Grow, little flowers, grow.
She loved the scent of them, pungent and warm. She heard Hollis’s car from a long way off, struggling toward the house. The engine was plaintive, but patient with the slight hill. Soon he pulled up in the driveway, got out.
Hey, he said.
Hey, she said back.
What’s that?
Oh, just making a garden, said Josette. Thought I’d brighten things up.
He admired it from every angle. He praised the marigolds. He didn’t tell her that the first frost would kill them off and they wouldn’t come back the second year. Or that planting seeds was useless in the fall. But he wondered how it was she didn’t know that. Why hadn’t she picked up on these pieces of knowledge in her life? The air was warming, but the spindly plants with their leaves yellowing already were doomed.
So, he said when she brushed herself off and stood and looked at him.
So what’s there to eat?
Is there any soup left?
They walked inside and rifled through the refrigerator, lifted the tops off stove pots, found the hidden cookies, leftover bannock. Josette smelled intensely of something that made Hollis hungry. He tried to make a sandwich, but there wasn’t any mayonnaise. Josette toasted some bannock in the iron skillet. They sat down to eat.
Hollis sprinkled a spoon of sugar on his bannock. Josette tried to chat.
This old sugar bowl, you know? It belonged to this house from way back. My great-great-et-cetera-grandpa from olden times used to keep a key in it.
Although Hollis already knew about the no-handle sugar bowl, he said nothing. Josette kept talking.
It was something from the first LaRose. She lived here when it was still a cabin-shack. All we have of hers is this little sugar bowl, I guess, except some letters and records. Grandma’s got those.
Your family goes way back, huh.
Josette looked at Hollis and because of the way he said this, in a softened voice, staring at her with a peculiar serious regard, she remembered what Snow had said about Hollis liking her. Which was disturbing. A stormy sense of this moment’s weird potential gripped her and she screeched, making him jump.
Everybody’s family goes way back! Fuckin A. Back to the future, man.
She began to laugh with what she thought of as a dangerous sexy growl, and he looked at her in wonder.
Old Story 1
THE OLD PEOPLE were parked around the room in folding chairs and wheelchairs. LaRose’s namesake grandmother, the fourth LaRose, was frying frybread. She lifted each golden pillow of dough from fat and set it in a nest of paper towels. Emmaline put the squares on plates and handed them to each elder. The boy LaRose brought around the butter, the chokecherry jelly. He set out the coffee mugs: the Tribal College mug, the Up Shit Creek Without a Paddle mug, the scratched casino mug, and the brand-new casino mug with the slot-machine fruits. The coffee-machine coffee was still dripping into the glass pot. LaRose watched it. He was pudging out a little before he shot up another inch. Malvern Sangrait squinted at him and nodded each time he did something.
Oh that boy, oh that boy, she whispered. He’s made of good ingredients. Maybe, after all, your Emmaline stepped out on Landreaux.
Shut up, bad lady, said Mrs. Peace.
The last few pleasant years with Sam Eagleboy had taken none of the meanness out of Malvern. She watched Mrs. Peace tong the frybread out and tried not to say anything about her technique. Still, other words popped from her mouth.
Is that your jelly or your daughter’s jelly?
We put it up together, said Emmaline.
How come you ain’t living with your mother? Is it he, Landreaux, against it? How come your mother ain’t living in her own house?
You asked me that a hundred times, said Mrs. Peace, and I told you I like my habits. Like living here, alone except for you and your mean mouth.
Ignatia wheeled in with her tank of oxygen.
God save the queen, said Malvern.
Naanan, said Ignatia, holding up her tiny claw hand for LaRose to pretend to slap.
Ignatia’s face glowed like a young person’s when she decided to smile.
I got a good story for you, she said to LaRose. In the middle of the night I remembered all the pieces. This story came off my own grandmother, too, maybe when I was your age. That long ago. I forgot all about this story until the other night.
Let’s hear you say it then, said Malvern, pouting, jealous.
I can’t, said Ignatia with a proud little wag of her hand.
Why not? Malvern leaned close, eyed her narrowly.
Ignatia drew herself up, tucked her chin to deliver the teaching.
There is no snow on the earth. The legless beings do not yet sleep.
Ooooo, you sound like an old-time Indian, you, said Malvern. Her eyes lighted with malice. Nothing was worse than being called out on sacred tradition by another elder.