12
Has Two Enemies
You know it's autumn when the bergenias are in bloom.
Nettlebush was crawling with bergenias come mid-September. One day after school I took Mickey on a walk through the woods and I showed them to her, exquisite, copper-red plants with heart-shaped leaves.
"Why do you know so much about plants?" she asked me, Mini traipsing leisurely at her heels. Damn that double agent.
"Because I like them," I said simply. "Actually, most plants can be used for medicine. A lot of people don't know that these days."
Mickey's head tilted to one side. "Medicine? Really..." She poked the edge of a bergenia plant with the very tip of her sneaker. "What kind of medicine does this one have?"
"Well, you might not believe this," I said. "But Plains People used to chew on the roots when they wanted to lose weight."
Mickey tossed me an impertinent look. "You should try it," she suggested.
I returned her look very sternly.
We walked together down the forest path. I stopped her and pointed out an inconspicuous weed resting under the shade of an alder tree. Mickey bent down and scooped Mini into her arms.
"That guy over there," I said, "that's arnica. If you've got a bruise, or a cut, you put the leaves on the afflicted area. It helps it heal."
"I could've used that when Jeremy Delson gave me a black eye," Mickey muttered.
"That won't be a problem anymore," I said mildly. "Will it?"
"Nuh-uh."
"Good." I bent down to cull and pocket a few of the arnica leaves. "I was always using this on Rafael when we were kids," I explained. "He got into fistfights, too."
Mickey seemed to like that. "Just like me," she said.
"Just like you."
I took her off the path and led her to a running stream, one of the lake's right-tributaries. I pointed out the fan-like ferns standing in the autumn sun.
"We call those licorice ferns," I said.
Mickey stood up straight. "I know why!" she said. "I bet they help you if you have a sore throat."
"Exactly," I said, with a surge of pride. I tousled her hair. "I told you you were very smart."
"Shut up," she said with a grin.
I checked my wristwatch. I had to head home soon for a conference call. I put my arm around her shoulders and we walked back down the path.
"Rafael got into a lot of fights?" Mickey asked.
"He did," I said. "A lot of people didn't understand him."
"You mean the way he grunts?"
I couldn't help but laugh. "Not that," I said. "They understood his speech just fine. What I mean is...they would look at Rafael, and they would remember what his father had done to their families."
"Oh," Mickey said quietly, and she seemed to shrink in on herself, like a turtle withdrawing into its shell.
We went home and I turned on the computer monitor in the front room. I sat down at the squat pine desk. I was surprised when I saw Mickey's face reflected on the computer screen, just over my shoulder. She stood behind me, silent and inert.
I turned around. "Would you like me to make you a snack?"
"No," Mickey said. She knelt and set Mini on the floor. The treacherous fluffball strode off, no doubt in search of her next unsuspecting victim. My wrists itched and swelled in sympathy.
Mickey stood up and looked me in the eye. "If Rafael's dad was so bad...weren't you ever scared of him?"
"I was very scared of his father," I said.
"Not his father. Him. Rafael."
I paused. "A little bit," I confessed. "When we first met."
"But you're not afraid of him anymore?"
"No," I said, and smiled. "Anybody who knows Rafael couldn't possibly be afraid of him. Are you afraid of him?"
She stuck her tongue out at me. "No way," she said.
"Then there you have it," I said. But I suspected there was a deeper reason behind her line of questioning. I gave her a serious look. "What's on your mind?"
Mickey scuffed at the hardwood floor with the worn soles of her sneakers. I told myself I ought to buy her a new pair the next time I went into the city. "Rafael's not like his dad..." she began. "So that means I'm not like my mom. Right?"
I didn't immediately know how to respond.
"Because I don't want to hurt people," Mickey said emphatically. "Like, I don't want to have a baby someday, and then get mad at her and--and stab her!"
Her eyes were wide; I saw the way her pupils dilated with recollection. Just thinking about how terrified she must have been that night...
Suddenly I didn't care whether she wanted me to hug her or not. I took her into my arms and pulled her close. She didn't hug me back--I hadn't really expected her to--but she sat comfortably on my knee.
"Everything you do," I said, "you get to decide 'yes' or 'no.' All you have to do is say, 'I don't want to hurt people.' "
"I don't want to hurt people."
"Then you won't."
"Are you sure?"
I leveled her with my gaze. "Positive."
She nodded slowly; I didn't know whether I'd gotten through to her or not. "Okay," she said. "You seem smart, so I'll believe you..."
"Thank you. You're a very smart girl yourself."
"Can I go to Charity's house?"
I couldn't keep from smiling. "You can. Just make sure you feed Mini first."
"Oh, Sky, it's okay. She already ate some butterfly eggs when she picked me up from school."
I grimaced. "Lovely."
I watched Mickey walk out the front door. I was tempted to walk her to Gabriel's house myself, but I figured smothering her would only irritate her. She's ten, I told myself, not two. And Nettlebush is a pretty safe place. As long as you stay away from the black bears, anyway.
The black bears. Oh God. I started to panic. Stop, I told myself. She's got her pager. She's a good girl. She won't do it again.
I booted up the computer, slightly at a loss. I confess I still don't know much about modern technology--all those kids running around with their Tweeters and their Hooters and their what-have-you. After carefully studying the sticky note Carole Svensen had helpfully left on the edge of my keyboard, I managed to get the camera mounted atop the monitor up and running.
I was in for a bit of a wait. One of my correspondents was on a completely different timezone. But eventually, the black of the computer screen faded away, and two separate faces took its place.
"Hello?" said the woman on...my left, I suppose. Her cheeks were thick and full, set high on a heart-shaped face. What I could make out of her arms looked broad and square. She sure looked cold, if that parka were to be trusted. "Can you hear me?"
The guy on my right--her left? I don't know--was bald and shiny, with thin lips and very round ears. I guessed he was in his fifties. I don't mean to be rude, but at a glance, he sort of reminded me of Count Orlok. His smile was pretty friendly, though. "Hi," he said.
"Hi!" said the woman. She rubbed her hands together. Yep; she was freezing. The wall behind her looked like it belonged to a log cabin, not unlike my own. Was that a fishing spear hanging from the rafters? "Stacy," she introduced.
"Ogden," Count Orlok returned.
"Hey," I said. I coughed, suddenly aware of how raspy my voice sounded. "I guess this is all of us?"
"Just for now," Stacy said cheerfully. "That cute little go-getter's bound to find more people in no time."
"Carole's definitely a self-starter," I said with a grin.
"When's she going to take the bar?" Stacy asked curiously. But Orlok preempted her, although I don't think he intended to.
"An Article V Convention," he said, rubbing his chin. "Not every day you get an opportunity to sign up for one of those..."
"That's why I'm hoping we'll have more takers," I said.
"We could be like a supercommittee," Orlok said. "Just changing whatever part of the law we don't li
ke."
"Within reason," I said, a little alarmed.
"So..." Stacy said. "What's the first order of business?"
I cleared my throat. "Well," I said, "I don't know if you know about this--"
"Oh, I know about it," Stacy said. "Look at me, I'm as Inuit as they get."
I smiled. "Then I'd like to focus on Oliphant v. Suquamish," I said.
"The 1978 case?" Orlok said.
"Right, the one where they decided Natives can't prosecute non-Natives."
"Easy," Orlok said. "The 14th Amendment calls for law enforcement to treat all citizens without racial or religious profiling. Restricting Native American law enforcement by granting them authority over a specific race violates that amendment."
"You're right," I realized, impressed. "Hold on, I want to write this down."
I reached for my notepad. So did Stacy, by the looks of it, when she ducked momentarily offscreen. She grinned sheepishly once she'd returned.
"What about the Major Crimes Act?" Stacy piped up. "Natives are supposed to defer to the federal government for crimes like murder, but the feds never bother showing up."
"I think," Orlok said, "we want to find a way to repeal that act, rather than revise it."
"I agree," I said. "I'd rather return rightful jurisdiction to the reservations than stand around trying to convince the FBI to give a damn."
"Weeeeell," Stacy said slowly, and chewed on the eraser at the end of her pencil. "If we could prove the Major Crimes Act is unconstitutional..."
"I'd argue the very idea of a 'major' crime is unconstitutional," Orlok said. "It's implying that there's such a thing as a minor crime."
"The Constitution," I said. "Article 1, Section 8 establishes reservations as sovereign nations separate from centralized government. We could argue that the Major Crimes Act violates Section 8 by imposing centralized government."
"Sounds good to me," Stacy said, and scribbled in her notebook.
"Hang on," Orlok said, "my kid's calling me."
Stacy and I took a moment to catch up on our notes. Orlok disappeared from my computer screen. He returned presently with a friendly grin.
"And...the ICWA, right?" he said.
I swallowed.
"Yeah..." Stacy said, sounding pensive. She put her pencil down. "How do we stop the government from taking Indian children out of stable homes?"
All three of us were momentarily silent.
"The Indian Child Welfare Act," I said. "There's a clause in that act that grants the federal government the authority to terminate Indian parents' rights. 25 USC. The problem is, 25 USC doesn't specify when the government is allowed to terminate Indian parents' rights."
"Meaning..." Stacy trailed off. "The government can terminate Indian parents' rights for no reason at all."
The second silence that followed was longer than the first.
"How do we undo something like that?" Stacy said.
I closed my eyes and massaged my temples. The truth was that we couldn't. We couldn't do anything about it. There aren't any laws concerning children in the Constitution. Did you know that? Child protection laws are determined by the state. If Louisiana suddenly decides it's okay to whip your kid, there's nothing the rest of the country can do about it.
"The ICWA doesn't violate any pre-existing law," Orlok said.
"We'll just have to propose an amendment," I said.
"It would be easier if we could prove an amendment is actually in order," Orlok reminded me.
"I know," I agreed. That didn't mean I had to like it.
"Hey," Stacy said softly. "Cheer up! We're an Article V Convention! We've already got Alaska, Arizona, and New Mexico. All we need is to find lawyers from thirty-one other states, and then we can pass whatever law we want. Just think," she said, her voice dreamy. "We could declare every Sunday a day of nudity..."
"How about we discuss that one next time?" I suggested, a smile on my face, my chin on my hand.
"Next week," Stacy agreed. "I'll be there bright and early. And naked."
She cut off her feed before I could figure out whether she was serious.
I met up with Mickey and Rafael at the firepit that night while Autumn Rose and Prairie Rose were handing out dinner. Grandma Gives Light narrowed her eyes at me and I smiled and waved. Mickey and Rafael and I sat together at the picnic table; Dad and Racine joined us.
"Dad," I said. "The Hopi pauwau's next month. You should come."
Dad faltered. "I haven't seen the Black Mountain Reservation in years," he admitted. "Even before prison..."
Racine squeezed his hand.
"What's the Hopi pauwau?" Mickey asked.
Rafael tapped her arm. "Remember the tribe that wore all those dark colors?"
"Uh-huh."
"They're the Hopi. We hold the summer pauwau and they hold the autumn pauwau."
"Oh. What about winter and spring?" Mickey asked.
"The Paiute and the Navajo."
"Sky's cousin is Paiute, isn't she? She's weird."
"Tsitsaseh kimmayu!" Grandma Gives Light suddenly screamed.
"I defy you to find anybody weirder than her," I said to Mickey.
Mickey waved good night to Nicholas and Charity and we walked home after dinner, Mickey bouncing on her heels. I pretended not to notice.
"Hey," Rafael said, when he unlocked the front door. "We should get you a rope swing."
"That's okay," Mickey said. "The swings behind the school are fun."
Mickey threw a different proposal at us the moment we stepped inside. "Can we listen to Megadeth again?"
"No," I said. "Not unless you built a soundproof room within the last few days and didn't tell me."
Mickey groaned. She dropped to her knees.
At first I thought she was being dramatic. You know how kids are when they don't get their way. But when she slumped over suddenly, her cheek hitting the hardwood floor, I realized she couldn't possibly have scripted this.
It was instantaneous; Rafael and I raced for her at the same time. The both of us took her into our arms. Ultimately I let go so Rafael could pick her up.
Mickey closed her eyes and shuddered, her chest heaving with effort. I reached for her pulse on her wrist. Her skin was ice cold.
"Michaela?" I said. She stirred, but didn't answer me. "What is this?" I asked Rafael shakily.
"I don't--I don't know." Sometimes I forget that Rafael's a speech therapist, not a doctor.
"It got cold," Mickey mumbled, her voice muffled by Rafael's shoulder.
Rafael and I didn't need to confer with each other. I thought: We're taking her to the hospital. And Rafael thought it, too. He carried her out the door while I ran up the stairs. Willow leaves for fever, burdock for blood circulation. I didn't know what was wrong with her and I was terrified. I dug underneath my bed, dug through the plastic bags filled with home remedies. I was tempted to call Dad for help. I think we all revert to childhood, at least a little bit, when we're afraid. We all look for that one figure who made us feel the safest.
I ran out the door after Rafael and Mickey. I caught up with them on the forest path, seal bags in my hand. Mickey never had the chance to take her fleece jacket off. I was grateful for that. This night was a really cold one.
We practically sprinted to the hospital. We bust through the sliding doors.
Mrs. Bright, the receptionist, peered flatly at me from the top of her desk.
"Been a while since I've seen you," she said.
Mrs. Bright and I go way back.
Rafael carried Mickey to the waiting room while I signed her in at the front desk. My hands shook ridiculously, my signature near illegible.
"Skylar?"
I looked up and found Jessica staring back at me. I hadn't realized she was on call tonight.
"Are you busy right now?" I asked, laughing. I don't know why I was laughing. I think that's a thing I do when I start to freak
out.
She shook her head. She followed me calmly into the waiting room. Mickey sat curled up on Rafael's lap, her head on his shoulder; her eyes closed.
"What happened?" Jessica asked. And then--probably because she didn't have any other patients at the moment-- "Let's just get her into a room."
So we moved again, my hands shaking, Rafael's eyes lightless and unreadable. We moved into an empty children's room, rainbows and peppermint candies painted on the walls.
Poor Mickey must have hated the exorbitant attention she received. We laid her on the bed and Jessica took her blood pressure and counted her pulse. I pressed the willow leaves and the burdock pods into her tiny hands. "You have to eat this," I said, surprised to find my voice sounded so steady. "It'll help you feel better."
Mickey squinted. "I don't wanna eat leaves..."
"You have to."
"Does she have a history of health complications?" Jessica asked Rafael. Mickey bit into a soft, spongy burdock pod and winced.
"No," Rafael said. "I mean," he said. "She's got beta-thalassemia--"
"Oh! I bet I know what's going on."
"What?"
"Hang on," Jessica said, "let me see if I can find Aisling."
Rafael looked furious when Jessica left the room. I eased my hand over his arm and held it. She's just doing her job, I thought. She has to fetch the doctor.
It wasn't long, luckily, before Aisling Stout dashed into the room, her gray hair flying behind her.
"I'm here!" she announced, like a torch-bearing superhero. She's always been that way.
"Great," Rafael said, his impatience barely contained. "Then maybe you can tell us what the hell's wrong with our kid."
Aisling read quickly over the chart Jessica had left behind.
"Oh," she said. She paused; she read it again. "She's got thalassemia minor?"
"Didn't I just say that? What the f--"
I grabbed Rafael's arm again. "What's wrong?" I asked Aisling.
"Nothing's 'wrong,' per se. It's just a very tricky disorder. Normally," she went on, "it doesn't cause any problems. It's just that her blood cells are smaller than ordinary. And sometimes this causes a deficiency--"
"So fix it!" Rafael burst out.
"Rafael," I said, alarmed. I didn't want him scaring Mickey.
"Excuse me," Aisling said, sounding testy. "The only way to treat it is a blood transfusion. And unfortunately," she went on, "we're a pretty small reservation; we don't have a blood bank. I have to transfer her to the county hospital."
That could take hours, I realized.
"You can't give her a transfusion here?" I asked.
"Well," she said, "I could, but--"
"Give her mine," Rafael cut in. "My blood. I'm O. And we're both positive, so don't bother with the Rh testing."
Aisling rubbed her forehead. "Look..."
"No, you look," he growled. I was surprised with him; normally he's very respectful of his elders. I guessed he was in as much of a panic as I was. "I just want to take her home, okay? I want to fix her, and I want to take her home. So give her my damn blood."
"I can't," Aisling said, her voice strained. "That's illegal."
For a moment--probably dumbfounded--Rafael said nothing.
"What do you mean?" he finally asked.
"Illegal," I said, my spirits sinking. A part of me had known this was coming. "Federal law says you can't donate blood, Rafael."
He took another moment of silence. I could see the dawning in his eyes, the way light touched their dark depths--an unkind light.
"Because I'm--?"
"Because you're gay," Aisling said bluntly.
"Aisling," I said, and turned to her. "I know that's the law, but the law's very gray where reservations are concerned. You know the FBI can't step in unless it's a Major Crime..."
"Do you want me to risk getting this hospital shut down?" she said. For the first time since I'd known her, she struck me as completely serious.
"If it comes to that," I said, "I'll defend you. You know I will."
She chewed on her thumbnail, lost in thought.
"Oh, fine," she eventually said. "But get out of the room. I've got to cannulate the both of them."
I've always hated that about hospitals--when they're working on you, and you've got your family with you, and suddenly your family gets kicked out of the room while you're going through a tune-up like the Tin Man on an assembly line. Seriously, what's the worst that could happen? They put the needle in the wrong guy? I don't think that's very likely.
In any case, I stepped outside the door and leaned back against the wall. I took a deep breath and ran my hands over my face. And I tried--I really tried--to calm down.
"Skylar? Honey?"
This time it wasn't my sister approaching me, but Robert Has Two Enemies.
If Mrs. Bright and I go way back, then it's only fair to say the same of Robert. He's in his forties; he's been a nurse at the reservation hospital for as long as I can remember.
I had cancer a couple of times as a kid. I'd rather not think about the specifics; there's no use dwelling on the unpleasant past. But Robert--he was there to help me every time.
Robert tsked at me, his clipboard close to his chest. I still think it's weird to see all those age lines on his face. He doesn't look a thing like his sister, Lorna. He's so slender, he'd probably be better suited as a dancer than a nurse.
"Your kid's sick, huh?" he asked.
I smiled, although I didn't particularly feel like it. "Hopefully not for long," I said.
"I know exactly what you mean," he said, and buckled down to tell me a long story. That's the thing about Robert; once he starts talking, you're never quite sure when he'll stop. We sat together on the tiled floor, the wall behind us the color of caramel. "When I started dating Reuben, I had no idea how to deal with his kid. Whiny little brats aren't usually my area of expertise, just ask Mary. And then she got sick one summer--"
"Serafine was sick?" I asked. "I don't remember that."
"Ahem, I'm telling the story here." He swatted at me with his clipboard. "Guess what? It was only measles. I caught it when it was early still and stopped it from spreading. The man's been crazy about me ever since."
I smiled again, amused. "Is there a point to this story?"
"Were you sleeping through the story? Of course there's a point to the story. The point is: I'm wonderful. But the second point is: Don't worry so much! Kids are hardy. If they weren't, we'd all be dead."
I tossed his words about in my head for a while. "Actually," I said, "that makes sense...crazily enough."
"I know it does, sweetheart. I'm older than you. I've seen things you'll never see."
"Unless you mean the inside of a nail salon..."
Aisling poked her head outside the door. "You can come in now," she said. "They're nice and cannulated."
I stood up; Robert stood with me. We went into the cozy little room, and the sight that met my eyes almost cleaved my heart in two: Mickey on the bed, a thin red tube feeding into her arm; Rafael in the chair at her side, her jacket sitting on the arm rest, a cannula taped to Rafael's wrist. I thought it was poignant, in some odd way, that they were connected like this, the apparatus running from Rafael's arm to Mickey's. I thought Mickey looked smaller than her age, and pallid.
"How long?" I asked Aisling, my throat dry.
"It takes about an hour," she said. She folded her hands, her knuckles cracking, distracted. "Normally I wouldn't condone this--at all--but we get screened all the time, so at least I know his blood's safe..."
Robert walked over to the apparatus and immediately started examining the tube that fed between Mickey and Rafael. He whistled with approval. "This baby's called a Tzanck," he told Mickey. "They started using it in World War II when soldiers needed blood in a jiffy. Did you know that?"
Mickey shook her head. I was glad, at least, to
see her responding.
"So you know what that means, right? You're a little soldier girl."
Aisling glanced at her wristwatch; she excused herself from the room. "I'll check in on you guys later," Robert told us. "Parents." He winked. He walked out after Aisling, humming a little song.
I drew closer to the bed. "Can I get you anything?" I asked Mickey.
"No," she said. "Is Mini okay?"
"She's fine, honey. She's at home."
"Did this ever happen to you before?" Rafael asked her. "Getting cold, and then going to the hospital?"
"Once," Mickey said. "I got cold and I passed out. I woke up in the hospital. The landlady had found me."
"Why wasn't that on her file?" I asked Rafael, alarmed.
Rafael scowled. "CPS."
Mickey tried to sit up. I rushed to the head of the bed to help her. She flashed me a small smile. Either it was my imagination, or the color was returning to her face.
"You're giving me your blood," Mickey said to Rafael.
"Yeah," Rafael said. Or I think he did. His voice is so guttural, sometimes I don't always catch what he's trying to say.
"I've got your blood in me."
I couldn't tell what was going through Rafael's mind. Not until he smiled--that small, shy, beautiful smile I wish I could frame on our mantelpiece. "Yeah," he said again.
"Mickey," I said.
I reached into my pants pocket. I'd been meaning to give this to her for a long time; I don't know what had stopped me. Insecurity, maybe. Nothing says a grown man can't be insecure.
I took out a small trinket on the end of a thin willow string. A pilot whale crafted from opalescent skink bones.
I couldn't read Mickey's eyes; they steeled, a defense mechanism, when she reached for the pilot whale and took it from my hand. She turned the trinket over in her palm, examining it at every angle.
"I can keep this?" she asked, her voice oddly quiet.
"It's yours," I said.
She slipped the willow string around her wrist. I helped her tie it shut. She lifted her arm--so small, so thin--and inspected the pilot whale in the low light behind her bed.
She glanced discreetly at Rafael's free hand; and at mine. The glass whale and the wood one.
"I want to stay," Mickey said.
I don't think Rafael immediately knew what she was talking about. But I did. My heart swelled and burst with warmth.
"I want to stay with you guys," Mickey said, a little more desperately. "I don't--I don't want to go. No more foster homes, no more skeevy social workers... I'll be good from now on. I won't break windows. I won't look for bears--"
I suddenly understood why she was angry the night of the ghost dance.
"Of course you're staying," Rafael said; and if he was a little too quick, a little too eager, I couldn't blame him for it. Not at all.
I watched the blood flow from Rafael's veins to Mickey's. I watched the color returning to her face.
So this is what it feels like to be a father. To be responsible for another human life. To love someone so much, you almost can't stand it; and when you think about it, there's nothing you want in return.
It feels amazing.