, and she clutched the edge of Libah’s fur blanket in her hands. Not my baby. As she continued to nurse Libah, she cried openly. No one in their camp who had come down with the fever and the many ugly sores that covered their bodies had lived. Piah knew that Libah, being so young, would have no chance.

  One of the symptoms that had entered her people had been a hot fever and a strange, dark red rash. Ever since the shaman had brought back the visions, the fevers seemed to be getting worse. There was word from the downstream Nesika people that the rash was spreading from tribe to tribe like a wildfire. She focused on sending a cool current of love for her child through her family, trying to soothe her daughter’s body, her husband’s, and her own.

  She wrapped Libah tenderly in a small cedar blanket and carried her out into the rising light. Maika stayed in their home, and she could hear him weeping. She walked the path down to the river. Everything seemed suddenly vivid and loud. The singing birds blended with the rush of the water, and she felt Libah stir and begin to cry. She remembered her vision, almost a year before, when her sister, Tenas, had come to her with a promise that Libah would be the one who would help her people, show them the way through the difficulties that lay ahead. Piah pulled the necklace from Libah’s medicine pouch. What did this mean? How could her spirit sister have been wrong?

  When Piah reached the water’s edge, she sat on a large boulder. She tried to find her power song, tried to listen to the river, to the songs that would come to her to tell her what to do. For the first time, Piah felt lost, betrayed somehow by the wisdom she had come to depend on throughout her life. Libah’s hot skin against hers invoked a desperate anger, and the image of the white man’s face rose up from the white water at her feet.

  Piah called out in her spirit song to her sister, Tenas. She had seen Libah—in the spirit world—as a grown child. Now her child lay dying in her arms, the space between her breaths growing longer. Piah’s hand reached down to her vacant belly, where she had carried Libah for nine months.

  Where are you going? the spirit of Tenas whispered above the soaring sound of the river. Piah could feel her more than hear her.

  Piah, you must let her go.

  She is the one—she will open a path between the worlds.

  This one who is and the one to come.

  This is the only way.

  Piah began screaming, holding her child tightly. Libah stirred awake and tangled her small hands into Piah’s thick, dark braids. Piah clutched the beaded necklace and wept into the body of her dying daughter. She decided to take her child deep into the forest, where she would care for her, beg the spirits to heal her, fight with them, with the inevitability of the unimaginable.

  Piah spent several days in the forest, caring for her child, beckoning to the helping spirits of the plants and animals around her. They wove her into a blanket of healing, lending their bodies to the tender body of her daughter. But then one morning Piah went off to gather a dying salmon from the river, and when she came back, Libah was still, too still. Piah began wailing, howling into the damp gray morning light. Her baby had been taken.

  Piah carried Libah’s body on her back down to her camp. Maika walked up to her and embraced her as she stood, sobbing, in the open center where the main fire was held. Her father came over to her and took off the back sling that held her baby.

  Piah’s father looked up at her, holding the small body. Piah felt fury and grief pour through her like a storm. Her father turned and took Libah’s body into his tent. Piah heard him drumming and collapsed into the muddy gravity of the earth. She let the visions swirl around her, colorful and comforting. The rhythm of the drum gathered her family around her, and she felt their bond carrying her back from the solitude of her grief. They had lost Libah, but also many others.

  Piah stood. Pushing back the heavy, wet skins of her father’s door, she walked into the dim light of his home. Smoke swirled in spirals from the small morning fire, and her father did his drumming with tenderness, bidding his granddaughter a safe journey. Piah held the small necklace in her hand.

  “I want to give her to the river.”

  Piah’s father looked into her. Strands of black hair clung to his wet skin; gray streaks of ash brushed across his strong, deeply hewn face. He picked up the small, still bundle and handed her to Piah without speaking. So much had been taken from him; the world that had held them both was falling away.

  Piah carried the body of Libah to the bank of the Nesika. Though Piah wasn’t sure she had been given his blessing, she knew her father would comfort Maika and let the others in the family know what her wishes were. Piah felt the force of the rapids pushing through the granite canyon tearing and cold in her belly. She closed her eyes and began a low chant—beckoning the spirits of the river, the land, her ancestors, and her sister. This was to be an offering, a sacrifice, the opening of a door into another time. Libah, her daughter; Tenas, her sister.

  She released her baby’s body into the water just below Tenas’s grave. Piah closed her eyes and felt the tendrils of the river pull Libah’s body from her arms. Piah let go and continued her deep, crying chant, holding the beaded necklace high in the air. Rain poured around and through her, washing her, the small streams feeding the river like the warm blood flowing riverlike through her own body. She prayed and sang until she could barely stand, but some strength in her urged her onto her feet, her belly damp with river mud, and she made her way blindly back to her camp.

  She stumbled toward her family and collapsed at her mother’s feet.

  “Go into the woods for five days.” Her mother handed her a small bag of food and fur to keep her warm. Piah couldn’t respond; she merely curled her body around the bag and wept into it. She could hear chanting: the women of her home were encouraging her, blessing her, trying to comfort her. Their chants were of healing, how her blood would come back and she could someday bear another child.

  Piah felt small and vulnerable as she walked into the forest. The morning light on the river seemed dull and fading. Her body was heavy to her, in a new way, and she wondered if she was coming down with the sickness as well. The possibility tore at her, hands from both worlds: being again with her sister and daughter, being again with Lamoro, gathering willows to heal the sick. She climbed up to the ridge, up to where she’d had her earliest vision, and sat facing the sun. She opened her aching breasts to its warmth, felt it moving across her skin, and had a desire to tear at it with her fingernails. She wanted whatever was happening to stop.

  The force carrying this disease into her people was stronger than the spirits, stronger than the river, and had the power to destroy all of her family. She stood up and took off her clothes, lying down on the rock edge of the cliff. A cool breeze blew over her from the river canyon below. Her stomach was taut from not eating, yet she felt an ancient power course through her, moving her t
o dance. She pulled her hair back from her face and stood up naked above the canyon, then began a slow, unwinding ceremonial dance. A low hum rose in her chest, and she began to chant a new power song while she danced. The chant rang with the grief and sadness she carried from the death of so many, from the death of her own daughter, from the death of her own flesh. As she danced, the wind that blew up from the canyon grew stronger and seemed to hold her in its arms. She rested in its currents and let them lift the pain from her thin, writhing body. She vowed through her song to give everything she had to hold this intruder back by the throat until her people found safety.

  Her bare feet slid over the rocks down to the riverbank, and Piah fell forward into the mud and felt the pulse of the current in hers. The long, cool body of the Nesika rushed past her, carrying her baby and her people into an uncertain future.

  JESS

  Everything was so bright. The damp red clay of the road urged her toward something waiting in the dry creek bed. Pungent desert sage blended with a blood scent, and her eyes fixed on a slight movement through the brush. She looked down at her wide gold paws, her long body stretching as she moved. She padded along a dirt path that seemed to lead up into the sky. Just when she was about to go over the edge, she saw a cave-like room off to the side of the path. She entered it, and her senses ignited with the shift from the open air into the confinement of the damp walls.

  A sound called her forward. She was perched high on a large rock outcropping, and below her was a vast room like a cathedral, echoing the long, low chants of the people gathered there. They were dancing, and there were hundreds of them.

  She leaped from the rock and turned into her human form. She joined the rows of dancers, moving in time with the slow step, the room snaking with bodies forming the shape of a spiral. The room felt like the center of something very important. Jess recognized some people—her dad was there; Miko was there—and a Native American woman took her by the hand and showed her the steps of the dance.