Steal the North: A Novel (32 page)

“Tell her she can call me, no matter how late,” Kate says.

They leave. I take a few moments to regroup. Kate wasn’t always such a bully, and she doesn’t hold a candle to her dad. I think Kate not only armored but armed herself too heavily when she left here on that bus for California. Maybe she had to. If only Beth had inherited some of Kate’s courage and kick, and Kate some of her sister’s gentleness. I go in to Emmy. I make her sit up and drink a swallow of water. “Your aunt would want you to eat.”

“She’s not here. She left me. She left us. I wish Mom had died instead.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Maybe.”

I grab the desk chair and place it close to the bed. I sit down in case she wants to talk some more. I can’t look at the crib.

“Reuben knows how to be hungry,” she says. “He said hunger is part of being Indian. I miss him.” She still seems about seven. “But not as much as you miss Aunt Beth.”

“I’ll be okay.”

“You
won’t
be okay after I leave. You’ll be all alone.”

“I’ll be okay if I know
you
are.”

That’s not what she wanted to hear. “I want to go to sleep.”

I grab a beer from the fridge and head out front to drink it on the steps. I hear Reuben’s nieces and nephews in the trailer next door. I see Teresa pass by the kitchen window. She doesn’t see me because I turned off the porch light. Beth has been in the ground—unbelievable—for more than twenty-four hours. It seems longer. It seems shorter.
Beth.
I put my head down.
My journey without you has begun. Rest, my darling.

Kate and Spencer arrive early. I have to admit that Emmy wouldn’t eat last night. All morning she’s been curled up under the covers, even her head. Spencer tries tempting Emmy with her favorite flavor of Ben & Jerry’s. By noon we are all three exasperated. Emmy may be shy, but she’s also stubborn. Kate goes in alone to be the heavy. At this point, whatever it takes to get Emmy to eat. It’s been more than twenty-four hours.

“Enough, Emmy,” we hear. “You have to get up. If you don’t eat, you’re going to get sick. We have to pack. We’re leaving in the morning. I know you’re hurting terribly, honey. Things will be better in California. Come on now and get up.”

Spencer and I pace in the living room. Suddenly we hear movements and thuds. Would Kate actually drag Emmy out of bed?

“Spencer! Matt!” Kate calls. We both dash in there. Emmy sits in the corner, by the crib. On the bed and around the floor beside it are the paper birds from the mobile. Was Emmy sleeping with them? She wears the dress Beth made for her. She must’ve changed during the night, but she forgot to button the front. Her bra shows. Kate tries to reach and button the dress, but Emmy pushes her mom’s hands away. Emmy looks up but makes no eye contact with anyone. She coughs. Her throat sounds parched. Then she gags. Spencer passes Kate the water glass so she can hand it to Emmy, but Emmy pushes it away abruptly, and it spills. “Damn it, Emmy,” Kate says. “I’m your mother. We
have
to leave here.” She sounds panicked.

This is the bedroom in which Kate slept off her hangovers and the bruises from truckers. No wonder she wants to leave. I always thought, back then, I was providing Kate a place of reprieve, and in some ways I guess I still was.

Emmy covers her ears and begins to rock back and forth.

“Give me a minute alone with Emmy,” I say. “Shut the door.” I kneel down beside her. “Do you want me to go get Reuben?” She makes eye contact with me. “Will you drink if I get him?” She nods. I gather up the paper birds and put them, for some reason, in the crib. Then I go into the living room. “Kate, I want you and Spencer to leave. And I don’t just mean leave this house. I think you guys should leave Moses Lake.”

“Without Emmy?” Kate asks. “No way. And where did she get that awful dress? Has she been wearing it all summer?”

“No, Kate, just for the healing. Beth made them matching dresses.”

Spencer interrupts. “What were you saying about our leaving?”

I take a deep breath. “I think you should leave Emmy with me for one week. I’ll get her on a plane back to California. She needs more time here.”

“You mean with Reuben?”

“Yes, Kate,
with
Reuben. Is that so bad? She needs a proper good-bye. She needs to be around Beth’s garden and her things for a little while longer.”

“No,” Kate says. “The sooner she gets back to California, the better.”

“She can stay,” Spencer says.

“No,” Kate insists. “She is coming with us right now. Go get her, Spencer.”

“Hell, no. I’m not dragging our daughter—”

“
Our
daughter?”

“You ever question that again,” Spencer says, “and we’re over.” He means it.

“You owe me one, Kate,” I say. “I’m not one for calling in favors. But you owe me.”

Kate takes a minute.

“You saved my life, Matt. I’ve never forgotten. You took care of Emmy and me when nobody else would—not Dad or Jamie.” She breaks and starts to cry. “I love you like a brother. But Emmy is
my
baby.” She puts her hands on her belly. I remember how swollen it was. How miraculous Beth found it, and it absolutely was. “She’s coming with me.”

“I swear on your sister’s grave—” I hate the sound of that. “I’ll have Emmy on an airplane in one week. Reuben will make her go back. He already told her to leave and that he didn’t need her. He did what
you
asked. She has to hear him say that was a lie.”

“He’ll ask her to stay.” She looks desperate. She’s met her match in Reuben, as far as sway with Emmy.

“He never did,” I remind her. “He loves her enough to let her go. That’s been proven. I beg you. Let me do this for Beth. Emmy’s the only baby she and I ever held between us.”

Kate’s shoulders slump.

I pull out my last card, one I will never use again. “You didn’t see what Emmy did that night, Kate. Her aunt smashing jars, gown bloody, hair all—”

Kate puts her hand up. “Stop.” She puts both hands over her face.

“Nor did you see her in that hospital room, all the tubes and gauze. Emmy
did
. She can’t leave here with those images still so fresh in her head.”

“Okay,” Kate murmurs. “Okay. She can stay for another week.”

“You guys need to clear out of here right now. Reuben won’t come back into town unless you’re gone. Emmy won’t drink until she sees Reuben.”

Kate uncovers her face. For the first time I see her age, the wear. Life hasn’t been any easier for Kate than it was for Beth.

“Our plane tickets aren’t until tomorrow,” she tries.

“We can stay in Spokane tonight,” Spencer says. He told me over beers that it’s been challenging from day one with Kate. “Matt, thanks.” He shakes my hand. “There’s no one in the world we trust more with Emmy than you. I’m really sorry about your wife. She sounded like a wonderful woman. The offer stands for work in California. Let’s go, Kate.”

Kate hugs me for a long time. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it back in time.” She kisses me on the mouth. Her breath is warm. “Take care of my little girl,” she whispers. “Just like you used to. Just like you
always
took care of my little sister.” She lets go of me and looks around the place. She closes her eyes. She’s either praying or speaking to Beth. Her lips move.

Spencer puts his arm around her shoulder. If he can still be tender after this week, he’s in it for the long haul. “Let’s go, baby,” Spencer says to Kate, nodding once more at me.

Teresa isn’t home, so I go to the hospital where she works. I inquire at the front desk, then wait in the lobby. It’s not in my nature to interrupt a person at her place of employment, but I don’t know what else to do. “Matt?” Teresa looks surprised when she walks into the lobby.

“Hello, Teresa. I’m really sorry to bother you.”

“What’s the matter?” She takes off her nursing cap and points to a more private corner.

“Do you know where I can find Reuben?”

“I don’t.” She looks away.

“Please, Teresa. Emmy’s messed up. She won’t eat or drink.”

“I’m sure he’s not doing any better.”

“He’s stronger than she is.”

“That’s what people think,” she says. “I happen to know otherwise.”

“I’m going to the reservation to look for him.”

“Don’t go up there.”

“I am.”

She stares at me so hard I get even more uncomfortable. “Wait here,” she says. “Let me make a phone call.” She leaves. I’ll be happy not to see the inside of a hospital for a while. How does Teresa do it every day? To feed her kids, I guess. Why doesn’t she have a steady man? I’ve seen men of all colors hanging around her trailer over the years, but never for long. A man brought her a washer not that long ago. I’ve seen Indian men bring her fish. It’s none of my business. She comes back with a slip of paper. “If my brother knew Emmy was suffering and I didn’t help.”

She hands me the paper. I almost hug her to show my appreciation, but her breasts are too large. Not that I’ve ever noticed, or I’ve always tried not to.

“He’s never loved anyone like he loves that girl,” she says. “It could ruin him.”

She’s absolutely right. It could. I’m overwhelmed for a minute. “I’ll do what I can to help Reuben too,” I say. She looks doubtful and puts her cap back on. “I promise you, Teresa.”

“Try those two places first.” She pulls a pair of plastic gloves from her pocket and puts them on. “There’s no guarantee.”

I head north, passing the lakes where Beth and I used to fish together when we were young. I pass Steamboat Rock. If I could go back to that last picnic there with Beth, I wouldn’t leave her alone on that blanket. Goddamn it. I pass the park where the healing ceremony took place. Screw Brother Mathias. That bastard was so in love with my wife from the very beginning. He showed up at the hospital in Spokane. I didn’t let him see Beth. What was it he said about her in the small waiting room when I thought I smelled alcohol on his breath? That she was “as the apple tree among the trees of wood
.”
I more or less told him to fuck off. He said that had I come to him even once and asked him to counsel Beth to see a doctor, he would have. He said he left the South to get away from rituals like faith healings. He found them—what was the word?
Carnivalesque
. Would Beth have listened to him if he’d told her to see a doctor? My jealous pride. I let him perform the funeral service—out of guilt but also because he risked his ministry, which he’s losing, for Beth. I don’t blame Mathias for Beth’s death. She was
my
responsibility. I take full blame. I couldn’t save my wife, but I can help Emmy. And Reuben. I make it to Coulee Dam, and then I’m on the reservation.

I pass the tribal headquarters, with its BIA sign. The tiny town of Nespelem makes Quail Run Mobile Home Park look middle class. It’s a long stretch to Omak, and I have to fight to keep my grief in check. I think about fishing—the sturgeon I fought once for two hours and over two miles of river. Suddenly the snow-covered Cascades are directly in front of me. For the first time their immensity humbles me. Christianity teaches there’s a larger peace waiting for us above, and for Beth’s sake, I hope so. But here on earth there are also things profound. Reuben’s not at the old man’s house where I check for him first. I decline the old man’s invitation to “take a sweat” with him in his lodge, although I’m tempted. He says Reuben was there yesterday but was too upset. I return to Nespelem, then take a road over to highway 21, which follows the Sanpoil River. The valley here is pretty, but not necessarily the individual lots. I pull up to a trailer set back in pines and practically on the river. No other trailers are around for half a mile. There are a couple of rusted trucks, and Reuben’s truck is parked off to the side, almost hidden.

An old lady answers the door. She looks frightened. I quickly ask for Reuben. She shakes her head and starts to shut the door. Does she speak English? I tell her Teresa sent me and that it’s important. She studies me. “Out back,” she finally says, and points for me to go around. “Wait.” She calls me back to the doorstep. She disappears into the trailer, where I see the flickering light of her TV, but hear no sound. She returns with a plate of food covered with tinfoil. “He’s been out there all night and day. You make him eat.” She studies me again. “Wait.” She comes back with another plate of food. “For you.” I tell her thanks. “He’s the best of all my boys. You make him eat.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She says something to me in her native language, then slams the door.

I walk around the trailer and into the backyard and then through pines. I can hear the river. There’s something haunting about this place. My brother and I have been fly-fishing on the upper Yakima a few times. We had to hire a guide. I got the same feeling in that canyon, but I attributed it to the Indian stories the guide told us about Sasquatch and little “stick people.” My brother attributed the rumored noises at dusk and dawn to meth labs. I see a fire in a clearing. Reuben sits in a camp chair staring at the fire. He’s not wearing a shirt. Empty beer cans litter the ground. He stands up when I get close. He saw me way back. “Those aren’t mine,” he says, and starts kicking the beer cans. He kicks them hard.

“It’s okay, Reuben.”

“No, see, it’s not. See, I’m drinking water.” There’s a large water bottle by his camp chair. He grabs it. “See.”

“I see it.”

“For all the fucking good it’s done me.” He throws the water bottle into the trees. It thuds. Then he starts kicking the beer cans again. “These cans are my cousin’s. These cans are my uncle’s. These cans are my dad’s. My grandfather’s. My mom’s. Her fucking white boyfriend’s fucking beer cans. What the fuck was he doing here? What are you doing here?”

I put down the two plates of food on a log that looks like it seconds as a bench.

“You okay, kid?” He has his back to me. I didn’t realize how much I care for the boy until seeing him like this.

“I need to clean this place up,” he says, kicking more cans. “This whole fucking rez.”

“Emmy’s not okay either.” He wants to keep his back to me. But he turns at her name. “She needs you, Reuben.”

He starts laughing. “No fucking white girl on her way to Berkeley needs me.”