Finally, she was able to swallow. She sniffed back the looming tears and drank water until she felt calm again. “I miss you, Mama,” she said when she could.
“Oh, baby.” Her mother set a hand on her leg and squeezed. “Oh how I missed you.” That squeeze of her leg became a brisk pat. “When Tyson wakes up, we’ll walk over and see Maw, okay?”
Gigi nodded. The very least thing she could do for her grandmother was visit her fresh grave. “When will Frannie be home? Can we wait for her?”
“She’s working her second job tonight, cleaning shops in Old Town. Sometimes she stops for a drink after work. She won’t be home till late.” Mom’s expression changed, and she let out a slow breath. “You know, your sister ... she’s going to take some time. Francine’s had some hard times, and she’s angry. She wasn’t happy you didn’t make it back for Maw.”
Her mother had said a lot in that set of sentences. Frannie was working two jobs. She was still drinking. If she was working in Old Town, then she was probably stopping for drinks at the Jack. And Gigi was in for an ass-blistering from her big sister.
Well, she’d expected that last part. Actually, none of it was all that surprising.
“Does she drive drunk, Mom?” Gigi asked. “When she stops for a drink after work, does she drive home?”
Her mom finished her beer and got up. “She tries, Georgia. Things are hard, but she’s a good mom, and she works hard. She needs a break, after working two jobs, and she hasn’t had a wreck. Not one.”
That wasn’t what she’d asked. But she had her answer nonetheless.
“Okay.” It wasn’t her place to argue, not half an hour after she’d rolled onto the reservation for the first time in a decade. Gigi went back to her little lunch.
*****
The cemetery was a span of earth on the northern edge of the reservation, long and narrow along the border with national forest land, like an army of spirit sentries. By now there were more of their people in the earth than walking on it. The oldest marker wasn’t much older than a century; before the white soldiers and settlers came, the Shoshone hadn’t buried their dead. They’d left them in caves or crevices in cliffs with enough supplies to keep them on their journey to the next place.
Even in death, her people had some walking to do.
After the land became a reservation, it had taken some time for the tribe to adopt to the white way of burying their dead in boxes. But they’d kept most of their rituals of mourning: placing the casket in a tepee, attending it in lamentation around the clock for at least three days, leaving supplies on the grave.
Gigi had been to her share of tribe funerals; the last of them had been her father’s.
As she and her mom, and her little nephew, Tyson, walked toward the fresh mound of overturned earth, they passed gravesites of varying ages, from months old to decades, adorned with ritual offerings. Family left them there to rot or rust or last forever, leaning against unassuming granite markers meant to endure.
Maw’s grave didn’t have a marker yet, just a little metal sign with her last name and death date, but the leather of her funeral tepee was folded over the earth, and a bittersweet array of tokens had been left as well. No flowers, they didn’t really do flowers like that, but beads and dresses and stoneware. Somebody had left her a crossword puzzle book and a box of pencils.
Seeing that, Gigi laughed softly, and then the tears she’d been fighting off since she’d seen her mother at the trailer door tore loose. She dropped to her knees and set her hands in the dark, loose soil.
Tyson stumbled up on his little preschool legs and reached for a beaded leather band. Mom scooped him up and carried him off to a nearby tree, and left Gigi to say goodbye to her grandmother.
Was she supposed to talk? The idea of it, to kneel here and speak to the dead, felt awkward and performative, like something that happened in books and movies but not in real life. If she did speak, what would she say? Would Maw be listening? If so, why would she be listening only here?
It didn’t matter; no words would come. So Gigi leaned forward, pushed her fingers into the earth, and closed her eyes. She knelt there and remembered her Maw.
Who’d always understood her. Who’d never been disappointed in her. Who’d loved her unconditionally every moment of their shared lives. She’d been a simple woman, but full of contradictions. Traditional but without judgment. Unschooled but wise. Fiercely protective of her family but kind to everyone. The only other person in the family who’d never touched a drop of drink, she’d stood strong while booze tore holes through the family again and again. She’d buried her sisters and brother, her husband, her two sons, a daughter-in-law, and her first grandchild.
And she’d lost Gigi, too. After so much loss, she’d been abandoned.
Gigi put her face to the earth of her grandmother’s grave and wept.
Her mother was there, kneeling beside her, hooking a skinny arm over her shoulders. She didn’t talk, or cry with her. She simply held her and was quiet, while Gigi’s grief and guilt and sorrow flooded through her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered when the tears abated.
Her mother didn’t answer. She let the words float away as if they weren’t meant for her but for Maw.
Gigi didn’t know to whom she’d apologized, or for what.
*****
Ruddy afternoon sun slanted over the road as they walked back. Mom pulled an old, wood-sided wagon that had once been red, and Tyson sat inside it, playing with a mound of weeds and rocks he’d collected at the cemetery. He was a tiny boy, and didn’t yet speak more than a couple words, though he was three years old. When Gigi had expressed surprise at that, Mom had given her a sharp look and said he was just taking his time. She hadn’t pressed the point.
He was a sweet little guy, though. He’d lifted his arms for a hug the moment he’d seen her. Gigi didn’t want kids of her own, but she’d enjoyed that hug, and the thought that he felt so safe in his world it didn’t occur to him to fear strangers.
As they came up to the first cluster of homes, where their own trailer sat, Gigi saw what she’d been expecting. They’d given her and Mom the respect of waiting until after they’d seen Maw, but now people were milling about in their yards, or just standing at the side of the road, waiting for them to walk up. The gossip train had pulled into the station.
Gossip train number one, at least. There was a whole other train in town, and that one was an express. Gigi was in no big rush to board it.
“Hi, Arnold,” Mom said, offering their neighbor a smile.
“Elaine. Fine afternoon, isn’t it? Gonna be a clear night.” Arnold Dent gave Gigi a nod. “And hello there, young lady. Home for a visit, or home to stay?”
“Hi, Mr. Dent.” She didn’t know how to answer his question, and she didn’t want to—when she had an answer, it wouldn’t be a neighbor she told—but her mother was watching her with keen eyes behind bottle-thick lenses, so she said, “Don’t know yet.”
“We were sorry you weren’t here for your grandma.”
That was Mrs. Largo, with a dash of acid on her tongue. Everyone had come together, ten or twelve people standing in the middle of the road or on the shoulder next to Mr. Dent, surrounding Gigi. She recognized every one of them, even those who’d been kids when she’d left.
Everybody was older, but nobody had changed. It was the way of the reservation world, even for her once-nomadic tribe: time walked on, but the people stood still and rotted in place. Like the skinned bison carcasses of an age before, left carelessly behind by people chasing their manifest destiny.
Whew. The spirits at the cemetery had sunk their wispy fingers into her, apparently, and left dark thoughts behind.
She’d been expecting the crowd of neighbors and the typically uneffusive implication of judgment, so she sucked it up and gave them what they wanted. Offering Mrs. Largo and everyone else a sad nod, she sighed. “I was sorry, too.”
“Come on over, everybody,” her mom said.
“I made some chicken salad this afternoon. Georgia can tell us about her adventures.”
Typically, after everybody expressed their enthusiasm for the idea, they all scattered back to their own homes. In her world, nobody answered an invitation empty-handed. By the time they were all gathered together again, there’d be a full spread of food. And drink.
While they walked back to the trailer to prepare for the impromptu gathering that served as well as anything for a homecoming party, Gigi prepared to tell a story that made sense of her last ten years.
Maybe in the telling, she’d make better sense of them herself.
Chapter Four
When the bright, yellowish glare of headlights swung across the living room’s picture window, Gigi set aside the crossword puzzle book—one from the stack Maw had been working on—and flipped the granny-square afghan aside. She stood, dressed for sleep in a t-shirt and sweats, and checked the old Regulator wall clock ticking on the wall as she crossed the narrow room.
One-thirty in the morning. Mom had said Frannie worked both jobs today, a full shift at the Lunch Box and another five hours cleaning the Old Town shops. She had to be back at the café at five for the opening shift. Country people rose early, and the Lunch Box served breakfast and lunch only. The first customers would get their coffee at five-thirty. Four hours from now.
Before she opened the door, she peered through the louvered window, at an eerie scene of shadow and gloom. Night came on hard on the reservation. There were no rows of streetlights or high-mast highway lights. The roads were left to fold into the darkness, whether they were paved with asphalt or graded gravel or rutted dirt. Some houses had a dusk-to-dawn light, or a spotlight bolted to an eave. The Mackenzies shared a single dusk-to-dawn light among their little cluster of trailers and cabins, but it was closest to the Largos’, and the Mackenzies’ own trailer blocked most of the light it offered. But Gigi saw enough.
Her sister had parked her old Honda CRX on the yard and was standing next to the open driver’s side door, paused in the act of closing it. She stared at the Harley Gigi had bought in Idaho Hills.
Her sister was four years older—not quite close enough in age that they’d ever been especially close in relationship. Frannie had always been the bossy older sister, the one who was in charge and responsible for both Gigi’s conduct and her safety. Gigi hadn’t been a rebellious kid, but Frannie still found ways to assert her authority. She liked being first in everything, and having Gigi come up behind for her sloppy seconds.
When Gigi was young, she’d worn her sister’s hand-me-downs, which had been hand-me-downs from a cousin, which had been hand-me-downs from her sister. But Frannie, like their cousins, had started putting on weight around middle school and puberty, getting boobs instead of height. Gigi had stayed slim and grown comparatively tall when she hit puberty, getting her period at fifteen, four years later than Frannie had. Gigi had gotten new clothes, or at least newly-bought Goodwill clothes, because hand-me-downs stopped fitting her.
The first time Mom and Gigi came back from a bus ride to the Goodwill in Boise, carrying three bags of new-old clothes, was the first time Frannie had been mad enough at her to hit her. And whenever she’d last been genuinely, spontaneously nice to her before that day was the last time she’d ever been. It was like they’d carried envy in back from the city in those blue plastic bags. Now, as an adult, Gigi understood that that was true: her sister envied her with a ferocity so bitter it brined her heart. But she still didn’t know what to do about it.
She stood at the door, rocked by memories of her childhood, and watched her sister just stand there, staring at the bike. What was she thinking, alone out there in the dark?
Gigi had been home now for hours—just about twelve, in fact. Though she’d been incognito, in her full-face helmet, riding through town, she’d been on the reservation all day and evening, and by now every one of her people knew she was back, and she’d spoken to just about everyone who truly cared one way or another beyond the juicy tidbit to share at the trading post. There was no way the news hadn’t made it to Jasper Ridge by now, and if Frannie had been at the Jack—and clearly she had been—she should be expecting Gigi to be here.
But she stood there, her hand on the car door, and stared at the Harley.
Finally, Gigi couldn’t stand it. She grabbed a sweater from the coat rack and went out the door and down to the yard in her sock feet.
At the screech of the screen door, Frannie’s gaze unlocked from the bike and shifted to Gigi. She slammed the car door shut, hard enough to rock the Honda on its bald tires.
“Well. Look who showed up.”
Gigi could hear the booze on her sister’s tongue. “Hey, Fran.”
“You still ride? Even after Dad?”
The Gigi of before would have said something combative like You still drink and drive, even after Dad? But this Gigi said, “Yeah. But I wear a helmet.”
They stood facing each other, Gigi at the foot of the steps and Frannie still beside her car. She looked the same—short and plump, her single, long braid draped over one shoulder.
“You cut your hair.”
With a self-conscious shrug, Gigi tucked her shoulder-length locks behind her ears. “Yeah. A while back. It’s easier.”
Frannie bobbed her head once but didn’t speak.
Not knowing what else to say, Gigi smiled and tried, “I hung out with Tyson today. He’s really sweet.”
“He’s not retarded.”
She winced at the ugly word and the defensive heat with which it was said. “I didn’t—”
“He’s just quiet. He’ll talk when he’s ready.”
“I know he will.”
“You don’t know anything. You haven’t been here to know anything.”
They hadn’t seen each other in ten years. Not since the afternoon of the night Gigi had run. Not since their last big fight. But Frannie was just as pissed now as she’d been then.
Clearly, there would be no warm reunion between them. “Frannie ...” The word died on the air; Gigi didn’t know what more to say. Another painfully long stretch of silent seconds, and then a gust of wind kicked through the trees and stirred up the fallen leaves around their feet.
With a shudder, Gigi pulled the cardigan more tightly around her. “It’s chilly. Let’s go inside.”
“I have to sleep. I have to be up at four-thirty for work.”
“Mom said. We don’t have to talk. I just wanted to say hi.”
She readjusted her big bag on her shoulder and came forward, at last, to the trailer. “Hi.”
That duty done, she walked past Gigi and went up to the door and in.
Gigi followed behind her big sister. Inside, she watched Frannie walk down the hallway and close the door.
*****
Sleeping on the sofa, Gigi woke to the sounds of her sister in the kitchen just a few hours later, starting the coffee pot. The morning was still pitch dark, and Frannie moved quietly, but quickly. Gigi didn’t move or open her eyes; Frannie had to work, and she hadn’t gotten much sleep, so Gigi wasn’t going to start off her morning with any additional stress.
When her sister creaked the door open and left, Gigi tried to sleep again, but it came just as hard on this second attempt as it had the first, after Frannie had disappeared into the room she shared with Tyson. The past was showing an IMAX movie marathon in her head. Her childhood, her adolescence, the first years of her adulthood. School and family. Loss and gain. Need and disappointment. Happiness, too, and occasional delight. Young love. Big decisions. Big fears.
She’d had good reasons for leaving. She’d done it badly—she’d known at the time she was being terrible, but she was too desperate and panicked to let the guilt stop her—but her reasons weren’t wrong. She’d even had good reasons for staying away and keeping her distance. Her family wasn’t just dysfunctional, it was broken. It wobbled on a tilted axis, and every generation traveled the same unsteady path, degrading further with every tu
rn: Alcoholism. Poverty. Depression. Divorce. Death.
Almost everyone in her family was a drunk, all but Maw and her. Her father. Her mother. Her sister. Frannie’s husband, Louis. Her grandfather. Her uncles. A lot of the people in her tribe, too. Maybe most of them. It had felt like just about everyone around her was a drunk.
Every bad thing in her family, in her tribe, fell from that simple fact, into quicksand. They were trapped in it, stuck in place, rotting into the ground. Each generation sinking deeper than the one before.
Now that she was home, after her years away, she saw it more clearly than ever. Her eyes had lost the glaze of familiarity, and she saw it all. Her family was decomposing, and she would have, too, if she’d stayed. She still would, if she stayed now.
But being home again, she also saw the burden she’d heaved onto her mother’s shoulders and her sister’s. Mom was raising another child. Frannie was working two jobs because she was the only one earning any money. Money wasn’t as big a deal on the reservation as it was in the white world—the reservation was a community with a shared history and struggle; though the goods were often different than they’d been in the old days, they still bartered routinely—but money was the difference between comfort and despair, and Frannie was working twelve- and fifteen-hour days to keep the family balanced on the edge, over a chasm of despair. If Gigi had stayed home, she could have, would have, been a help and offered some stability, and certainly some relief for her sister.
Instead, she’d been off on her own, answering to no one, responsible only to her own needs.
No surprise, honestly, that Frannie couldn’t bring herself to be sociable.
Gigi had been on the run, avoiding commitments and complications, avoiding even the connections of her family, keeping the guilt far away, at the distance of the nearest public library. She’d roamed the world, chasing something she couldn’t define, and she’d packed up and taken off every time she started to feel a root sprout and try to sink into the ground.
Now, lying on this same old sofa that was the only one she’d ever known, sitting in the only place she’d ever known it to sit, under an afghan Maw had crocheted before she’d been born, Gigi felt all the guilt, all the fear, all the desperation. Every memory, every loss, every regret was a root sinking through the rough plaid fabric, through the softening floor, into the dusty ground, and holding her in place.
Anywhere (Sawtooth Mountains Stories, #3) Page 4
