CHAPTER 12: GOODBYES
The next day, a steady stream of visitors arrives at Grandmother’s house to pay their final respects. Most are from their tribe and the tribal council his grandmother served on for several years. But there are also white faces mingling with the brown. His grandmother had many friends from different backgrounds.
Sam sits on the hillside a hundred yards above the house, a place he often goes when he wants to be alone. A wild dogwood provides shade and underneath the tree is a flat boulder, perfect for sitting. Sam weaves together three strands of sweet grass––one for him, one for Allie, and one for his grandmother.
Our lives are woven together like strands of the same basket, he thinks.
But now the main thread is gone and he doesn’t know how to go on. All he knows is he has to be strong for Allie and figure out how to support them since they are practically orphans now with Grandmother gone.
Rocky stayed at the house the whole day before, but after the last visitor left, he got in his car and drove down the road toward the casino. Around the same time, Allie went home with Beth, so Sam takes his time wandering down the hill. With everybody gone, the house feels weirdly quiet. Sam’s mother sent flowers from Las Vegas that sit wilting on the kitchen table, their sweetness turning bitter as the day passes. Judy, his mom’s friend at the casino, probably called her, which means Judy has a phone number. Sam doesn’t have the energy to wonder why his mother hasn’t given Sam and Allie her number, too.
People leave all sorts of food. Even though he isn’t the least bit hungry, he fixes a plate. At the kitchen table, he stares at the plate for so long he suddenly realizes it is dark outside. He turns on lights and Allie comes home shortly afterwards.
“I thought you were staying at Beth’s tonight,” Sam says.
“I changed my mind. I wanted to check on you,” she says.
Sam leaves the plate of cold food on the table and they go outside to sit together on the front porch with Little Bear. The three of them look out into the dark woods. The crickets sing their night songs, and anonymous creatures scurry in the underbrush. He thinks of the bobcat drinking at the stream and of the coyote up on the mountain. What would the coyote think of Sam’s story now? While it was a momentous day and he feels forever changed, he also feels lost again.
The moon is full. Grandmother always loved full moons. She said the veil between the waking world and the Spirit World was thinner on the days and nights of a full moon. Does that mean she can see them sitting here?
“It’s strange without Grandmother here,” Allie says. She leans into Sam’s shoulder.
“You’re right, it is strange.” Sam puts his arm around her and glances at the empty rocking chair where Grandmother always sat. If wishing made things real, she would be with them now.
“Will you tell me a story?” Allie asks, her voice quivering.
Grandmother was always the storyteller in the family. She told folktales of the Cherokee people, the Cherokee creation story with the Water Beetle, the legend of the Corn Woman and the story of the First Fire. But mostly her stories were homemade.
Fireflies light up the trees like blinking Christmas lights. Fireflies were always Indian maidens in Grandmother’s stories. Maidens who transformed into fireflies and carried messages to the tribe. What message would they bring to him? Sadness catches in his throat, but he makes himself begin.
“There once was a very wise woman,” Sam says, deciding to create his own story. He pauses, wondering if the lump in his throat will let him speak. “A woman who lived a long, wonderful life and then returned to the Great Spirit. All her ancestors came to welcome her at the entrance of the other world.” Sam swallows the tears that want to come.
Allie sniffs and lays her head on his shoulder.
“It is very beautiful there,” he begins again. “There are virgin forests. And the plants and animals live in harmony with one another. The ancestors prepared a place for her, and she is happy to see them. They assure her that she did a good job with her time on earth. They tell her she is much loved...”
Emotion crowds out his words.
“I miss her so much,” Allie says. Her tears soak into his shirt.
“Me, too,” Sam says softly.
The full moon casts long shadows into the yard as Sam and Allie sit in silence. There are no sounds of Grandmother cleaning the kitchen or sweeping the front porch, as she did every evening. No one tells them to take their baths. No one makes them a cup of chamomile tea before bed to help them sleep. At that moment, even with Allie sitting next to him, Sam never felt so alone in his life.
Later that night Sam tucks Allie into his grandmother’s bed and goes into his room. He closes the door, puts on his pajamas and then remembers the stone in his dresser drawer where he put it two evenings before. He pulls it out and studies once more the stone’s crusty surface and the smooth, deep red center. Then he rewraps it in one of his grandmother’s handkerchiefs and returns it to the dresser drawer.
What good are omens and stupid rocks? he wonders.
He should have been at home instead of on that mountain, he tells himself again. Maybe, then, Grandmother would have made it to the hospital sooner, and the doctors could have done something. Why did the mountain call him right when he was needed the most?
Now the task of taking care of Allie has fallen to Sam. Even though Rocky sleeps on a cot in the laundry room, he is never home. Sam pulls one of his old gym socks from his dresser drawer and empties the roll of dollar bills he’s saved onto his bed. He counts out thirty-four dollars, barely enough to buy groceries for a week. He slips back into his grandmother’s room and to the basket she keeps hidden in the back of her closet. It contains her spare change collected over the years. After carrying the basket to his bedroom, he pours the coins on his bed, separating the quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies into piles. He counts out sixty-two dollars and adds that to his thirty-four, giving him almost a hundred dollars. That won’t last long.
Sam puts all the money, including his savings, back into his grandmother’s closet, hiding it where she did before. He has to come up with more ways to make cash if they are going to survive. The garden is bursting with vegetables ready for harvest. Raven’s market will probably take some to sell, but a portion of the food they need to eat themselves.
Sam thinks again of the stone and wonders briefly who to take it to, to see if it has any worth. He returns to his room. In the quiet, Grandmother’s house creaks, as it does every evening, as though taking a deep breath before settling into sleep. The hawk feather in his cap sits on the dresser. Sam runs his finger along its length before getting into bed. Is it a coincidence his life changed dramatically the day he met the red-tailed hawk?
Sam turns out the light and wishes he could turn off his thoughts as easily.
How can someone be here one minute and gone the next? Sam wonders.
“I miss you, Grandmother,” he whispers into the darkness. He waits for her reply but hears only silence.
Sam wakes the next morning and smells fresh coffee brewing. He runs into the dark kitchen expecting to see his grandmother. It takes a second for it to register that she isn’t there. The smell of coffee evaporates from his imagination, replaced with the potent odor of stale cigarettes coming from the back porch where Rocky smokes. Rocky’s rhythmic snoring comes from the laundry room attached to the back of the house.
In the center of the dark, empty kitchen Sam questions what to do next. Without his grandmother, the room feels devoid of not only light, but air. Earlier, the smell of coffee was so strong it fooled Sam into believing his grandmother was still alive. He vows again to keep the secret of what he experienced on the mountain that day. People who don’t understand the Spirit World will only think him crazy.
Sam turns on the light and makes scrambled eggs and toast for himself and Allie. Luckily, his grandmother taught him how to cook several things: oatmeal, grilled cheese sandwiches, macaroni & cheese, baked apples and
various egg dishes. Scrambled eggs are his specialty. He breaks the eggs in a bowl and reminds himself to feed the chickens after breakfast and retrieve more eggs from the chicken coop. He can maybe sell eggs at Raven’s store, too. Already, his mind is busy coming up with ways to make money.
Allie staggers sleepily into the kitchen when she smells the food. She yawns and wipes her eyes before looking around the kitchen for their grandmother. “It’s weird, her not being here,” Allie says, plopping down at the kitchen table. “Do you think she can see us?”
“I don’t know,” Sam says. “But I hope so.” He stands straighter with the thought of Grandmother watching from the Spirit World. He hopes she is proud of him for making breakfast and the other things he has yet to do.
After he finishes making eggs, Sam places a jar of Grandmother’s honey on the table and pours Allie a glass of orange juice.
“Can I go to Beth’s for the day?” she asks. “Her mom wants to take us to town for shopping and ice cream.”
“Sure,” Sam says. “It won’t do you any good to mope around here.”
“But what about you?” she asks.
“I’m fine,” Sam says. “I have stuff I need to do.” He has no intention of telling Allie they have less than a hundred dollars to live on and can’t count on Rocky for anything. Sam is now officially the breadwinner in the family.
“This is hard, Sam,” Allie says, as tears gather in her eyes. “I’m still really sad. I don’t even want to go to Beth’s. But I don’t know what else to do.”
“I’m really sad, too,” Sam says. “But we’ll get through it, and I think you should go to Beth’s and try to have fun. Grandmother would want us to go on with life.”
Allie finishes her breakfast and promises to come home for dinner.
“We’ll probably have leftovers again,” Sam says. The counter and refrigerator are full of casseroles, cakes and pies people brought after the funeral. Maybe he can freeze them for future meals since their hundred dollars won’t last long. Sam finds himself wishing the mourners had brought cash instead. He doubts they realize how absent Rocky is and how scarce their money.
“Why do people bring food to funerals?” Allie asks, as if she’s read his mind.
“I guess they want to help out, and don’t know what else to do,” he says.
Allie nods thoughtfully. Is it his imagination or has she grown up overnight?
After breakfast, Sam cleans up the kitchen and Allie goes to her room to get dressed. She returns wearing mismatched clothes from the thrift store. Seconds later, Beth’s mother honks the car horn.
“Do you think we’ll always be sad?” Allie asks.
Sam has no answer. “At least we can be happy she’s with the ancestors in such a perfect place,” he says, his voice cracking.
Allie kisses Sam on the cheek and lets the screen door slam at her heels.
In the imperfect world Grandmother left behind, Rocky’s snoring increases in volume, and Sam goes into his room and closes the door to shut out the noise. What he will never admit to Rocky is his relief at having somebody in the house. Even if that somebody smells like beer and snores like a freight train.
In his room, Sam pulls the stone from the dresser drawer. He holds it to the light from the window.
What kind of rock are you? he asks the stone. Are you worth anything?
He tosses it into the air twice before pushing it deep in the pocket of his jeans. Then he throws on a large baseball jersey that was Rocky’s when he was in high school and places the cap with the red hawk feather on his head.
His grandmother’s straw hat hangs by the front door and catches his eye as he is about to leave. The empty feeling in the pit of his stomach returns. Loneliness visits him so deeply it makes him feel hungry, even though he just ate. Sam studies the hat’s feathers. Do the birds miss her as much as he does? He notices a feather he hasn’t seen before stuck securely in the weaving in the back. It is a red hawk feather like his. Has his grandmother dealt with the same red hawk?
Sam returns her hat to its peg. He doesn’t have time for mysteries right now. He has to figure out how to keep food on the table. The rock feels heavy in his pocket. The only way to find out its worth is to go into town. With Little Bear by his side, Sam walks up the gravel and dirt road toward Old John and Becca’s place. His grandmother always rode with them if she needed to go into town, and they offered to give Sam rides whenever he needs them, too.
A game show gets louder with each step. Becca’s hearing loss is infamous throughout Rachel’s Pass because of the mega-volume she listens to her television. The sound reminds Sam of the casino, where he always gets a headache. Living with his grandmother has made him appreciate silence.
When Sam arrives, Old John is outside with his head under the hood of his truck. His neck is nearly the same shade as Sam’s old baseball glove and holds deep creases. Old John calls his old truck Abigail, and swears she is the only female he loves besides Becca. This usually gets a laugh from everyone except his wife.
“Can I get a ride downtown?” Sam asks, raising his voice to be heard over the television.
Old John looks up from under the rusty hood. He wipes off a greasy spark plug and then puts it back in its place. “Happy to help out,” Old John says. “Just let me finish up with Abigail.” He appears oblivious to the noise coming from his house.
Old John adds a quart of oil to the engine and wipes the oil cap with a rag. Then he slams the hood and motions for Sam to climb into the passenger side. Head bowed, he turns the key in the ignition, pumping the gas pedal until Sam thinks Old John’s foot might crash through the floorboard. The old engine sputters and gasps.
“Come on, Old Girl, you can do it,” Old John says to his truck, smiling when the engine finally catches. He then pats the dashboard, as if to give Abigail praise.
Sam rests his arm on the window as Old John pushes the gas pedal several more times. Dark smoke billows out the tail pipe, surrounding Little Bear with enough pollution to make him sneeze. Sam tells him to stay, and Little Bear looks sad. He follows the truck to the end of the gravel driveway before turning back to go home. The truck rattles and squeaks its way down the winding road toward Rachel’s Pass.
“You’re quieter than usual,” Old John says.
“I've got things on my mind, I guess,” Sam says. He remembers the last time he rode to town in Old John’s truck. The trip to the hospital now feels unreal. He flashes on the bear dream. At that moment, the only thing bigger than the bear is his grief. However, his worries about money crowd out the thoughts of the dream. He isn’t about to share his concerns with Old John. It is Sam’s problem, not his.
They travel to town in silence, as Sam relives the events leading up to Grandmother’s death. He keeps expecting to see his grandmother walking along the road toward home, the hospital having made some horrible mistake. She didn’t die at all but fell into one of her deep silences the hospital people failed to recognize.
Minutes later the truck clanks to a stop in front of the small library at the edge of town. Left in neutral, Abigail’s rattling intensifies and sounds like the engine might fall out and crash to the pavement at any moment. Sam gets out of the truck and it takes a couple of slams before the door stays shut.
Old John tells Sam to come by the store when he finishes his business and he will give Sam a ride home. Sam thanks him. If Old John goes to the store he will play poker most of the morning giving Sam plenty of time to research his fancy rock.
CHAPTER 13: CARD GAMES
Sam enters the small library and waves to Mrs. Peabody, the librarian. Her husband runs the gift shop at the Native American Museum, and commissioned Grandmother’s baskets. He wonders briefly if there are any unfinished baskets in Grandmother’s workshop that Sam can complete for a commission. He needs to think about how to make money. But first he wants to check out the stone.
Over the years, Sam has often visited this library with Grandmother and Allie. He has read nearl
y every book in the children’s section, which isn’t that big, and anything else he could find related to real life adventures and the Cherokee people.
“I’m so sorry about your grandmother, Sam. We all loved her very much,” Mrs. Peabody whispers.
He thanks her and then ducks into a row of science and geography books. The things people say after someone dies don’t make sense. Being sorry doesn’t help, nor does saying she’s in a better place. While both may be true, nobody can imagine what losing his grandmother is like for him, so he wishes they would just not say anything.
Sam thumbs through a book on gemstones. He takes the stone out of his pocket to compare it with the polished and shiny examples in the book. It doesn’t look anything like the other stones. He studies it closely again. If not for the opening in the center, he would have thought it any ordinary rock and might have thrown it away that day at the stream. What makes it unusual is the red and purple center. The closest thing it resembles from the books is a ruby. Rubies are rare, especially ones this big, and are found in only a few places in the world. For the first time in days, Sam feels hopeful.
After leaving the library, Sam walks down the main street toward Raven’s store wondering what to do next. If the stone is a ruby, how will he know? As he walks, Sam stares at the ground, as if the answers he seeks are written on the sidewalk.
“Tell me what to do, Grandmother,” he says. If there is an opening in the Spirit World, she will answer. He waits. The air is unmoving, the street quiet. Nothing. Downtown is mostly deserted. Tourists go to the casino now instead of into town. However a few shops hang on, doing a meager business.
To get from one end of downtown to the other takes all of five minutes. Sam passes the small bank, and a smaller post office, Joe Thunder’s insurance office, and a florist shop on the corner called Lily’s House of Flowers. Next door to Lily’s, a jewelry store has recently opened, advertising turquoise jewelry. On the chance they know about rubies, he goes inside.
Circle of the Ancestors Page 5
