In the Heat of Summer

(continued)

By Marta Palos

She arrives in her pickup at dusk. Had a lot of errands to run, she says, sits down in the living room and stares at the wall. I sit down beside her and ask what's wrong.

"Don't pretend, Brian. You're turning yourself into somebody new, and it's not going to work."

"I'm not somebody new. Moving to a new place can bring out hidden traits in people."

"Hidden traits? In that case, I fell in love with the wrong man."

I put my arm around her and start composing a peacemaking speech in my head. I want to tell her about the drunk janitor, my father, the why behind my drive to improve myself.

"Remember Canyon de Chelly?" she interrupts my thoughts.

I see a sunset, Cora enveloped in amber light.

"I remember. You spotted a shape on the other side of the canyon. It was a Kachina spirit, you said, and you wanted to fly across the abyss of liquid gold to see it up-close —"

"— and then the shape disappeared —"

"— and I took your hand and led you away from that golden abyss. The sun was about to fall off the edge of the world."

Touched by the memory, we sit in silence.

"And on the way home you told me about The Road of Life, the way the Hopis call our lifetime."

Her eyes lighting up, she draws a circle in the air. "It goes like this, see? This is the point where the sun rises, then travels west. People follow the same path. At birth we emerge from the east and move west-ward. And then, at the point we call death--"

"— we simply return to the underworld, to be reborn again."

"Right. Grandma taught me this."

"I think it's neat. Come to think of it, you never took me to see your people."

"Face it, Brian. The Hopis and the McLures don't click."

"It's us that counts, not a whole tribe."

"Sounds nice, but reality is different. I think the whole thing was my fault. We should've stayed in Flagstaff."

"No, it was a good move. I think I'll take a few evening courses at the local college in fall."

Cora peels my arm off her shoulders. "Okay, you do that, Brian. I'll fix something to eat and hit the sack. I'm tired."

She's already in bed when I remember my conciliatory speech I forgot to deliver.

And when the alarm clock wakes me up in the morning, her place beside me is empty. I call her, there's no answer. I step into my shorts and open the front door. Her pickup is gone. In her room all I see is the easel, apparently too heavy for her to handle. The Kachina doll is also gone.

On the kitchen table I find a note with the keys to the house on top.

Brian — I wanted to leave in peace, so I waited till you
fell asleep. I still say you're a social snob and I still
hate that, but that's not the reason I'm going back to
grandma. I always had this fear that some day you'd
turn into a replica of my father — that's why I didn't want
to marry you. And true enough, in the last months you
began to sound like him. You scoffed at just about
everybody who didn't have a Ph.D. as if you had one,
and I wondered what you really thought of the mixed
breed I am. I couldn't shake the feeling that your love
was just a show— hey, world, look how open-minded
I am, going with an Injun!

One good thing came out of this, though. I finally
realized that I belong to my people of brown skin and
gentle spirit. True, they threw a bunch of Spaniards off
the cliffs at old Oraibi, but that doesn't count because
the Spaniards deserved it. Besides, it happened more
than three hundred years ago.

I'll miss you. I wish you could somehow change back to
normal. But you won't. Don't want to, I guess. Go and
follow your own Road of Life.

Signed, Butterfly Resting. I read her Indian name through a blur.

The purpose of going to work lost, I walk out to the backyard, lie down in the yellow grass and watch the sun's advance toward noon. "The Injun thing is nothing,"
I say out loud. "I only knew, I could've talked you out of that in ten minutes. As for the rest, you're so selfish it's not funny. If you could just stop messing with the way I am, maybe we —"

"Morning, young man," a voice calls behind me. "Talking to yourself?"

I sit up. The old lady next door is standing on her side of the hedge that separates the lots.

"We had a full moon last night," she says. "I couldn't sleep, and saw your girlfriend leave at one thirty the morning."

I get to my feet. "Did you talk with her?"

"No, just watched her drive off. Seems to me her self-regard won out." She adjusts her unstable dentures with a swift motion of her tongue. "It's only natural, though. The ego is the watchdog of survival, but I'm sure you know that. Are you going after her?"

"I don't know. I don't think so."

"Depends on how strong your own ego is, doesn't it. Remember the night I warned you against compromise? Well, at the time I forgot all about this tricky thing called love. Give it some thought, son."

She hands over the hedge something, wrapped in foil. "For now, take this. I hope you like rum cakes."