Sisters in the Wind(40)

“Anything else you need?” His voice is gentle, as if he senses it’s not just an ordinary journal. He points to the supplies in the drawer.

There are a few boxes of pens, highlighters, Sharpies, and pencils. I help myself to a few pencils and a sharpener and nod again.

“All right, Lucy. Let’s do work that matters.”

I read for the rest of the day. Jamie checks on me. He has me take breaks. We go to the fitness center for mini bursts of cycling or rowing. He answers any questions I have.

“Quittin’ time,” he announces.

I look up from the sofa and glance at the time displayed on the microwave above the stove. It’s five p.m.

“Just one more page to finish,” I say.

“Quittin’ time,” he repeats, holding out a hand for the binder. “Trust me. It’s important to have a hard stop. The work will always be there. Give a lot, but don’t give everything.”

I hand the binder over. Then he asks what we should have for dinner.

I know exactly what I want.

“How about pizza we make from scratch?”



* * *



Jamie goes along with my suggestion that we spread a blanket on the floor in front of the sofa for a picnic dinner. I’m relieved that Daunis isn’t here to ask that we watch Hannah Montana. He scrolls through the movies available via pay-per-view and asks whether I already saw Iron Man at the movie theater.

“The last movie I ever saw in a theater was The Rookie,” I admit.

“The Rookie? Baseball movie with Dennis Quaid?”

I nod. “My dad played baseball at CMU.”

“That’s cool,” Jamie says. “I played hockey for two years at the University of Wisconsin-Superior.”

“Why not four? I mean, my dad had to quit the team because it was tough to be a single dad and play center outfield.”

Jamie shrugs. “I wasn’t good enough to go much further in hockey. Had a chance to become a Tribal Police officer. Earn money.”

I ask when he was born.

“1981,” he says. “I’m twenty-seven. Won’t be twenty-eight until December.”

“So, you were born after the hearings took place. After ICWA became a law. Wasn’t that supposed to help your mom keep you? Or have you stay with relatives until she got better?” I grab another slice of pizza. It doesn’t taste the same as my dad’s, but nothing ever will. This is close enough that I can almost hear the churn of my dad’s old VCR.

“Lucy, it wasn’t like the law was magically implemented. Too many people had a vested interest in stealing Indian babies.” He half-heartedly looks at the TV. “My mom told me she was all alone at the hospital when she had me. One nurse kept asking if she needed help. When my mom said yes, the nurse put in her chart that she was unable to take care of me. She only found out about it when I got taken away, that there was a file at county child-protection services dating back to my birth.” He shakes his head. “Can you imagine? Any time you ask for help? The nurse or social worker documents it to build a case for removing your kid?”

“I’m sorry,” I say. It’s such a small thing to say at such a huge injustice.

His mom’s situation was different from my mom’s. I came along in 1990. Maggie would have known she had protections under the law. Even if she did have a messed-up childhood. She walked away.

Do not look back.

Ignore the crying.

Do. Not. Look. Back.

None of this applies to me. Maggie Chippeway voluntarily terminated her parental rights. I was raised by my dad. He loved me. He was perfect.



* * *



It takes me the entire next week to read the document and make proper notes. It gets harder once Daunis comes back from Sault Ste. Marie on Tuesday, and Jamie’s time is mostly split between making calf eyes at her and talking me through this behemoth of ICWA paperwork. All 531 pages of spoken statements that look like court transcripts, and written documents that include letters and data reports. People gave testimony on behalf of organizations and workplaces that were supposed to serve Native American children in need. Native parents recounted their personal experiences—one even brought her child to testify.

From Dr. Robert Bergman, psychiatrist and chief of the mental health program at the Indian Health Service, on page 128:

The purpose of the first boarding school on the Navajo Reservation as stated in its charter in the 1890’s was “to remove the Navajo child from the influence of his savage parents.”



From Betty Jack, chair of the board of directors of the American Indian Child Placement and Development Program in the State of Wisconsin, on pages 165-166:

In 1962, I had two of my children taken from me in Chicago … and I have never seen them again. The courts said I was unfit to take care of my children, but I had never gone to court and I never knew that they were legally adopted until a year ago.



From Leon F. Cook of the Department of Indian Work in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on page 148:

I addressed a number of people in the city of Minnesota and where a number of kids from the State home school were present. After I talked to them, a number of the kids came up to me crying … They said, “We were told we couldn’t go to our homes if we didn’t have a permit to go back to our reservations … we couldn’t be given any information about who our parents were and where our home reservations were, or whether or not we were enrolled in our respective communities.”