My mom had planned a combined feast to celebrate both my kokum’s birthday and Roger’s life. Together, my mom and I did each other’s makeup, and I helped pick out her dress. She looked beautiful in her medicine wheel jewellery.
I admired the two of us in the mirror. “Damn, Mom, if we weren’t going to a funeral we’d have all the boys,” I joked. “We’re serving fish!” My mom had given up trying to learn the weird phrases I brought home, so she just nodded in agreement and continued applying her lipstick. We may have been the saddest duo in the world right then and there, but we were radiant in our own ways. I decided that if I was going to feel anything, I’d experience both the pain and the joy—I’d be sullen and sexy, I’d walk into St. Peter’s and own those wooden floorboards, I’d show the kids how it’s done with a strut as mean as Naomi’s and a face as fierce as Ashley Callingbull’s. Serving fish? Hell, I was serving pickerel on a platter.
“Your kokum loved you, y’know that, with all her heart,” my mom said out of the blue.
“I know, Mom.”
“No, she really loved you—I think she loved you more than she ever did me.” She got right stoic. “I always been a rotten kid to her, always yelling at her, running away.” I felt her pain, so I put my head down in her lap and stared up at her.
“How I got pregnant so young, y’know?” I thought about Tias and Jordan, thought about all the babies who had been raised by babies themselves.
“Told her I hated her too much—and that woman would whip my ass, y’know? But I loved her too, heck, we’d sit in the kitchen and make fun of each other for hours, but it was nice. I’d tell her, ‘Heck, ol’ lady, you’re old enough to be first in with the other elders,’ and she’d give me a slap. I’d tell her, ‘Look at yer ol’ tits, they’re lower than your knees.’” I thought of how my kokum used to tell people, “Ah, you’re useless as tits on a bull,” whenever someone annoyed her.
“And she’d tell me, ‘Ah shaddup, I’m still young enough to give you a good lickin’ and cough-laugh like an ol’ raven.” My mom looked down at me, her eyes the colour of rocks. “But boy did she make me laugh, ain’t no one I ever let talk to me like that but your kokum, y’know? The only woman who could ever make your daddy cry.” She slid her hand beneath my body, cupped me under the knees.
“That man, boy I adored that man, he was tough as a bear but turned to a goddamn puddle when he was around your kokum.” She pulled me in, closer, harder, until I was resting against her soft breasts. “He’d buy her hundreds of dollars of groceries, nice things too, y’know? And I always thought, ‘You ain’t ever buy me anything nice like this.’” Before I knew it, she was cradling me in her arms like a babe, the crown of my skull resting on her shoulder.
“He ain’t ever buy me nothing nice like that—why? When she died, I asked her to forgive me. Heck, yeah, I was a bad kid, but I loved that woman so much it came out like hate.” She looked down at me. “How come everyone kept loving her first? She had all the love, and threw me scraps like a rez dog. I always thought you loved her more too, m’boy, I always thought you wanted her as a mom.” She inhaled deeply and then let out every bit of breath that lingered in her lungs. “I always thought you wanted her over me, always thought I wasn’t no good for a boy like you.”
“To love me, Momma, Kokum had to love you, too,” I said as I untangled myself from her.
My mom’s eyes brimmed with tears. “You kill me, m’boy, you absolutely kill me.”
And I thought: we’re both killing each other, Momma—we’re both dying to get it right. I gave her a peck on the lips. She looked me in the eye and all of a sudden let loose a horrendous wail—every bit of breath, stink, and smoke came rushing forth from her belly and spat into the air. When her sobs subsided, she took me into her arms again.
“Every time I left her house she told me, ‘You take care of that boy, y’hear?’ I tried, I really tried,” she said.
“Momma, I’m alive because of you.” In her embrace I felt like a kid again, felt like I had yet to grow into my self.
I was home now, I felt it in my bones.