"No, that's okay, but thanks for thinking of me."
"It doesn't work like that, Jack."
"I guess I don't get just how it does work," he said apologetically. She was silent, trying to think how to say it. It was some thing she felt so deeply it was hard to explain with mere words. "I can't be sad, Jack.
She's with me, right here, right now. Here--" she touched her temple
"--in my head, and here--" she touched her breast "--in my heart, and here--" she touched her stomach "--in my gut. Emaa lives on inside me, and in every other person she ever touched. While we live, she lives.
"She's in every rock and tree in the Park. She's in the water we drink.
She's in the air we breathe.
"She'll be in every flake of snow that falls, all the winter long.
"She'll come up the river with the first salmon in the spring.
"She'll be on board every seiner that puts out to sea in the summer.
"She'll be on the foothills with the berry pickers in the fall.
"She'll always be here, Jack. I can't be sad she's gone, when she never left in the first place."
He could not speak, could only wrap his arms around her and hold on for as long as he could, for as long as she would let him.
After a while she pulled back and smiled at him, touching his cheek in a brief caress. "Go in now, okay? I want to sit out here alone for a while."
He went, the door to the cabin shutting softly behind him. Mutt stayed with Kate, her shoulder warm and solid against Kate's knee.
From the seat on the rock by the creek, they watched the moon make its dignified progress across the sky, trailing a veil of quicksilver, star-studded light behind it that turned the mountains into monuments of marble, and the long valley into a gleaming shell of mother-of-pearl. what's that you do with the leaky eye? says the Woman Who Keeps the Tides. It is time, you said so yourself.
I know, says Calm Water's Daughter, but it is so hard on the left behinds. I can't help feeling sorry for them.
Maybe if we, says The Woman Who Keeps the Tides.
No, says Calm Water's Daughter.
What's the point of being us if we can't help? says The Woman Who Keeps the Tides.
Look at the larger picture, says Calm Water's Daughter. Are we myth or marketing? Were we born or made?
Sometimes I just don't understand you, says The Woman Who Keeps the Tides.
Hello, says a new voice.
Oh, it's you, says The Woman Who Keeps the Tides. You're late.
I'm sorry. There seemed to be some problem with my credentials.
Well, really, says The Woman Who Keeps the Tides. They let the scaff and raff from the Mediterranean run wild all over the place. We'll just see about that.
How are you? says Calm Water's Daughter.
I feel a little, I don't know, dizzy?
Don't worry, says Calm Water's Daughter. That first step is the hardest one, Everybody Talks to Her.
Call me emaa, She says. That's all '
Dana Stabenow is the author of the Kate Shugak mystery series---A Cold Day for Murder, A Fatal Thaw, Dead in the Water, A Cold-Blooded Business, Play with Fire, and Blood Will Tell--each of which brings to life a different aspect of the Alaskan experience. She lives in Anchorage, Alaska.
Stabenow, Dana - Shugak 06 - Blood Will Tell Page 28
