Father sighs with relief, I think. “Certainly, Luke. I’m sure we can arrange it. No one’s in the offi
ce right now. You may
use that phone.”
Father’s right. No one’s in the offi
ce. Everyone else is
huddled up together in the cafeteria, still listening to the static-fi lled news from Washington, D.C.
I dial the number, and suddenly I’m remembering how it was after Bunna died, right after his plane went down and they were still trying to fi gure out what happened and trying to get the news to the families. Th
ey let me call home that
time, too. At fi rst I didn’t think I’d be able to talk, but it was so good to hear Mom’s voice. I close my eyes now, warming myself on the memory.
Mom had been working at Smythe’s Café, which is more like old man Smythe’s home, because it’s the only place in town that’s got a phone, and a lot of people hang out there. When I called that time, some guy I didn’t recognize had answered the phone and handed it to Mom without a word.
Th
e line between Sacred Heart and the café was scratchy 180
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with static that time, just like it is now with the radio. Mom’s voice had sounded scared and confused.
“Amau?” she had said, using my old nickname.
She sounded like a person not quite awake, a person unsure about what’s real life and what’s dreaming.
“Amau?” Her voice had wavered. “Th
at you?”
Th
ere was this lump in my throat the size of an iceberg, and I was suddenly so homesick, I could barely breathe.
“Yeah, Mom. It’s me.”
Suddenly, I had to pull the phone away from my ear
because Mom was screaming so loud it hurt, screeching like a hundred thousand seagulls. Calling out for Uncle Joe and for every other uncle, aunt, and cousin I got like they were all right there, sitting in the café with her, waiting. And maybe they were.
“Joe, Mae, come here! It’s Amau! Anna! Look who’s on this phone right here! Dora! Dora! It’s Amau! He’s alive! Isabel!
He’s alive! He’s alive, Rachel—come hear! Right now! Alice—
guess who this is right here, it’s Amau! He’s still alive!”
I’d forgotten how many relatives I had until right at that exact minute when Mom started punctuating every other word with their names.
“Esther! Donald! It’s Amau. Helen! Amau? Amau, is that really you?”
“Yes, Mom. It’s me.”
“Oh praise God, we thought you died . . . Joe! Joe! Come here right now! Qilamik! ”
Th
e sound of her voice taking off across the phone line 181
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like a fast car without a driver had made me start to laugh, crying at the same time. And in between the laughter and the tears, I was feeling every kind of feeling there was to feel, like I was fully alive for the fi rst time since Bunna died. It felt really good and hurt really bad, both at the same time.
Suddenly I realize that the phone in my hand has quit ringing.
“Hello? HELLO?”
I had gotten so lost in remembering, I’d forgotten that I was calling again.
“Hello, I . . .” Suddenly, I don’t know what to say or who to say it to. My thoughts and feelings are wadded up inside so tight that the words get squashed fl at.
“Smythe’s place. Hello?” It’s Uncle Joe’s voice, rich as whale meat.
“Uncle Joe?”
“Luke? Th
at you? Hey, guy! When you coming home?”
“I’m not sure,” I croak, almost ready to cry for happiness, it’s so darned good to hear his voice. “Christmas maybe?”
“Yeah well, you have to come home,” he says.
“I’m going to have to work hard next break to get enough money to get home,” I say. But my voice catches on the word home. Th
en there’s another silence. A silence that feels as long as forever.
Th
em damn Catholics.
I’m not sure if he really muttered it or not, but all of a sudden it feels like we turned a corner somehow.
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“Hey, guess what?” Joe says suddenly. “Guess what I got now—a new kinda rodeo.”
Rodeo?
“Yeah,” Joe says, laughing suddenly at some joke of his own. “Rodeo with horses, mechanical horses, just like you guys got down there at that school.”
I don’t tell him that we don’t got no rodeo at Sacred Heart School, mechanical or other. I just smile because something in his voice makes me feel like laughing. Th
e sound of Uncle
Joe, just being himself, is suddenly the best thing in the whole world. If he wants to think we got cowboys with our Indians here, let him.
“Rodeo just like the Indians got. Just like them cowboys.
Eskimo rodeo.” Th
en he laughs long and loud.
And Uncle Joe’s laughter, smooth as seal oil, reaches all the way across the two mountain ranges that separate us, across all the rivers, right up into the offi
ce here at Sacred Heart School,
where I stand in the growing darkness, smiling.
“No kidding,” Joe says. “Eskimo rodeo. And you sure can catch caribou with this thing.”
“Caribou?” I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“Sure,” Joe says. “Bring that old gun with you when you come home, and I’ll show you how it works. Pretty slick.”
Suddenly there’s a lump in my throat as big as
