A Long Bridge Home

by Kelly Irvin

  Andy’s tenor was a mere whisper at this distance. She slid back toward the dining room.

  One step, two steps.

  A hand grasped her shoulder. She jumped, clapped her hands to her mouth, and turned. Aunt Lucy frowned at her. Her gray eyebrows raised over the top of her glasses. “I reckon you forgot about returning to the kitchen to help with the cleanup.”

  “Nee, I just wanted—”

  “I know what you wanted.” Aunt Lucy tugged her toward the kitchen. “The girls finished their part. They left you the pots and pans to wash, dry, and put away.”

  Christine followed her into the kitchen. “I just want to know why he’s here.”

  “I suspect you know why.”

  “He’s been so back and forth, and I don’t mean from Lewistown to Eureka and back.”

  “He’s here now.” Aunt Lucy plunked two mugs on the counter and poured coffee. “He didn’t come to St. Ignatius for the fishing at Flathead Lake.”

  Christine sank a large saucepan into the plastic bucket of hot, sudsy water that filled the sink. A bubble floated in the air and tickled her nose. “He looks so thin and tired. He’s been through a terrible time, what with the accident and his dad’s sickness.”

  And she hadn’t made it any easier. She’d failed to be forgiving about a situation that had hurt him terribly. The pain caused by Winona’s choice of his brother was so agonizing, he chose to move away from home. To start a new life. No wonder he didn’t want to talk about it. Then Christine had reacted just as he had feared she would. “Will you tell him about Raymond?” Aunt Lucy’s tart tone left no doubt what she thought Christine should do.

  “He knows I’ve spent time with Raymond. Besides, Andy has nothing to fear from Raymond.”

  If there had been the tiniest possibility of her feelings growing into something more than friendship and respect, it had dissipated when she saw Tonya. Raymond might not know it yet—or maybe he did—but Tonya had staked her claim. The air around them crackled with the power of an electrical storm about to break overhead on a hot, humid August night.

  “Does he really?” The words reeked with skepticism. Aunt Lucy added milk and sugar to the coffee. She offered a mug to Christine. “Does he know you have feelings for another man?”

  Christine wiped her hands on her apron and took the mug. She set it on the counter. “Is it not possible for women and men to be friends? To be like brothers and sisters, even if they’re not related?”

  Lucy’s snort clearly expressed what she thought of that sentiment.

  In the Plain community the lines were clearly drawn. Husbands, fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins—family, in other words.

  So why did Raymond fascinate her? She squinted at the setting sun that shone through the small window over the sink. His beliefs challenged her to think about her own—something she’d never done before. His view of the world bumped against hers and sent it spinning out of control. For the first time she had to justify—in her own mind—what she believed. Christians had done terrible things to Raymond’s people. How could they still be called God’s children?

  She wasn’t supposed to judge them. She should, however, do better. That’s what Father would say. She should live her life as an example to others, but it wasn’t her job to convert them.

  Even if they were headed to hell?

  She shook her head.

  “Then what is it like?” Lucy sipped her coffee, but her frown had nothing to do with its flavor. “You’re shaking your head. What are you thinking?”

  Christine added another cookie to the pile as if to sweeten her response. “I wish I knew. I’m confused. I can’t unlearn the things I’ve learned. I don’t want to unlearn them. I worry about those who don’t know Gott. Is that wrong?”

  “It’s not your place to worry about them. Gott will deal with them.” The frown turned to a scowl. “It is prideful to think you have control over other people’s salvation. All we have is the living hope that Gott will deal kindly with us, knowing we have followed Him in all things.”

  “I know. I know.” Christine whispered the words. God must laugh at her hubris. “What have I done?”

  “You’ve let your head—if not your heart—run wild. Time to return to your roots.” Her expression kind, Aunt Lucy picked up the saucepan from the counter and dried it. “Do you still have feelings for that man out there, sitting at our table? If you don’t, you must tell him. Don’t string him along. Men might be big and strong in their bodies, but their hearts are delicate and easily fractured.”

  Aunt Lucy and Uncle Fergie had been married forever. They had six kids. They were plump and gray. It was hard to imagine them breaking anyone’s heart. “How do you know so much about matters of the heart?”

  She smiled, but her gaze moved beyond Christine’s shoulder to some far, far away place. “We haven’t always been old.”

  “Andy had a special friend before.” The words stuck in her throat like week-old biscuits. “One he failed to tell me about.”

  “Life is like that. None of us is perfect.”

  If she quoted Scripture, Christine might fall to her knees and throw a tantrum like a toddler. Or not. Time to grow up. “Would it be possible for me to use the phone at the store?”

  “Why?”

  “I need to talk to Nora and Mercy.” Her friends still walked this unfamiliar road on which there were no signposts, no stoplights, no solid stripes. Their parents thought it wrong to speak of such things, but letting them bump around in the dark would surely lead to crashes like the one Christine had experienced in the last few weeks. “They understand. They know how it feels.”

  “You think your parents don’t understand? You think I don’t understand? Or the bishop? We do, but you’ve been raised to know what is right and what is wrong. You have all the words of wisdom you need to hear. Simply do the proper thing.”

  Aunt Lucy was right. That didn’t make it easy. “No one said it would be easy.” Mammi’s sharp voice grazed her ear. Christine stuck her hands in the water and scrubbed a skillet harder than necessary.

  “I think it’s clean.” Lucy tugged the skillet from her. “Scrubbing it won’t make you clean. Repent, ask forgiveness, and start fresh while there’s still time.”

  What exactly was she repenting? She hadn’t been unfaithful to the man she loved. He, on the other hand, had loved another. Had she been unfaithful to God?

  Christine gave up the skillet. She leaned on the counter and inhaled the scent of dish soap. Once nothing had made her happier than washing dishes. Now she needed to clean up her own mess.

  If only it were as easy.

  28

  Arlee, Montana

  Raymond dropped another log on the crackling fire that filled the small cabin with more heat than necessary, but Gramma’s wasted, shivering body couldn’t be warmed. Nor could the flames burn away the sense of impending grief. The dry wood popped and crackled. It spit anger at him. Only a sense of decorum kept him from spitting back. He rose from a squat and dusted off his hands. He shed the long-sleeved shirt he wore over a white T-shirt.

  Across the room, Grandma Velda tugged another blanket over Gramma Sadie. Her ropey skin hung from her underarms as she tucked the faded blue-gray flannel around her mother’s chin. She murmured words meant only for the old woman whose deep slumber that bordered on unconsciousness meant she heard nothing.

  Raymond turned back to the flames. They leaped and danced. He leaned into the heat and the smell of burning wood, seeking the peace that came from letting go. He must let nature take her course, whether he liked it or not.

  “You’re so quiet.” Velda crept to his side and held out her knotted, arthritic fingers above the fire. “No need to be sad, my son. She’s ready to go. Her body is weak. Her spirit longs to be free of it.”

  “I know.”

  “Knowing and accepting are two different animals.”

  “She raised me.”

  The words weren’t intended to cause his grandmo
ther pain. Her smile said she took no umbrage. “She was a force all her own. A good mother to me. A good mother to you. Her work is done.”

  “You’ll feel no sadness?”

  “I didn’t say that. We mourn for ourselves because we’re selfish that way.” She shoved skinny wire-rimmed glasses up her hooked nose. “I don’t think I have a single bad memory of my mother. Not many can say that. She lived well. She mothered well. She loved well.”

  “Is that why she never remarried after Great-Grandpa died?”

  “Her heart remained full in her love for me and for you and your brothers. She told me she had no room for another man or a need for one.”

  “And you? You never married again either.”

  “For me it was different. I never came across the right man after your grandpa died.”

  “He wasn’t the love of your life?”

  “He was a hard man. I loved him but he didn’t make it easy.”

  It seemed to run in the family. The women made poor choices when it came to love. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about my father?”

  “Nothing to tell. Biology doesn’t make a man a father.”

  “Do you know who fathered Vic and Tony?”

  “I do.”

  “Will you ever tell them?”

  “If they ask. They seem happy in their ignorance.”

  Vic joined the Army immediately after high school and married one of the soldiers in his unit. They were stationed in Fort Riley, Kansas. Tony went to trade school and became an electrician. He had a steady girl who trained horses outside of Butte where they lived. Raymond’s brothers never rocked the boat. They didn’t come home much either. Nor did they express an interest in their heritage.

  “You think I should be equally content?”

  “I think you are your mother’s son. She took after her grandmother.”

  “And you?”

  Grandma Velda peeked over her shoulder at Gramma. “I loved your mother. She was my only child. But I didn’t understand her. She was a wild girl. She loved to run like the antelope on the trails and ride horses up the steep inclines. She drove cars the way she rode horses. I always knew . . .”

  Her voice choked. She turned away and went to the minuscule kitchen where she dumped coffee grounds in the trash and added fresh coffee to the old metal pot.

  Raymond eased into a chair with a ripped vinyl covering on the seat that allowed the stuffing to peek out, and leaned his elbows on the narrow table. “That’s the most you’ve ever said about her to me.”

  Velda lit a match and held it to the gas burner. The smell of phosphorus mingled with the coffee. It fanned a faint memory. The taste of coffee melded with milk, sugar, and cinnamon. A cigarette burning in a heavy stone ashtray sent smoke signals into the wooden rafters above. His mother held a handful of cards. He sat on her lap. She nuzzled his head with her chin. She had an ace, a spade, and a ten of hearts. The vague remnants of a man’s face appeared. White with a dark mustache and beard. He tapped a yellow BIC lighter on the table and laughed.

  Mom laughed, too, and slapped the cards facedown on the table. “I fold, you lucky devil.”

  “You lucky devil.”

  “She liked to play cards.”

  “And the stick game. She liked to gamble. She liked to live hard and fast.”

  “Why?”

  “Because her daddy died young and she knew she would too.”

  “Do you know where my father is?”

  Velda reached for a mug on the open shelf over the sink. She froze, her hand in the air. Her face contorted with pain.

  “Grandma?”

  Without answering she shuffled in fuzzy gray slippers that made a flip-flop sound on the hardwood floor to Gramma’s bed. Her hand touched the old woman’s cheek. She stroked her neatly braided hair. She kissed her forehead. “Little Runner is no longer here.”

  A shriek rose in Raymond’s belly. It filled his lungs and his heart and his throat. The shriek left no room for air. No room to breathe. No room for his heart to swell and beat. His mouth went dry. He swallowed again and again. He gritted his teeth until his jaw ached.

  Without rushing he crossed the room. He kissed Gramma’s still-warm forehead. “Until we meet again.”

  He settled on a stool next to Velda. Her back straight, head up, gaze forward, she began to rock and keen.

  Raymond closed his eyes and let her wail be his song.

  Time passed. The coffee percolated. The smell, at first aromatic, turned sour and burnt. Finally, Raymond rose. He turned off the gas. The fireplace glowed with embers. He let them die.

  “Call your brothers.” Velda spoke through stiff lips. Tears stained her wrinkled cheeks, but her eyes were clear. “I’ll call the others.”

  Nodding, he tugged on his shirt and his windbreaker. Anything to escape the heavy grief that pinned his feet to the floor and his spirit to the wall. He shoved through the door into the chilly late-September night where he put both hands on his knees and sucked in cold air until his lungs ached.

  Where was Christine tonight? What would she say about Gramma’s death? That her days in this world were done? That she wandered through pearly gates and walked streets of gold with a man who once turned water into wine and raised the dead to life?

  No. Her spirit swirled and danced with the coyotes on the range. She leaped over gorges with mountain goats. She prowled along streams, pausing to lap up the icy water, a mountain lion on either side of her. She sat on the bough of a larch and gazed at the moon through the snowy owl’s sleepy eyes.

  The animals gathered around her and howled their welcome.

  He straightened and stumbled to the driveway.

  The powder-blue Impala sat next to his Volvo, its engine a low rumble. White smoke puffed from the tailpipe. Headlights blinded him.

  He hesitated. To speak to anyone at this moment seemed beyond impossible.

  The door opened. Tonya’s dark head appeared. “She’s gone then?”

  He nodded.

  “I had a feeling.” She inclined her head for a second. “Can I give you a ride somewhere?”

  “I have my car.”

  “I know, but you don’t want to drive.”

  Raymond didn’t bother to ask how she knew any of this. He grabbed his laptop from his car, climbed into the Impala, and closed the door. Tonya shut hers. For a second neither of them moved. He stared out the bug-spattered windshield at the big orangey moon. How could it continue to welcome the night when Gramma no longer breathed the same air as Raymond?

  “She runs faster than the mountain lion now.” Tonya zipped up her black leather jacket and whipped her long hair into a quick ponytail. Preparing for something. “She shimmers on Flathead Lake.”

  “She tastes the stars.” He forced the words around the lump in his throat. “She’s laughing at my silly tears.”

  “She was never mean.”

  “She was always right.”

  Tonya put the car in gear. “Where to?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  She backed from the driveway, turned onto Highway 93, and drove toward Arlee.

  He called Vic first. His middle brother took the news with his usual stoicism. Vic would seek bereavement leave and come when he could. They would stay at Velda’s house. Then Tony. His younger brother’s voice cracked. He hiccupped a sob. After a murmured conversation somewhere beyond the phone, he returned to say he and his girlfriend would get on the road first thing in the morning.

  The task completed, Raymond turned his cell phone into a hotspot and searched his laptop for churches with white supremacist ties in Montana. To think of anything but Gramma’s sightless eyes and slackened mouth. The results were scary. They weren’t really churches. They didn’t worship a deity but their own race. They deified racism and bigotry.

  He closed the laptop and tried to breathe normally.

  Tonya glanced his way and back at the highway. “What if I feed you?”

  He shook his head.

/>   “Do you need to talk to her?”

  “Who?”

  “Christine.”

  “No.”

  “You were thinking of her when you left Sadie’s house.”

  Again, no point in asking how Tonya knew. In the old days she would have been a shaman with Gramma. Together they would have been members of the Crazy Owl Society that warded off epidemics with dances that took them round and round the teepees until their feet left the ground and they ran in the air. “I wondered what words of wisdom she would offer about Gramma’s death.”

  “To them we are heathens.” Tonya spat the last word. The car accelerated as if it felt her anger. “Pagans.”

  “Yet they still pray for us. They long for us to be saved, as they put it.”

  “So did the Jesuits.”

  “I don’t need to be reminded of our history.”

  “Would you want to go back to a time when we had no choice but to accept assimilation?”

  “Resistance is futile? No.”

  “Good. Velda will arrange the burial with the elders. We’ll look for your father in the meantime.”

  “Stop doing that.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Reading my mind.”

  “Well?”

  “Stop at a McDonald’s. We’ll get coffee and I can use their Wi-Fi.”

  Being a computer nerd had its advantages. Two cups of coffee, an apple pie, and an order of fries later, he’d found Oliver “Cap” Dawson, former boxer, former motorcycle gang member, and former Army MP who spent time in Germany while in the Army. He worked on the railroad, built roads, and hauled lumber. A jack-of-all-trades, master of none. A nomad.

  Now he lived between Flathead Lake and Glacier Park in a place called Swan Lake. Strange place for a racist to live—in the midst of all those Indians.

  “You found him?” Tonya’s sleepy eyes surveyed him. Her words were softened by exhaustion. During his search she’d drunk coffee and filled pages of a journal with a purple ink pen. She wrote in cramped cursive that couldn’t be read upside down. “You don’t look happy.”