“No, not really. That was my idea. But her mother doesn’t want her to date at all.” Sam slumped back in the chair. “I don’t get that family.”
“Every family’s different. It takes all kinds. Some people might think we’re not such good parents for letting you and Mina spend time together against her mother’s wishes. At first, I didn’t like the idea of it, knowing I’d probably be very upset if another parent did that to Dad and me. But we trust you and Mina. She’s a good girl.” Taking another sip, Lilith set her cup down and dipped her tea bag a couple of more times before setting it on a paper napkin next to her cup. “Did you mention to Mina about Principal Brown calling?”
“Yup.”
“Yup?” She imitated his casual pronunciation. “And?”
“And she thinks I should move ahead.”
“Are you going to?”
Sam hung his head. “I don’t know what to do. I could go ahead, but if I do, I’ll be leaving Mina behind.”
“Leaving her behind? What’re you talking about? You’ll be in school together another year.”
“I know, but somehow it won’t be the same.” He pulled the can back toward him to study the printing on the side. “I never told you and Dad, but when we first got here, I hated it as much as Ori. Mina changed that. She got me to read,” he said, without looking up. “After that, everything got better for me. I owe her a lot.”
His mother nodded. “That explains some things. We were worried when they put you back, and we knew you were struggling, but it seemed to work out. I guess we should’ve realized. Probably the same way she helped Winona with algebra, right?” Lilith smiled at the memory. “I didn’t think your sister was ever going to get it. But I have to give it to Mina, she didn’t give up. Remember, she used candy as a reward?” She grinned. “Boy, she’s got your sister pegged. Whatever, it worked. She passed.” Lilith shook her head. “Is that why you’re going out with her, because you owe her?”
His head snapped up. “What? No. Hell no.”
“Hmm. I didn’t think so. Just checking.” Taking another sip, Lilith studied him from behind her cup. “How do you feel about Mina?”
Good question. How did he feel? Sam couldn’t believe he was having this conversation with his mother, but he couldn’t imagine having it with anyone else. “When we were younger and other kids picked on her, I’d get mad, more at her than them, because she never fought back. I know now, it’s not in her to be mean, which is one of the things I really like about her. I, on the other hand, have no such problem.” Since he was confessing, he might as well tell it all. “Remember when I broke Robbie Fields’ nose playing soccer?”
Lilith nodded.
“I did it on purpose. Also Mike Freeman’s hand and Earl Easton’s ah, other parts.”
“Why?”
“I found out they grabbed Mina in the hall.”
She set her cup down. “So, you feel protective of her?”
“Yes. No. It’s more than that. Things feel right when I’m with her, and when I’m not, it’s like I’m waiting for the next time. She’s always so serious, but I think she’s the kindest person I’ve ever met.” Sam leaned his head against the back of the chair, closing his eyes. “We’re so different in so many ways, but it’s like we fit. I love the way she smells. I love the way she feels.” He smiled, keeping his eyes closed. “I love the way she chews her pencil when she’s thinking. I love…” he stopped. Lifting his head, Sam looked at his mother. “I love her,” he said, starting to rise.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m gonna tell her.”
“Sit back down a second.” Lilith put a hand on his arm. “There’ll be plenty of time to talk to her in the morning. They’re all asleep in there right now.”
Sam dropped back into the chair, unable to wipe the grin off his face.
Rising, Lilith put her cup in the sink. “Sam.” She leaned against the counter. “You’re both young. You have plenty of time.”
“I know. But I’m going to tell her.”
“That’s fine. What I’m talking about is finishing school first and then making plans. We haven’t talked about this yet, but what do you think about college?”
“Mina keeps mentioning it, but she’s always talked about it,” Sam said, remembering how she used to say she didn’t want a boyfriend because she was going to college. “She thinks we’ll go, but I’m not sure what I want to do yet.”
“Well, like I said, you have plenty of time to think about it. My only advice is to make sure whatever you do, you do it because it’s what you want. You won’t be able to make someone else happy if you’re not happy.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“I know you do.” She straightened up from the counter. “I guess I’ll go to bed.” Lilith came to stand behind his chair. Wrapping her arms around him, she leaned down and kissed him on the top of the head, only possible these days when Sam sat in a chair. “I love you, honey. Don’t stay up too late.” Giving his shoulder a final squeeze, she headed down the hall.
Mina snuggled deeper into the blankets. What a lovely dream. Sam was kissing her. Nice.
“Mina?”
Her eyes popped open. Startled, she realized someone was leaning over her. Sam. “What’s wrong?” Mina propped herself up on an elbow. “What time is it?” She couldn’t quite make out his features in the dim light.
“Shh.” He put a finger to her lips. “It’s still the middle of the night. I’m not supposed to be in here.”
“What?” she mouthed, behind his finger.
Leaning forward, he kissed her. Her arms wrapped around his neck, and they both sank back toward the pillow, not breaking the kiss. “I love you,” he whispered against her lips.
Mina froze. “What?” She forgot to whisper.
“He says he loves you,” someone grumbled from the bunk above. “Tell him you love him too, so we can all get some sleep,” Winona mumbled into the pillow. “It’s about time you two figured it out.” With a yawn, she rolled over. “Night, Sam.”
Mina’s eyes had become accustomed to the weak light, and she could see Sam leaning out from under the bottom bunk.
“Night, Nona,” he said, a grin obvious on his face. “Well?” His nose was now about an inch from hers.
“I love you too,” she said in a whisper. He kissed her twice more in rapid succession before slipping out the door. Mina waited to hear the bedroom door across the hall close. Instead, she thought she heard the outside door open and close. That couldn’t be. A few minutes later, she heard the celebratory whoop Sam and his brothers always did.
“Idiot,” Winona grumbled.
In her room, Lilith smiled and shook her head, rolling onto her side to snuggle close to her husband.
June 1994
“Samuel Two Bears Miller.”
Everyone around Mina jumped up. Mr. Miller clapped his large hands, making a loud crack each time he brought them together. Mrs. Miller was next to him, with Winona next to her, both of them clapping in small rapid taps, giving each other a squeeze on the arm. Emma, Sarah, and Joe stood on the other side of Mina. Sarah tried to imitate the now famous Miller whoop Joe called to his brother between cupped hands. Clapping, Mina rose too, slower than the Millers, never as outgoing as any one of them. Emma leaned toward her and said something. Mina gave her a questioning look, not able to hear above the noise. Emma pressed her lips to Mina’s ear. “I miss Ori. Nobody does the whoop like him.”
“I know, Em; we all do.” Mina gave her sister’s thin shoulders a squeeze.
Sam walked across the stage in his royal blue cap and gown toward Mr. Brown, his expression serious. As much as her heart was breaking, she was so proud of him. He’d worked hard in this last year. Mina’s eyes watered and she blinked. No crying tonight; you’ve already cried oceans. Shaking the principal’s hand, Sam received his diploma and turned to walk back across the stage, acknowledging his family with the peace sign and a big grin. His eyes touched hers for a mom
ent, and he mouthed love you, before turning to climb the risers and sit back down.
Mina sat down in a daze, fanning herself with the program. She could hardly believe it. Sam had just officially graduated. Where had the year gone? At this moment, she didn’t know how, but it had gone too fast. Bits and pieces floated back, as the principal continued to call names.
In the fall, Sam played his last season of soccer, with Mina attending every game she could. The Senior Prom was their first school dance, and both realized they’d rather have popcorn and watch a movie, snuggled up on the couch in the Miller living room. Lots of campfires in the back yard, complete with s’mores and Tom Evans these days, if Winona was involved. Sam saved enough to buy a used pickup and was determined Mina was going to get her license. She’d protested, saying she didn’t need to get her license and couldn’t afford a car right now, but he persisted. Sam even made the appointment and took her for her driver’s test. She took the test using the truck, and though she had to do the driving test twice, she finally passed.
Mina’d been looking forward to her first holiday season with Sam, but instead it ended up being a dark time for the Miller household and for the Mason girls as well. A few nights before Christmas, Mina had sat at the table helping Emma make a collage for social studies. Their parents retired shortly after dinner as was their custom in the early dark of winter.
“I cut three pictures out of this one, but I can’t find any more that fit.”
“Give me that if you’re done.” Mina lifted the fire plate and dropped the magazine into the wood stove.
“What are you doing?”
“Better I burn it than she finds it cut up.” She’ll never miss it. “Okay, hold on.”
This time, Mina crept further down the hall, using her foot as a guide instead of turning on the old flashlight she held. If Ma sees the light, she’ll come out. She bent to tug more magazines from the middle of a stack when something touched the top of her hand, almost like a tickle. She gasped, shook her hand and fell back against the wall. What the heck? She clicked on the flashlight. One of the giant spiders she was always trying to sweep out the corners of the ceilings rested on top of an old Time magazine. “Gross.” Mina dropped a newspaper on it and pressed down, giving a shiver when it squished.
Em stuck her head around the doorway. “What’s going on?” Her whisper was loud.
“Shh. Nothing.” Mina grabbed three more magazines off the next pile and met Emma in the doorway. “Okay, here’s some more. Hurry up and look through—”
The phone rang. She snatched the receiver up. Who could be calling? “Hello?”
“Mina?”
There was a lot of noise on the other end of the line. “Yes.” She put a hand over her other ear to hear better. Is somebody crying?
“Mina, it’s Sam.”
Sam? “Hi. What’s going on? Who’s crying?”
He took a deep breath. Mina heard the gust of air over the phone line as he released it. “Ina and Winona.”
“What’s going on?”
“We just got a call from the tribal police.” There was a catch in his voice, and he cleared his throat before continuing. “Ori was in a head on collision with a drunk driver on the rez this afternoon.”
“What? Is he hurt bad?”
“Ahh, he…” Sam stopped.
A loud sniff echoed over the phone line as Mina waited. “Sam?”
“He’s dead, Mina. The bastard killed my brother. It’s not fair.” His voice broke and the last words were little more than a whisper. “He was only nineteen.”
The Millers made the decision to bury Ori in South Dakota. When Lilith asked them to go to West Lebanon to pick up some things for the trip, Sam stopped at the far end of the Walmart parking lot. Drawing Mina into his arms, he buried his face in her neck, as if she was a life preserver and, at that moment, maybe she was. She clasped him as tightly as she could, afraid he might come apart from the sobs that wracked his body.
The time between when the Miller family left and when they returned the day after New Year’s was one of the longest of Mina’s young life. Several times, she heard Emma weeping in her bed in the middle of the night and tried to console her, to no avail. All she could do was hold Em until she fell into an exhausted sleep. The whole time, George and Gertrude Mason seemed oblivious to all the anguish swirling around their children and went on as usual.
The girls each got a tangerine in their stocking on Christmas morning and one present. For Emma, it was a new nightgown Ma made, and for Mina, a black sweater set. Mina knew it wasn’t new, but it didn’t matter. She wanted to believe Ma was trying to make amends. It was the first piece of clothing Mina received from her mother since she stopped making Mina’s dresses.
Mina had used her babysitting money and did all her gift shopping before Thanksgiving, too excited to wait. Christmas was always her favorite holiday. The lights, the smell of evergreen, the candlelight service on Christmas Eve. Sam told her she was nuts, it was too early, but she did it anyway. For her father, new insulated underwear, for Ma, a new bird bath for her flower garden, and for Emma, the first two books in a series she wanted to read and a cute pink hat and mittens set. She figured Ma wouldn’t mind that; she didn’t knit. She even bought Sam’s family gifts, nothing fancy, trinkets really, and had tucked them under the Miller tree the day before they got the call about Ori. Mina never asked what happened to them, and the first time she visited after they came back, the tree, decorations and all traces of Christmas were gone.
Spring brought flowers, warmth, and the weekly Miller family cookouts. Mina knew the Millers were healing the day she listened to Joe tell a funny story about some trouble he and Ori got into, and everyone laughed instead of falling silent. Still laughing, Sam admitted he was the one who got them in trouble because they wouldn’t take him along. Then Winona laughed too, reminding Sam of how he ended up grounded for ratting them out. And as if by magic, like any other cookout, the conversation went on to something else.
But spring brought another revelation as well, one which devastated Mina.
“I’m not going to college,” Sam told her.
“But you’d do great.”
“No, you’ll do great. I want to be a builder, and the Army will train me.”
“The Army? What about us?” Mina blurted out, unable to hold back.
“What about us?” Sam hugged her. “We love each other. You can do your college thing, and by the time you graduate, my hitch will be over, and we’ll take it from there.”
He was so confident in his plan. Well, his plan begins tomorrow, when he leaves for basic training in Georgia.
Mina wished she could have been as confident, or that they at least had a little more time.
“Ladies and Gentleman—the Northam High School Class of 1994,” Mr. Brown announced into the microphone, bringing Mina back to the present. She rose and added her hands to the applause of the audience as the marshal led the seniors out.
“C’mon, let’s go…it’s hot as hell in here,” Mr. Miller said to his wife in a low voice, loosening his tie. “I bet it’s twenty degrees cooler outside.”
He wasn’t far off, Mina thought, stepping through the gym door to the parking lot a few minutes later. She paused, realizing she’d lost Emma and the Millers as people jostled her on both sides to escape the oppressive heat in the poorly ventilated gym.
“Mina.”
Stretching on tip toe over a sea of heads, she saw Winona waving a program, already in the receiving line. Working her way through the crowd, Mina got in line, waiting her turn to start. Preferring to avoid it, she nonetheless stepped forward. It led to Sam. Unable to see that far down the line, Mina shook the hand of each senior, though she didn’t know most of them well, murmuring the obligatory “Congratulations,” without looking at any one of them. Wondering if she was ever going to make it to Sam, she stuck her hand out to the next person in line.
“I don’t think so,” Mina heard before being lifte
d off her feet, as Sam caught her up behind the knees. She had to wrap her arms around his neck to keep from sliding down the slippery material of his robe. “That’s my girl,” he said in a low voice, only having to lean in a couple of inches to meet her lips.
For once, Mina clung to him, not caring who saw them. She had a few more hours with him to last her…who knows how long? She wasn’t going to miss a second of it, and whether he’d admit it or not, Mina could tell he felt it too. Sam’s grip on her tightened as he deepened the kiss.
“Jesus, Miller, get a room,” someone muttered, and still she couldn’t pull away, nor did she want to. Finally dragging her lips from his, Mina tucked her face in the crook of his neck, inhaling the smell that was so uniquely Sam. “I love you,” she whispered, as tears began to well in her eyes again.
“I love you too, baby,” he whispered, his large hand splayed along her rib cage. “You want to get out of here?” At her nod, Sam set her down and grabbed her hand, pulling her along behind him.
“What about the receiving line?” Mina tried to blink away the threatening tears.
“I’ve received everybody I need to, thank you very much.” He stopped for a moment to look around. At well over six feet, Sam towered over a lot of the people milling around them, some patting him on the back. He nodded politely and smiled as he continued his search. “Ina,” he called.
In a couple of minutes, they stood next to Lilith’s car. She was about to get in the passenger’s side. Mr. Miller sat behind the wheel, Sarah and Emma in the back seat.
“We’re gonna take off.”
“Project Graduation?” his mother asked.
“I don’t think so,” Sam said in a dry tone, shaking his head. “I’m leaving tomorrow; getting a door prize for not drinking, since I don’t do it anyway, is not much of a draw. Besides, I already won.” He smiled and lifted their entwined hands, as if he was the winner of a prize fight.
“Naw, seriously…we’re just going to spend some time together. Okay?” Sam stripped off the robe, dress shirt, and tie, leaving his usual t-shirt. “Will you take this stuff home for me?” He rolled the clothes into a ball.
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