LaRose (8 page)

The girls had bought weird gadgets for their brothers and dad. For the first time ever, Josette and Snow had bought colored tissue. They carefully arranged the boxes wrapped in transparent red paper. They put the box for their mother on a shelf. The glossy bow they’d bought for it shed red glitter on their hands.

What do we do with the presents for LaRose? said Snow.

They pushed aside the stuff on the big table—their beading, the jar lids of screws, the newspapers, schoolbooks—and began to eat their bowls of stew. Josette wanted to go over to the Ravich house and give the presents to LaRose. Snow said she couldn’t stand Aunt Nola because she was picky. Coochy just hung his head down and ate. Hollis looked at him and ducked his head down too. Emmaline watched them until they turned to her.

Did you make LaRose his moccasins? Coochy asked. He had been the youngest until LaRose. There was a note in his voice of something like panic, and his eyes were glossy with tears.

Every year Emmaline made each of them new moccasins out of smoked moosehide, lined with blanket scraps; sometimes the ankles were trimmed with rabbit fur. She did this while visiting her mother, or at home, while watching her favorite TV shows or sitting with her children at the table to make certain they finished their homework. She was very good at it and people bought special orders from her. Her moccasins sometimes fetched two or three hundred dollars. The family was proud of her work and only wore their moccasins inside the house. Even Hollis wore them—his feet cute with beadwork, not cool. They each had a box of moccasins—one pair for every year.

I made them, said Emmaline.

SHE MADE LAROSE
his moccasins, Landreaux told his friend Randall, who ran sweat lodges and taught Ojibwe culture, history, and deer skinning in the tribal high school. Randall had been given ceremonies by elders he’d sought out and studied with—medicine
people. Landreaux had demons, he said. Demons did not scare Randall, but he respected them.

It must have been something that happened to me when I was a kid but I can’t remember, Landreaux said.

That’s what everybody thinks, said Randall. Like if you suddenly remember what happened, you kill the demon. But it’s a whole hell of a lot more complicated.

Going up against demons was Randall’s work. Loss, dislocation, disease, addiction, and just feeling like the tattered remnants of a people with a complex history. What was in that history? What sort of knowledge? Who had they been? What were they now? Why so much fucked-upness wherever you turned?

They had heated up and carried in the rocks and now the two were sitting in the lodge wearing only baggy surfer shorts. Landreaux got the tarp down and sealed them inside. Randall dropped pinches of tobacco, sage, cedar, and powdered bear root on the livid stones. When the air was sharp with fragrance, he splashed on four ladles of water and the hot steam poured painfully into their lungs. After they prayed, Randall opened the lodge door, got the pitchfork, and brought in ten more rocks.

Okay, we’re gonna go for broke, he said. Get your towel up so you don’t blister. He closed the door and Landreaux lost track of the number of ladles Randall poured. He went dizzy and put the towel across his face, then dizzier, and lay down. Randall said a long invocation to the spirits in Anishinaabemowin, which Landreaux vaguely understood. Then Randall said, Ginitam, because Landreaux was supposed to speak. But all Landreaux could think of to say was, My family hates me for giving away LaRose.

Randall thought on this.

You did right, he said at last. They’ll come to know. You remember what all the elders said? They knew the history. Who killed the mother of the first one, Mink, and what she could do. Then her daughter, her granddaughter, the next one, and Emmaline’s mom. Evil tried to catch them all. They fought demons, outwitted them,
flew. Randall talked about how people think what medicine people did in the past is magic. But it was not magic. Beyond ordinary understanding now, but not magic.

LaRose can do these things too, said Randall. He has it in him. He’s stronger than you think. Remember you thought they said he was a mirage?

Gave him the name, Mirage. I know.

That’s right.

Mirage knew how to dream the whereabouts of animals, how to leave his body during a trance and visit distant relatives. A trader named George Nelson had known others who could do this and had written about it back in the eighteenth century.

Landreaux spoke haltingly. What if the elders are just a bunch of regular old people no smarter than any of us, what if . . .

They are regular old people, said Randall. But they’re people who learned off their old people, right? Like here, we had the starvation year when most of our old people gave up their food. That generation died for us, eh? So we go north. Accept their words if they feel right.

But maybe they don’t know?

Quit asking dumb questions. You’ll bust your brain if you think like that. Let me ask you something. What was that boy Dusty like anyway?

Don’t ask me that.

He ain’t a footnote to your agony, bro. What was he like? Who knew that boy the best, of your family?

Landreaux finally answered.

LaRose.

So what did LaRose know about him?

Funny kid. Played adventures. The two of them had a pack of toys they made into cartoon characters. They were hilarious if you listened in on what they made up. Dusty . . .

Yeah, say his name, but use the spirit world marker. Use iban.

Dusty-iban liked to draw. He was good at drawing. We got some drawings he made for us.

Of what?

Horse. Dog. Spider-Man.

Landreaux was crying steadily in gulping sobs. Randall let that go on for a while.

Don’t you cry no more. Unless it’s for that kid. Don’t you cry no more for your own pain. You put that cry energy into your family. Into doing good for Dusty-iban’s family. When I hear you cry, I hear you cry for what you did, but you quit that now. Were you high when you shot him?

The medicine crackled. No.

Were you high?

No.

Were you high?

No.

We let our people get away with shit. We shouldn’t. That’s why I ask. Randall was quiet for a long time.

You’re a good hunter. You take your shot careful, said Randall. Everybody knows you are careful and every year you bring down your supply. So I hadda ask.

Okay, said Landreaux.

I ain’t totally convinced.

Okay, said Landreaux.

You off the booze?

Yes, said Landreaux.

Pills?

Yeah.

Okay. You gotta take on faith you did right with LaRose.

What about Emmaline, though? said Landreaux.

Nola is her sister.

Half sister, said Landreaux.

There are no half sisters, said Randall.

Emmaline doesn’t like her sister.

She say that?

I can tell. And Nola can’t stand Emmaline. So we don’t get to see
LaRose. Guess we assumed she’d bring him over; the boys used to play and all that.

Give them time to work it out, said Randall. Door! Oh, I forgot we ain’t got no doorman. Door! I’m calling myself. Randall threw the tarp aside. Then he brought in more rocks and dropped them off the end of his pitchfork.

So many? Landreaux was already melted.

Haha, said Randall. Let’s party. I’m gonna boil you alive.

Still, even after being poached like a frog by Randall, there was no peace. Landreaux felt worse and worse. He mourned LaRose’s stringy arms hugging him, blamed himself for making LaRose his secret, favorite child. He began taking Coochy places, everywhere, keeping the one son close. Coochy was earnest, a cloudy boy, and he took things hard. Inside, he was deeply jolted. But he was so quiet nobody knew that.

Why so quiet? Landreaux asked, once.

Why talk when Josette’s always talking?

He had a point.

Emmaline still thought about what Father Travis had said. If she wanted to, yes, she could take her son back. She wouldn’t go through the system. With social work files, always sprouting forms in triplicate, anything could happen. But always, instead of taking that step, pushing things that far, Emmaline thought of Nola’s loss, her husband’s responsibility for Dusty’s death, and she did something else. In the last few months she’d scraped bits of money for LaRose into a savings account. At other times she stitched her love into a quilt that she brought to the Ravich house. Emmaline gave the quilt to Nola, who thanked her at the door, folded up the blanket, and put it on the highest shelf of a closet. Also, every couple of weeks, Emmaline couldn’t help herself from making the special soup and frybread that her son favored. She put it on Nola’s doorstep or even into Nola’s hands, hoping that LaRose would taste
her love in it. Nola tossed it out. Just before Christmas, Emmaline came back with the moccasins. Left them wrapped with LaRose’s name on them. Nola put the moccasins in a plastic box. Stuffed into that container they waited, and Nola feared them, for their woodsmoke scent held the power of creation.

On those occasions she brought offerings, Emmaline saw that her half sister knew who was in charge. When Nola opened the door, her smile was pasted on lopsided. Sometimes before accepting the food, Nola’s hands clasped and unclasped in distress. Nola’s scrupulous thank-you covered a desperation that made Emmaline turn away. In the car, she put her hand in her pocket and touched a slip of paper upon which she had written
You can take him back.

One day, just before Christmas without LaRose, after dropping off the food, she couldn’t leave. Emmaline got out of the pickup and went back to the house. Maybe talk to Nola? Glimpse LaRose? She knocked, but Nola didn’t answer. Emmaline knocked harder, then so hard her knuckles stung. She knew that Nola was somewhere in the house with her son, pretending that the knocks were not Emmaline.

Inside the house, LaRose heard his mother’s voice and knew the smell of that soup which he wouldn’t taste. Nola just kept reading
Where the Wild Things Are
over and over, until the knocking went away. Nola’s voice was hoarse and thin.

And it was still hot, Nola said, and closed the book. Shall I read it again?

Okay, said LaRose in a tiny voice. A fuzzy wash of draining sadness covered him. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Is there a bitch gene? said Emmaline, walking in the door after standing outside the Ravich house, knocking.

Snow gave Josette a look and Josette said, Did my mother really say that?

Because if there is, Emmaline went on, my sister got it from her mother, who was renowned as a prime bitch.

The girls stared at Emmaline, frowning in an effort to reject their mother’s talking this way.

Marn was her name. She killed her husband and got away with it. Of course, he was the leader of a cult.

Whoa.

The girls put their hands up.

Crazy talk, Mom, said Josette.

It’s true, though, said Emmaline.

Okay, Mom, but may we remind you that you’re talking about our grandfather? Josette and Snow nodded vigorously.

What you’re saying, Mom, is way too weird. I mean a bitch is one thing, but killing your husband is out of whack. We don’t want that.

So you don’t want truth. What do you want? said Emmaline.

We want our life to get normal, duh, said Josette.

Uneventful, except for good things, said Snow.

Melodrama? That detracts.

Vocabulary words!

The girls smacked hands.

Fine, said Emmaline. I acquiesce.

MACKINNON SPOKE TO
the girl in her language, and she hid her muddy face.

All I did was ask her name, he said, throwing up his hands. She refuses to tell me her name. Give her some work to do, Roberts. I can’t stand that lump in the corner.

Wolfred made her help him chop wood. But her movements displayed the fluid grace of her limbs. He showed her how to bake bread. But the firelight reflected up into her face and the heat melted away some of the mud. He reapplied it and tried to teach her to write. She formed the letters easily. But writing displayed her hand, marvelously formed. Finally—she suggested it herself—the girl went off to set snares. She made herself well enough understood. She planned to
buy herself back from Mackinnon by selling the furs. He hadn’t paid that much for her. It would not take long, she said.