"Come on, Igoshi. You know I don't believe in old superstitions like those. Please, just tell me what it means? Is my daughter sick?"
Igoshi laughed loudly and then clasped her thigh under the thick dress. "No, no, no, my dear. Sick, she is not. But she is not ours to keep."
"Now, there you go again with those vague answers that I don't understand."
"No. You don't want to understand. Inside, you know exactly what I mean, in there," she said and pointed at her own heart. "But marrying Andrew has done nothing good for you in that direction. I hear him when you talk. The words coming from your mouth are no longer yours. You know the saying: The tragedy in life is not death but what we let die inside of us while we live. Don't let yourself die inside; don't forget what you used to believe. I remember you when you were younger and still living here on the reservation. You never questioned our ways or our beliefs. Now you are ready to throw it all away…because of Andrew?"
That hit Julia hard. She had believed she could do both, but could Igoshi be right? Was it true that the more time she spent outside the reservation and with Andrew, the more she forgot where she was from, the more she questioned everything she had learned as a child? Was she forgetting who she was?
Igoshi put her hand on top of Julia's. Their eyes met across the table. Julia had always loved Igoshi. But she still couldn't get rid of the thought that the woman was mad as a bat like her husband said. She had, after all, killed her own husband, or so it was said, and losing a child could drive any woman insane. She knew it could.
"Come back," Igoshi said. "Move back to the reservation. It would do Anna good to be here, to be with children more like her."
There was a big part of Julia that felt that Igoshi was right, that it would be better for Anna in so many ways, but then there was the other part that said Anna had more of a future in the world she lived in now, in the school she went to now, living among…well, ordinary people. Staying where they were meant Anna could have a future and maybe even a career one day. She could go to college and get a real job afterward. She could have a good life. It wasn't like Julia was very attached to the reservation since her own parents had both died, but she did have some cousins. A lot of them, as a matter of fact. And they all had children that Anna could get to know.
Argh, why did it have to be so hard?
It doesn’t matter. Andrew will never accept it. He will never let you move back. Never.
"A girl with this gift needs to learn how to use it," Igoshi said. "There are people…Evil…"
Julia threw out her arms. "There you go again," she said and stood up. "There you go with all that nonsense. Evil. Tsk. Look around, there is no evil. Unless we get drunk and unleash them ourselves, there are no demons except the ones we have inside of ourselves. The tragedy is the way you all live here, in such poverty, in such depressive circumstances. It's no place for a child, especially not someone as smart as Anna. She can be anything in this world. People in here have no future; there are no jobs unless you want to work the smoke shops or the casino. Anna is smart. She is way beyond any of her classmates—"
Who never play with her because she is brown and strange to them.
"—There is no future for her here. And maybe you're right. Maybe I have forgotten what I used to believe in, but maybe it's not such a bad thing."
She grabbed her purse and walked to the front door, regretting she had defied her husband and come there.
"You truly are crazy, like Andrew says," she said with a tsk, then shook her head. "I came here to give you a second chance, but now I see that Andrew was right in keeping you from our daughter. All that talk about evil powers and that sort of thing only makes her have nightmares. Please, just stay away from her."
Igoshi got up. She was right behind Julia when she said: "But you saw the bruises, didn't you? That's the real reason why you came. You can't stop wondering about them and how she could get hurt like that while just sleeping, am I right?"
Julia, still holding her hand on the door handle, closed her eyes for a few seconds, and then opened them again. She turned the handle, and then pulled the door open. "I don't know what you're talking about," she finally said and left.
Chapter 19
Fort Lauderdale, October 2008
Julia was still upset when Anna came home from school. The school bus stopped right outside on their street. Julia heard it. She wiped off her tears when she heard the front door open and Anna call for her.
"Mo-om?"
Then the sound of her dropping her backpack on the floor and taking off her shoes and socks, which she always did as the first thing.
And guess who will be picking those up, she thought with a smile.
"How was your day?" she said and kissed her cheek as Anna rushed by her. "Any homework?"
"I did it on the bus," Anna said and hurried to the living room. Julia had made a corner for her to play with her dolls in, trying hard to keep them to that corner only, so they wouldn't take up the entire living room.
"You hungry?" Julia asked.
"Not really."
Anna grabbed her basket with accessories for her American Girl Dolls and seemed to be searching for something. Julia observed her as she got agitated and angry.
“What's wrong?" Julia asked and walked up to her.
"I can't find it."
“What can't you find?"
"My camera. I had this camera for my dolls on a tripod."
Julia wrinkled her nose. She knew everything she had ever bought for her belonging to the American Girl dolls and she never bought a camera on a tripod. "You don't have a camera," she said.
"Yes, I do. It's black and this big," Anna said and showed her with her hands. "I set it up in front of them and then get them ready for the shoot…" Anna stopped like she remembered something, then giggled. "Oh, wait, that's not here. It's in the other place. I'm sorry, Mommy."
Julia grabbed a kid's chair and pulled it up next to Anna. "So, when you say in the other place, what exactly do you mean?"
The girl looked at her, then shrugged. "You know. The other places I go."
Julia took in a deep breath. "The other places, huh? So, in those other places, are you the same or someone else?"
"I'm myself."
"Okay, that's good…I guess. So, do you play with your American Girl dolls there too?"
"Yes," she smiled. "I always play with my dolls."
"And do you do it in this house too?"
"Mostly, yes."
Anna grabbed the horse that Julia had bought for her and started to brush its hair, whistling a song. Julia smiled to herself, thinking it was nothing but her dreams that Anna was talking about. She had probably just dreamt she got that camera with the tripod because she wanted one. Maybe she would get her one for her birthday.
But what about the bruises, then? You saw them. The bruises on her arm.
Julia chuckled. Andrew had told her the bruises were probably from falling out of bed, or something like that. Anna was a very lively sleeper and had often sleepwalked. She could easily have hurt herself.
Don't let that old woman get to you. She's crazy as a bat.
Thinking it was about time to start dinner, Julia got up from the chair. She tousled her daughter's hair, then started to walk away, when Anna said:
"You're not there anymore. And you're not going to be here either."
Julia almost choked. She turned and looked at her daughter, who had returned to humming the same song as before.
"Stop saying things like that, Anna," she said angrily. "Stop saying them, you hear me?"
Her daughter looked up. "But, Mo-om?"
"Go to your room. No more dolls for you today. GO!"
Chapter 20
Fort Lauderdale, December 2008
Christmas time always left Andrew with a bitter taste in his mouth. Since leaving the reservation, he and Julia had tried to spend it the way most other people did, with a Christmas tree, Santa, and presents and all. They wanted Anna t
o have the same joys that all the other kids had. She shouldn't feel any different just because they didn't believe in Jesus as God's son. Most of their neighbors didn't even believe that either.
But, at the same time, it made Andrew sad, remembering the Christmases at the rez, where they used to celebrate Winter Solstice, but never had anything. It was usually a time when people from the outside, white people, came to the reservation bringing food and presents, as a charity for those poor Native Americans who couldn't afford to have a proper Christmas.
Andrew remembered with a bitter taste how those white folks, calling themselves Christians, came inside the rez and started to hand out meals from the back of their truck and how his mother always sent him to get as much as he could carry. One Christmas, he remembered his mother asking him to go and, as he saw his dad on his way out, passed out drunk on the couch, he wondered if his dad even realized how humiliating it was that the white men came here with all this food because he couldn't provide for his own family. It was while standing in that line, waiting for the care package—usually containing a ham and potatoes, rice, bread, beans, and other canned goods, bad smelling shampoo, a couple of candy canes, toothpaste, and some medicine no one would ever use inside the reservation, and a few presents for a child that, if he was lucky, were for a boy—it was then that he made his decision for the first time. When he grew up, he was never going to be a charity case. He would never live on the rez and accept the humiliation of relying on the white men to bring him what he needed. His family was never going to need anything that he couldn't provide.
But getting to that point was harder than he had thought back then and it didn't take him many years to realize that it would be impossible if he stayed within the reservation. He started dreaming of going off to college like he knew one of his cousins had. He wanted to be a part of society, the real society, not living off their mercy in a prison with no way to escape. He wasn't going to let that happen to his daughter either. He had seen too many young men becoming more and more discouraged as the years passed and then finally turning to drinking when they realized life was simply passing them by. There was nothing more for them. Some even went off to college on scholarships but then later returned, even though they knew it meant they would be unemployed and live a life of poverty. He never understood why they would come back when they had gotten away. The longing, they called it. It was said everyone who ever left the rez had it and would succumb to it at one point or another.
But Andrew never had it and he was never going to. He didn't miss anything about that place and was never going back. Not for anything. Not even his old mother, especially not for his old mother.
"Daddy, I made this for you," Anna said and handed him a present on Christmas morning.
The living room was bulging with opened presents, toys for the most part that Andrew had bought for his daughter. He had gone a little overboard this Christmas, but he couldn't help himself. He had recently gotten a raise at the university and they could afford it. Julia always babbled about traveling and they would soon enough. First, he was going to take them all to Key West. A colleague of his had a house down there and a boat they could borrow to go fishing. It was his present to Julia, a week in the keys in the spring. Their first trip away as a family. The first of many.
Andrew shook the package. "What is it? It doesn't sound like new TV, nor does it look like it."
Anna giggled. "Just open it, you silly."
Andrew smiled. How he adored that daughter of his. She was truly something. Julia kept calling her special and told him she was gifted in school and all that, and he knew. He knew she was something special, but he didn't want her to know. He wanted her to think she was normal, just like all the other kids in school.
"I’m so excited,” Andrew said, smiling at Julia who was sitting across from him in their living room. Their normal living room, with normal couches and carpet, having a normal Christmas, exactly the same as their neighbors and everyone else in the neighborhood.
Andrew sighed, satisfied as he unwrapped the gift, then froze. "What's this?"
"A dream catcher," Anna said. "It protects you from bad stuff in your dreams."
"How did you learn to make one of these?" Andrew said, trying hard to suppress his anger. His mother had given him one, exactly like this, every year while growing up. Every freakin' year, the same present, made by her, by her own two wrinkled old hands. And every year he had felt the loathing for his life and humiliation over receiving such a present because he knew the only reason for it was that they couldn't afford anything else. They couldn't afford to buy him a real present.
"Do you like it?"
"It's lovely, honey," Julia said, then looked at Andrew. "Right, Andrew?"
Andrew rose to his feet. "Why would you give me this? Who taught you to make this?"
Anna shrugged. "Nanna did."
"Nanna?" he looked to Julia for answers. "But…but…I thought you weren't seeing her anymore…I thought we had told her to…"
Julia shrugged. "I never…I promise you she hasn't been here and we haven't been there either."
"So, how do you explain…this?" he said and held out the dream catcher in front of him like he believed it was covered in filth.
Julia shrugged. "I…I don't know." She put a hand on his shoulder like she always did to calm him down. It didn't help much.
"Maybe she showed her how to make one when Anna was little and she remembered. She does have a really good memory. Or maybe she picked up something in school about these things. How they used to be a Native American thing. Who knows where kids get their ideas from, right?"
Andrew was shaking. He handed the dream catcher to Julia. "Please, just take it away from me. I don't want it in my house." He turned to face Anna. "Never bring one into our house again, you hear me? Never."
Anna bit her lip, looking up at her dad with big eyes. "Yes, Daddy. I'm sorry, Daddy."
"And don't mention Nanna again, you hear me? I don't want to hear her name here in this house anymore. Never again."
Chapter 21
Key West, March 2009
They had seen Hemingway's house. Andrew wasn't very impressed. It was mostly just an old house with a bunch of cats and an old typewriter behind a rope. But the girls had loved it. Anna especially. She had read all of his novels before going and told Andrew all kinds of stories about the famous writer. Andrew liked how she was capable of soaking up all the information and never letting go of it again. It was truly amazing. Andrew was beginning to have high hopes for her to go to college one day.
She was going to make it big.
Now they were going to the southernmost point, where you could see all the way to Cuba, they said. Well almost.
"Look, Daddy," Anna said and jumped out of the car. "There's the buoy. Isn't it wonderful?"
Andrew nodded and grabbed his camera. "Stand right in front of the buoy so we can get the right shot."
The girls did. Julia put her arm around Anna's shoulder and they smiled widely. Andrew took the picture with his phone, then looked at it.
"There we go," he said and showed the girls the picture.
"All right, then," Anna said. "We’ve taken a picture at the Southernmost point in the United States."
"Actually, it's only the continental United States," Andrew corrected her. "Hawaii is much further south."
Anna chuckled. "Of course. Except the Mexican Empire goes all the way to Costa Rica, but that's not in this world."
Andrew stopped. "What on earth do you mean? How do you know about the Mexican Empire?"
"It's the southernmost state in the US. It became a part of the United States in eighteen sixty-four."
"No," Andrew said, his forehead wrinkled. "That's nonsense. The Mexican Empire only existed less than two years. From eighteen twenty-one till eighteen twenty-three. In eighteen sixty-four it was dissolved. It reached from Northern California to the provinces of Central America, excluding Panama, which was then a part of Colombi
a. It was the Spanish Empire's attempt to establish a monarchy, but the first and only monarch abdicated in eighteen twenty-three."
Anna chuckled lovingly like her dad had said something silly. "Well sure…here he did."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Andrew said. He got so annoyed with Anna for saying silly stuff like this. He knew how smart she was; she had to know better than this. Where did it come from? All those strange things she said all the time? He worried she wasn't all well in her mind and was concerned that she might take after her grandmother a lot more than just by her looks.
"You can't just…this is history, these are facts, you can't just brush it away like that. Now, I am very impressed that you would know about this, but I don't know where you'd get the nonsense about it becoming a part of the U.S. Don't they teach you about our history in school? Maybe I ought to talk to that teacher of yours. Mrs. Wilkers, right?"
Anna chuckled again as they walked down to the beach. It was crowded. A lot of the tourists were swimming in the ocean, some snorkeling. Andrew had never been fond of the ocean, other than going fishing. Anna rushed into the ocean, giggling loudly. "Anna,” Julia yelled. "You can't swim."
"Sure, I can," Anna said laughing, then dove under the water.
Julia and Andrew looked at each other. Neither of them remembered teaching her, but then again, it was Florida. All kids could usually swim. She had probably just learned from some friend who had a pool.
Andrew shook his head and laughed as Anna's head poked up from the water again. It was pretty hot out, so maybe it was a good idea to cool down a little. Andrew walked out in the water to the edge of his shorts and enjoyed the cool feeling on his feet. Wearing a short dress, Julia followed him. Anna splashed water at both of them and they all laughed. For one second, Andrew stopped worrying about his daughter and her strangeness. For one precious second.