and began splitting wood with such crazed thwacks that I feared he would take off his leg. I told him to take it easy, but he just gave me a dead look and hit a piece of wood so hard it shot up ten feet.
Meandering back toward our house, where my mother and father were supposed to have returned that afternoon, I had that feeling again of not wanting to go home. But I didn’t want to go back to anywhere Sonja was, either. Thinking of her made me think of everything. Into my mind there came the picture of that scrap of blue-and-white checked cloth, and the knowledge I kept pushing away about the doll being in that car. By throwing out the doll I’d obviously destroyed evidence, maybe even something that would tell Mayla’s whereabouts. Where she lay, in a place so obscure that even the dogs could not find her. I put the thought of Mayla from my mind. And Sonja. I tried also not to think of my mother. Of what had maybe happened in Bismarck. All of these thoughts were reasons I did not want to go home, or to be alone. They came up over me, shrouding my mind, covering my heart. Even as I rode, I tried to get rid of the thoughts by taking my bicycle over the dirt hills behind the hospital. I began to course violently up and down, jumping so high that when I landed my bones jarred. Whirling. Skidding. Raising clouds of grit that filled my mouth until I was sick and thirsty and dripping with sweat so I could finally go home.
Pearl heard my bike approach, and she stood at the end of the drive, waiting. I got off the bike and put my forehead on her forehead. I wished I could change places with her. I was holding Pearl when I heard my mother scream. And scream again. And then I heard my father’s low voice grinding between her shrieks. Her voice veered and fell, just the way I’d just been riding, crashing hard, until finally it dropped to an astonished mutter.
I stood outside, holding my bike up, leaning on it. Pearl was next to me. Eventually, my father walked out the back screen door and lit a cigarette, which I had never seen him do. His face was yellow with exhaustion. His eyes were so red they seemed rimmed with blood. He turned and saw me.
They let him go, didn’t they, I said.
He didn’t answer.
Didn’t they, Dad.
After a moment he dragged on the cigarette, looked down.
All of the electric poison that had drained out of me on my bike flooded back and I began to harangue my father, with words. Stupid words.
All you catch are drunks and hot dog thieves.
He looked at me in surprise, then shrugged and tapped the ash off his cigarette.
Don’t forget the scofflaws and custody cases.
Scofflaws? Oh sure. Is there anywhere you can’t park on the rez?
Try the tribal chairman’s spot.
And custody. Nothing but pain. You said yourself. You’ve got zero authority, Dad, one big zero, nothing you can do. Why do it anyway?
You know why.
No, I don’t. I yelled it at him and went in to be with my mother, but there was nothing to be with when I got there. She was staring blankly at the blank of the refrigerator and when I stepped in front of her she spoke in a weird, calm voice.
Hi, Joe.
After my father entered, she went upstairs in a slow devotional walk with him holding on to her arm.
Don’t leave her, Dad, please. I said this in dread as he came back down alone. But he did not even glance at me to answer. I stood awkwardly across from him, dangling my hands.
Why do you do it? I said to him, bursting out. Why bother?
You want to know?
He got up and went to the refrigerator and rummaged around and pulled something from deep on the back shelf. He brought it over to the table. It was one of Clemence’s uneaten casseroles, there so long the noodles had turned black, but stashed near enough to the cold refrigeration coils that it had frozen and so didn’t stink, yet.
Why I keep on. You want to know?
With a savage thump he turned the casserole over onto the table. He lifted off the pan. The thing was shot through with white fuzz but held its oblong shape. My father rose again and pulled the box of cutlery from