"Can I put Arkansas River on the floor?" Annawake asks suddenly. Oprah is back, and Annawake is scooting some papers around to make room for herself on the edge of Jinny's desk.
"You can put Arkansas River in the river," Jinny says. Annawake laughs, and Jinny feels guilty for thinking bad-hair thoughts. Actually, Jinny thinks, if she had Annawake's bone structure she'd cut her hair off too, or do something different.
"So what's the story on that little kid?"
There are four kids: a show-off boy in a scout uniform who keeps patting the hand of his huge father; two tall, skinny white girls in braces who could be sisters; and the Indian girl in overalls.
"That white girl with her is the mom. The adopted mom."
The mother is young-looking and pretty, dressed in a nice beige suit but swinging her crossed leg like it's not her business to act like Nancy Reagan. She is telling the story of how her little girl saw a man fall down a hole in the Hoover Dam.
Annawake makes a face of pain. "Give me a break. She made up that Hoover Dam to get on the show."
"No, that was on the news. You were out there in Phoenix when it happened, didn't you see it on TV?"
"Really? Maybe. I can't think of it if I did. In law school I missed all the news that was legally uncomplicated."
"Oprah has people that check your story," Jinny says, a little defensive. She spends almost every afternoon with Oprah, and feels she can be trusted.
"You think it's true?"
Jinny shrugs. "Listen. You can tell." The woman explains that she herself didn't see the man fall down the hole, only Turtle did. For two whole days no one else believed it, but she did, and they kept trying to get help.
"National Enquirer for sure," Annawake says. "She read it in the grocery store."
Oprah is talking to the mother now, whose name is something Taylor. "I can see there's a wonderful bond between you and your daughter. Can't you see it?" Oprah turns around, her loose rayon jacket swirling and the studio audience says Yes, they can. She asks, "You adopted her when she was how old, two?"
"Probably she was three," the mother says. "We don't know for sure. She was abused and hadn't been growing right before I got her. It was kind of an unusual situation. Somebody just gave her to me."
"Gave her to you?"
"Left her in my car."
Oprah makes one of her funny big-eyed faces at the camera. "You all hear that?" she asks in a deeper, down-home voice. "Check your car before you drive out of the parking lot."
Annawake looks at Jinny with raised eyebrows, and asks the TV set, "Where?"
"I'd just stopped for a cup of coffee," the mother says, and seems a little surprised when the audience laughs. No way is she making this story up, Jinny thinks. "I was on a trip across the country. I'd just left home and was headed out West. The funny part about it is, all the time I was growing up in Kentucky my main goal was to not get pregnant. All my girlfriends had these babies up to their ears."
"But that wasn't going to happen to you," says Oprah.
"No, ma'am."
"And your first day out, somebody gives you a baby."
"Second day out," she says, and the audience laughs again. With Annawake watching, Jinny feels slightly embarrassed about the low laugh threshold of Oprah's studio audience.
"You could have walked away. Why did you take her?" Oprah asks in a caring way.
"Seeing as how it's against the law," Annawake adds.
"Which law?" Jinny asks, surprised.
"Indian Child Welfare Act. You can't adopt an Indian kid without tribal permission."
Franklin Turnbo has come in and hung up his jacket. Annawake motions him over, still concentrating on the black-and-white screen. The three of them watch the mother push her hair out of her eyes, thinking. She seems unaware that she's on TV--unlike the Cub Scout, who keeps bobbing on the edge of his chair and raising his hand as if he knows the answer.
"I felt like I had to take her," the mother finally answers. "This woman just plunked her down on the seat of my car and looked at me and said, 'Take her.' I said, 'Where do you want me to take her?' I thought she needed a ride somewhere."
Finally the audience is completely quiet.
"Take who?" Franklin Turnbo asks.
"That Cherokee kid," Annawake says, nodding at the screen. The mother looks down at the little girl and then back at Oprah. "The woman told me Turtle's mother was dead, and that somebody had been hurting Turtle. She was the dead mother's sister, and it looked like somebody'd been hurting her too. Then she got in this truck with no lights, and drove off. It was the middle of the night. At the time I felt like there was nothing else in the world I could do but take the baby. I'd been driving forty-eight hours. I guess my judgment was impaired."
The audience laughs, uneasily. The little girl is staring at Oprah and clutching a fistful of her mother's skirt. The mother carefully moves the child's hand into one of hers. "The next summer I went back and legally adopted her."
"Can't be," says Annawake. "Not legally."
Oprah asks, "Where did all this happen?"
"Oklahoma, Indian country. Turtle's Cherokee."
Annawake bangs the desk like a judge, bringing the court to order.
The sky has gone dishwater gray. There could be rain on this west wind, Annawake thinks. But it's Third Saturday, stomp-dance night, and old people love to tell you that rain always holds back till the dancing is over. They're mostly right. She parks her truck, gathers up her bouquet of blue and white papers from the office, and wonders briefly what ought to be done about the aluminum siding that is buckling on the north side of the house. With two free fingers she forks up the handlebars of a tricycle from the front walk and parks it out of harm's way on the porch.
"Siyo," she says, latching the screen door to keep kids in and dogs out. Her brother and sister-in-law are kneeling on the kitchen floor and return her greeting without looking up. They must be on speaking terms this week: they're hammering the legs back onto the old pine dining table, and it's not easy to take on a project like that without communicating.
Annawake watches the two of them, united for once as they both concentrate on keeping the table leg on straight while Dellon drives the nail. His thick braid swings like a bell rope as he hammers, and their heads almost touch. "Got her?" he asks, and Millie nods, her crinkled perm softly brushing Dellon's shining black crown. They were married less than a year and have been divorced for five, but it hasn't interfered with their rate of producing children. When the table leg is secure, Millie rolls sideways and takes hold of the lip of the sink. Annawake takes her other hand and pulls her up.
"Seems like you take one month longer with every baby," Dellon says, and Annawake laughs because it's true: the first was premature, the second right on time, the third one three weeks late, and this one seems to have staked Millie's ample territory for its homestead.
"Don't say that out loud, he'll hear you." Millie leans over her stomach and tells it, "You're coming out of there this weekend, you hear? If you go any longer past due you're walking home from the hospital yourself."
Annawake gets a soda out of the refrigerator and sits in a chair, moccasins together, facing the upside-down table. "Is this thing going to live?"
"It'll never walk again," Dellon says, squatting on his heels. He shrugs his braid back over the great round loaf of his shoulder and gives the table leg a couple of trial knocks with the hammer. He grins up at his little sister. "You scalp the cowboys today?"
"I did my best."
"Don't make fun of Annawake's job, Dell," Millie says, turning her back on them, running water into a big aluminum kettle. The sun shining through her shocked hair reveals the perfect globe of her skull.
"I never make fun of Annawake. She'd beat me up."
"Dad, let's go." Baby Dellon, who is almost six and hates to be called Baby Dellon, runs into the kitchen with a football helmet on.
Dellon stands up and puts a hammerlock on Annawake's neck from behind.
"When you getting married, beautiful?" he asks.
"When Gabe says he'll come to my wedding." She feels Dellon's body slump against her back, and she realizes she said what she did just to feel that slack sadness in another person. She's the only one who will still say their brother Gabriel's name.
"Leave her alone," Millie says, shifting her heavy kettle onto the stove. "Getting married's not what it's cranked up to be. What time you bringing Baby Dellon back?"
"Tomorrow noon, if we're not too hungover."
"I'm going to kill you one of these days."
"I'm not Baby Dellon, I'm Batman," says Baby Dellon, and they are out the door.
"I'm going to kill him one of these days."
"He's a good dad," Annawake says, setting the table back on its feet, wondering if it might give itself a dignified shake and walk off, like a turtle. "He won't be drinking at a stomp dance. He wouldn't even get into the stomp grounds if he was."
Millie laughs. "Did you ever hear what happened on our first date?"
"You went to a stomp dance."
"That's how Dellon tells it. If I told you the real story he'd shoot me." Millie leans against the counter, smiling. Her bunched print skirt hangs down from her waist like a dust ruffle on a bed. She brushes crimped wires of hair from her eyes, and Annawake knows she's going to tell the story.
"We were up in the mountains and it was hot, and Dellon wanted to have a beer. I knew there was the dance that night so I wasn't going to drink, but he did anyway. We had a fight, and later on we both went to the dance, but not together. I was in the inside circle wearing the turtle shells, so here comes Dellon, dancing right in the next circle, trying to get my eye. Next thing I hear him say, 'Uh-oh, here comes the fuzz.' Ledger tapped him on the shoulder and he had to leave. He'd just had one beer, but Ledger knew. He can spot it a mile away."
"Tell me about it. I lived through most of my teenage years under Uncle Ledger's eagle eye."
"But you had nothing to worry about, you were Miss Perfect," Millie says, wagging her stirring spoon at Annawake.
"Well, of course. I never had a chance." Annawake knocks back her soda.
"You had to make up for your wild brothers," Millie says, grinning. "I should have known right there and then not to marry him."
A Mason jar on the counter at Millie's elbow is crammed with daisies and wild phlox the kids have picked by the road somewhere; Annawake reaches for the jar and sets it in the exact center of the table. "I think he wishes you'd trust him more with the kids."
"I trust him. But you still have to tell him what to do."
Millie's youngest, Annie, all big dark eyes and belly, stands naked in the doorway. Annawake jumps up from her chair. "Whoah, let's get a diaper on you, baby doll, before we get puddles."
"It's okay, I decided to get her started on potty training today. Figured it's easier to let her run around that way. Put her out in the yard every hour, like a pup."
"Millie!"
"I'm kidding. Annie, go show Annawake your potty."
Annie disappears.
"You're not going back to the office, are you? On Third Saturday?"
Annawake sighs. "I'm thinking about it. There's this wild goose I'm chasing down. An illegal adoption."
"Forget it. Whatever it is will keep."
"I don't know."
Annie reappears in the door with a stuffed bear twice her size. "Pa-pa," she says.
"You better learn the difference between a teddy bear and a potty seat," Millie says. "Your time's about up as baby of the family."
Annie drops the bear on its head and climbs onto Annawake's lap. Annawake laces her fingers together over the child's naked belly, which has the rubbery firmness of a hard-boiled egg. "Dellon hates it when I bring up Gabe," she tells Millie's back.
"I don't think Dell was ever as close to him as you are. You're his twin. Dell was half grown before you two were born."
"They're still brothers."
"Mm," she says. She dumps a package of macaroni into the pot of boiling water. "But now he's got his own kids to worry about."
"What difference does that make?"
Millie rocks her body to the table and carefully sits down. "None, that's not what it is. He hates it when you bring up Gabe, because he's the oldest and he thinks he should have done something to keep the family from getting torn up."
Annawake looks at Millie's tired face. The skin under her eyes looks bruised, the way it gets with every pregnancy. The things people go through for love. "It's not his fault, what happened."
"Not yours, either, Annawake, and look at you. I think it's great you went to law school and everything. But you don't ever stop."
The egg of Annie slides through Annawake's hold and vanishes again.
"I'm not blaming myself for Gabe."
"If you say so. Seems to me like all of you do. Like you're all married to him, some way."
They both listen to the small, steady sounds of children in other parts of the house. Annie comes back to the kitchen again, this time dragging her white potty seat. "Bear," she says.
"What would you do," Annawake asks Millie, "if you found out somebody was trying to take a Cherokee kid out of the Nation?"
"It's a whole different thing, asking me that now. You were little when they took Gabriel. I'm not little."
"That's what I mean. If it happened right now, what would you do?"
Millie pulls a bedraggled daisy out of the Mason jar and twirls its stem between her thumb and fingers. "It can't happen now. That's what we've got people like you for, isn't it? To watch out for the kids."
Annawake feels the weight of this confidence exactly as if Millie had lovingly sat down upon her chest.
Tahlequah is a town that might as well roll up its sidewalks at sunset. Annawake knows what night life there is--the stray dogs stealthily marking streetside oaks, and the bootleg liquor houses where music from parked cars stakes an otherworldly claim on the night air. She's walked these streets after dark since high school, pacing the length of her loneliness, Annawake the perfectly admired untouchable. Tonight she has nearly finished her circular route home. Her restlessness had no destination until just now, when she thought of a shoebox of old things she stashed in Millie's carport shed years ago, before she left for Phoenix. The box seemed empty at the time; the only thing of any value at all was the gold locket her mother used to wear for luck. But tonight she could use the company of family secrets. She turns up Blue Spring Street, finding her way by moonlight.
The back shed has a metal door that complains when she scrapes it open. She snaps the chain of the overhead bulb at the same moment a thin slice of white cat, an antishadow, slips past her legs. "Hi, little ugly," she tells it. The cat skits away and turns its head far sideways like a bird to look at Annawake. It's been hanging around for a week or two--Millie even put out a can of tuna for it, and now the can is empty but the cat has nothing to show for it, still just ears and bones. Annawake feels guilty for getting its hopes up. In the pocket of her backpack she finds half a hard peanut candy bar degenerating to sand. "Come on," she says, holding out the candy on her flat palm. The cat watches her with its head oddly tipped; it might be blind in one eye. It makes no move to come to her, but when she sets the candy bar on the doorsill the cat makes a predatory leap, holding the candy down with its paws, making cracking sounds as it jerks its tiny head up and down, laboring over the peanuts. It's pitiful food for a carnivore. With one finger Annawake tentatively strokes its back. The cat allows this, but its little back is nothing. A hammock of fur slung between shoulder blades.
She finds her shoebox wedged under a pile of Millie's baby equipment waiting to make its comeback. Annawake sits cross-legged on the floor with the box on her lap, sorting its treasures with her slender fingers. She finds the locket and works the catch gently to open it. Inside is a photograph of her mother and father in front of the old brick Cherokee County courthouse on the day they married. Her mother's hair is blowing across her
eyes, and she looks worried. She's already carrying the beginnings of a boy whose name will be Soldier, who will die before he's old enough to fight back.
Annawake closes the locket and tucks it into her pocket. She doesn't want to jinx it, but she seriously doubts its power. Her mother was wearing it the day she met her husband and thereafter believed in it so thoroughly she wouldn't go anywhere important--not to a baptism or a funeral or even the landlord's to borrow another month--without it. It's difficult, though, for Annawake to picture the more luckless version of that life.
She wishes her mother had left her something that held more promise for blessing her decisions: a beaded medicine pouch with oak leaves inside, or ash from a ceremonial fire. But there's no chance; all the ceremony is on her father's side of the family. Her mother would have called anything of that nature a piece of junk. Annawake smiles a little, hearing her mother's profound Okie accent say "a pace of ju-unk." Bonnie Fourkiller was a die-trying acculturated Cherokee, like most of her generation, who chose the Indian Baptist Church over stomp dances and never wore moccasins in her life. She owned one pair of nylons at a time, throughout her lifetime, each folded carefully into the same piece of tissue paper that had harbored all its forebears.
Annawake leafs through other mementoes in the box. A photo of Redbird, her dog, taken in front of their house in Kenwood. Several other shots of her Uncle Ledger's shantyboat on Tenkiller Lake, where she and her four brothers lived out most summers until they were old enough for more productive employment. She finds a picture of herself and Gabe on the wide porch of the shantyboat, wearing baggy cutoff jeans and dumb-kid smiles, and there goes all their ragged laundry strung from the porch posts to the willow trees. The lard buckets were strung up high on poles, out of reach of the notorious thieving armies of raccoons that ran the riverbanks at night. Uncle Ledger claimed the raccoons would steal anything, even a child, but Annawake could never see the point in that. Children were the one thing you could always have plenty of. She'd had no idea.