5
Mickey
The date of the annual raft race was mid-June. Probably a good thing, because the heat climbs steeply just around the monsoon. In June, it's still--arguably--tolerable.
Children and their families all gathered by the lakeshore with their handmade rafts. I saw Aubrey with his sons, and Isaac and Daisy with theirs, and Serafine and Charity checking the lashing on their beechwood one last time.
"Go, Charity!" I heard Gabriel shout. "Go, Serafine!"
"You sure you don't want to join them?" I asked Michaela.
"No," she said adamantly. "It looks stupid."
"Why are you still wearing that turtleneck?" Rafael asked me.
"It's a different turtleneck," I said.
"But why are you wearing it?"
Mr. At Dawn blew his whistle. The kids pushed their rafts onto the water and jumped on.
The morning sun shone coolly on the dry grass. Michaela's chin drooped on her hand. I noticed. I nudged Rafael and nodded her way.
Rafael coughed. "Hey," Rafael said. "You wanna do something else?"
Michaela looked at him suspiciously. "Like what?"
"You haven't seen the rest of the reservation yet," I said.
Her suspicious gaze redirected at me. "There's more?"
We slipped away while Gabriel shouted his lungs out. Not bad for a guy hitting fifty. We followed the path through the woods and out to the firepit. From there we headed west.
"Are we going to the farms?" Michaela asked.
"Nope," I said.
We went first to the windmill field. The grass is always green there; I don't know why it doesn't go brown the way the rest of the reservation does. Michaela stood in the middle of the open plain, her eyes on the whirring windmill blades.
"What do they do?" she asked.
"That's where our electricity comes from," I explained.
She snorted. "You guys don't even use electricity."
"Yeah we do," Rafael said testily. "How do you think the computer works?"
"Can I go on the computer later?" Michaela asked.
"Depends on my mood."
From there we followed the country lane to a grove of red pines, so named for the color of their bark. I pointed at a colonial-looking building paved from red bricks.
"That's where we went to school," I said.
"Will I go to school there?" Michaela asked.
I couldn't help but smile. "If you want."
We went around the back of the school to the playground, little more than a cluster of rope swings and an outhouse. Michaela picked up a red pinecone and tucked it in her pocket for a keepsake. She sat on one of the rope swings and Rafael pushed her while I sat on the ground at their side.
"You like school?" I asked.
"Hate it," Michaela said.
"Me, too," Rafael and I said at once. I shot Rafael a mischievous grin.
"I like hockey," Michaela said. "Sucks that none of my old schools had a team."
"What's hockey?" Rafael asked.
Michaela showed him a dark look. Rafael returned it seamlessly. "What?" he insisted.
"You know," I said. "The Shoshone invented hockey."
Michaela's head whipped around in my direction. I watched her with smiling eyes as she clung to the knotted rope, swinging safely back and forth. "No you didn't," she accused.
"We did," I said. "Only we called it shinny. And back in the old days, only women were allowed to play it."
A catlike smile spread across Michaela's face. "I like that..."
"Hey," said a surly Rafael.
"What's your favorite thing to eat?" I asked.
"Tamales," Michaela said.
"Really?" I mused. "You might like hotbread."
"What's that?" she asked.
"It's a bread made with chili peppers. It's spicy, but sweet. I'll make you some later."
"Cool," Michaela said.
We were walking back from the playground when Michaela pointed at the little white church nearby, a graveyard out back.
"You wanna go in?" asked a dubious Rafael.
"No," said Michaela. "I just remembered. I slept in a graveyard the last time I ran away."
Rafael and I exchanged a look.
"Who were you running from, Michaela?" I asked.
"Mom. She went after me with the hot iron again."
We milled through the creaking graveyard gates without my really thinking about it; I was too busy reflecting, in considerable discomfort, over Michaela's last words. Michaela walked idly between the headstones.
"When's the last time you saw your mom?" I asked, as gently as I knew how.
Michaela shrugged. I didn't want to press the subject so soon, so I let it go.
"Hey," Rafael murmured. "That's my mom's grave."
Michaela stopped and stood back.
"Susan Gives Light," the epitaph read. "1958 - 1991. A life of love is not a short one."
"How did she die?" Michaela asked.
"Encephalitis," Rafael said.
"What does that mean?"
"Swelling in her brain."
Michaela sat cross-legged on the ground. I watched her. I didn't know what else to do.
"I don't know my dad," she said. "I don't know if he's alive or dead."
"I'm sorry for that," I said softly.
"I'm not," Michaela said. "He ran out on me. Why should I care about him?" She tilted her head back and looked up at Rafael. "What kind of name is Gives Light?"
"A Plains name," he said dully.
"Why do you have names like that? Why don't you have names like Morales?"
"There's a reason for that," I said. "Hundreds of years ago, Plains People didn't have last names. They just named themselves based off of favorite characteristics, or animals, or things like that."
"Uh-huh..."
"But around the late 1800s, the government asked Native Americans to give themselves last names. That way the government could keep track of them more easily. So the Natives took their mothers' names and tacked them onto their own. Rafael's name is Gives Light because he had an ancestor, a great-great-grandmother, named Gives Light."
"Why was she called Gives Light?"
"Don't know for sure," Rafael said. "We think she was a candlemaker. Makan Imaa. That's how you say Gives Light in Shoshone."
"It sounds pretty in Shoshone," Michaela remarked.
I smiled again, endeared. "Sure does."
We walked from the graveyard to the main road. Michaela swung her arms at her sides.
"What was your great-great-grandmother's name?" she asked me.
"Sape Naha," I said. "Looks Over."
"Why was she called Looks Over?"
"She was a very nervous girl," I explained. "She always looked over her shoulder because she was afraid the enemy was right behind her."
"Who was the enemy?"
I smiled wryly. "Her father."
"No way!"
"Yes way. He was a Mormon soldier, and not a very nice one. She was afraid he would take her away from her home."
"Did he?" Michaela pressed.
I hesitated. "He did," I said, thinking about the Indian schools. "But she came back in the end."
"Well, good," Michaela said stubbornly. "She won."
"In the end," I said, "everyone comes home."
We started north through the reservation, past the communal firepit. The sweeping southern oak tree loomed in view; Gabriel's house rested beneath its mossy, golden boughs.
"How about you?" I asked Michaela. "What are your ancestors' names?"
She pulled an unpleasant face. "I don't know most of my family," she reported. "I hate my mom... I think I had a grandmother named Lupe. I always liked that name. I think it's cool. Cooler than mine, anyway."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Rafael said. "I think the name Michaela is cool."
I was more worried about her feelings toward her mother.
Not that I could blame her from what little information she'd left us with thus far.
"It's girly," Michaela said. "I don't like girly."
"Well," I said, "is there another name you'd like us to call you?"
Michaela thought it over as we walked in silence. "Mickey," she finally said. "Mickey Mouse is awesome. I love him so much."
"Mickey's the best," I said seriously.
"Oh, you know who else I love? Peter Pan!"
"Me too," I said, grinning. "When I was your age, he was my favorite."
"I like the Little Mermaid," Rafael said.
"Girly," Michaela dismissed.
Rafael scowled. "She's not girly. She's awesome. And brave."
I winked at Rafael over the top of Michaela's head. He sneered at me, unimpressed.
"Mickey Morales," I said. "I think I can remember that."
We reached the meridian where the smooth terrain clipped off into chalky, sliding clay. Mickey stopped short and drew in a breath. She looked out to the windy horizon.
"What is that?" she asked distantly.
She meant the blue-gray canyons that stretched forever toward the sky. She meant the swimming cracks and crevices and the sliding tent rocks. She meant the chilly, milk-white clouds resting like blankets atop an otherworldly expanse.
"Badlands," Rafael murmured, his lips tilted in a muted half-smile. "My favorite place on earth."
"Not mine," I joked. But I meant it, too.
Mickey looked at me. "Why don't you like it? It's so pretty."
"Yes, honey, but it's also very dangerous. Did you know..." I waited until I thought the pause was dramatic enough. "I nearly died out there once."
Rafael rolled his eyes. "Yeah, if by 'nearly died' you mean you slipped on a few loose rocks and acted like you'd broken your neck."
"I could have."
"You didn't."
"But I could have."
We went to Gabriel's house around lunchtime. Apparently Jack Nabako and his nephew had won the raft race for the third year in the row.
"How is he doing it?" Serafine Takes Flight complained, the ribbons in her long hair shaking when she shook her head. "Mr. Nabako's fat! He shouldn't stay afloat!"
"Serafine," Charity said, sounding scandalized.
Gabriel's sitting room had more windows than it did walls. You can't really blame him when the view of the north is so majestic. Gabriel and Dad sat talking about the tribal council while Leon and Nicholas Little Hawk chased one another around the coffee table and Charity pulled out a photo album to show to Mickey. I went into the kitchen, the counters granite and the walls the color of packing straw, and Annie and I cooked together at the wood-coal stove.
"This baby is killing me," Annie said, her hand on her back.
I pulled out a chair at the island and Annie sat down with a breath of relief.
"Do you know whether it's a boy or a girl?" I asked.
"With my luck? Another boy, I'll bet."
"Maybe you can make a trade," I suggested, smiling impishly. "With William and Lorna. I'm sure they're tired of girls."
"Skylar, don't even joke like that."
"If you had to trade anyone, it would be Leon, wouldn't it?" I guessed solemnly. "Poor kid."
Annie swiped at me with an oven mitt. I cackled and opened the oven door.
"Oh, hotbread," she said placidly. She has her moments.
"Hope Mickey likes it," I said.
"Hmm, isn't that a Toni Basil song?"
"Your age is showing."
"Hush, you."
We went back out to the sitting room, my arm around Annie's back.
"You're ugly, and you smell," Nicholas was saying to Mickey. You can't accuse that kid of never speaking his mind.
"Yeah, right," Mickey said. "Asswipe."
I choked on spit. I tried very, very hard not to laugh. I laughed anyway.
"What'd you say?" Nicholas asked curiously.
"I called you an asswipe," Mickey said. "You're an asswipe."
"Asswipe?" he said. "Cool..."
Leon let out a ferocious yell and leapt down from Gabriel's mantel. Aubrey sputtered and caught him midair. I suddenly understood why Annie was dreading another boy.
We went outside to eat beneath the sprawling oak tree. Mary and Kaya sat side-by-side, Mary plucking the strings of an acoustic guitar. Charity sang a couple of verses from There She Sits while Serafine plugged her ears. And along came Grandma Gives Light, leaning heavily on Rosa's shoulder.
My first impression of Grandma Gives Light was that of an owl. Her eyeglasses were big and round--bigger even than Aubrey's, a real feat. Her scraggly gray hair fell down her back in long waves. Her legs and her stomach were very round, but her arms and her chest were rather thin; altogether her shape made me think of an egg. She held her mouth puckered around her teeth as though she was afraid they would fall out. I guessed she was about eighty years old.
"Pia," Gabriel said, rising from the lawn. "Hinna punikkatu?"
Grandma Gives Light looked so innocuous, so childlike, that for a moment I actually doubted Rafael and Mary's stories about her.
And then she tipped her head back and began moaning like a madwoman to the heavens.
"Nian huttsimpia keehinna tokwinna! Tupichi tammattsi, tangku watsingku, puesusu ponaahwa piammutonna... Ma punni, sapan nahnappuh, tuchu pai nian nanumu... Hakanukwitu, Tam Apo, hakanukwitu..."
Grandma Gives Light balled her hands into fists and started beating at her chest in misery. Rafael looked as though he wasn't sure whether to glower, balk, or throw up. Mickey's eyes lit up; she started giggling.
"Alright, Mother, alright," Gabriel said, and took Grandma Gives Light by the arm. She fought him. "I'm sure she's only very tired from the trip," he said to Rosa. Poor Rosa looked like she might cry. "Let's get her to her room--"
"Taipo'o!" Grandma Gives Light suddenly shrieked. She pointed at me emphatically. "Dosabitumu kimmatu nian sokowa innuntukkah pinnasu!"
"What the hell?" I heard Racine say as she came out of the house.
"Nothing, dear..." Dad said.
"What's she saying?" Michaela whispered to me.
"I'll tell you when you're older," I replied. Right now I was too busy trying not to burst out laughing.
"Kanaakka," Grandma Gives Light went on as Gabriel winced, tugging her along. She peered after Racine with a smile I didn't trust. "Nian ukupinaa tangummu kanaakka, uu wailt pusikwatu'ih..."
The door slapped closed behind Grandma Gives Light and Gabriel as they went inside the house. The rest of us were silent.
"Pass me the corn," Racine said.
That about summed things up.
Zeke and Holly came around about an hour later when Leon had fallen asleep, his head on Aubrey's shoulder. Kaya, Serafine, and Racine started up a card game while Mary chewed Dad's ear off talking about her last trip to Guatemala. Mickey sat gnawing contentedly on the hotbread. I was glad to see she liked it.
"How come your eyes are blue?" Mickey asked Rafael, her mouth full.
"Swallow," Rafael said.
She swallowed.
"Because my grandpa--the guy who married that crazy woman back there--he was Mandan."
"What's Mandan?"
"It's an Indian tribe from way up north. Lots of them have blond hair and blue eyes. I know my grandpa did."
"Is that why Skylar's blond?"
"Something like that," I said mildly.
"I thought only white people were blond. And whatever."
"Nah," Rafael said. "They'd like you to think that, but don't buy into the hype. Didn't you ever hear of the Si-Te-Cah tribe? They were all redheads. Annoyed the shit out of the rest of us, too. Don't go looking for 'em nowadays, though. They were cannibals. They ate themselves right out of existence."
"Huh," Mickey said. "And why do you all wear long hair, like Tony Kakko?"
"You like Sonata Arctica?" Rafael said with intere
st.
"Kill me," I said politely.
"Anyway," Rafael said, "in Plains culture, we don't cut our hair unless something bad happens. Like when a family member dies. Men and women wear their hair long otherwise. Except Aubrey, but he's a dumbass. Don't base anything you do off of him."
"Why not?"
"You don't wanna grow up to be a dumbass, too, do you?"
"I heard that," Annie said.
"I thought you were calling your husband a dumbass days ago, Little Hawk."
"Shhh!" Aubrey said hastily. "Please! She's in a good mood right now..."
I was in a pretty good mood myself when Rafael, Mickey, and I went home later that night. Mickey was at her chattiest. "Serafine said she'd show me how to pluck a duck," she told us. Not if I had anything to say about it. "And Nicholas is so gross, I'm glad I don't have a brother like that."
"Little brothers are better to have than big brothers," I said wisely. "DeShawn's younger than me. Growing up, he always had to do what I told him."
"Don't listen to Sky," Rafael said gruffly. "Sky didn't even start talking until, like, seven years ago."
I lit the lamps inside the house. Mickey surveyed me skeptically. "Why didn't you talk? Everyone must've been annoyed with you."
"Probably," I said.
"No," Rafael said, "he's always been a good guy. Never annoying." I flashed him a fond smile. "It's just that he couldn't talk. His voice didn't work."
"Why not?" Mickey asked.
"Don't you think you ought to go to bed?" I said.
Mickey huffed. "I'm ten."
"Life's so unfair, isn't it?" I pointed toward the staircase. "Good night."
We listened as she cursed and complained beneath her breath, stomping up the stairs like a baby elephant. I snickered. Rafael gave me a weird look.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Whenever I pictured the two of us with kids," he said, "I always figured you'd be the nice parent."
"Rafael, you know me better than that."
"Damn right I do. The hell was I thinking?"
We went up to bed not long after Mickey had. Rafael ripped off his eyeglasses and tossed himself haphazardly onto the mattress. Beached pilot whale, I thought incredulously.
I sat on the edge of the bed. Rafael's inked arm stretched toward the oil lamp; the tattoos on his arm, blue chains and a creepy, monstrous mermaid, stretched taut.
He stopped short of turning off the light. "What?"
I must have been looking at him for longer than I'd realized. I smiled. I shook my head.
I was just thinking, that's all. About when we were kids; about when we first met. Moody kid, that Rafael. He'd glared at me from across the bonfire, like I'd done something to mortally offend him. All I could think at the time was: What's his problem? Weird.
I never could have guessed I was going to marry that moody kid.
Rafael's eyes trained on mine. I could see them by the lamplight, tempestuous depths, as dark as the blue slate before dawn.
He was the same as when I'd first met him. His jaw square; his nose flat. Hair long and lank and badly knotted. Kindness behind his smoldering eyes. Everything I loved about him was unchanging. Unchanging in spite of the new lines on his face, on his forehead and around his cheeks. A beautiful, unchanging boy in a changing body.
Rafael let out a soft sound--a breath of air, something between a huff and a sigh. He turned off the lamp. He lay back in bed, his head against his pillow.
He snatched me around the waist, impatiently, and pulled me against him. He wrapped his arms around me, my head tucked beneath his chin.
I am old and stupid and in love.