American Chica_ Two Worlds, One Childhood - Marie Arana [92]
We were the only ones there. Grandpa Doc was nowhere to be seen. When we hurriedly whispered to Mother, asking her where he was, she simply turned and rapped one gloved fist on her left breast, over the chambers of her heart.
As we filed into the last row of chairs, the candles flickered against the warm May breeze and Clam-Hand spun around to shut the door behind us. A fat black fly buzzed in. We lowered ourselves onto the hard-edged chairs and looked out at the table in front.
“That’s not Grandma Lo,” said Mother in a voice that seemed somebody else’s. “That’s just her body. She’s off with God now. I wanted you to see it for yourselves.”
It was clear she was right. The woman up there was pink and smiling. Her hair was in tight little curls. On her mouth was a smear of vermillion, on her cheeks powdery circles of rose. She looked more like Mrs. Birdseye than my grandmother. She was puffed out, painted, and pert. Any minute now, she was going to roll over, prop her chin on one hand, raise the glass case with the other, eye the fly, and say in Mrs. Birdseye’s earnest little voice, “Well, dear ones, everything in this world has a sound explanation. There’s nothing wrong with dying. Nothing wrong with it at all!”
Where had Grandma Lo gone?
Off. Like Grandma Clapp, clanking downstairs in the Ferguson Building, flapping out Cedar Street, chasing the ghosts of her past.
Off. Like Nub’s mother on her sprees from the loony bin, bolting through gardens into the night. Down, down, to the rum-drumdrum of the road.
Off. Like Joe Krozier’s woman. Never to be seen again. Off, down some great stretch of highway, as Americans were wont to go.
THERE WAS NO more reason to stay in Wyoming now. We packed our bags and went out to the ranch one last time. Grandpa Doc was in the new house, sitting in his chair by the fire, poking at cinders with his long iron brand. His face was ragged, hanging down from his skull like hide that’s been out in hard weather. A tumbler of scotch sat close by.
“You be sure to take good care of yourself, Daddy,” my mother said, and he nodded, but his eyes weren’t those of a man who planned to take good care of anything. They had the flat glint of lead.
That evening, I sat out on the porch with him as sunset stole over Elk Mountain. A ribbon of color slid from the clouds and spilled over the crest: shell pink, then hot methyl orange. We watched it in companionable silence. I had finally learned how. George was walking the prairie with Great-Grandma Clapp, and her skirt billowed out like the jib of some large sea creature, ready to engulf him, pull him under. In the distance someone was singing.
It was dark before someone switched on the light from inside the house and I turned and found my grandfather’s eyes. They were talking at me, in the way gringo eyes do. I eye-talked him back. Then he spoke.
“See over there?” He motioned to a place in the sky behind me. I wheeled around. Two eagles were circling the pearly night.
“Yes. I see them,” I said.
“There are two,” he said enigmatically, and then fell silent. We watched them wind lazily, then fly off toward the cliffs.
“You know about eagles, do you?” he asked. I shook my head no.
“They fly upside down when they’re courting. Go crazy, they do. Put on shows. And then when they mate, they mate for life. For life. If one dies, the other won’t last very much longer. Not without the one he loves. Not long.”
More than anything I wanted to ask him if he had been married before, like my mother. Or if he would ever marry again. He was seventy years old and, judging by Great-Grandma Clapp, was looking forward to another thirty years of life. The answer to those questions was no—he had married one woman and would die married to her only—but I never asked. I didn’t dare risk annoying him the way I had annoyed my mother. I slipped my hand into his large palm and focused on the black hulk in the distance.
“Grandpa, does Elk Mountain have an apu?”
“What’s that?”
“An apu. A spirit.”
“Well, yes. I suppose