10

There’ve been plenty of stories Grandmother’s called “happy,” but there’s only one I remember actually making me feel happy. I was ten and I’d woken up from a nightmare to find Grandmother in my room.

“Why are you crying, honey?” she asked, and I told her about the dream. It was one of the recurring ones, where I’m in the car with Mom, talking and laughing as she drives us through the countryside. In the nightmare, it’s bright outside and the sky is pale blue and cloudless, the creeks lining the road sparkling. But suddenly, a dark orb appears ahead, rising up over us and flinging us sideways off the road. We spin across a ditch, the front of the car smashing into a thick tree, and the world goes dark, as thunder breaks the sky, sending rain pouring over us. Gradually, the car begins to fill, not with water but with blood, though neither Mom nor I is cut. I’d never told anyone about the dream before. I was too afraid it would come true, but telling Grandmother felt different.

“I used to have a dream just like that,” she told me. “It seemed like it would never go away. But it did, Natalie. Everything but the truth goes away in the end. Now, lie down and let me tell you a story.”

And she did, and this is how it went.

In the very beginning, Moon, Sun, Wind, Rainbow, Thunder, Fire, and Water lived on the earth. They simply awoke there, not knowing how they had arrived, and that was okay. They lived happily on their earth, until one day they met a very Old Man. This Old Man turned out to be their leader, the Great Spirit Chief. He had just formed people to cover the earth in all the spaces between Moon, Sun, Wind, Rainbow, Thunder, Fire, and Water.

“Old Man,” Thunder said, “can you make the people my children?”

And Old Man said, “No, Thunder. They cannot be your children, but they can be your grandchildren.”

Then, hearing this, Sun asked, “Old Man, can you make the people of the world my children, then?”

And Old Man replied, “No, Sun. They are not your children. They can be your friends. They will be your grandchildren. But your main purpose is to cover them in light, and to make them warm.”

Moon asked next, “Old Man, if not Sun’s, can you make the people my children?”

“No, I cannot give you the people of the world, Moon,” Old Man said. “You will be their uncle and their friend, lighting their way at night while giving them rest.”

“Old Man, please make the people of the world my children,” Fire said.

“I cannot do that, Fire,” Old Man answered. “They will be your grandchildren. I have made you to keep them warm in winter and at night. You will cook their food so they can fill their bellies.”

Wind asked next, but Old Man’s answer was the same. “No, dear friend Wind. But they will be your grandchildren, and you will clean the air for them and keep them healthy and strong.”

“Old Man, might I have the people as my children?” Rainbow asked.

“They cannot be your children,” Old Man explained. “You will always be busy preventing the rains from falling too hard and the floods from rising, and painting the sky for their eyes to enjoy.”

“What about me, Old Man?” Water said.

“No,” Old Man said. “The people of the world can never be your children, Water. But you will clean them and quench their thirst, and let them live long lives on the earth.”

Moon, Sun, Wind, Rainbow, Thunder, Fire, and Water looked at one another in confusion. Then Old Man continued, “You are well made, and I have told you the best way to live to help the people of the world. But you must always remember that these, the children of the human race, they are my children.”

And that, Grandmother told me, was the truth.

Tonight, with Beau, the story makes me feel the same way it did the first time I heard it: freed from a nightmare by a hug from the world.

Beau’s quiet for a long moment when I finish, staring up into the sky thoughtfully before he says, “You are good.”

“At telling stories?” I say.

He nods. “That, and in general.”

“At everything,” I agree.

“Except football.”

“Nah, I’m pretty good. Just not compared to you.”

He tells me about his first game, when he scored on the wrong end zone, and about his job changing tires and replacing brakes, how he much prefers construction work but can’t seem to get enough hours. He’d like to build his own house someday, and I tell him he should build mine too, and that it has to have a porch, and he agrees, because a house isn’t a home without a porch. He tells me how his mother sometimes leaves for months when she thinks she’s met The One, only to turn up a few months later, so devastated she can’t get out of bed for a week, and refuses to say what happened. I tell him about Mom’s ability to turn everything I do or feel into some metaphor about my “adoption journey.”

“Do you think she’s right?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I sometimes think I wouldn’t feel so lost if she didn’t try so hard to make me feel okay about looking for myself. I mean, I always knew I was different from my family, but I didn’t feel the need to justify it until I started school. Every time my parents dropped me off at a birthday party or took me to school or the neighborhood pool, all my classmates would ask me why I didn’t look like them. And, I mean, my mom had prepared me for that. But then one day, this neighbor kid asked me what my real name was. I had no idea what he was talking about, and he was like, You know, your Indian name. Like, Running Deer. So then I asked my parents if I had an Indian name, and they kind of laughed, but when I told them why I was asking, Mom was super upset, so she started doing all this research, trying to prepare me for any and all potentially offensive inquiries, while also being like, Remember, sweetie, you don’t have to answer anyone’s questions if you don’t want to. It’s no one’s business but yours.”

“Wow,” Beau says. “Didn’t know six-year-olds had business.”

“Exactly,” I say. “Oh, and then she started buying me these early reader books about Native American history and culture. She’d leave them in my room, and then very casually tell me I should be proud of every part of who I was, but I guess that made me feel even more different than I already did. Then, one year, when I was six, I think, I wanted to be Pocahontas for Halloween—the Disney version, of course—and she acted so weird about it, sort of tried to talk me out of it, but I wouldn’t budge, and in the end she ended up making my costume. But then a few years later, she read this article about racist depictions of Native Americans in popular culture and how harmful they are. That somehow led her to an essay that appeared right after some designer was in the news for sending his models out on the runway in Navajo headdresses, about the way modern American culture abuses and appropriates Native culture. Mom felt so bad she came to my room and apologized to me. She was crying, and I didn’t even understand why, but she wasn’t acting like she was my mom. More like I was a complete stranger to her.”

Beau shrugs. “Aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?” I say, taken aback.

“Just seems like all parents start out thinking their kids are a part of them, another mouth they’ve gotta make sure eats, another body they’ve gotta get dressed. And then one day, our parents look at us and notice we’re whole people. We’re not a part of them anymore, even if they’re a part of us. And for the ones who never really wanted to be parents anyway, that’s probably a relief. But for a mom like yours—I don’t know, she must’ve been sad when she realized your life was gonna be different than hers. She must’ve been scared when she realized she wasn’t gonna be able to protect you, and that you were gonna deal with things she never did.”

“Yeah,” I murmur. “I guess, but as a kid it still felt horrible to be different from her. It didn’t feel normal. I think I, subconsciously, spent the majority of my childhood trying to make that feeling go away. I joined the dance team, learned to laugh off jokes about me talking to wolves or catching fish with my bare hands. Made a point to insert myself in the middle of the social scene, and started dating this really popular guy . . .” I trail off, thinking of the time after Grandmother left, when it was just me, alone in a world I was obsessed with fitting into. No more quiet moments when the rest of Union had fallen asleep and I’d lie awake listening to her stories wash over me in her gravelly voice, filling me up with drops of truth and color. Pieces of myself. I realized then I didn’t know where the fake me ended and the real me began.

“I don’t know. It’s hard being surrounded by people—generally good people—who don’t get it, who think I’m uptight and weird whenever things bother me. I mean, sometimes it’s like people assume I’m like them in ways I’m not, and that sucks, but other times they think I’m different in ways I don’t feel different, and that sucks too.”

Beau thinks it over for a long moment, then says softly, “That why you’re leaving for your fancy school?”

“Maybe,” I admit. “It’s hard to feel like you belong when you don’t know who you are, and it’s hard to know who you are when you don’t know where you come from.”

“Maybe you’re just lucky.”

“Lucky? How?” I ask. “You can’t imagine how hard it is to not see yourself in anyone around you. Or to be constantly encouraged to look.”

His shoulder shrugs under me. “And you don’t know what it’s like to see yourself in people you don’t like. You’re just you—no deadbeat dad, no alcoholic mom, no family curse.”

“Or maybe I’m still made up of all those things, and I’m just good at pretending.”

“You know what I think?” he says.

“Football?” I guess, and he laughs silently.

“That,” he says, “and I think you belong here more than anyone I’ve met.”

“Whaaaaat?” I say, sitting up again. “Why?”

“I just do.”

“You just do.”

“I do,” he insists.

“Well, fahn.”

“Fahn.” After a minute, he says, “You got any more stories, Natalie Cleary?”

I tell him about the Girl Who Fell from the Sky. Then I drink the last beer and tell him about the Vampire Skeleton and the Ghost of the Tetons and the Ghost House Under the Ground.

I’m just finishing the story of Brother Black and Brother Red, when my phone vibrates in the grass beside me. “Hold on a second,” I tell Beau.

When I sit up to answer Megan’s call I realize the sun is starting to rise, the sky fading to a deep blue. We’ve stayed out all night, and I can’t decide whether it’s felt like minutes or days. “Hello?” I say.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” Megan whispers.

“Why are you whispering?” I ask.

“Brian and I fell asleep at Matt’s. I’m leaving now. Where are you? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine—I’m at the football field.”

I hear a door close, and she resumes her normal volume. “Oh my God, Nat. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so, so, so, so sorry. I’m on my way. Don’t move.”

“I can take you home,” Beau says beside me.

“Who was that?” Megan squeals. “Was that him? He sounds like a subwoofer!”

I cup my hand over the phone. “It’s Megan. She’s still at Matt’s,” I tell Beau. “It’ll only take her a second to come get me.” He nods, and I uncover the phone. “See you in a minute,” I say.

Beau and I gather the cans and toss them over the fence with the football, then climb back over. Again he catches me on the far side, but this time there’s no hesitation. He eases me back against the fence and kisses the corner of my mouth, his hands tightening on my hips. Light sifts through the trees, yellowing with the dawn, accentuating the golden-brown ring around his greenish irises.

Even though this has been all night coming, when Beau pulls back, I still feel shy and dumbstruck. “Thank you,” I’m horrified to hear myself say.

He laughs and touches my hair. “Anytime.”

In the quiet of morning, I can hear Megan’s car pulling onto the street that runs behind the far side of the field and leads to the parking lot. I release Beau and look back. Megan parks at the top of the hill beyond the stadium, lowers her window, and waves.

“You wanna ride up there?” Beau asks.

“That’s okay. It’ll feel good to walk.”

He pulls out his phone, which is two models older than mine and looks like it got caught in a lawn mower, and passes it to me without a word. I type my number in, save it, and pass it back. “Thanks again,” I say, then hurry to add, “for saving me from that party. I’m sorry you missed it.”

“I told you why I went,” he says.

Neither of us speaks for a minute, then I awkwardly say goodbye and turn to walk up the hill to Megan’s car.

“Bye, Natalie,” Beau says, and I turn around one last time and wave.

As soon as I get in, Megan begins to apologize again, but as we turn around and drive off, she falls silent then says, “Okay, so he was pretty faraway and tiny from where I was parked, but wow.”

“I know.”

“Wow,” she says again. “I can’t imagine what Summer Incarnate looks like up close.”

“You really can’t.”

“Oh my God,” Megan says. “I’m shaking I’m so giddy right now.”

“And what about you and Brian?” I demand.

“Eh,” she says. “We kissed. Then I fell asleep. Bad sign?”

“Not necessarily.”

“I didn’t say bye to him this morning. What about that?”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” I say. “You probably just felt awkward.”

“I guess.” She looks over at me, scrunches her nose up. “He tasted like Cheetos.”

“Ugh, I’m going to be sick.”

“I know,” she groans.

“The literal kiss of death.”

“Exactly,” she says. “I’m dead. My body just hasn’t gotten the memo.”

“Those Cheetos probably had some kind of reanimation spell on them,” I suggest.

She drops her forehead against the steering wheel for a second. “I liked him so much. There, I said it. How could this happen?”

“Is it possible he just, I don’t know, ate Cheetos?”

“I mean, I’m no forensic investigator, but I would say there’s roughly a one hundred percent chance that’s exactly what happened.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? I abandoned you to make out with a Frito-Lay product.”

“Honestly, Meg, if I needed you, I would’ve found you, mid-cheese-powder make-out or not.”

“I die,” she says. “I die a thousand deaths every time I think about it.”

“I think you should give him another chance.”

She looks at me, utterly aghast. “That’s just because you’re all moony! Because you obviously just kissed someone who didn’t taste like the floor at Derek Dillhorn’s fourth-grade birthday party!”

“I would bet money Brian’s mouth doesn’t always taste like that.”

“We’ll see,” she says. “I may just be too scarred. Hey, do you want Waffle House? I’m starving. Starving for details. Starving for waffles and starving for details.”

“That sounds good, but I think I need to sleep for ten hours first. Maybe reconvene for dinner?” We’re driving past the Presbyterian church now, which is back to normal—the additional wing vanished, and the parking lot too big for the small Sunday crowds. “Hey, does anything about that building seem different to you?” I ask.

Megan peers out the window. “Just the haze of flaky, cheese-flavored orange hanging over everything, but that could be my imagination.”

We pull up to the curb in front of my house, and Megan presses the heels of her hands into her eye sockets and drops her head back into the headrest, groaning again for good measure.

I pat her arm. “This too shall pass.”

She straightens up and sighs. “From your mouth to Grandmother’s ears.”

I get out of the car, legs wobbling from fatigue, and wave goodbye as Megan pulls away. I turn back to the house just as Gus comes running through the front door and across the yard. “Jack!” I shout, annoyed. He’s always leaving the front door unlocked, and half the time it pops open and Gus takes a jaunt around the neighborhood. I lunge to grab hold of his collar before he can take off, but as my fingers curl around the leather, it happens again.

One second Gus is there, the next he’s gone, and I nearly let out a shriek as the collar drops limp in my hand. I turn in circles, searching the abandoned block. “Gus?” My dog is gone, and I don’t know what to do. I turn in circles, calling his name more loudly. “Gus! Gus!”

And then he’s back. Like it never happened, wearing his collar and trying to pull me up the street to where a decidedly terrifying standard poodle lives. I dig my feet in and try to yank him back toward the front door.

My mind is reeling. My stomach roils. I drag Gus across the yard and run up onto the porch, but I come up short. It feels like my heart just slammed into a wall. And now Gus is gone again. The door and the shutters are red, not green like they should be. I’m so freaked out that for some reason, I still try to jam my house key into the lock, but it won’t work. My insides are screaming, I can barely breathe, and I fumble with the key, panic filling me up like a flood of acid. “Gus,” I say again. Then, “Grandmother. Grandmother! Are you there? Please!”

The key finally slips into the lock as the door turns green again before my eyes, and Gus reappears in the same moment.

I run inside, hauling Gus in after me, and lock the door behind us. I slump against it and slide to the ground, wrap my arms around Gus’s neck as tears stream down my cheeks. I nuzzle into his fur and wait for the fit of trembling to pass.