by Amy DeMeritt
“What’s this picture?”
“Kayla took me canoeing. We saw lots of birds, turtles, a really big beaver, and some fish. It was fun. Oh, we watched a dog chase geese too. It was funny.”
“Kayla does a lot with you.” He smiles really big. “Yeah, she’s my best friend. I miss her when she’s at school. Oh, let me show you something really cool.”
He runs over to his bookshelf and pulls out a rain-stick leaning between it and the wall. He turns it upside down, and the little rocks inside fall and sound like rain.
“Kayla and I made this with Awenasa when we were on the reservation a couple years ago. Awenasa taught us how to burn out the center of the wood to hollow it and then we put these wooden pins in there and really tiny pebbles.”
My heart starts to race and I glance at Madison, who is also looking at me with fear in her eyes.
“That’s really cool. Is Awenasa a relative?” Joey laughs as he turns the stick again. “No, she’s Kayla’s wife. She’s really pretty and really nice.” Mrs. Carters face turns pale and her smile disappears. “Her wife?” Joey looks up at her confused. “Yeah, they kept it secret. I don’t know why because they have been talking about it forever. Kayla asked her to marry her when they were only ten years old. My mom says I’m not allowed to get married that young, but if I find a girl like that, I can give her a promise ring like Kayla did.”
My head falls and I know I have to deal with this. I slowly step into the doorway and Mrs. Carter looks up with pure shock and disbelief on her face.
“Hey, Joey, why don’t you go try to mess up Sara’s hair?” He laughs and puts his rain stick back. “Ok, she hates that.” I smile a little bit and he runs passed me. “Can we talk?”
Mrs. Carter nods and I reach my hand out for her to take. She tentatively takes my hand and follows me out of my brother’s room. I walk passed my girls and they start to follow, but I stop and shake my head.
“We’ll be back. You go enjoy the party.”
They look nervous, but they don’t follow us as I lead Mrs. Carter to the basement. My parents sound proofed the basement, so when we’re down here dancing, the rest of the house doesn’t have to listen to the music. This is the best place to talk without someone over hearing us. I grab a couple chairs and we sit in the middle of the dance floor.
“I’m sorry you had to find out that way, but I really am married.” Her eyes tear up and she looks down. I take her hands and she looks back up at me. “I am married, but it does not change what I have with Madison, Sam, and Shannon.”
I quickly give her a history of Awenasa and I and how we became married and when I found out that she’s ready for a real relationship and when she’ll be joining us in the summer.
“Kayla, I don’t know what to say. This scares me. You made me fall in love with you and my daughter being together. You even made me like this whole family thing. Now, you tell me that you have a wife? Will you put her above my little girl?” I smile and shake my head. “We’ll still be a family just like we are now. No one is more important than the other. Everyone is equal.”
“I thought you would marry my daughter.” I smile and look towards the steps to make sure no one is listening at the top. “I am going to marry your daughter. I’m going to marry all of them.”
“That’s not legal, sweetie.” I laugh a little. “I know, but a ceremony with the love and promises is what matters, not the legal documents.”
“I want to believe that, but I’m just…”
“If I tell you a secret, can you keep it?” She smiles and looks at me with puckered lips. “What kind of secret? You have another wife out there?” I laugh and shake my head. “No, I promise. It’s the real reason I invited all of you here tonight. A surprise for my girls.” She smiles really big and sits forward some. “What is it?” I laugh and shake my head. “You have to promise not to say anything. A lot of planning went into this and I want it to be perfect.”
“I promise.” I look towards the steps again and reach into my pocket, pulling out a silver band ring. “This one will be mine, but I have one for each of them. They’re promise rings that one day, I’m going to marry them and buy them real rings.” She gasps and takes the ring to look at it. “Mine is a little more basic than theirs, but each of them has our names engraved on the inside. Mine has their names, and theirs has ours. Each ring is missing the name of the person who should wear it, obviously.”
She smiles really big and her eyes tear up as she looks at the ring. She hands me the ring and then throws her arms around me.
“Thank you for being honest with me about your wife and sharing this surprise with me. I promise, I’ll keep it to myself. I can’t wait to see my little girls face when you present her with her ring. Can you tell me how you’re going to do it?” She pulls back to look at my face expectantly and I smile and shake my head. “You’ll enjoy it more if that’s a surprise.” She smiles and laughs a little as she wipes at her eyes. “Ok, I’ll try to patiently wait.”
“Thank you not allowing this to change us. I really do like you being in my family.” She smiles and blushes as she looks down at her lap a moment. “I really like you in my family too. Your brother is adorable and I see a lot of you in him. He’ll be a very good man one day if he turns out half as good as you did.” I smile really big and she laughs. “It’s that smile of yours that captures the hearts of all of these girls, isn’t it?”
I laugh hard and she blushes bright red.
“Come on, let’s get back up there before they send a search party after us.”
We stand up and put the chairs away. She surprises me when she takes my hand to lead me back up the stairs. When we come back to the party, she’s still holding my hand and she walks me over to stand next to Madison and my girls, who are standing nervously with my mom. She releases my hand and gives Madison a kiss on the forehead and smiles as she looks between all of us.
When she walks away to go stand with her husband, Madison looks at me with a question in her eyes. I smile and kiss her lips.
“We’re all good. I told her everything.” Madison smiles and loops her arm in mine. “Thank you.”
After we stand and sit around talking for a little longer, my mom ushers all of us to the dining room to eat. My dad had to bring in a folding table and chairs that we use for when the whole family is here in the summers so that we’d be able to seat everyone. My mom dressed the tables in table clothes so it looks very nice.
My mom made a huge beef roast, with roasted vegetables, potatoes, a big salad, dinner rolls, and a few different pies for dessert. The food is amazing as always and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. There’s several side conversations going at once, but that doesn’t seem to bother anyone. My eyes meet my mom’s several times and she looks really happy. She has been worried about this gathering and I can tell how relieved she feels right now.
After we finish eating, and everyone sits around talking for a while, the mothers work together to put all of the food away and load the dishwasher together.
Sara purposefully causes a distraction with my girls and Joey as we had planned and I disappear. I quickly run to my bedroom and dig out the box from the bottom of my bookbag with my girl’s rings. I send a quick text to Awenasa to let her know I’m getting ready to do this and that Sara will send her the video chat when I start. I take a deep breath and lean against my wall for a moment.
Awenasa: Thank you, puppy. I know you’re probably freaking out right now. You’re going to do great.
Me: Thanks. We’ll talk to you soon. I love you.
Awenasa: I love you too
I take one more deep breath and quickly dart down the hall and slip through the basement door. Madison spots me and is about to call out to me, but Sara starts talking to her. I work quickly to get setup. I snuck out of bed early this morning and strung up some white lights. I plug them in and turn out the basement light and smile. It looks pretty. I open the small cardboard box and pull out three small bla
ck paper boxes, each of which has a ribbon attached to it that leads to a pretty wooden heart that I hide in my breast pocket over my heart till the time is right to take it out. I kneel down in front of the boxes and send Sara a text that I’m ready. My heart is racing so fast. I hope I can pull this off.
When I hear the door open, I push play on a soft slow instrumental song on my phone that will play on repeat till I finish. Sara and my dad come down the stairs first with a camera and phone held up. I smile, knowing that Awenasa is watching from the phone camera. As the family spills into the room, Madison, Sam, and Shannon release little gasps when they see me and they cling to each other. I smile and take a deep breath.
“Madison, Sam, and Shannon, I love each of you more than a flower loves the sunshine, more than the sea loves the shore, and more than the sky loves the earth. Surrounded by those that taught us how to love and build a home, I’d like to present each of you with the key to the home you’ve built inside my heart.”
My girls have such beautiful smiles with glossy emotion filled eyes as they take a few steps forward, clinging to each other’s hands. They look down at the boxes in front of me, and release cute little giggles as they shuffle to kneel with me in front of the box that has their name written on it. Each of them is smiling and fighting tears.
“Open them.” Their smiles widen and they lift the lids. They look at me confused and laugh a little. “Slip the ribbons on your finger.”
They look up at me with happy surprise and quickly slip the ribbon loops on their ring fingers. I take the boxes and push them behind me. I pull the heart from my breast pocket that has a clip on the back and slip the clip on my pocket so the heart is visible. As I lower my hand, three silver rings slowly glide down the ribbons towards their hands. Everyone gasps and my girls release happy gasps and quickly reach up to slip the rings down over their fingers when they reach their fingertips.
I start to stand and they follow me. I gently tug the ribbons together to layer their hands and take them as one hand. While I hold their hands, I start to slow dance with them and they match my pace and steps perfectly. After a few moments, I tug on the ribbons attached to the heart on my chest, and the ribbons drop in front of us. With their hands no longer attached to my chest, I can more easily twist and twirl them in a beautiful slow fluid dance. When I get to the end of the dance I choreographed, I take their hands and kneel in front of them.
“All of you and Awenasa are my world, my home, and my dreams. I can’t wait to start building our life together as a family. These rings are a symbol of my promise to always protect this family with everything that I have and that you will always be able to count on me to give you more love than you could possibly need, a safe and secure home, and the best possible life to exceed your dreams. Through the good and bad times, we’ll get through anything together as one heart. I love you, and one day, when I’m not a poor college student, or maybe even then, I’m going to marry all of you.”
They kneel down and wrap their arms around me, releasing small cries and telling me how much they love me. It makes me tear up and my heart swells with so much happiness that I feel dizzy and light headed from it. They take turns peppering my lips and face with kisses, making me laugh. They pull back to look at me smiling and wiping tears from their eyes.
“If you look at your rings, the inside is engraved with the names of your family inside them.”
Their smiles widen and they pull their rings off to look at them. Sam looks up at me and kisses my lips.
“Does Awenasa know you included her in this?” I smile and shake my head. “She knew about my plans, but she didn’t know her name would also be on the rings. But she does now. She’s watching live from Sara’s hands.” We look over at the phone in Sara’s hands and they wave at her. “We’ll call her together after this.”
“Sweetie, this is amazing. How did you plan all of this with how busy you’ve been with finals, packing, and working on the dance channel?” I smile and shrug my shoulders. “I’ll always find time for all of you.”
They look at me smiling with so much love and affection that I really wish we weren’t surrounded by people right now so I could love on them.
“Who else knew about this? Did everyone know?” I smile and laugh a little as I look around. “No, not everyone. My parents and Sara knew because I needed their help with it. After Joey spilled the beans about Awenasa to Maddi’s mom, I told her as well.”
Madison looks up at her mom with a big smile. I look over and Mrs. Carter is bawling her eyes out like a baby. Sam’s mom is also emotional. I look at my girls and smile.
“Babies, go hug your moms.” Madison and Sam hop up and Shannon looks a little crestfallen. I caress her cheek and smile. “Aren’t you going to go hug your mom?”
She looks at me confused and I nod my head towards my mom. Shannon smiles really big and wraps her arms around me for a moment before getting up and my mom quickly wraps her arms around her and holds her tightly, rocking her from side to side.
While they’re being loved on by their families and showing off their rings, I stand up and take a couple steps over to Sara and take the phone from her, switching the camera view so Awenasa is looking at me. She smiles really big and wipes her eyes.
“That was beautiful, my love. Thank you for making me a part of this.”
“You’re welcome. It wasn’t corny?” She laughs and shakes her head. “No, it was beautiful. The rings falling down the ribbons was a nice touch. I loved the symbolism of your heartstrings delivering your symbol of love and protection to them.”
“Hey, Awenasa, did you see everything?” My girls are suddenly surrounding me and looking down at Awenasa. She smiles really big and laughs a little. “Yes, I did.”
“Hey, wait. Let me get my computer so we can do something really quick. Come on.” I start heading for the stairs and everyone looks at us confused. “Hey, uh, you can party now. We’ll join you soon. We just need to talk to Awenasa for a bit.”
My mom smiles and nods as if to tell me that she’ll entertain while I take care of what I need to. When we get to my bedroom, I quickly turn on my laptop and log into the video chat app.
“Babe, I’m going to disconnect the phone and resend the request from my computer.” Awenasa smiles. “Ok. See you soon.”
I quickly hang up Sara’s phone and press the button on my computer and she comes into view a moment later. I smile really big and she laughs a little.
“You are so excited, puppy. Its adorable.”
“Well, this isn’t over yet. You received my package I sent you, right?” Her eyes get big and her jaw drops a little. “Yes, why?”
“There’s one gift that’s wrapped in wolf print wrapping paper. Open it.”
She hops up and disappears for a moment, making us laugh a little. She comes back and her eyes have tears in them, but she hasn’t opened the box yet.
“Kayla, is this what I think it is? Are you really giving me this when I can’t be with you?” My heart aches and my smile fades, but I nod and clear my throat. “It’s long overdue and even though we are physically apart, our hearts and spirits are always united. You and I will dance in the summer to celebrate this moment.”
“I love you. Now I wish I had taken you up on the invitation and come up there.”
“I love you too, but you were right. I wouldn’t have been able to let you go home.” She laughs and wipes at her eyes. “Ok, I’m going to open it.” I smile and sit on the edge of my seat watching her. She carefully pulls the paper off and gasps when she sees the box. “This is from my uncle’s collection. You really did this?”
“Yes, open it, love.”
She takes a deep breath and lifts the lid and the look on her face is extraordinary. Its pure happiness. She looks up at me and tears streak down her cheeks.
“Kayla, this is…”
She looks back down at the rings and quickly pulls them out to look at them. There are two rings in the box. One is a matching band to w
hat I gave my girls with mine and their names engraved on the inside, and one is a part of matching rings for us. Our matching rings are sterling silver with a beautiful turquois stone in the center, and on the sides of the band are black obsidian inlays – one in the shape of a wolf, and one in the shape of a hawk. The rings turned out beautifully, and I can’t believe he was able to make them so quickly.
Between all of the rings and the Christmas presents I bought this year, I’ve nearly completely drained the several thousand dollars I used to have in my bank account, so I’m going to have to get busy on the dance channel to try to replenish it.
“Hey, love.” She looks up at me and I pull the other matching ring out of my pocket and show it to her. She smiles really big and laughs a little in an excited way. “Will you put yours on with me?” Awenasa quickly wipes at her eyes. “Yes, of course.”
She carefully takes her promise ring off that I had given to her when we were ten years old and she slips it on her other hand. I pull out my family ring that I haven’t put on yet, and we both slip our marriage ring on first and then our family ring on the same finger.
“Kayla, this is beautiful and absolutely perfect. When did you call Uncle Elsu and talk about making these?”
“The day after you told me you’re finally ready to truly be my wife.” Awenasa smiles and looks back down at the rings. “It’s exactly how I always thought it would look. Better, actually. You remembered our conversation about what I would want our rings to look like? I think that was five years ago, now.”
“Of course, love. I remember everything my babies tell me.” Awenasa smiles and looks around at my girls. Sam leans forward and says, “She does. She’s a little bit of a freak with how good her memory is with what we tell her.”
“Did Uncle Elsu make all of these?”
“Yes. I had called a jeweler close to campus about having the others done, just in case he couldn’t have them all done in time. They laughed when I told them how many letters had to be engraved on the inside. They weren’t up to the challenge, but Uncle Elsu had no problem doing it.”
