Sisters in the Wind(14)
I perplexed her. She perplexed me. It balanced out.
* * *
On the one-year anniversary of my dad’s death, Bridget and I wore all black to his memorial mass. Her new black loafers were shiny leather, with an inverted triangle and the designer’s name: Prada.
Abe Charlevoix also attended the mass. I was so glad to see the elderly Native man that I invited him to join us for Sunday brunch, not even thinking to ask Bridget’s permission. She stared at me across the café booth where I sat next to Abe, chatting nonstop. I wasn’t sure whether she was upset about a guest joining us on a significant milestone or jealous that this stranger had brought me out of my quiet shell.
Abe followed us to the cemetery. Bridget forgot something in the car, so he and I crunched atop the fresh snow to my dad’s headstone. Abe held a palmful of loose-leaf tobacco. He called it semaa—SAY-mah—and asked if I’d like to offer some to give thanks for my dad. I held out my hand. He nudged my other hand.
“Left hand,” he said. “Closer to your heart.”
I switched hands and he gently shook a few leaves onto my outstretched left palm. He asked to say a prayer in his language, which he pronounced Ah-NISH-uh-NOB-aye-MOW-win. The lump in my throat swelled. All I could do was nod.
The Anishinaabemowin prayer sounded like a poem. I felt as if I understood the meaning even before he translated it for me. It wasn’t a sad prayer but something full of gratitude and eternal peace for my dad.
After Abe repeated the prayer in English, he opened his hand, and the brown flakes fluttered onto my dad’s snow-covered grave. I mimicked his action.
“We give thanks,” he said. “Anishinaabe way to give and take. Reciprocal.”
“What are we taking?” I asked.
“We take our memories of your dad. We leave behind his earthly body and our thanks for the time we had with him. See, it balances.”
It made perfect sense.
This time when he told me to call him, I did it right then while he stood next to me. He saw his number saved as ABE CHARLEVOIX.
“Now you have my number too,” I said.
He smiled at his PalmPilot, now ringing with my incoming call.
“You can change my name to Misho Abe. ME-show is short for Mishomis. It means ‘Grandpa.’”
I blinked away happy tears, and my hands shook while I edited his name.
Bridget approached with a clouded expression. She had changed from her designer shoes into designer boots. No sooner had she joined us than she tugged at my elbow for us to go.
Once we were in the car, Bridget let me know her displeasure at my impromptu invitation to Abe Charlevoix. She didn’t know him. He could be a criminal or an alcoholic. He could be interested in me for inappropriate reasons. She had a responsibility to keep me safe; she had promised my dad on his deathbed.
When we returned home from the cemetery, I retreated to my bedroom. The next day I went to the library where there were computers available for public use. I searched the internet for Abe Charlevoix. His name popped up in a recent newspaper article about the local tribe giving a grant to the Emmet County Advisory Committee on Aging so that any senior citizen—Native or non-Native—could receive a free laptop computer if they agreed to be tutored by their Tribal Youth Council as part of a service-learning project. In the photo, he and other older people posed with the teens. More searching, using Abraham Charlevoix, led to his wife’s obituary from five years ago, with memorial donations to the Emmet County Stray Center. Adding criminal to the search didn’t reveal anything.
Maybe Bridget didn’t like Native Americans. She was quick to imply negative things. I didn’t know much, but I knew about stereotypes.
Out of spite, I went online to the Prada website, looking for Bridget’s new shoes. The boots were there as well. She had spent over a thousand dollars.
I was astonished.
My dad had been careful with money. He wasn’t miserly; he splurged on things that mattered to us. Harbor Springs was a lakefront resort community in northern Michigan where extremely wealthy people came for the summer yachting and the winter skiing. We were part of a small group of year-rounders. He’d used an inheritance from his father to purchase a small, two-bedroom cedar shake cottage in an enclave of similar fairy-tale homes that we never could’ve afforded on his Catholic school teacher salary. My dad drove a gray Toyota Camry that was nearly as old as me. He bought my birthday fireworks out of season. He cut his own hair, as well as mine. We ate all meals at home, except for Sunday brunch. We shopped for new clothes once a year. He had been saving for my future college education, which he always told me was his most important expense.
Later that afternoon, Bridget called out that she was headed into Traverse City. Maybe she was going Christmas shopping. I already had her gift wrapped and hidden in my closet. I waited fifteen minutes before going upstairs.
This time, God knew my intention to snoop. My dad had a wood desk in the alcove overlooking the living room and kitchen. On each side, the bottom drawer had file folders labeled in his meticulous handwriting. The left side was alphabetical for categories like AUTO, HEALTH, HOUSE, INCOME TAX, et cetera. The right side had one file per month, with the current one—December 2004—in front. Previous months followed in reverse chronological order, going back two full years to January 2003.
My dad had prepared the monthly file folders for 2004 before his surgery, I realized. It was how he functioned—methodically, and nothing done haphazardly. He wasn’t around to fill the file folders, but he had left Bridget a template for managing the household finances. I remembered when they were dating. She had helped him make sense of the medical bills and insurance paperwork. After they married, they’d added household bills to the weekly discussion.