“It’s so hot, Mama. Let’s wait until later to start cooking.”
“Summer.” Mama said it as though that was all the explanation needed. “You remember this when you get cold at Késhmish.”
Christmas, and most of December, brought the area below-freezing nights, but the worst of winter came in January and February. Bernie remembered the deep snow a few years past that had created an emergency for livestock, and the welcome sound of New Mexico National Guard helicopters flying in hay to keep animals from starving. The Navajo Nation had worked with the state to help families isolated by the blizzard and the mud that followed it.
Bernie carried the groceries into the kitchen and checked Mama’s phone for messages, but only the hum of the dial tone greeted her. Nothing from Darleen or from Chee.
Mama supervised as Bernie laid out the ingredients for the stew and a knife for each of them. As they had done so many times before, she and Mama sat at the kitchen table together. As usual, Mama didn’t do anything halfway. When she made stew, she made enough to share with friends and relatives.
First they cut the mutton into serving-size pieces and divided it between the big pots. They added water to cover it and salt and pepper, put on the lids, and set the pots on the stove, one in the front and one on the opposite burner in the back. Bernie waited for the water to boil and for the phone to ring, Sister asking for a ride home.
They chopped potatoes, carrots, onions, squash, and celery. Mama noticed Bernie looking at a scar on one of her fingers, a white crescent.
“When I was a little girl, I wanted to help with the atoo’.” Every time Mama told this story, it was slightly different. “My grandmother told me no, but when she wasn’t looking, I grabbed the knife and tried to cut some meat. I nearly chopped off this finger.” Mama wiggled the finger, examined the scar. “My grandmother stopped the bleeding. My finger hurt a lot, but then she made me learn how to do the job right.”
Some say perspiring is good for you. Bernie had read articles about women paying to do yoga in a hundred-degree room. It wasn’t that hot at Mama’s house, she didn’t have to pay to chop, and they would have stew as a reward. What a deal!
The pungent smell of bubbling mutton interrupted her thoughts. Mama reached for her walker.
“I’ll check on it.” Bernie turned down the stove to simmer and skimmed off the foam from the boiling meat. Bringing them both a glass of water, she went back to work.
Mama looked at the pile of chopped vegetables. “We will put this in later. Now we should have a little rest.”
Bernie helped Mama take off her shoes and watched her stretch out on the bed. These afternoon naps still caught Bernie by surprise. Mama had always had more energy than she and her sister rolled together. It always seemed like Mama was supplied with extra batteries. But not anymore.
“You sleep, too, daughter.”
Bernie didn’t tell Mama she wasn’t sleepy. Instead, she sat on the porch with a book from Mama’s bookcase, a mystery she feared she had already read. The shade made an oasis of relative coolness. Her eyes scanned the words, but her brain couldn’t focus. The questions about Miller replayed themselves. She wished Chee were there, or at least someplace she could reach him, so they could brainstorm.
She forced herself to stop obsessing about Miller, and thought about her sister. Mama was right. She could have done more to help, but she hadn’t wanted to. Darleen knew how to aggravate her, knew exactly what to say, what to do, how to be, to push her frustration buttons. Maybe, just maybe, the Darleen who came home from jail would be different from the one who had left.
After a few minutes, she put the book down and, despite the heat, went for a run.
It didn’t take long to work up a sweat in the day’s heat. She kept going until she wasn’t thinking about anything anymore. Then she turned around and ran back.
When she came in from her run, she picked up Mama’s phone. Finally, there was the rapid beep. She called up the message, listened, and saved it.
When Mama woke up, Bernie put the phone on speaker and replayed it.
Darleen’s voice filled the room. “Mama, I’m OK. I’m leaving Farmington soon. I love you.”
Mama stared at the phone then turned away. Bernie saw her raise a hand to her cheek to wipe away a tear. She couldn’t remember ever seeing her mother cry before.
The Diné Bahane’, the mythic origin story of the Navajo people, concerns balance, give-and-take, facing challenges, and making one’s way in the world, negotiating the constant presence of dark and light, life and death, hozho and its counterpart, hochxo. This certainly seemed to be her journey at the moment and her sister’s, too.
Bernie wondered if her sister was hitchhiking home. She hoped Darleen was safe.
Mama seemed to read her mind. “Don’t worry about that one.” She patted Bernie’s arm. “She will be here tonight. She is ashamed. You don’t have to think like a policeman all the time.”
Afternoon turned into evening. Bernie and Mama made tortillas to go with the stew—it was too hot for fry bread—and ate together. After she helped Mama to bed, Bernie went outside. She breathed in the crisp air of the high desert evening and listened for a car on the road or the beat of Darleen’s footsteps as she walked in from the highway, but she heard only the nonhuman sounds of the night.
If Darleen didn’t make it home tonight, or was too out of it to be trustworthy, Bernie would take Mama with her to Shiprock tomorrow and go to work. Mama could spend the day at her trailer while she was at the station. She had to be there when the feds did their special check of the car so she could see what Miller had hidden and where.
She didn’t want to live with another mistake.
She knew what had happened to the Lieutenant wasn’t her fault. But if she had been a little faster, a little smarter, a better officer, she might have snapped to what was about to unfold in that parking lot in time.
Back inside, Mama was asleep. Bernie curled up on the couch, opened her book, and started to read.
The noise of a vehicle in the driveway startled her. She glanced at her watch. A few minutes until eleven. Through the living room’s open windows she caught snippets of a muted conversation, the closing of a car door, the sound of tires on the road.
Moments later, Darleen came inside.
Bernie had been thinking about this moment, preparing for it. But the sight of her little sister, her exhaustion and sadness, swept away all Bernie’s plans, replacing them with joyful gratitude. She hugged Darleen until they both stopped crying.
Darleen pulled a wad of tissues from the pocket of her jeans and offered one to Bernie. “I was hoping you wouldn’t have to come, but I am so glad you’re here.”
“Me, too,” Bernie said. And she meant it.