“They're Jesuit Volunteers,” Trixie corrected. “And no. I'm not.”
“Then who are you?”
Well, wasn't that the $64,000 question. Trixie couldn't have answered that if Joseph had held a gun to her head. It wasn't even a matter of giving her name, because that didn't explain anything. She could remember who she used to be - that picture was like an image sealed into a snow globe, one that went fuzzy when she shook it too hard but then, if she held her breath, might see clearly. She could look down at herself now and tell you how surprised she was that she had come this distance, how strange it was to discover that lying came as easily as breathing. What she couldn't put into words was what had happened in between to change her from one person into the other.
Her father used to tell her the story of how, when she was eight, she'd awakened in the middle of the night with her arms and legs burning, as if they'd been tugged from their sockets. It's growing pains, he'd told her sympathetically, and she'd burst into tears, certain that when she woke up in the morning, she'd be as big as him.
The amazing thing was, it did happen that quickly. All those mornings in middle school she'd spent scrutinizing her chest to see if it had budded the slightest bit, all the practice kisses she'd given her bathroom mirror to make sure her nose didn't get in the way on D-day; all the waiting for a boy to notice her . . . and as it turned out, growing up was just as she'd feared. One day when your alarm clock rang, you got up and realized you had someone else's thoughts in your head ... or maybe just your old ones, minus the hope.
“Are you sure you're not Nettie?” Joseph said when Trixie didn't answer.
It was the name he'd called her before. “Who is she?”
“Well.” He turned his face to the wall. “She's dead.”
“Then chances are pretty good I'm not her.” Joseph seemed surprised. “Didn't you ever hear about the girl who came back from the dead?”
Trixie rolled her eyes. “You're still trashed.”
“A young girl died,” Joseph replied, as if she hadn't spoken at all, “but she didn't know it. All she knew is that she went on a journey and reached a village. Her grandmother was at the village, too, and they lived together there. Every now and then, they went to another village, where the girl's father would give her fur parkas. What she didn't know was that he was really giving them to her namesake, the girl who'd been born just after his daughter had died.”
Joseph sat up gingerly, sending a potent wave of alcohol fumes toward Trixie. “One day, they were going home from that other village, and the girl's grandmother said she'd forgotten some things. She asked the girl to go get them. She told her that if she came to a fallen evergreen tree, even though it might look like she could go under it or around it, she had to go over it instead.”
Trixie folded her arms, listening in spite of her best intentions.
“The girl backtracked to the village, and sure enough, she came to a fallen tree. She tried to do what her grandmother had told her, but when she climbed over it she tripped, and that was the last thing she remembered. She couldn't figure out the way back to her grandmother, and she started to cry. Just then, a man from the village came out of the qasgiq and heard weeping. He followed the noise and saw the girl who had died years ago. He tried to grab on to her, but it was like holding only air.”
Of course, Trixie thought. Because the more you changed, the less of you there was.
"The man rubbed his arms with food, and then he could grab her, even when the girl fought him. He carried her into the qasgiq, but they kept rising off the floorboards. An elder rubbed the girl with drippings from a seal oil lamp, and then she was able to stand without floating away. They all saw that this girl was the same one who
had died. She was wearing the parkas her father had given to her namesake, all those years. And wouldn't you know it, after she came back, her namesake died not long after that.“ Joseph pulled the blanket up to his chest. ”She lived to be an old woman,“ he said. ”She told people what it had been like in Pamaalirugmiut . .
. the place back there, obscured from their view."
“Oh really,” Trixie said, not buying a word of the story. “Let me guess: There was a white light and harp music?” Joseph looked at her, puzzled. “No, she used to say it was dry. People who die are always thirsty. That's why we send the dead on their way with fresh water. And why, maybe, I'm always looking for a little something to wet my throat.”
Trixie drew her knees into her chest, shivering as she thought of Jason. “You're not dead.”
Joseph sank back down on the mat. “You'd be surprised,” he said.
* * *
“It's not too cold to keep me from going for a walk,” Aurora Johnson said to Laura in perfect, unaccented English, and she stood there, waiting for Laura to respond, as if she'd asked her a question.
Maybe Aurora wanted someone to talk to and didn't know how to ask. Laura could understand that. She got to her feet and reached for her coat. “Do you mind company?”
Aurora smiled and pulled on a jacket that fell to her knees but managed to zip up over her swollen belly. She stepped into boots with soles as thick as a fireman's and headed outside. Laura fell into step beside her, moving briskly against the cold. It had been two hours since Daniel had left, and the afternoon was pitch-dark now - there were no streetlamps lighting their way, no glow from a distant highway. From time to time the green cast of a television set inside a house would rise like a spirit in the window, but for the most part, the sky was an unbroken navy velvet, the stars so thick you could cut through them with a sweep of your arm.
Aurora's hair was brown, streaked with orange. Long tendrils blew out from the edges of her parka's hood. She was only three years older than Trixie, yet she was on the verge of giving birth.
“When are you due?” Laura asked.
“My BIB date is January tenth.”
“BIB date?”
“Be-in-Bethel,” Aurora explained. “If you live in the villages and you're pregnant, you have to move into the prematernal home in the city six weeks or so before you're due. That way, the docs have you where they need you. Otherwise, if there's some kind of complication, the medical center has to get the anguyagta to fly in a Blackhawk. It costs the National Guard ten thousand bucks a pop.” She glanced at Laura. “Do you just have the one? Baby, I mean?”
Laura nodded, bowing her head as she thought of Trixie. She hoped that wherever Trixie was now, it was warm. That someone had given her a bite to eat, or a blanket. She hoped that Trixie was leaving markers the way she had learned ages ago in Girl Scouts a twig broken here, a cairn of rocks there.
“Minnie's my second mom, you know,” Aurora said. “I was adopted out. Families are like that here. If a baby dies, your sister or aunt might give you her own. After Cane died, I was born and my mom sent me to be Minnie's daughter too.” She shrugged. “I'm adopting out this baby to my biological mom's cousin.”
“You're just going to give it away?” Laura said, shocked.
“I'm not giving her away. I'm making it so she'll have both of us.”
“What about the father?” Laura asked. “Are you still involved with him?”
“I see him about once a week,” Aurora said. Laura stopped walking. She was talking to a Yup'ik girl who was heavily pregnant, but she was seeing Trixie's face and hearing Trixie's voice. What if Laura had been around when Trixie had met Jason, instead of having her own affair? Would Trixie have ever dated him? Would she have been as crushed when they broke up?
Would she have been at Zephyr's house the night of the party?
Would she have gotten raped?
For every action, there was an opposite reaction. But maybe you could undo your wrongs by keeping someone else from making the same mistakes of misjudgment. “Aurora,” Laura said slowly, “I'd love to meet him. Your boyfriend.”