Corliss knew about mothers and their difficult love.
“I opened the door and got out. I was going to walk across the street and stop her and say to her — I’d rehearsed it all — I was going to say, ‘Mother, I am your son.’ Basic, simple, clean. Nothing dramatic. Still, I thought even that simple statement might kill her. I keep thinking I might shock her into a heart attack, she looked so frail and weak. I’m walking across the street toward her, and she’s coughing, and I’m getting closer, and then she reaches into her pocket, pulls out this crack pipe and a lighter, and she lights up right there in the middle of the street. Broad daylight. She lights up and sucks the crap in. And I kept walking right past her, came within a foot of her, you know. I could smell her. She didn’t even look at me. She just kept sucking at that pipe. Old Indian woman sucking on a crack pipe. It was sad and ridiculous, but you know the worst part?”
“What?” Corliss asked.
Harlan stood and walked down the aisle away from Corliss. He spoke with his back to her.
“I was happy to see my mother like that,” he said. “I was smiling when I walked away from her. I just kept thinking how lucky I was, how blessed, that this woman didn’t raise me. I just kept thinking God had chosen me, had chosen these two white people to swoop in and save me. Do you know how terrible it is to feel that way? And how good it feels, too?”
“I don’t have any idea how you feel,” Corliss said. Her confusion was the best thing she could offer. What could she say to him that would matter? She’d spent her whole life talking. Words had always been her weapon, her offense and defense, and she felt that her silence, her wordlessness, might be the only thing she could give him.
“The thing is,” he said, “the two best, the two most honorable and loyal people in my life are my white mother and my white father. So, you tell me, kid, what kind of Indian does that make me?”
Corliss knew only Harlan could answer that question for himself. She knew the name of her tribe, and the name of her archaic clan, and her public Indian name, and her secret Indian name, but everything else she knew about Indians was ambiguous and transitory.
“What’s your name?” she asked him. “What’s your real name?”
Harlan Atwater faced her. He smiled, turned away, and walked out of the store. She could follow him and ask for more. She could demand to know his real name. She could interrogate him for days and attempt to separate his truth from his lies and his exaggerations from his omissions. But she let him go. She understood she was supposed to let him go. And he was gone. But Corliss sat for hours in the bookstore. She didn’t care about time. She was tired and hungry, but she sat and waited. Indians are good at waiting, she thought, especially when we don’t know what we’re waiting for. But there comes a time when an Indian stops waiting, and when that time came for Corliss, she stood, took Harlan Atwater’s book to the poetry section, placed it with its front cover facing outward for all the world to see, and then she left the bookstore and began her small journey back home.
THE VOW
If I get Alzheimer’s,” he said, “then I want you to put me in a home.”
“Indians don’t get Alzheimer’s,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because our elders continue to be an active part of our culture. With powwows and storytelling and ceremonies.”
“That sounds very anecdotal,” he said. “And also, you know, like bullshit.”
“It sounds true is what it sounds like.”
“Everything sounds true if you say it enough.”
“It’s true for me,” she said. “If you get Alzheimer’s, I’m going to take care of you. I’ll turn the dining room into a hospital room. And I’ll get one of those recliners that you can raise and lower. And I’ll spoon-feed you sweet potatoes.”
“I hate sweet potatoes,” he said.
“Carrots, then.”
“Why would you take care of me like that? Why would you sacrifice your health for mine?”
“A thing called wedding vows,” she said. “Perhaps you remember ours?”
“We need Wedding Vows 2.0,” he said.
“How very modern of you.”
“I’m an Indian man,” he said. “You know I’m going to get sick before you do. If one of us gets Alzheimer’s, it’s going to be me.”
“Self-pity is so sexy.”
“No, really,” he said, and took her hand. “Promise me.”
“Promise you what?”
“Promise me you’ll put me in a home if I get Alzheimer’s.”
“I’m not going to do that. You’re still going to be you.”
“I can’t be me if I don’t have my memories. We’re made of memories, damn it.”
She was not surprised by his sudden anger. And she knew how to mollify him.
“Okay,” she said. “You’ll lose your memories. I understand. But I’ll still have mine. I’ll have enough memory for both of us.”
“That’s beautiful,” he said. “And also, you know, more bullshit.”
“Maybe. But it’s my bullshit.”
“Listen,” he said. “Just make this promise. When I forget your name — when I forget who you are — then you have to put me in a home.”
She tried to picture it. She imagined him staring at her like she was an intruder in their home. It was a terrifying hypothetical, but it felt so possible that she was startled by her grief.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” she said. “It’s not going to happen.”
“I love you,” he said. “I love you like the earth loves the earth. I need you to promise me this.”
“No.”
“Promise me you’ll put me in a home if I forget who you are.”
“No.”
He stood from the couch and walked across the room. He paused in the doorway to the kitchen and turned to face her.
“Pretend,” he said. “Pretend this space between us is all we have left. Pretend I can’t see or hear you across the distance. Pretend I have to introduce myself to you thirty times a day.”
Her eyes watered. She didn’t want to cry.
“Stop it,” she said. “Why are you doing this?”
“Just make the promise,” he said. “Quit asking questions. And just make the promise. I need the promise. Just be my wife and don’t question my motives this time. Just accept it. Don’t you love me enough to just accept something I ask for?”
She hid her face and sobbed. After a few minutes, she stopped. Then, a few minutes after that, she could speak again.
“Okay,” she said. “If you can’t remember who I am, then I’ll put you in a home. But I’m going to visit you every day. I’ll introduce myself to you every fucking day for the rest of our lives.”
She rarely cursed, so he knew that she was telling the truth.
“Damn you,” she said. “Damn you for doing this to me. Damn you for being so fucking sad.”
They were both twenty-seven years old and lived in a one-bedroom house in a city. They’d been married for three years. She was pregnant with their second child. They’d known beforehand the gender of the first child, a daughter, but they’d decided to keep the gender of the second one a mystery. She was from the Colville Indian Reservation and he from the Spokane Indian Reservation. Between their tribal lands flowed the Columbia River, the fourth largest in the United States. During their seven years of courtship, he’d drive his car onto the Gifford Ferry and cross the water for her.
O, he’d loved that river since his birth.
O, he’d loved her since the first time he’d seen her shawl-dancing in the powwow twilight.