Land of Echoes

by Daniel Hecht

  Heartbroken, she lived on in her little apartment. Every day brought a dozen changes of heart toward Peter: hope and fear, strength and devastation, anger and forgiveness. Her confusion wasn't just about men, or even love, it was about life. The sense of betrayal that all the good things you believed should be so untrue.

  She started to show, a little. The divorce process dragged on. She received no visitors. She saw Joseph often, always at the hospital or at restaurants. The longer she stayed in her tiny apartment, the more anger she felt toward Peter. But she still wanted to have the baby. It was the child of those beautiful moments, when the world opened up and it seemed there was love in it after all. And maybe Peter would come back. Maybe he just needed more time.

  "In retrospect, I wish I didn't do it the way I did. But you have to understand how angry I was. How terrified I was of what Garrett would do if he found out."

  "That he'd hurt you? Physically, I mean?"

  The muscles on Julieta jaws rippled. "Remember Donny's remark about the quality of my horses? It goes back to the day I told Garrett I was divorcing him. He didn't love me, but he liked sex with me and he owned me—plus he knew the divorce would cost him some money and property. And by God one thing Garrett did was, he fought for what he owned! The day I handed him the papers he argued and threatened me and his eyes literally turned this horrible bloody color. He . . . he did something very terrible."

  "What?"

  "I had gone to my bedroom and locked the door, I was that afraid of him. So Garrett went out to the barn. He shot my horses. All four. I listened to the shots and screams. One after the other."

  Sickened, Cree couldn't imagine a response.

  It took her a while, but after a few minutes Julieta managed to grind out the rest of the story: "I was scared to death. What he'd do if he found out about the baby. About Peter and me. Especially that I'd slept with a Navajo, was carrying a Navajo child. That would be a blow to his ego he'd never forgive."

  The searing fear and horror of that day fired her determination to get away from Garrett, cemented her sense that he really owed her. He had betrayed her, turned her into a paid courtesan, not a wife; he'd made her practically a prisoner for four years, he'd ruined her father, he'd murdered her horses. Even now, he ruled her life through fear and intimidation. Turning over a new leaf meant not accepting that crap from him, or anyone, ever again. Despite Joseph's tactful recommendation that she divorce quietly and amicably, even if it meant a less lucrative settlement, she continued to press ahead with the very hard terms her attorney said she would certainly get. All she had to do was keep her pregnancy secret and get the divorce over with quickly.

  But the final court date ended up being set for late winter. Showing up in court eight months pregnant was out of the question. She had to change plans.

  Again, Joseph helped her think it through. The solution they came up with was to have the baby in secret. Postpone the court date until spring, a month or so after she'd given birth. In the meantime, live a covert life in Gallup, withdraw from public contact, do all her business by phone, let her lawyer handle everything. It was only a few more months, and over the last five years she'd gotten good at waiting, at living alone. At having a secret life, a secret self.

  By the time she was six months pregnant, she was in bad shape. She'd been cooped up forever and ever. She'd received every heartbreak imaginable. She felt burdened and heavy and tired all the time. The hope that Peter would return had worn thin. She was so lonely she wanted to die; she probably would have if Joseph hadn't been there.

  Then one day she found a letter from Peter in her mailbox. It had been mailed from California to the old address and had been forwarded by the post office. At the sight of his scrawl on the envelope, familiar from the occasional love letters he'd written, the hope and fear exploded in her. She practically fell down in the stairwell as she ripped it open and read it.

  He was in California. He'd tried to start up in LA but had drifted down to San Diego. Things were going pretty well. He'd found a job maintaining vending machines at the naval base. He had gotten some regular air-time at a community radio station; he had also registered with a film agency up in Hollywood and was excited at the prospect of maybe some work as an extra, there were a couple of films coming up that needed Indian types. He loved her, he would never forget a single moment with her. But he couldn't be with her. He was a poor backcountry Navajo, she was a rich Santa Fe white girl. They should have known better than to try, with the deck stacked so badly against them. He was seeing somebody else now, a Jicarilla Apache woman who was escaping reservation life just as he was. Julieta should move on with her life. He was very, very sorry.

  A few days later, while she was still reeling from that, she saw a car slide past the building, its driver looking up at the windows. She realized she'd seen the same car on several occasions. And this time, she recognized the driver's face: one of Garrett's assistants, a thug named Nick Stephanovic. Garrett was having her watched!

  Suddenly the whole absurdity of her plan struck her. A naive twenty-five-year-old idiot and a thirty-year-old idealistic Navajo doctor were no strategists for the kind of war she was fighting or the kind of enemy she had. She'd never keep her secrets. Even if the divorce went through without a hitch, Garrett could keep watching. If she suddenly appeared with a baby in her arms, a Navajo baby, he'd know everything. She didn't dare ask her lawyer, but she suspected that proof of her infidelity would be cause to retroactively overturn a settlement. Far more frightening, the extent of her deception would conjure in Garrett the rage she'd glimpsed when he'd killed her horses. At that point it would've had nothing to do with love anymore, or even ownership: He'd get back at her because his pride demanded it. She'd seen his vengeful side in business dealings— cross him, and he never forgot. She'd never be safe. Her nightmare would go on and on with no reprieve, ever.

  The whole thing had been a mistake, she saw, error upon error, stupidity upon stupidity. If she really wanted to start a new life, she realized, she had to let go not just of Garrett and of Peter, but of the baby, too.

  Yes, she'd have to give up the baby.

  It wasn't just her anger at Peter or her fear of Garrett that resolved her. She saw with frightening clarity that she was in no shape to be anybody's mother. She was too confused, impulsive, damaged; she had too much angry pride and had made too many mistakes because of it. The baby should have stable, sane, capable parents—two of them. The baby should be removed as far as possible from the wrath of Garrett McCarty and the emptiness left by an abandoning father and the mess of Julieta's life.

  She talked it over with Joseph. Again, he served as her sounding board, didn't suggest or force her decisions in any way. The only time he put his foot down was after she'd told him her decision. He would help her, he said, if she was absolutely sure, if she'd considered every option and felt there was truly only that one. But it has to be forever, he warned her. You have to let go completely. You can't change your mind in a month or a year or five years. You can't rip a family's life apart by coming in later and claiming the child they've raised as their own. You can't do that to a child who loves the people it knows as its parents.

  I know, she told him. That's right. I know.

  There's another reason, Joseph went on. You can't second-guess yourself, either—can't hold your future hostage to the bad things that have happened. Your heart has to have freedom to grow and move on. If you emotionally cling to this child after it's gone, it'll be like having an open wound that can never heal. If you ever change your mind, you'll only hurt yourself and other innocent people. It's a one-way street, Julieta. It's got to be.

  Off-record, at-home births were common on the rez—as a rural GP, Joseph had delivered his share. He said he knew of an infertile couple in a remote area of the eastern rez, good people who dearly wanted a child. When Julieta's time came, Joseph delivered the baby and brought the boy to them.

  Julieta saw her son for only those minutes
after his birth: Joseph laid him on her chest while he did some repairs on her. She looked at the wrinkled little face, saw those tiny lips working, and at that moment felt a force in her that she never imagined existed. It changed her inside. It was as if her whole body and mind became one big magnet, as if she existed only as that pull toward the baby. Her breasts ached and tingled with the desire to nurture him, but he wasn't ready to suckle. She looked at him for a long time. Marveling at him. But labor had exhausted her, and after a while she closed her eyes and forgot everything but the glow of that warm little weight against her skin, the minute movements. She drowsed. When she awoke the baby was gone. As they'd agreed.

  Joseph never told her the details of where the boy went. There was never any question of finding him again. The new parents would report the arrival as a home birth and fill out the papers in their names. With a Navajo father and a black Irish-Hispanic mother, he'd have the right coloring to blend in. He'd grow up as a Navajo, share the good and bad of a Navajo's fate in twentieth-century America.

  For once, their plans went off without a hitch. With all the heartbreak and tension, Julieta had gained barely any weight during the pregnancy. She was far too thin, but the bright side was that nobody would suspect she'd recently given birth. The divorce took place in April, and it went as her lawyer predicted. She ended up with the Oak Springs house and twelve hundred acres and three million dollars, plus an uneasy proximity to McCarty Energy's Hunters Point field and the enduring hostility of Garrett and his nasty son.

  She never saw her baby again. She never heard from Peter Yellowhorse again. She was twenty-five when she began her new life.

  Julieta reined Madie to a stop. A mile away, the school was just visible over a swell in the land, the buildings new and clean but sad-looking in the wan, milky light. Julieta just sat in the saddle and looked at the lonely little cluster. The sun was not far from the horizon, so dulled by the uniform overcast its glow didn't impart any warmth to the buildings or the walls of the mesa.

  Cree stopped Breeze beside her. She was astonished at how differently she saw the scene now. It was rooted in all the reasons Julieta had done this monumental thing. The buildings were not just objects of stone and steel but manifestations of feeling and purpose. They were built not just on the bare red desert earth but on a foundation of one person's past pain and error and the profound drive to turn it all around, to remedy wrongs and atone for them, to act for the good rather than react to the bad.

  Julieta's accomplishment awed her.

  Of course, it was also built on a subconscious desire to find the lost child again. Or to sublimate and channel the mothering urge, frustrated then, in the act of nurturing and guiding many children.

  Screw Sigmund, Cree thought, impatient with her Freudian reflexes. That urban, neurotic, fin-de-siecle sensibility stripped things of scope and nobility and poetry. This woman faced herself. She acknowledged her failings and turned every one of them around. She did a marvelously good thing. Turned a disaster into a brilliant achievement.

  Of course, there were so many questions left unanswered. One of them was not whether, or why, Julieta would seek her lost baby in every child she encountered: Joseph's advice had been both wise and kind, but of course that wound in her heart would never close.

  But why Tommy? Cree wanted to ask. How did she know he was her long-lost child? His records? Some resemblance to Peter Yellowhorse? Maybe Joseph told her. But why would he identify the boy to Julieta after making sure the cord was so completely severed?

  But Julieta had pulled into herself, and she deserved a break from the relentless probing and prodding Cree had subjected her to.

  Julieta put her hand to her face and seemed startled to find her sunglasses still there. She took them off, folded them away, wiped her cheeks with the balls of both hands.

  "Going to get cold tonight," she said. "Sunset's coming. Better get to the chores." She glanced at the chilly horizon and urged Madie toward the school.

  19

  THE SIGHT OF Ben's body disappearing into the Hobart made Tommy break out into a sweat.

  The big dishwasher was on the blink, but Ben said he knew how to fix it, no need to call in the maintenance guys. Tommy had gladly volunteered to help and Ben had let him tag along when the softball game broke up.

  The Hobart was seven feet long and had doors on both ends, just like a casket-sized car wash. The dishes went in dirty at one end and came out the other clean and so hot they steamed dry in seconds. Ben lay on his back on the counter, arranged a flashlight and some tools on his chest, and then shoved himself into the open maw until only his bottom half emerged from between the strips of the spray curtain.

  It reminded Tommy of the times he'd been fed into the MRI machine during the last couple of weeks: the claustrophobic panic of being strapped to the plastic shelf and sliding inch by inch into the huge, roaring white doughnut.

  Ben grunted and made clanking noises inside the housing. His legs bent and scissored, as if he were struggling to get out, and Tommy had to look away. Still, he'd rather be here in the kitchen instead of walking around with the nurse. She creeped him out, always hovering near him, prying at him. Even now, she was just the other side of the swinging doors, waiting at one of the cafeteria tables.

  "Just don't turn it on while I'm in here, huh?" Ben joked. From inside the stainless steel housing, his voice had a metallic ring.

  "Why not? You look like you could use it."

  "Hey, I took a shower just last month!" Ben chuckled. "Wouldn't help, anyway. Even this thing won't clean a dirty mind."

  Tommy couldn't laugh. That hit too close to the mark: The worst part of the MRI had been the fear of what it might see in his head.

  "So, what's the matter with you, anyway? Not going on the field trip. Sick last week, too, right?"

  "Cooties. Bad case of cooties."

  Ben chuckled again. His legs braced and pushed, as if he were being eaten by the machine and was fighting it. In another moment, his hand emerged with some kind of a valve. Tommy took it and set it on the counter.

  "So," Ben said, "the good-looking bilagâana—what, she's a doctor or something?"

  Tommy didn't want to answer, couldn't stand to turn their talk serious.

  This was good—just hanging with someone, like he was a regular person and not some kind of specimen or freak. And if Ben knew the truth, he wouldn't let Tommy anywhere near him. Ignoring the question, Tommy quickly inspected the industrial meat grinder bolted to the opposite counter and turned back to slap the housing of the Hobart.

  "What's this red button for?" he asked innocently.

  "Don't touch that!"

  Tommy reached over and flipped the toggle on the grinder, and he could see from the sudden tensing of Ben's legs that the loud, grating whine had caught him off guard. He let it run for a few seconds, then hit the switch and let the motor wind down.

  Ben's legs were shaking as he laughed. "Just about peed myself] Gonna feed you into that thing when I get out of here! Hey, see my toolbox? Want to hand me the half-inch box wrench?"

  Tommy found the wrench, but before he could give it to Ben it slipped from his fingers and bounced under the counter. His right hand wasn't working. He felt a growing confusion about it: The waistband of his jeans pressed against him in back, and if he shut his eyes he could swear it was something tightening on his wrist.

  The feeling was coming on him again, slowly but remorselessly.

  He was on his knees, reaching under the counter for the wrench, when a long, thin, jointed thing darted in toward it from the right side. He reared away so hard he smashed his head on the counter supports. His own right hand! It had come so quickly and purposefully, like some awful animal that lived under the counter. He felt, he knew, his real arm was back behind him, stretched along his spine. It took him a moment to catch his breath and stop shaking. He got the wrench with his left hand, extricated himself from under the counter, and put it into Ben's waiting palm.

&n
bsp; "Butterfingers," Ben complained good-naturedly. "You think I want to be in here all day?"

  Tommy felt tears in his eyes. He moved away from the feed opening to make sure Ben couldn't see his face. "What'd you say this red button was for?" he asked.

  "Couldn't we skip it?

  Please? I'm fine now." He couldn't stand the thought of another examination, Mrs. Pierce's flecked eyes narrowing as they inspected him.

  "Sorry, Tommy. Doctor's orders. I'm supposed to track your vital signs."

  She shut the examining room door. As if there was anyone going to come in. He wished she'd leave it open.

  "You'll have to take off your shirt," Mrs. Pierce said.

  Tommy wasn't sure he could. He was too twisted. He knew the thing at his side had to be his arm, but it felt like he was standing in a packed crowd so that someone else's arm was pressed against his body. No, it was worse: It was as if there was someone invisible overlapping him on the right side. He couldn't even think about the arm completely. When he lifted his T-shirt with his left hand, the right arm thing just hung there. He got stuck with the shirt over his head, tangled and disoriented. Mrs. Pierce had to help him. When they got it off, he felt uncomfortable, standing half naked in the room with her looking at him.

  She put on her stethoscope and listened to his chest and back, cold rings against his skin. Her eyes had an excited, curious look, like on some level she enjoyed this. When she was done, she guided him by his shoulders to sit on the crinkly paper of the examining table, then wrapped the blood pressure cuff around his left arm. She pumped it up and let the air out slowly, listening with the stethoscope, watching the gauge. She jotted something on her clipboard, but she didn't remove the cuff. Instead, she lifted the strange thing to his right.

  "Tommy, what's this I'm holding?"

  "My arm," he muttered. He didn't look at it. If he looked at it, he knew it would seem like a huge thing emerging inexplicably from the side of his face, near the hinge of his jaw.