The Round House

  That’s Sheryl. Who else could make me laugh under the circumstances? I was still in bed the next morning. I’d called in sick for the first time in two years.

  You’re not seriously even considering it, Sheryl said. Then, after I didn’t answer, Are you?

  I don’t know.

  Then I really am calling Cedric up. Those people ditched you, they turned their backs on you, they would have left you in the street to die. You’re my sister. I don’t want you to share your kidneys. Hey, what if I need one of your kidneys some day? Did you ever think of that? Save your damn kidney for me!

  I love you, Sheryl said, and I said it back.

  Tuffy, don’t you do it, Sheryl warned, but her voice was worried.

  After we hung up, I called the numbers on the card Grace Lark had put in my pocket, and made hospital appointments for all the tests.

  While down in South Dakota, I stayed with Cedric, who was a veteran, and his wife, whose name is Cheryl with a C. She put out little towels for me that she had appliquéd with the figures of cute animals. And tiny motel soaps she’d swiped. She made my bed. She tried to show me that she approved of what I was doing, although the others in the family did not. Cheryl was very Christian, so it made sense.

  But this was not a do-unto-others sort of thing with me. I already said that I do not seek pain and I would not have contemplated going through with it unless I couldn’t bear the alternative.

  All my life, knowing without knowing, I had waited for this thing to happen. My twin was the one just out of sight, right beside me. He did not know he had been there, I was sure. When the welfare stole me from Betty and I was alone in the whiteness, he held my hand, sat with me, and grieved. And now that I’d met his mother, I understood something more. In a small town people knew, after all, what she had done in abandoning me. She would have to have turned her fury at herself, her shame, on someone else—the child she’d chosen. She’d have blamed Linden, transferred her warped hatreds to him. I had felt the contempt and triumph in her touch. I was thankful for the way things had turned out. Before we were born, my twin had the compassion to crush against me, to perfect me by deforming me, so that I would be the one who was spared.

  I’ll tell you what, said the doctor, an Iranian woman, who gave me the results of the tests and conducted the interview, you are a match, but I know your story. And so I think it only fair that you know Linden Lark’s kidney failure is his own fault. He’s had not one but two restraining orders taken out against him. He also tried to suicide with a massive dose of acetaminophen, aspirin, and alcohol. That’s why he is on dialysis. I think you should take that into account when making your decision.

  Later that day, I sat with my twin brother, who said, You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to be a Jesus.

  I know what you did, I told him. I’m not religious.

  Interesting, said Linden. He stared at me and said, We sure don’t look alike.

  I understood this was not a compliment, because he was nice-looking. I thought he’d got the best of his mother’s features, but the deceitful eyes and sharky mouth, too. His eyes shifted around the room. He kept biting his lip, whistling, rolling his blanket between his fingers.

  Are you a mail carrier? he asked.

  I work behind the counter, mostly.

  I had a good route, he said, yawning, a regular route. I could do it in my sleep. Every Christmas my people left me cards, money, cookies, that sort of thing. I knew their lives so well. Their habits. Every detail. I could have committed the perfect murder, you know?

  That took me aback. I did not answer.

  Lark pursed his lips and looked down.

  Are you married? I asked.

  Nooooh . . . but maybe a girlfriend.

  He said this like, poor me, self-pity. He said, My girlfriend’s been avoiding me lately, because a certain highly placed government official has started paying her to be with him. Offering compensation for her favors. You get my drift?

  I went speechless again. Linden told me that the girl he liked was young, working with the governor, that she got good grades and stood out, a model high-school sweetheart picked to intern. An Indian intern making the administration look good, he said, and I even helped her get the job. She’s really too young for me. I was waiting for her to grow up. But this highly placed official grew her up while I was stuck in the hospital. He’s been growing her up ever since.

  I was uncomfortable and blurted out something to change the subject.

  Did you ever think, I said, there was someone walking your route just beside you or just behind you? Someone there when you closed your eyes, gone when you opened them?

  No, he said. Are you crazy?

  That was me.

  I picked up his hand and he let it go limp. We sat there together, silent. After a while, he pulled his hand out of mine and massaged it as though my grip had hurt him.

  Nothing against you, he said. This was my mother’s idea. I don’t want your kidney. I have an aversion to ugly people. I don’t want a piece of you inside me. I’d rather get on a list. Frankly, you’re kind of a disgusting woman. I mean, I’m sorry, but you’ve probably heard this before.

  I might not be a raving beauty queen, I said. But nobody’s ever told me I’m disgusting.

  You probably have a cat, he said. Cats pretend to love whoever feeds them. I doubt you could get a husband, or whatever, unless you put a bag on your head. And even then it would have to come off at night. Oh dear, I’m sorry.

  He put his fingers on his mouth and looked slyly guilty. He gave his face a mock slap. Why do I say these things? Did I hurt your feelings?

  Did you say those things to drive me away? I asked. I had begun to float around again, the way I had in the restaurant. Maybe you want to die. You don’t want to be saved, right? I’m not saving you for any reason. You won’t owe me anything.

  Owe you?

  He seemed genuinely surprised. His teeth were so straight that I was sure he’d had orthodontic work done when he was young. He started laughing, showing all of those beautiful teeth. He shook his head, wagged his finger at me, laughing so hard he seemed overcome. When I bent down awkwardly to pick up my purse, he laughed so hard he nearly choked. I tried to get away from him, to get to the door, but instead I backed up against the wall and was stuck there in that white, white room.

  My father sat silently at the table, hands folded and head lowered. I couldn’t think of what to say at first, but then the silence went on so long I said the first thing that came into my head.

  Lots of pretty women own cats. Sonja? I mean, the cats live out in the barn, but she feeds them. You don’t even have a cat. You have a dog. They are picky. Look at Pearl.

  Linda beamed at my father and said that he had raised a gentleman. He thanked her and then said he had a question for her.

  Why did you do it? he asked.

  She wanted it, said Linda. Mrs. Lark. The mother. By the time the whole procedure was settled, I abhorred Linden—that’s the word. Abhorred! But he cozied up to me. Plus, it was ridiculous because now I felt guilty about hating him. I mean, on the surface he was not all bad. He gave to charity cases, and sometimes he decided on a whim, I guess, that I needed his charity. Then he gave me presents, flowers, fancy scarves, soaps, sentimental cards. He told me how sorry he was when he was mean, temporarily charmed me, made me laugh. Also, I can’t explain the hold that Mrs. Lark could exert. Linden was sullen to her and insulting behind her back. Yet he’d do anything she said. He consented because she forced him. And after that, as you know, I became very ill.

  Yes, said my father, I remember. You contracted a bacterial infection from the hospital and were sent to Fargo.

  I contracted an infection of the spirit, said Linda precisely, in a correcting tone. I realized that I had made a terrible mistake. My real family came to my rescue, got me on my feet again, she went on. And Geraldine too, of course. Also, Doe Lafournais put me through their sweat lodge. That ceremony was so pow
erful. Her voice was wistful. And so hot! Randall gave me a feast. His aunts dressed me in a new ribbon dress they made. I started healing and felt even better when Mrs. Lark died. I suppose I shouldn’t say that but it’s the truth. After his mother was gone, Linden moved back to South Dakota and soon he cracked again, or so I heard.

  Cracked? I asked. What do you mean by that?

  He did things, said Linda.

  What things? I asked.

  Behind me, I could feel the force of my father’s attention.

  Things he should have got caught for, she whispered, and closed her eyes.

  Chapter Seven

  Angel One

  Although he was often to be found at the corner of the house sitting on a chipped yellow kitchen chair, watching the road, this was not how Mooshum spent his day but merely a pause to rest his stringy old arms and legs. Mooshum eagerly wearied himself with an endless round of habitual activities that changed with the seasons. In autumn, of course, there were leaves to rake. They came from everywhere to settle on Mooshum’s patch of scrawny grass. He sometimes even plucked them off with his fingers and threw them in a barrel. It delighted him to burn them up. There was a short hiatus after the leaves and before the snow fell. During that time, Mooshum ate like a bear. His belly rounded and his cheeks puffed out. He was preparing for the great snows. He owned two shovels. A broad blue plastic rectangle that he used for the fluffy snow and a silver scoop with a sharp edge for snow that had packed or drifted. He also had an ice chipper, a hoelike instrument with a blade that ran straight down instead of curving over. He sharpened this one with a file until it was so keen it could easily slice off a toe.

  Mooshum’s battle array stood ready in the back entry through October. When the first snow fell, he put on his galoshes. Clemence had glued sandpaper of the roughest grade to the bottoms. Every other night or so she changed the paper and let the boots dry on the radiator. Mooshum’s galoshes fit over his rabbit-fur-trimmed moccasins and insulated socks. He wore work pants lined with red flannel and a puffy, fluorescent orange parka that Clemence had given him so that he could be found if he got lost in the snow. Moosehide mitts lined with rabbit fur and a brilliant blue stocking cap with a wild pink pompom concluded this outfit. He went out every single day in his flamboyant gear and labored with incremental ferocity. He was antlike, he hardly seemed to be moving. Yet he shoveled trails to the garbage cans, cleared the snow not only from the walking paths around the house but completely off the driveway and away from the sides of the steps. He kept the snow scraped down to the ground and the concrete and never allowed it to accumulate. When there was no new snow and only the glare of ice, he hacked away with the lethal ice chipper. During the time when everything melted but the ground could not yet be prepared for the garden, he again ate constantly, putting back the flesh he’d lost to his winter war.

  Spring and summer involved weeds that grew with vicious alacrity, pilfering animals, bugs, vicissitudes of weather. He used the push mower the way most his age would use a walker, but incidentally clipping the yard down to the nub. He tended a large vegetable garden with invisible zeal, rooting out quack grass, pigweed, and hauling bucket loads of water for the squash hills, again without ever seeming to move. He didn’t care much for the flower garden, but Clemence had a raspberry patch gone wild that mingled with a stand of Juneberry bushes. When the berries began to ripen, Mooshum rose at dawn to defend them. A living scarecrow, he sat in his yellow chair sipping his morning tea. To frighten off the birds, he’d also rigged up a clothesline of tin-can lids. He’d pierced the can tops with a hammer and nail and knotted them close enough to clatter in a breeze. He secured these jangling lines all about the garden, and I was always very careful to note where he hung them as the edges of the cans were sharp and a boy who bicycled through the yard too carelessly might have his throat cut.

  By means of this ceaseless and seemingly quixotic activity, Mooshum stayed alive. When he was past the age of ninety years, cataracts were removed from his eyes and false teeth refitted to his shriveled gums. His ears were still keen. He heard so well that he was bothered by the periodic judder of Clemence’s sewing machine down the hall and by my uncle Edward’s habit of humming dirges while he corrected school papers. One morning in the June heat I rode to their house. He heard my bicycle while I was still on the main road, but then I’d clothespinned a playing card to a spoke. I liked the cheerful clatter and also the ace of diamonds was good luck. Anybody might have heard me, but no one would have been so happy at that moment to see me as Mooshum. For he had tangled himself in a large piece of bird netting that he had been attempting to throw over the highbush pembina berries, even though they were nowhere near ripe.

  I leaned my bike against the house and untangled him. Then I folded the net back up. I asked him where my auntie was and why he’d been left alone, but he hushed me and said she was inside the house.

  She don’t like me to use the net. The birds get tangled up and die in it, or lose their feet.

  Indeed, from the folds of the net, at that moment, I picked out a tiny bird’s leg, its minute claw still clenched around a strand of plastic webbing. I undid it carefully and showed it to Mooshum, who peered at it and worked his mouth back and forth.

  Let me hide that, he said.

  I’m keeping it.

  I put the claw in my pocket. I won’t tell Clemence. Maybe it’s got luck in it.

  You need some luck?

  We put the net away in the garage and walked to the back door. The day was heating up and it was almost time for Mooshum to take his morning nap.

  Yes, I need luck, I said to Mooshum. You know how things are. My father had grounded me for three days after I biked off without leaving a note. I’d been at home with my mother all that time. And there was still that ghost I’d never had a chance to figure out. I wanted to ask Mooshum what it meant.

  Mooshum’s eyes watered but not from pity. The sun was beginning to glare. He needed the Ray-Ban sunglasses that Uncle Whitey had given him for his last birthday. He took out a balled-up and faded bandanna and touched the rag to his cheekbones. Strings of hair hung around his face.

  There’s better ways of getting luck than from a bird’s leg, he said.

  We went inside. My aunt, who was dressed to go out and clean the church, in a set of high heels, a ruffled white shirt, and tight, streaky jeans, immediately put a pitcher of iced tea and two glasses on the table.

  I wanted to laugh and ask how she was going to clean church in heels, but she saw me looking at them and said, I take them off, wrap my feet in rags, and polish the floor.

  What’s this? Mooshum pursed his mouth in displeasure.

  The same medicine tea you drink every single day, Daddy.

  Everyone around Mooshum was taking credit for his longevity, and the fact that he still had his wits about him. Or what passed for wits, Clemence said when he angered her. His next birthday was coming up and Mooshum claimed he would be 112. Clemence was focused especially hard on keeping him alive so that he could enjoy his party. She was making big preparations.

  Pour me summa that cold slough water, Mooshum said to me as we sat.

  Daddy! This peps you up.

  I don’t need no more pep. I need a place to put my pep.

  How about Grandma Ignatia? I wanted to get him going.

  She’s all dried out.

  She’s younger than you, said Clemence in a frosty voice. You old buggers think you’re made for young women. That’s what’s wrong with you.

  That’s what’s keeping me alive! That and my hair.

  Mooshum touched the long, slick, scrawny white mane he’d been growing for years. Clemence kept trying to braid or tie Mooshum’s hair back, but he preferred to let it course in matted strings down the sides of his face.

  Oh yai. He took a big gulp of tea. If Louis Riel had let Dumont ambush the militia back then, I’d be a retired prime minister. Clemence here might be governing our Indian nation instead of wiping the priest’s
floor. She’d have no time to make me drink these endless buckets of twig juice. The stuff runs right through me, my boy. Oops! Ha-ha. That’s what I’ll say when I shit my pants. Oops!

  Don’t you dare, said Clemence. Stay with him till I get back and make sure he gets to the toilet, him. She said she’d be back by noon or one.

  I nodded and drank the tea. It had the sharp taste of bark. With Clemence gone, we could get down to business. I needed to find out about the ghost, first of all. Then I needed luck. I asked Mooshum about the ghost and described it. I told him that the same ghost had come to Randall.

  It’s not a ghost, then, Mooshum said.

  What is it, then?

  Someone’s throwing their spirit at you. Somebody that you’ll see.

  Could it be the man?

  What man?

  I took a breath. Who hurt my mother.

  Mooshum nodded and sat motionless, frowning.

  No, probably not, he said at last. When somebody throws their spirit at you they don’t even know it, but they mean to help. For weeks mon père dreamed that horse trampled him. Twice, I saw the angel that came to take my Junesse. Be careful.

  Then help me get my luck, I said. How should I start?

  You go to your doodem first, Mooshum answered. Find the ajijaak.

  My father and his father were ceremonially taken into the crane clan, or Ajijaak. They were supposed to be leaders and have good voices, but beyond that I’d been given no special knowledge. I told this to Mooshum.

  That’s okay. You just go straight to your doodem and watch. It will show you the luck, Joe.

  He drank the tea, made a face. Then his head tipped down on his chest and he fell into the instant sleep of the ancient and the very young. I helped him stand up and with his eyes shut he was willing to be led to the cot in the living room where he dozed in the daytime, right beside the picture window. It was placed so that when he woke up he could gaze at the hot eternal sky.