Daddy had dropped us off in front of the house without a word. His gray eyes burned. His mouth twitched. He’d waited until we were on the sidewalk before he tore off down the street. A few neighbors peeked out from their windows.
“It’s all my fault he’s mad,” I said, lips quivering. “I should never have said anything.”
“It’s not either,” Chich said, stroking my head. “The waitress was disrespectful. Your father just needs time to think.”
“About what?” I asked, rubbing a tear from my cheek.
“About being Indian, I suppose,” Chich said. “No matter how hard he tries, he can’t ignore who he is.”
“Will he ever come back?” Peewee cried. “I want my daddy.”
Mama scooted her chair next to Peewee’s and hugged her. “Daddy will come back. He’ll be here before you know it.”
“I want to go back home,” I cried, wiping my nose on my sleeve. “No one treated us like this in Grand Ronde.”
“Ah, but if you went just a couple miles south, on the other side of the Yamhill River, they would have. Lots of Indian men couldn’t get hired to work for whites. And in Portland, it was worse,” Chich said. “Some stores there even had signs saying, ‘ONLY WHITES ALLOWED.’ Your Daddy thinks if he works a bit harder, wears better clothes, lives in a nicer home, and buys expensive stuff, white people will respect him. But he’s Indian. We’re Indian. And Indians aren’t white.”
“I might as well tell you,” Mama said to Chich, lighting up a cigarette. “John confessed that his coworkers call him ‘Chief.’”
“It’s always been hard for him.” Chich sighed. “Ever since he was a child, he’s hated being treated differently.”
Mama hugged Peewee and me. “Let’s all get to bed. It’s late.”
◉ ◉ ◉
Peewee was deep in dreams next to me, but I couldn’t sleep. I worried that Daddy might get so mad he would go back and yell at the waitress and get in trouble. Or just keep driving until he was back in Grand Ronde without us.
I thought about home and how things were different there. No, we didn’t have a television set. And no, Daddy didn’t have a job that paid good money. But he always came home happy to see us. He told jokes, teased Mama, and played with us girls. Once he even let me paint his toenails with my watercolors. Before long, I drifted off to memories of running through the fields of Grand Ronde with Daddy chasing me.
In the early morning, a door slammed. I bolted up in bed. So did Chich. Peewee mumbled but remained asleep.
“What was that?” I whispered.
There was a bang against the couch and sudden cursing. Feet shuffled on the wooden floor. The overhead light turned on in the living room.
“Cate!” Daddy yelled.
“Oh no,” Chich said. She flipped off her quilt. “You stay in bed.”
I sat still. She wrapped her bathrobe over her nightgown and left. Then I crept out of bed and peeked out the door.
Daddy staggered about, almost tipping over Chich’s sewing machine. He shook his head as he forced his eyes to focus. “Cate!”
Mama came from the kitchen, wearing her favorite red flannel nightgown. She scowled. “You’re drunk. Come to bed before you wake the girls.”
“What? They need to wake up!” Daddy shouted. “They need to listen!” I saw him strolling over to our bedroom.
“tɘnɘs-man, no,” Chich said from just outside our bedroom door.
I stepped back, hugging myself. I didn’t know what Daddy was going to do.
He passed Chich and stood in the now-open doorway, swaying back and forth. “Get your sister up.”
I did what he said. Peewee wasn’t too happy with me waking her up, but she quickly obeyed when she heard Daddy yelling.
“We’re Americans, dammit!” His words slurred. “We’re not from another country! Hell, I’m a United States veteran!”
“Please lower your voice.” Mama spoke as gently as she could. “Girls, go back to bed right now. John, let’s go! We can talk about this in the morning.”
“I want to talk about it now!” Daddy staggered back over to Peewee and me huddled together. His breath smelled of beer.
“Girls, you might as well know, if you’re Indian, you’ll never get anywhere. You all listening?”
Peewee let out a small cry. I nodded, clinging closer to her.
“John,” Chich said firmly, the first time I’d ever heard her use his given name, “go to bed. The girls are Indians. You can’t change that.”
“I can’t, huh? Well, I’m not going to sit here like you and fill their heads with old stories about the past.”
Daddy suddenly gripped my arm and dragged me over to Chich’s sewing table. My eyes widened. I’d never seen Daddy act like this.
He found the sewing scissors and held them up. “You can’t make them Indian anymore. We’re terminated. We’re dead. You understand that? They’re American!”
Daddy pulled hair from the left side of my head. He stretched it out. His other hand held the scissors. Then he snipped. “Now she’s American.”
He let my hair go. It spread all over the floor. Dead.
I stared, stunned. No one moved.
Peewee shrieked. Terrified of being the next victim, she scrambled into the dark kitchen, dove under the table, and bawled, “Don’t let Daddy get me. Please don’t let him hurt me.”
“John, what have you done?” Mama shouted in Portuguese at him with her hands flying, sobbing between words.
Tears streamed down my cheeks. I trembled uncontrollably. My heart pounded loud in my ears. I’d never felt this kind of anger before. I whipped myself around to face him. “I HATE YOU!”
I punched him in the stomach. I pushed him away from me. I screamed again, “I HATE YOU!”
I did hate him. I couldn’t find all the words right then, but I hated him for cutting my hair. For not standing up to the waitress. For not standing up to the Indian agent back home. For not standing up to the government that terminated us.
“khɘpít,” Chich said, standing by the TV. “Stop,” she repeated in
