Sisters in the Wind(28)
I explained that I’d made an offering, giving thanks for our safe shelter.
“Are you Native American Indian?” Devery asked.
I shrugged. “Misho Abe taught me about semaa. That’s what he called tobacco. He said it was Odawa medicine for giving thanks.”
“Why give thanks for this heap of rocks and dirt?”
“It’s giving us shelter and keeping us safe. The least we can do is say miigwech. That means ‘thank you.’ Misho Abe said it balances things out. Give and take.”
“Good and bad. Happy and sad,” she added.
“I don’t know about that,” I said. “He called it reciprocal.”
“Well, I like it. Good balances evil. Summer balances winter,” Devery proclaimed.
That evening, after Miss Lonnie began snoring, Devery gave herself a homemade tattoo. We sat next to each other on the braided rag rug between our twin beds. I held my breath watching her sterilize a sewing needle over an emergency candle before dipping the point into a thimble of blue ballpoint ink and poking the skin along her inner bicep. She repeated the process until there was a wavy line topped by four dots.
“What is it?” I finally had to ask.
“It’s balance, duh. See, that half is a smile, and the other half is a frown.”
She demonstrated both. Smile. Frown. Smile. Frown.
I laughed into my pillow. Devery was so silly sometimes. I’d never met anyone like her. The next time I made an offering of semaa, I’d give thanks for Devery.
* * *
Miss Lonnie’s was full of new experiences. Neither Devery nor I had ever eaten bread we made ourselves, or stew with carrots, potatoes, and rutabaga from our own hoop-house garden. Or butchered a rabbit. Or heard gunshot-sounding frost cracks from trees in late winter.
We had never been homeschooled before, either. Miss Lonnie’s cabin was too remote for daily trips to the island school. Weather permitting, she took us to the island library once every other week for an afternoon of internet to turn in assignments, email our social worker, and, for me, to check out as many books as I wanted.
Sometimes it was too much for Devery. All the manual labor was going to turn her into a muscle-bound linebacker, she complained. She craved Chinese takeout, sour Skittles, her cell phone, and people. Devery missed being part of a crowd. She wanted to watch real television: America’s Next Top Model, The Bachelorette, and One Tree Hill.
I thrived at Miss Lonnie’s. I didn’t miss people, just my dad. I liked eating a huge breakfast before morning chores and school lessons. My stomach issues became nonexistent, probably because I wasn’t eating processed food every day. Hard work made me feel strong. I liked my new muscles. Even more, I craved the peacefulness that came with focusing on physical tasks. At the end of each day, I’d take a quick shower before dinner. After washing the dinner dishes, my body would slow down. Then I’d read until my mind was exhausted as well. Sleep didn’t come as readily to Devery as it did for me. She was fond of taking twenty-minute catnaps throughout the day. I warned her against borrowing sleep like sneaking quarters from a piggy bank and then wondering why she was always broke.
One night, when Devery whispered her lengthy list of complaints about her current placement, I challenged her to identify something positive about living at Miss Lonnie’s.
She surprised me with a quick reply.
“We don’t have to worry about the scary stuff here.”
“The scary stuff?” I asked, because we did have to look out for black bears.
“I’m gonna start calling you Sister Clancy because you are such a nun,” Devery said. “The scary stuff is having a foster dad try to mess with you. Like, find reasons to be alone with you. Pretend he didn’t know you were changing clothes. Sneak into your room at night.”
“That happens?” I couldn’t imagine any adult doing that to a child. It made me even more grateful to be at Miss Lonnie’s.
Devery mentioned other kids she knew from foster care. Some were cool. Others were assholes, bitches, or horndogs. Sometimes I wondered if her stories were true or if she embellished for shock value.
“Oh, Clancy, the look on your face,” she’d say.
The only time I stunned Devery was when she asked if I missed my friends.
“I didn’t have any,” I said.
By then I had realized it wasn’t just because I was shy and a year younger than my classmates. My dad had been completely devoted to me. He’d focused his efforts on raising me to be a good person, intelligent, and with a strong sense of right and wrong. He was my entire world; I didn’t need anyone else.
I explained all of this to Devery.
“And you swear he wasn’t messing with you?” She sounded dubious.
“He never did anything like that,” I insisted. “He didn’t sin.”
Except lie.
* * *
For as long as I’d been Devery’s foster sister, she’d talked about escaping from Beaver Island. She would age out of foster care at the end of the year, but wanted to leave Beaver Island sooner, on her own terms. Once the summer tourists arrived, she’d befriend someone—anyone—with a boat. They might take her to Petoskey or Manistique. Maybe even cross Lake Michigan to Wisconsin. She didn’t think anyone would bother looking for a seventeen-year-old ward of the state who was a few months shy of turning eighteen.