The summer before going into high school, Fiona receives a mysterious box in the mail, one that she hopes will answer her questions about her Anishinaabe Indian heritage. It contains stories written by the grandfather she never knew, an Anishinaabe man her mother refuses to talk about. As she reads his stories about blackbirds and bigfoot, as well as tales about Indians in space and homeless Native men camping by the river in Minneapolis, Fiona finds other questions arising—questions about her grandfather and the experiences that shaped his stories, questions about her mother’s silence regarding the grandfather she never knew. Fiona’s desire to know more and her mother’s reluctance to share stir up bitter feelings of anger and disappointment that slowly transform as she reads the stories into a warmer understanding of the difficulties of family, love, and the weight of the past.
The summer before going into high school, Fiona receives a mysterious box in the mail, one that she hopes will answer her questions about her Anishinaabe Indian heritage. It contains stories written by the grandfather she never knew, an Anishinaabe man her mother refuses to talk about. As she reads his stories about blackbirds and bigfoot, as well as tales about Indians in space and homeless Native men camping by the river in Minneapolis, Fiona finds other questions arising—questions about her grandfather and the experiences that shaped his stories, questions about her mother’s silence regarding the grandfather she never knew. Fiona’s desire to know more and her mother’s reluctance to share stir up bitter feelings of anger and disappointment that slowly transform as she reads the stories into a warmer understanding of the difficulties of family, love, and the weight of the past.
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Overview
The summer before going into high school, Fiona receives a mysterious box in the mail, one that she hopes will answer her questions about her Anishinaabe Indian heritage. It contains stories written by the grandfather she never knew, an Anishinaabe man her mother refuses to talk about. As she reads his stories about blackbirds and bigfoot, as well as tales about Indians in space and homeless Native men camping by the river in Minneapolis, Fiona finds other questions arising—questions about her grandfather and the experiences that shaped his stories, questions about her mother’s silence regarding the grandfather she never knew. Fiona’s desire to know more and her mother’s reluctance to share stir up bitter feelings of anger and disappointment that slowly transform as she reads the stories into a warmer understanding of the difficulties of family, love, and the weight of the past.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781628952964 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Michigan State University Press |
| Publication date: | 03/01/2017 |
| Series: | American Indian Studies |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 163 |
| File size: | 923 KB |
About the Author
Carter Meland writes, teaches, and lives in Minneapolis. His fiction has appeared in numerous literary reviews, including Yellow Medicine Review, Lake: Journal of Arts and Environment, Fiction Weekly, and Fiddleblack.
Read an Excerpt
Stories for a Lost Child
By Carter Meland
Michigan State University Press
Copyright © 2017 Carter MelandAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62895-296-4
CHAPTER 1
Inside the Box
Before Fiona could stop him, strep opened the box and pulled OUT its contents. He stood on the top step of her house, the postal service box in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other. "Couldn't you just wait a minute?" she said. "You said it was addressed to me."
"I thought it would be full of cool stuff," Strep said, his wide smile fading to a dim look of puzzled disappointment. "Gifts, candy, a video game — something useful, you know."
Fiona knew he meant something that would add some kind of spark to their summer vacation. The dog days of August were nearing, and their break from school had lost some of its luster. They had spent the early part of the afternoon at Dane's, shooting hoops, but the game dragged as the heat intensified.
"It's nothing but paper, Fee." As he flapped the stack of papers in front of her, two envelopes fluttered out from beneath the rubber band that held the bundle together. "And they're all just covered in writing." He riffled the pages with his thumb. "Maybe it's the world's longest letter?" The stack was as thick as a book.
Fiona looked at the two envelopes that had fluttered down on the step. Her name was written on one, while the other had landed upside down.
"Didn't this guy ever hear of e-mail or FaceTime?" Strep was still puzzled about the pages and pages of writing in his hand. "There's lots easier ways to tell you something than writing." He glanced at the top page. "Blackbird Coffee," he read and turned to Fiona. "I wonder what that means."
Fiona shrugged her shoulders, and while she retrieved the fallen envelopes, Strep began to read to her.
I don't speak Anishinaabemowin, the language of our Anishinaabe ancestors, but I know a few words, and the words I know may once have made me invisible. On the other hand, it may have been bird magic that transformed me for those few seconds. Either way I disappeared. Here's what happened:
I went into one of those big suburban malls to get a jar of instant coffee at the dollar store. Inside the mall there was a blackbird darting from perch to perch above the courtyard, disoriented by the skylights that showed the outdoors while prohibiting it. Settled for a moment, the bird showed me its profile, glancing at me sidewise and yellow-eyed.
When I was a little boy, your great-grandfather told me that if I wanted to communicate with deer, I had to speak to them in Anishinaabemowin, the language of the woodland. Recalling this as I looked at the bird, I manufactured something respectful — I hoped — out of the handful of words I was familiar with.
Trusting the creature's sharp senses, I looked up at him and spoke under my breath, "Boozhoo, makade-mashkikiwaaboo." I hoped the black-feathered sky-surveyor would see the aptness in being addressed as the black hot liquid I mix up out of a jar.
Inspired by my attention;
startled by my ability to haltingly speak in a comprehensible language;
and/or offended by my words, the bird took wing and became liquid for a moment, a black dash across a white ceiling. Drawn by the blue earthlight dropping through the sky holes above, the bird sped into the deceptive glass and spilled to the floor twenty feet away.
With the words still warm in my mouth, I moved toward the fallen animal. Lifting the bird in my hands and stepping toward the exit I became immune to the stares of shoppers and window washers. No one could see me. Moments later I was outside, kneeling by a shrub near the entrance, the bird at rest in the shade.
A few days later I had a dream: I'm watching the security tape in a dark room. I see myself turn toward the sky, move my lips, take seven steps, and disappear.
Strep had stumbled over some of the unfamiliar words in the story — Anishinaabe, boozhoo, makade-mashkikiwaaboo — but still managed to finish.
He looked at Fiona. "I don't get it," he said. "Did the bird die?"
Uncertain herself, Fiona shook her head. "I don't know." She looked at the envelopes in her hand. Both were quite thick, each bulging from the papers folded up inside them. The flap on the upside down one was even taped shut, like the envelope had to be forced to hold whatever was inside it. Flipping it over, she saw it was addressed "To: the Grandchild." She wasn't sure exactly what that meant and hoped that the one addressed to "Fiona" might explain it.
Opening the "Fiona" envelope, she took out the bundle of pages and scanned the first one. "It says these are stories from my Indian grandpa." Fiona tipped the letter toward Strep and lowered herself to the step.
Strep settled next to her. "Your mom's dad, right?"
Fiona nodded, afraid of what she might say in response to Strep. She loved her mom but didn't want him to know that she only mostly loved her. She loved her dad, their home, her friends, and, in all, her life — but there was a hole there, too, in her life, one her mom refused to fill and only ever barely acknowledged. Her grandpa. The Indian.
"If I ask about him, just about all she ever says is, 'Your grandma and I were better off without him.'" Fiona let her voice fall flat just as her mom did when she said those words. Emotionless, she looked into the distance over Strep's shoulder as she spoke, rather than in his eyes. Imitating her mom, who always acted like she was wished she were dead in those rare moments when she mentioned him. She always acted like she was alone then, too, even with her daughter right there. When she was younger, Fiona had tried yelling at her, shouting that she wasn't being fair, that she needed to tell her about her grandfather. "Tell me who he was!" she shouted. "Tell me why you were better off. Tell me something!" Words like that still stormed through her head whenever Mom dismissed her questions, but Fiona held them back now. She knew if she let them loose, Mom would only nervously laugh — quietly, but sort of scornfully as well — and walk away, still unable to look her daughter in the eye. The first time Mom had walked away like that was after she refused to tell Fiona what tribe Grandpa was — what tribe they were! — and unsure of what to do, Fiona had dashed down the basement and smashed her arm against the cold concrete floor again and again and again, hoping to break her wrist so it would shatter just the way her heart felt. That shattered wrist would punish her mom for not saying anything. It would show her to take her daughter's questions seriously. She hadn't even managed to raise a bruise before her fury was spent.
After that, she started retreating to her room at those moments, frustrated and exasperated. For a while punching her pillow had worked in settling her anger, as did crying, but then they stopped working. Slipping on her headphones and listening to her music had never worked. Everything seemed like a meaningless gesture that only left her feeling more empty.
Still, the closed door of her room was the best barrier against all aggravation. Just the quiet was good. She tried reading behind it sometimes. Books offered consolation in other situations, but this family thing was different. Lately, she'd tried filling her phone with pages of notes that she always deleted. She was unsure if it was the writing or the deleting that left her feeling more settled, but it was something.
Not even realizing what was going on in her mind, Strep chuckled at Fiona's imitation of her mom. "Sometimes it's scary how much you look like her, Fee."
"Don't say that, Strep." Even more than everyone else, Strep towered over her, even sitting down. She looked up at him. "Believe me, that's not a good thing at this moment." She never wanted to have that blank look of her mother's and that reluctance to speak about things, even if they hurt. There was something that Mom thought she'd put behind her, but it seemed to Fiona that she'd only hidden it away. If it were behind her, she would be able tell Fiona anything she wanted to know.
"It's not in a bad way, Fee." Strep stumbled around the words a second. "My mom says you are both 'sweet and petite.'"
"If she were all that sweet, mom would tell me something about him, wouldn't she?" Fiona felt her jaw tighten; the frustration again. "She doesn't give anything away when she talks about him, you know? Just 'We were better off without him.' Just flat and unemotional, like she was talking about a dog that ran away, not her dad. It makes me so angry." Fiona felt the sting of tears rising and bowed her head toward the letter.
She felt his hand tentatively, awkwardly pat her shoulder. "You seem more sad than mad, Fee."
Looking up at him again, seeing the concern in his eyes, she was tempted to lean into him and let everything spill. How her mother's silence hurt, because for all her concern and all her care, mom just kept the past to herself — but it was their past, not just hers. She wanted to tell him that looking even slightly different from most everyone in their suburban cul-de-sac world was weird, unsettling, and if Mom would talk about who they were, it might help her feel less lost. Strep knew her so well he didn't even see it anymore, but her dusky skin was a stark contrast to the acres of pink in the locker room after gym class, meaning she was a stark contrast to those girls with the bobbing blonde ponytails sprouting from the tops of their heads. Though she had plenty of friends, she wanted to tell him that she always felt a bit like E.T. in that old movie. Someone from elsewhere. Where, though, is what she needed to know. The question made her angry and sad and sometimes it just wore her out because she felt like she'd used up all the different ways she could think of to get Mom to answer it.
"I'm still stuck on that bird," Strep said. "It flies into the glass up there and falls to the floor. He picks it up and then he disappears."
Fiona smiled weakly. Strep was trying to get her to think about her grandfather, not her mom. Like all the boys his age, he was so easy to see through. Sweet and — what was a good word, for it? Unsophisticated. Boys. None of them were subtle, but then neither was her mom, really. Mom thought she'd kept her father hidden from the family, but Fiona had found something that showed he had not disappeared from their lives as much as Mom pretended.
"I found out a little something about him a couple years ago." Fiona looked up from the letter resting on her knee.
"About who, the bird?" Strep grinned.
Fiona shook her head. He was such a dork; he knew she meant her grandpa. Boys. "It's something Mom never shared with me."
"About your grandpa," Strep stated as if he didn't know.
"Yes, about my grandpa. Who was an Indian. Who wrote these stories." Fiona tapped the bundle of papers on Strep's knee and then playfully punched his arm in mock frustration. "Dang, can you just stop for a second so I can tell you what I found?"
Sometimes these unsophisticated boys knew how to make her feel better. Strep's easy humor, while not always witty or profound, was classic in ways that she, like pretty much everyone else, found endearing.
"You said you found him. I already know."
"Stop." Fiona punched him again. "Do you want to hear or not?"
Strep, grinning, nodded his head too eagerly, a puppy panting at the thought of a game of fetch.
"I said stop, Strep. This is serious."
"Sorry, Fee. I'll try to behave."
"I've never told anyone about this, so if you want to hear you got to promise not to let it slip." Fiona looked up at him sternly.
"Sounds mysterious," he said. "This better be good."
"It's probably not all that exciting, but I never knew about it before, and Mom still doesn't know I know."
Strep leaned in closer. "I'm ready," he said. No grin. No jokes.
"I was snooping around in my mom's dresser drawer a couple years ago —"
"You do that, too? My mom always stashes extra cash there and sometimes a guy just needs a pastry or a donut — or both." He smiled.
"My mom does the same, and I was looking for some money to get a pop when I came across an old photo."
"Black and white, I bet."
"It was — a shot of my grandma and grandpa. He was in a suit and she was in this nice white dress. I thought it looked like a wedding picture even though it didn't look like those formal, churchy ones all our parents have. Her dress was more simple than those elaborate gowns. When I turned it over I saw I was right." Fiona smiled, recalling the words there: "Robinson and I, with the Justice of the Peace, August 1, 1964" was penciled on the back in a curling, elegant cursive. Her grandma's handwriting. "Mom had never shown it to me," she said and then told Strep how the justice of the peace stood between her grandma and grandpa in the picture, and all three were beaming for the photographer. "It looked like Grandpa had just finished saying something that made the justice and Grandma laugh."
"Sounds like a good shot," Strep said.
"It is, but since then I've always wondered why Mom never cut Grandpa Robinson out of the picture." Fiona looked at Strep. "Grandma looks so pretty and alive, just glowing like a bride should, and I know Mom would never want to throw that away. But the justice of the peace is right between her and grandpa. It would be so easy to just snip it there and he'd be gone."
"Maybe it's the only picture she has of him."
"Probably." The same thought occurred to Fiona every time she pulled the photo out. There were no others in any of her mom's drawers, none she could find anywhere in the house. If Mom threw it out, he would be entirely gone from their lives. She could have made him disappear but had decided not to for some reason. Mom may say she was better off without him, may act all angry, but finding the photo made Fiona realize her mom held onto some kind of hope about her own father. It was easy to dismiss him with words, but her actions said there was something more going on. She was holding on to that picture for some reason. Fiona wondered if Mom ever just pulled it out and stared at it like she did.
"Do you look like him?"
Strep's question stirred her from her thoughts. "I think I do. Mom always says I'm built just like my grandma, but the picture shows that both Grandpa and Grandma were small and thin."
"That sure sounds like you."
Fiona smiled wistfully, picturing herself staring at the photo. She'd never seen either one of her grandparents. "Yeah, he was maybe an inch or two taller than her from the looks of it." The picture made it clear that she took after both grandparents, not just Grandma Rose. She could tell from the picture, even if it was black and white, that his skin browned duskily in the summer, just as hers and Mom's did. Mom's hair was jet black, like his, while Fiona's was tempered by her dad's dull red hair into an auburn that got practically dishwater blonde in the summer and then darkened in the winter.
"And ... ?" Strep prompted.
"He smiled like I do, too." Thinking about his smile made her smile. It was her favorite thing about the picture. She loved how Grandpa's eyes gleamed mischievously as he looked past the justice of the peace and toward Grandma Rose. Fiona's smile, whether in school portraits or selfies, had a similar glimmer. She could tell from Grandpa's smile that he had refused to go to a church, and she could tell from Grandma's smile that she was happy to go wherever he wanted. Mom could pretend that Grandpa hadn't existed, but Fiona thought that the photograph showed in more ways than one how his features and personality were stamped onto their bodies and into their lives. His features — which were theirs now — marked them as Indian, but other than how they looked, Fiona was unsure what it meant. Being Indian had to mean something because she found herself thinking about it more and more often. For Fiona that was what she missed most in her mom's silence and in not knowing her grandfather.
"Do you think he smiled just before he disappeared?" Strep asked. "I mean in his dream about the security tape." He tapped the papers balanced on his knee, his finger marking the blackbird coffee story. He turned to face her, suddenly serious as he sometimes got, and looked at her with sincere concern. "I hate to put it this way, Fee, but was he a little off? I mean talking about birds and coffee and security tape is strange. And he left your mom and grandma, right? Could he have been a little, you know, mentally ill?"
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Stories for a Lost Child by Carter Meland. Copyright © 2017 Carter Meland. Excerpted by permission of Michigan State University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Part One. Inside the Box
[Before Fiona could stop him]
Part Two. Letters and Stories
[Dear Fiona,]
Swampbreath
The Horse Chrysalis
Warm Gravity
Indians in Space, Episode One: No Horizon
Drunk Camp
Indians in Space, Episode Two: Event Horizon
Feathertruth
Tree Desire
Kneel There
Indians in Space, Episode Three: Blue Horizons
Working the Edge
Eveningstar
Perfect Night
Indians in Space, Episode Four: Dark Horizon
The Lost Child
Long Strides
Blackbird Coffee
Part Three. Putting Out the Light
[His eyes in the lamplight]
Part Four. Opening a Door
[You want to know]
Acknowledgments