Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine #6

“Good night, Ma,” I say. She sits alone in the dining room, staring down at her white knuckled hands on the bare table.

Ma doesn’t answer. She appears shrunken and old. I feel a stab of pity. I set down the heavy platter and touch her shoulder. I can feel her quake as if her bones are rattling around inside her body. She is weeping, which is not common in this house.

“Don’t mind Pa,” I say. “It’s just the drink talking.”

“It’s not Pa I cry for.”

“What is it, Ma?” She says nothing.

“Is it Wolf?” I ask. She nods and cries some more. “Ma, he’s just getting married.

He’s not dying.”

“I vas remembering,” Ma says, “when he a vas little boy. Those beautiful blue eyes.

That sveet lovely face. I could not believe that something so beautiful came out of me.”

I see twenty odd years of regret running down her cheeks.

“Every time I look at him,” Ma says, “I see a part of me.” She lowers her head to the table. “The lovely part of me; all gone.”

I imagine myself lifting up the silver platter, her dowry carried from the old world into the new, and slamming it down on her skull. An end to her misery, once and for all. I look into the polished silver and see my distorted reflection; the familiar soft face is narrower, stronger, surrounded by a halo of dark hair. I don’t see loveliness nor beauty, but something steady and resolute, not prized by Ma or anyone in this family.

“Well, soon enough,” I say. “You’ll have a half-breed grand-baby to care for. Six months or so.”

Ma looks up and away, too quickly. It has remained unspoken, but we all know why Sweet Water’s father, Chief Hard Rope has finally agreed to the wedding tomorrow at noon.

The Osage believe white people have impure blood; that we are out of balance with the earth. The old Chief can’t be happy at the prospect of his daughter being married into the lackluster Schultz clan. But Wolf being the eternal happy predator, he has staked his claim right inside Sweet Water. The partnership must be blessed, for Sweet Water’s and the unborn baby’s sake. There will be no rehearsal dinner, no polite and awkward introduction of families. The Chief has surrendered his princess, but he won’t share a meal