details of a long-forgotten dispute. Mostly, though, they would double-team her.
The worst times were when she started dating boys from the town. She’d bring them home to the reserve, and the two older women would descend on the hapless youths like hawks hunting rabbits. Mara would have to sit on the sofa, embarrassed and angry, as her mother and then her grandmother would explain just how fierce the People were and what a poor sense of humour the clans had when it came to inappropriate behaviour.
At fifteen, with Lilly’s encouragement, Mara had taken the offensive. Over dinner one evening, she announced that she was old enough to make her own decisions, and that she didn’tneed her mother’s advice or her grandmother’s approval, for that matter.
“Mara’s thinking about having sex,” her mother told her grandmother.
“With whom?” her grandmother had wanted to know.
Mara realized her mistake immediately. “No one,” she had said.
“I’ve always wanted a great-granddaughter.”
“I’m not having sex.”
“She’s thinking about having sex,” her mother had corrected.
“We could name the baby after your great aunt, Thelma.”
“I’m not thinking of having sex.”
“If you need any technical guidance,” her mother had said, “all you have to do is ask.”
The two women had giggled back and forth for a while, and then collapsed into raucous laughter, cackling and screeching like a conspiracy of ravens.
Mara couldn’t remember if her grandmother had actually used the word “penis.” Mercifully, there were parts of her adolescence that she did not remember with complete clarity.
But how she missed them. She would give anything to hear her mother tell her, once again, that she didn’t want her only child to date fast boys, Indian or white, and for her grandmother to chime in that, if Mara was fast herself, she shouldn’t be dating at all.
MARA slid a hand out from under the quilt. A soft wind was coming in off the ocean, but the sea was flat and tranquil, theline between sky and water almost invisible. The day was mostly over, and she hadn’t done a thing.
Wake up.
Walk on the beach.
Sit and stare at the world.
Breakfast was most often a piece of toast and some cheese. Lunch was yogurt with banana. Dinner was peanut butter on a spoon. Mara flinched as she ran through the meals and what they might suggest.
Depression, of course.
So why was she so sanguine with such a diagnosis? Because there was no one left who cared. That was it. Not even her.
Through the window, she could see the canvas on the easel. She had started the portrait as a way to climb back into life. Each morning she had tried to gather the energy to work on the painting, and each morning she had failed.
Not miserably.
Simple failure.
How could she be so vulnerable? She had friends. Somewhere. But when her mother and grandmother died, her world had taken a tumble, cracked apart, much like that egg on the wall. And there seemed no putting it back together again.
Mara wondered about the man on the beach. He didn’t seem to be in any better condition, but he was trying to do something about it. Suicide wasn’t a choice she would have embraced, but at least it was a choice. She hadn’t even gotten to the point of choosing.
On the plus side, this Gabriel had someone. This Gabriel had a dog.
Curious.
Tomorrow she’d go to the reserve. It might be therapeutic to stand on her grandmother’s porch one more time, walk through the townsite, and remember the families who had died on that day and in the days that followed.
Not that memories would save her. She already knew that. She knew that there was nothing left to see. The abandoned houses, the empty trailers, the deserted community centre, the solitary water tower. Without the people, none of these places had any meaning.
In the end, they were little more than gravestones in a graveyard.
12
IT WAS AFTER ELEVEN WHEN THE LIMO PULLED UP IN FRONT of the
The worst times were when she started dating boys from the town. She’d bring them home to the reserve, and the two older women would descend on the hapless youths like hawks hunting rabbits. Mara would have to sit on the sofa, embarrassed and angry, as her mother and then her grandmother would explain just how fierce the People were and what a poor sense of humour the clans had when it came to inappropriate behaviour.
At fifteen, with Lilly’s encouragement, Mara had taken the offensive. Over dinner one evening, she announced that she was old enough to make her own decisions, and that she didn’tneed her mother’s advice or her grandmother’s approval, for that matter.
“Mara’s thinking about having sex,” her mother told her grandmother.
“With whom?” her grandmother had wanted to know.
Mara realized her mistake immediately. “No one,” she had said.
“I’ve always wanted a great-granddaughter.”
“I’m not having sex.”
“She’s thinking about having sex,” her mother had corrected.
“We could name the baby after your great aunt, Thelma.”
“I’m not thinking of having sex.”
“If you need any technical guidance,” her mother had said, “all you have to do is ask.”
The two women had giggled back and forth for a while, and then collapsed into raucous laughter, cackling and screeching like a conspiracy of ravens.
Mara couldn’t remember if her grandmother had actually used the word “penis.” Mercifully, there were parts of her adolescence that she did not remember with complete clarity.
But how she missed them. She would give anything to hear her mother tell her, once again, that she didn’t want her only child to date fast boys, Indian or white, and for her grandmother to chime in that, if Mara was fast herself, she shouldn’t be dating at all.
MARA slid a hand out from under the quilt. A soft wind was coming in off the ocean, but the sea was flat and tranquil, theline between sky and water almost invisible. The day was mostly over, and she hadn’t done a thing.
Wake up.
Walk on the beach.
Sit and stare at the world.
Breakfast was most often a piece of toast and some cheese. Lunch was yogurt with banana. Dinner was peanut butter on a spoon. Mara flinched as she ran through the meals and what they might suggest.
Depression, of course.
So why was she so sanguine with such a diagnosis? Because there was no one left who cared. That was it. Not even her.
Through the window, she could see the canvas on the easel. She had started the portrait as a way to climb back into life. Each morning she had tried to gather the energy to work on the painting, and each morning she had failed.
Not miserably.
Simple failure.
How could she be so vulnerable? She had friends. Somewhere. But when her mother and grandmother died, her world had taken a tumble, cracked apart, much like that egg on the wall. And there seemed no putting it back together again.
Mara wondered about the man on the beach. He didn’t seem to be in any better condition, but he was trying to do something about it. Suicide wasn’t a choice she would have embraced, but at least it was a choice. She hadn’t even gotten to the point of choosing.
On the plus side, this Gabriel had someone. This Gabriel had a dog.
Curious.
Tomorrow she’d go to the reserve. It might be therapeutic to stand on her grandmother’s porch one more time, walk through the townsite, and remember the families who had died on that day and in the days that followed.
Not that memories would save her. She already knew that. She knew that there was nothing left to see. The abandoned houses, the empty trailers, the deserted community centre, the solitary water tower. Without the people, none of these places had any meaning.
In the end, they were little more than gravestones in a graveyard.
12
IT WAS AFTER ELEVEN WHEN THE LIMO PULLED UP IN FRONT of the
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