in the Pueblo, but evidently it was made for Anglo collectors, not for home use. I did find in a china cabinet a display of extraordinary black-and-white pots, their glazed surfaces covered with microscopically fine geometric designs. Some of the pots were slightly less well made, maybe some of the proud early efforts of Inez's daughters. A crude, dark bowl with a chipped rim sat in the cabinet's central place of honor, and I stared at it, puzzled, until I realized this was Loyd's pot, the one he'd found in the ruins. Loyd's offering from Canyon de Chelly.
I peeked into the next room. Charlie Rich was singing from the radio now, and Birdie hummed "Behind Closed Doors" while she bent over an electric sewing machine. Its small light glowed on her face. A baby slept on a flat, fur-lined cradle board that hung like a swing on ropes from the ceiling. On every fifth arc of the swing, Birdie reached up without looking and gave it a push. She noticed me standing in the doorway and inclined her head toward the end of the room, where an iron bed stood behind a drawn-open curtain of blankets. "You can put things there. That's for you and Loyd."
"Thanks," I said. "Who's the little one?"
"My daughter's girl. Hester."
"How old?"
"Three weeks."
"Does your daughter live here too?"
Birdie pulled her cloth from the machine and shook her head slightly while she broke the thread with her teeth. "She goes to boarding school in Albuquerque."
I returned to exploring the living room. I was stunned to run across a small framed photo of two little Loyds, identical, sitting astride very different horses. Behind them was a backdrop of dry hills and a brown water tank. Loyd and Leander, nine years old, looking as if they owned the world. Until I saw that picture I hadn't really heard a word he'd told me about losing his brother. You can't know somebody, I thought, till you've followed him home.
That evening Inez's house filled with relatives for the feast. Cousins and uncles and aunts showed up, stamping the snow off their moccasins, bringing covered dishes and their own chairs. All the older women had their hair cut in the same style as Inez's, with short flaps over the ears and the heavy chignon in the back, and they wore silver necklaces and elaborate turquoise rings that shielded their knuckles. The teenage girls wore jeans and about everything else you'd expect on a teenage girl, except makeup. One of them nursed a baby at the table, under her T-shirt.
Loyd and I shared one chair; apparently we were the official lovebirds of this fiesta. He spent a lot of time telling me what I was eating. There were, just to begin with, five different kinds of posole, a hominy soup with duck or pork and chilies and coriander. Of the twenty or so different dishes I recognized only lime Jell-O, cut into cubes. I gave up trying to classify things by species and just ate. To everyone's polite amusement, my favorite was the bread, which was cooked in enormous, nearly spherical loaves, two dozen at a time, in the adobe ovens outside. It had a hard brown crust and a heavenly, steaming interior, and tasted like love. I ate half a loaf by myself, believing no one would notice. Later, in bed, Loyd told me they were all calling me the Bread Girl.
Our bed was small, but after three nights in the truck it felt deliciously soft. I cuddled against Loyd. "What's a navel mother?" I asked, drowsy with warmth and a half loaf of bread.
"She's like a special aunt. She's the one that cuts the cord when you're born, and helps your mother get up out of bed when she's ready. They count that as your birthday-the day your mother gets up."
"Not the day you were born?"
"Not the day you came out. They count the mother getting better as all part of the birth."
"Hallie doesn't have a birthday, then," I said. "After she was born, our mother never got up. She got real sick, and then a helicopter tried to come get her and she died. All without ever putting her slippers on."
"Then Hallie never finished getting born," Loyd said. He kissed the top of my head.
I was aware of the sleeping sounds of Inez and Hester on the other side of the makeshift curtain. I asked, "Is it okay that we're sleeping together?"