The In-Between Hour

by Barbara Claypole White

Will had glided through the day, coasting on the fumes of memory.

Will lives most of his days this way …

She stood still and stared at the mess. Game over. She was exhausted, exhausted from the effort of tiptoeing through Galen’s life, exhausted from breathing through the tension that pressed on her chest day after day, exhausted from worrying about her own mental state as well as her son’s. She was exhausted, and she needed help.

Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to accept that you need help.

That dream catcher weren’t workin’ too good. Had to push back them bad thoughts hisself. Couldn’t tell Willie about the nightmares. Imagine how upset the boy would be. Freddie were the only reason his Willie smiled these days.

On some level, I think Jacob knows the truth, but he's also crafting a better story.

She didn’t feel like an older woman, but she had a way of processing the world that made her seem so in control. They were both dealing with tragedy, but she was doing so as a full-fledged grown-up; he was doing it as a full-fledged screw-up.

Two broken people, circling each other as they try to move forward.

I’ll hold you while you sleep, he used to tell Freddie. “I’ll hold you while you sleep.”

This is, actually, one of my favorite lines.

Up Saponi Mountain, a hawk screeched. Another hawk answered, and for a moment, a soulful duet resonated around the kitchen.

The forest is alive with the sounds of nature throughout the novel, and Will translates every one with negativity.

“I’m living in this gray area where the rules of truth are irrelevant. Last night Dad thought the ambulances had come for my mom. She’s been dead for four years. A month from now he might not remember she ever existed. Why take the time he has left and force him to relive the bad stuff? With a handful of false memories, I can erase the horror. I can replace it with joy. I realize that makes me sound as if I have a God complex, but I’m just trying to get both of us through.

The truth behind Will's lie about Freddie.

we all knew we had native ancestry. My dad told me when I was a little kid, just as my granddaddy told him. A family secret passed down through the generations. ‘Shhh, don’t tell anyone. You’re an Indian.’” Indan, if he were being honest. No i. Or Yesah, the people. But genealogy was for guys who cared. “My life started with a secret, and the secrets grew.

This came directly from an interview with John Blackfeather.

Dad and I covered up her madness, and the three of us lived in shadows, pretending. Making excuses. Living empty lives of denial. I’m a thirty-four-year-old guy who doesn’t know how to love. How’s that for a sick cycle of dysfunction?

Will's sad truth …

A pair of vultures—peace eagles—soared above the old ghost field. Underdogs labeled dirty scavengers, vultures were really nature’s cleansers, cleaning up carrion. People, not nature, had given them the bum rap.

This also came from a John Blackfeather interview. He told me so much about the history of the living village.

Even as a cornfield, this had been a place for ghosts. Before they discovered the burial site, he and his dad used to dawdle through after an evening spent fishing on the oxbow, and Will would imagine the whispering of spirits.

When my son was little I took him to pow-wows at the living village, but it wasn't until I interviewed John Blackfeather for this manuscript that I learned about its history.

This wasn’t a reconstruction, this wasn’t a tourist hotspot; this was abandonment. A handful of cedar poles that should have marked the perimeter of the village leaned like drunks. Weeds choked the fire pit, and the matted sides of two small huts had begun to peel off like burned skin. The living village was an empty coffin. It represented nothing—no past, no present, no future. Nothing.

The real village was abandoned, but there are plans to change that fact.

“I’ve seen plenty of wounded animals, Will, and you’re no different. You might think you wear your scars on the inside, but they show.

Very true.

Now that would be somethin’, to be part of a family again. You could surround yourself with people, but if they weren’t kin, it didn’t make a lick of difference.

Jacob just wants to be in a family again.

“You need to learn a lesson about parentin’, son. A father, he has a responsibility to give his kids roots and wings. I failed you, Willie. I gave you wings, I never gave you roots. Don’t repeat my mistake. Let Freddie follow the trail of his people. Let him come visit me and his grandmama’s grave. Give him roots.” Will’s head sank into his hands. Too late, Dad. Too late to give him anything.

Every day Will sinks deeper into his lie.

Black tree trunks surrounded her like mourners gathered around a grave, closing in to offer comfort. Hannah released her mood into the forest, let it reverberate off the trees and bounce back with solace.

Unlike Will, Hannah can always find peace in the forest.

She would research her way to becoming the mother of a depressive. She would open her mind to darkness. She would welcome every negative emotion her son hurled at her.

Sharing your child with mental illness is emotionally exhausting, but figuring out how to face the beast is liberating.

For years she had fretted over his separation anxiety. Three feet tall and his favorite phrase was, Don’t leave me, Mommy. Now she was the one who wanted to cry, Don’t leave me.

My son's crippling separation anxiety was a red flag that I missed.

Her forsythia bush was turning to plum and lemon. That shrub hadn’t wilted once during the drought, and next spring, it would shine with yellow blossoms. Nothing held back a forsythia. Nothing.

As a gardener in the South, you pay attention to plants that endure drought. They give you hope.

It’s so fleeting, over so quickly, and yet it seems as if the clocks slow down and time can stretch to whatever you want it to be. It’s not quite day, it’s not quite night—it’s like being caught between possibilities.” “Or between two worlds and not belonging to either.”

Ultimately the in-between hour traps both families in the realm of possibilities.