“I am.” He nods. “So why history or women’s studies?”
“I like understanding how things fit together: who influenced whom, how one event affects another or how one little thing can change everything. I guess I feel like . . .” I hesitate, trying to put into words an amorphous thought I’ve had a million times since Grandmother left but have never said aloud. “I guess I feel like someone forgot to write down my beginning, and I just showed up in the middle of things, in time for this.” I hold my arms up in the sticky night air as if hugging the sky. “And I don’t really get what I’m supposed to do with the present because I can’t see the whole picture. But until I can figure out my own place in all of this, I want to hear other people’s stories. Knowing stories that have been around forever and have almost been lost a hundred times already, it feels important.”
After a beat of silence he says, “I do remember one story from history.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“When they tested the atomic bomb and it worked,” he begins, “everyone involved knew the world would never be the same. One of the guys who invented it said, ‘I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.’”
“I can’t imagine how that must have felt.” I roll onto my side to look at him, and his eyes are still fixated on the stars, thoughts hiding behind the wrinkles in his forehead. “So tell me this: How does someone who wasn’t much of a reader remember a verbatim quote from the inventor of the atomic bomb?”
“Oh, I’m real good at watching movies.” Once again, he grins and it’s contagious, and even though my cheeks are starting to ache, I can’t make them relax.
“Really now?”
He nods. “Yeah, coulda gone pro.”
“So what you’re really saying is you’re a good listener.”
“Oh yeah, Natalie Cleary,” he says soberly. “The best.”
“Now you’re just trying to impress me.”
“Yeah,” he says. “But it’s true. Tell me one of your stories.”
“And afterward you’ll be able to quote it?” I challenge.
“If you’re any good,” he says, only breaking into a smile when I scoff. He reaches over to flip my hair back over my shoulder then slowly kisses the side of my neck. A wave of warmth and tingles passes through me, like Beau’s mouth is the moon pulling tides through my veins.
“What kind of story do you want to hear?” I say, quietly, to hide the shake in my voice.
“Somethin’ happy,” he says.
10
There’ve been plenty of stories Grandmother’s called “happy,” but there’s only one I remember actually making me feel happy. I was ten and I’d woken up from a nightmare to find Grandmother in my room.
“Why are you crying, honey?” she asked, and I told her about the dream. It was one of the recurring ones, where I’m in the car with Mom, talking and laughing as she drives us through the countryside. In the nightmare, it’s bright outside and the sky is pale blue and cloudless, the creeks lining the road sparkling. But suddenly, a dark orb appears ahead, rising up over us and flinging us sideways off the road. We spin across a ditch, the front of the car smashing into a thick tree, and the world goes dark, as thunder breaks the sky, sending rain pouring over us. Gradually, the car begins to fill, not with water but with blood, though neither Mom nor I is cut. I’d never told anyone about the dream before. I was too afraid it would come true, but telling Grandmother felt different.
“I used to have a dream just like that,” she told me. “It seemed like it would never go away. But it did, Natalie. Everything but the truth goes away in the end. Now, lie down and let me tell you a story.”
And she did, and this is how it went.
In the very beginning, Moon, Sun, Wind, Rainbow, Thunder, Fire, and Water lived on the earth. They simply awoke there, not knowing how they had arrived, and that was okay. They lived happily on their earth, until one day they met a very Old Man. This Old Man turned out to be their leader, the Great Spirit Chief. He had just formed people to cover the earth in all the spaces between Moon, Sun, Wind, Rainbow, Thunder, Fire, and Water.
“Old Man,” Thunder said, “can you make the people my children?”
And Old Man said, “No, Thunder. They cannot be your children, but they can be your grandchildren.”
Then, hearing this, Sun asked, “Old Man, can you make the people of the world my children, then?”
And Old Man replied, “No, Sun. They are not your children. They can be your friends. They will be your grandchildren. But your main purpose is to cover them in light, and to make them warm.”
Moon asked next, “Old Man, if not Sun’s, can you make the people my children?”
“No, I cannot give you the people of the world, Moon,” Old Man said. “You will be their uncle and their friend, lighting their way at night while giving them rest.”