repairs on her. She looked at the wrinkled little face, saw those tiny lips working, and at that moment felt a force in her that she never imagined existed. It changed her inside. It was as if her whole body and mind became one big magnet, as if she existed only as that pull toward the baby. Her breasts ached and tingled with the desire to nurture him, but he wasn't ready to suckle. She looked at him for a long time. Marveling at him. But labor had exhausted her, and after a while she closed her eyes and forgot everything but the glow of that warm little weight against her skin, the minute movements. She drowsed. When she awoke the baby was gone. As they'd agreed.
Joseph never told her the details of where the boy went. There was never any question of finding him again. The new parents would report the arrival as a home birth and fill out the papers in their names. With a Navajo father and a black Irish-Hispanic mother, he'd have the right coloring to blend in. He'd grow up as a Navajo, share the good and bad of a Navajo's fate in twentieth-century America.
For once, their plans went off without a hitch. With all the heartbreak and tension, Julieta had gained barely any weight during the pregnancy. She was far too thin, but the bright side was that nobody would suspect she'd recently given birth. The divorce took place in April, and it went as her lawyer predicted. She ended up with the Oak Springs house and twelve hundred acres and three million dollars, plus an uneasy proximity to McCarty Energy's Hunters Point field and the enduring hostility of Garrett and his nasty son.
She never saw her baby again. She never heard from Peter Yellowhorse again. She was twenty-five when she began her new life.
Julieta reined Madie to a stop. A mile away, the school was just visible over a swell in the land, the buildings new and clean but sad-looking in the wan, milky light. Julieta just sat in the saddle and looked at the lonely little cluster. The sun was not far from the horizon, so dulled by the uniform overcast its glow didn't impart any warmth to the buildings or the walls of the mesa.
Cree stopped Breeze beside her. She was astonished at how differently she saw the scene now. It was rooted in all the reasons Julieta had done this monumental thing. The buildings were not just objects of stone and steel but manifestations of feeling and purpose. They were built not just on the bare red desert earth but on a foundation of one person's past pain and error and the profound drive to turn it all around, to remedy wrongs and atone for them, to act for the good rather than react to the bad.
Julieta's accomplishment awed her.
Of course, it was also built on a subconscious desire to find the lost child again. Or to sublimate and channel the mothering urge, frustrated then, in the act of nurturing and guiding many children.
Screw Sigmund, Cree thought, impatient with her Freudian reflexes. That urban, neurotic, fin-de-siecle sensibility stripped things of scope and nobility and poetry. This woman faced herself. She acknowledged her failings and turned every one of them around. She did a marvelously good thing. Turned a disaster into a brilliant achievement.
Of course, there were so many questions left unanswered. One of them was not whether, or why, Julieta would seek her lost baby in every child she encountered: Joseph's advice had been both wise and kind, but of course that wound in her heart would never close.
But why Tommy? Cree wanted to ask. How did she know he was her long-lost child? His records? Some resemblance to Peter Yellowhorse? Maybe Joseph told her. But why would he identify the boy to Julieta after making sure the cord was so completely severed?
But Julieta had pulled into herself, and she deserved a break from the relentless probing and prodding Cree had subjected her to.
Julieta put her hand to her face and seemed startled to find her sunglasses still there. She took them off, folded them away, wiped her cheeks with the balls of both hands.
'Going to get cold tonight,' she said. 'Sunset's coming. Better get to the chores.' She glanced at the chilly horizon and urged Madie toward the school.
19
The sight of Ben's body disappearing into the Hobart made Tommy break out into a sweat.
The big dishwasher was on the blink, but Ben said he knew how to fix it, no need to call in the maintenance guys. Tommy had gladly volunteered to help and Ben had let him tag along when the softball game broke up.
The Hobart was seven feet long and had doors on both ends, just like a casket-sized car wash. The dishes went in dirty at one end and came out the other clean and so hot they steamed dry in seconds. Ben lay on his back on the counter, arranged a flashlight and some tools on his chest, and then shoved himself into the open maw until only his bottom half emerged from between the strips of the spray curtain.
It reminded Tommy of the times he'd been fed into the MRI machine during the last couple of weeks: the claustrophobic panic of being strapped to the plastic shelf and sliding inch by inch into the huge, roaring white doughnut.
Ben grunted and made clanking noises inside the housing. His legs bent and scissored, as if he were struggling to get out, and Tommy had to look away. Still, he'd rather be here in the kitchen instead of walking around with the nurse. She creeped him out, always hovering near him, prying at him. Even now, she was just the other side of the swinging doors, waiting at one of the cafeteria tables.
'Just don't turn it on while I'm in here, huh?' Ben joked. From inside the stainless steel housing, his voice had a metallic ring.
'Why not? You look like you could use it.'
'Hey, I took a shower just last month!' Ben chuckled. 'Wouldn't help, anyway. Even this thing won't clean a dirty mind.'
Tommy couldn't laugh. That hit too close to the mark: The worst part of the MRI had been the fear of what it might see in his head.
'So, what's the matter with you, anyway? Not going on the field trip. Sick last week, too, right?'
'Cooties. Bad case of cooties.'
Ben chuckled again. His legs braced and pushed, as if he were being eaten by the machine and was fighting it. In another moment, his hand emerged with some kind of a valve. Tommy took it and set it on the counter.
'So,' Ben said, 'the good-looking bilagaana-what, she's a doctor or something?'
Tommy didn't want to answer, couldn't stand to turn their talk serious.
This was good-just hanging with someone, like he was a regular person and not some kind of specimen or freak. And if Ben knew the truth, he wouldn't let Tommy anywhere near him. Ignoring the question, Tommy quickly inspected the industrial meat grinder bolted to the opposite counter and turned back to slap the housing of the Hobart.
'What's this red button for?' he asked innocently.
'Don't touch that!'
Tommy reached over and flipped the toggle on the grinder, and he could see from the sudden tensing of Ben's legs that the loud, grating whine had caught him off guard. He let it run for a few seconds, then hit the switch and let the motor wind down.
Ben's legs were shaking as he laughed. 'Just about peed myself] Gonna feed you into that thing when I get out of here! Hey, see my toolbox? Want to hand me the half-inch box wrench?'
Tommy found the wrench, but before he could give it to Ben it slipped from his fingers and bounced under the counter. His right hand wasn't working. He felt a growing confusion about it: The waistband of his jeans pressed against him in back, and if he shut his eyes he could swear it was something tightening on his wrist.
The feeling was coming on him again, slowly but remorselessly.
He was on his knees, reaching under the counter for the wrench, when a long, thin, jointed thing darted in toward it from the right side. He reared away so hard he smashed his head on the counter supports. His own right hand! It had come so quickly and purposefully, like some awful animal that lived under the counter. He felt, he knew, his real arm was back behind him, stretched along his spine. It took him a moment to catch his breath and stop shaking. He got the wrench with his left hand, extricated himself from under the counter, and put it into Ben's waiting palm.
'Butterfingers,' Ben complained good-naturedly. 'You think I want to be in here all day?'
