The Round House

by Louise Erdrich

We could be jolted into a fresh awareness of how we valued the sanctity of small routine. Wild though I saw myself in the mirror, in my thoughts, I valued such ordinary pleasures.

Zack was almost a decade older than his baby brother and sister, because his parents had married young, divorced, then given it a second try and found out they were right the first time they divorced.

You have read this far and you know that I’m writing this story at a removal of time, from that summer in 1988, when my mother refused to come down the stairs and refused to talk to Soren Bjerke.

I’ve read that certain memories put down in agitation at a vulnerable age do not extinguish with time, but engrave ever deeper as they return and return.

My father looked at his knuckles, flexed his hand, frowned. He started talking to his hand, which was a thing that he did when he didn’t want to be saying what he had to say.

Everything we do, no matter how trivial, must be crafted keenly. We are trying to build a solid base here for our sovereignty. We try to press against the boundaries of what we are allowed, walk a step past the edge. Our records will be scrutinized by Congress one day and decisions on whether to enlarge our jurisdiction will be made.