I follow him as soon as I can get my own boots on. I run out still pulling on my parka, but summer is upon us, so the morning air has less of an edge to it and the kitchen isn’t far. I’m not certain what Kesh intends to do, but I have a suspicion. I’m not sure what I’m thinking—whether I intend to try to stop him or just to be there as his brother.
By the time I reach the doorway of the kitchen, my brother is inside. His unexpected arrival seems to have drawn the attention of not just Shava and her mother, but also the few cooks who rise early to work with my mother in the kitchen. As I burst through the door, I join a group of six or seven people gathered around Kesh. Shava stands dead center, with a face like the sky as the sun comes up.
“Shava,” Kesh says. “Before anything more is said between our parents this morning, I have something I want to say myself.” My brother, my little brother whose music speaks so eloquently, has never found it easy to put his feelings into words. But he plows forward. “Last night, when you came to sit with me, I felt something change in my life. I felt like something I’d lost had been found—something I’d lost but had never even known I was missing.” Kesh takes a quick glance at Shava’s flushed face before dropping his eyes back to the floor and continuing. “I’m not sure what you want or what you are hoping for. I’m not sure what kind of man you or your mother would consider a good match for you. But I know that you are the kind of girl I would consider a good match for me.” He raises his head and finds Shava’s mother. Turning toward her, he continues. “I understand you intend to speak to my parents this morning. I would like to ask if you would be willing to speak to them about me.”
Shava’s mother smiles, but tears fill her eyes. “I will leave that up to Shava. You will have to ask her.”
A rush of wind whistles in the vent like a sigh as Kesh turns back to Shava. “If you are willing,” he says, “I would like to marry you.”
The room falls silent when Kesh makes this unassuming statement. At first, Shava doesn’t respond. She stands studying him, her lips pursed, but she doesn’t speak. Then a quiet sob rolls out of her, and my brother Kesh—my sweet, quiet, awkward brother Kesh—steps toward her and takes her by the hand. Her shoulders shake with sobs until he is close enough for her to set her head on his shoulder. She tips her head up toward his ear and murmurs something, but her voice is muffled against his neck.
Finally, Kesh lifts his head and looks at all of us. He smiles, and in his smile I see the brother I know—not the brother who loses his temper and scolds me and Pek on our attitudes toward girls, not the brother who runs out of the hut to stop a betrothal, but the brother who plays the flute and finds it hard to talk in front of anyone not in our immediate family.
“She said yes,” he says, and the kitchen erupts in cheers.
And just that fast, my brother Kesh, only fifteen years old, becomes betrothed to be married.
TWENTY-ONE
The morning meal this day is sparsely attended. Feasts and celebrations at this time of year, with daylight stretching long into night and no cold crash of dark to drive people back into the safety of their huts, often run long toward morning. People sleep late to overcome the effects of the revelry and the mead. But my family and Shava’s family are seated around the hearth in the gathering place, and a meal of mammoth meat is served. Urar sets to lighting a flame in his oil lamp to draw good fortune to the couple, and my father goes from hut to hut to call the musicians and to personally announce the match.
The musicians, of course, collect quickly, as Kesh is one of their own. They play traditional songs reserved for weddings and betrothals, and more people emerge from their huts. Even an aching head can’t stop most people from celebrating the announcement of an impending marriage, especially in a clan that hasn’t heard such news in so many years.
By the time the meal is over most of the camp is awake, but neither you nor anyone from your family has appeared. Members of both the Manu and the Olen have offered up gifts to the couple—the old man who prepared the food last night gives them a scraper made from red jasper, and my aunt Ama’s family presents them with a fishing net of knotted kelp. All the gifts they receive are personal and painstakingly crafted—an ivory sewing needle, a generous length of twine, a large bison pelt—things that will turn a new hut into a household.
Something hard forms in my throat. I can only suspect that I am jealous. Kesh and Shava, Pek and Seeri. Even Roon clearly has a prospect in your sister Lees.