Page 7 of Coast

“Fixin’ tea. Can’t sleep for the coughing.”

I dropped the bags by the door that led into the second bedroom, then pulled my gloves off and stuffed them in the pockets of my jacket before I slipped it off and hung it on the doorknob.

The wooden home had two small bedrooms, a bathroom, and one open area that had the kitchen on one side and the living room on the other. I looked around, and nothing had changed since the last time I had been there.

“Damn, no wonder you’re sick. It’s fucking cold in here.” I glanced at the wood-burning stove in the corner that should have been in use but wasn’t. “There a reason you’re not burning the stove?”

“Ran out of chopped wood this morning and wasn’t up to cutting any.”

“There are enough unemployed fuckers around here that would gladly chop some wood for a few bucks,” I said as I reached for my jacket.

“Why should I waste money paying someone when I’m capable of doing it myself?” he asked, then broke out coughing.

I pulled my jacket back on and shook my head. “Because you are sick. Suni is worried about you,” I answered and moved to the backdoor.

“She worries too much. It is a cold. That’s all.” I looked over my shoulder and lifted a brow. “Grab thelakayxit'áwas, lamp, on the counter. The light on the back porch doesn’t work.”

I was ready with a remark about him being stubborn, but he’s last words stopped me. How many more things needed to be fixed around his home?

Oh, I’d fix a few things when I blew through; a leaky faucet, a board on a porch step if I felt it give. I’d even stock him up on nonperishables supplies, then be on my way. Not for the first time, I felt shame. I said he was the only family I had left from my maternal side without a thought to being hisonlyfamily.

Born and raised on the reservation, Kiyaya would never leave, but it didn’t mean I couldn’t have been a better grandson.

He stood as I grabbed the lantern off the counter. “I think I’m going to lay down. I’m tired.”

I nodded, opened the door, and stepped out, pulling it closed behind me. Once the lantern was lit, I walked to the woodpile and positioned the lantern for optimum light. Then I jerked the ax out of the log, and started splitting wood. Nothing like physical labor to clear my head.

As the chopped woodpile grew, the more things became apparent. I’d wasted good energy on despising a mother who’d had no interest in me from the time I was conceived. Drugs and alcohol had been her top priorities. If not for my dad making her stick around the club and keeping her away from drugs or drinking until I was born, who knew what would have happened to me.

After I was born, Aponi, my mother, turned me over to my dad and hightailed it back to the reservation. The place she’d run away from looking for something better. I hadn’t realized how much energy I’d wasted on a woman who died before I reached the age of two. It was long past the time to let her go from my head. I’d spent far too much of my life carrying the burden of not being reason enough for her to stay clean.

I stuck the ax back in the log, loaded my arms with enough wood to start the stove, and headed back to the house. Once the stove was stoked and heat filled the room, I headed to the bedroom. When I laid my head on the pillow and closed my eyes, exhaustion took me under.

The front door opened, then closed on my great grandfather’s house while I sat in one of the two chairs on the small porch. Suni White, one of the elders of the tribe and the one who called me the day before, holding out a mug in front of me.

“He’s resting,” Suni said as I reached for the mug. She then sat in the chair beside me.

“How long has he been sick?”

“Ah, you know Kiyaya. He keeps to himself and doesn’t want to be a burden to anyone. His stubborn streak has always been wide. I stopped by last week to check in on him, he was coughing, and I could hear rattling in his chest. I offered to take him to the clinic, but he refused and argued with me. The more I pushed, the more upset he got, and then he went into a coughing fit, so I dropped it. He told me he was using his own medicines.”

I rubbed my hand down my face, then leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees, holding the cup between my hands. “Yeah, ‘cause a few herbs in a burlap pouch setting on his chest and boiled into tea is the cure-all. Let’s not forget to add the burning incense to the list of remedies. I woke to the smell of the damn incense after only four hours of sleep. Hell, it might not cure him, but he’d feel better if he ground those damn leaves in a glass of Jack Daniels.”

Suni chuckled. “Now you know why I called you, Emery.”

I turned my head and looked at the older woman. Her face wrinkled with age. Her long gray hair pulled back in a braid that fell down her back. Suni’s dark brown eyes stared back at me, and they held knowledge, wisdom, truth, and compassion in their depths.

As a respected elder in the Yakama tribe, Suni was one of the few who always made the effort to visit me when I came to my great grandfather’s home over the years. She was also one of the few who’d joined my great grandfather and taken my dad’s side after finding out about me when the council thought it would be best to have me raised on the reservation. The council wanted me to be in touch with the culture of my half Native American blood.

“Oh, so I get to be the bad guy.”

Suni threw her head back and laughed in earnest, then she sobered and faced me once more. “Your visits to the reservation were always looked forward to, Emery. Kiyaya would tell all who would listen about you coming. He has always been proud of you and your accomplishments. When I gave support to Emilo after it was found out that Aponi had given birth to you, I wondered if I would regret going along with Kiyaya’s wishes. You’ve turned into quite a good man.”

As I sat and listened to Suni talk about standing beside my great grandfather against the council, which they were both a part of back then, it wasn’t the first time I wondered if there hadn’t been more between her and Kiyaya other than friends.

Suni White had never been married or had children of her own. She’d grown up on the reservation and been best friends with my great grandmother, who had passed away when Aponi, my mother, had been in her teens.

She and Kiyaya were raising their granddaughter, my mother, at the time because their daughter-in-law had died from an overdose when my mother had been only three months old. Funny how history seemed to repeat itself. Aponi had done the same with me. Two years after Aponi’s mother overdosed, Aponi’s father, Kiyaya’s son, was sent to prison for life after he’d stabbed a man in a bar fight, then proceed to beat the man within an inch of his life. Leaving my mother to live with her grandparents.

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