LaRose

by Louise Erdrich

Father Travis is unnerved to see that she might be crying. It is hard to tell, because she’s talking at the same time as tears well up and disappear without spilling. Father Travis knows that Emmaline rarely weeps.

You’ve always been here and you’ve done so much. Priests blow through here, but you’ve stayed. People love you

What did I say? I don’t know, but I’ve fallen in love with you,

He focuses on not taking back or apologizing for what he just said. He leaves it all with Emmaline. That’s not fair,

And so on. Tyler, or was it Buggy, one of those guys once called Josette a squaw, so Josette is already intent on killing him, or them, any one of them, but Hollis wants to get there first.

Coach Duke’s heart beat to inspire. It tuned him up when kids worked at getting better. That Maggie had set herself these personal goals, improving her jump to make up for height, got Coach Duke so happy that he called her parents that same night.

this was a good call. The first good call about Maggie that her parents had ever received.

The first time he thought that she was preparing herself for him, but when he returned with meat on his toboggan, he saw that she was wearing her old clothes again. He was jealous.

she loves that snake better than she ever loved her husband.

See here, LaRose, the snake and woman they want to hold hands but the snake don’t have any hands. They want to kiss but the snake don’t have any lips. They just have to twine around together.

It is a frightful story. Not a good story to tell a young boy. Maybe, said Ignatia. But it is a story of existence. This boy can know it; he is brave enough.

When she was gone, he put on a skirt and went to the serpent tree. He struck the tree three times, and the serpent appeared. Then he stuck his spear through the serpent, killing it dead. He brought the snake back to his lodge, cut that snake into pieces, and made that snake into snake soup.

Her husband told her not to worry because he’d made soup. Wait, said LaRose. Made soup out of the snake she . . . Loved, yes, said Ignatia. That’s like . . . Point of the story, said Malvern. Did she eat it? LaRose stared at them, pained. Ignatia nodded. Oh, said LaRose. This just gets worse.

I’da checked out if it wasn’t for Bap.

People who were chronically ill either dulled out and watched TV or cut to the chase in surprising ways, Landreaux found. The dulled-out ones were easier. But Ottie had been asking these questions and was so pleasant and forgiving that it was, almost, possible to tell the truth.

I’m like you, Ottie. Probably check out if not for her. That don’t go both ways. He laughed, but it was a heart-worn laugh. Emmaline would not check out if he did; she would survive for the kids. For herself. Also, the good stuff was in question. Emmaline had put a wall up, Landreaux thought. He even pictured it—brick but at least there were gaps, maybe windows. Sometimes she reached both hands through, unclenched,

He did not understand when she said he was asleep. His eyes were open. He was driving. He was pulling up in Ottie’s driveway.

He’d skimmed them off one of the new prescriptions he’d filled for Ottie. Only two. He’d throw them out. But he didn’t. He drove home. Was this a night he had to drive anybody anyplace? No. He plucked out the one pill. Swallowed. Only one, hardly anything. This would barely mellow him, still. You resist and resist and resist and wear yourself down. For all these years he had been substance free, but lately, well, this summer, the deterioration of his clients and the helplessness of waiting for Emmaline’s touch further diminished him. That was an excuse. He should be stronger.

He’d seen Emmaline go through drugless childbirth. She wanted drugs but only got lucky with Josette. Twice the trusted, competent anesthetist was not on duty at the IHS hospital. She didn’t want a bad spinal, an everlasting epidural or headache. Without one, the pain took up everything, she said. When she went to visit friends in the maternity ward, the smell of the place made her blood pressure shoot up, her hands shake. Light-headed, she had to sit. Some physical memory. But all worth it, she said, as women always did.

This was the first time in a long time he’d goofed off, let the girls wrestle him down. He felt lighter, almost happy, and he didn’t need the other pill, but after Snow brought him a cup of coffee, he felt his fingers tease it from his pocket. Then it slipped from his fingers, onto the floor. Some better person tried to crush it with his heel. But the heel was in a sock and the pill was coated with a hardening agent, which resisted until Landreaux walked over to the entry, got his boot, and hammered the thing to powder.

he was safe, yes safe, because Landreaux had taken this process down too far a level even for himself.

The way you defended your sister was awesome, says Brad. LaRose turns and knife-hands Brad on the nose, drawing blood. Then he gets out of the car.

THERE ARE FIVE LaRoses. First the LaRose who poisoned Mackinnon, went to mission school, married Wolfred, taught her children the shape of the world, and traveled that world as a set of stolen bones. Second, her daughter LaRose, who went to Carlisle. This LaRose got tuberculosis like her own mother, and like the first LaRose fought it off again and again. Lived long enough to become the mother of the third LaRose, who went to Fort Totten and bore the fourth LaRose, who eventually became the mother of Emmaline, the teacher of Romeo and Landreaux. The fourth LaRose also became the grandmother of the last LaRose, who was given to the Ravich family by his parents in exchange for a son accidentally killed.

This ability to fly went back to the first LaRose, whose mother taught her to do it when her name was still Mirage, and who had learned this from her father, a jiisikid conjurer, who’d flung his spirit all the way around the world in 1798 and come back to tell his astonished drummers that it was no use, white people covered the earth like lice.

WHAT TASTES SO good? This was the man’s wife asking. The blood of your husband, the snake. I have made him into broth, said the husband. The woman was furious and ran to the tree where her snake lived. She knocked three times, but it did not emerge and she knew it was killed. While she was gone, her husband plunged the two little boys into the ground, for safety. That doesn’t sound very safe, said LaRose. This time Ignatia didn’t answer, just kept on with the story. When the woman ran back, her husband cut off her head. Then he rose into the air to flee away into the sky.

After a while, said Ignatia, the woman’s head opened its eyes. Scary, said LaRose, with respect. The head asked the dish where her children were. She asked all of the belongings in the lodge, but they would not tell. At last a stone did tell her that her husband had sunk the children into the earth, and that now they were fleeing underground. The stone said that he had given them four things—power to make a river, fire, a mountain, a forest of thorns. So the head began to follow those children. It cried out, My children, wait for me! You are making me cry by leaving me!

This older brother became a being who could do many things—some places he is known as Wishketchahk, some as Nanabozho, and he has other names. He was kind of foolish, but also very wise, and his little brother the wolf was always by his side. He made the first people, Anishinaabeg, the first humans. Huh, said LaRose. So what’s the moral of this story? Moral? Our stories don’t have those! Ignatia puffed her cheeks in annoyance. They call this an origin story, said Malvern, also annoyed, but precise.

We are so cool, said LaRose. Still, getting chased like that. Maybe caught. Maybe slammed on the ground. Getting your wind knocked out. It is about getting chased, said Ignatia, with a long suck on her oxygen. We are chased into this life. The Catholics think we are chased by devils, original sin. We are chased by things done to us in this life. That’s called trauma, said Malvern. Thank you, said Ignatia. We are chased by what we do to others and then in turn what they do to us. We’re always looking behind us, or worried about what comes next. We only have this teeny moment. Oops, it’s gone! What’s gone? Now. Oops, gone again. Ignatia and Marvern laughed until Ignatia gasped for breath. Oops! Oops! Slippery! What’s gone? Now. Oops, laughed LaRose, slipped past! And then, just like that, Ignatia died. She gave them a glowing look and her feet kicked straight out. Her head fell back. Her jaw relaxed. Malvern leaned over and with her nurse’s paw pressed the pulse on Ignatia’s neck. Malvern looked aside, frowning, waiting, and at last took her hand from Ignatia’s throat, pushed Ignatia’s jaw back up, and pulled down her eyelids. She then cradled Ignatia’s hand.

There were so many sensations in his body that he couldn’t feel them all at once, and each, as soon as he felt it, slipped away into the past.

Romeo was staring now, at the mouth of Condoleezza Rice and knowing, as nobody else but Romeo knew, that this was a hungry woman who strictly controlled her appetites. This was a woman so much more intelligent than any of the men around her that she played them with her concert hands like chopsticks on her piano.

She made it her business to study boys. How their heads, hearts, and bodies worked. She didn’t want one, but she could see herself controlling one. Maybe each of the so-called Fearsome Four, hunt them down, skewer their hearts. Have them for lunch although she was trying to be a vegetarian—because good for the skin. She was strict with herself.

It was as though the two were putting on a show for Nola, giving her a warm glimpse of normal brother-sister hijinks. They glanced at their mother, from time to time, anxious to make sure she was pleased.

Peter tightened his arm around Nola’s shoulder, whispered in her ear, but she was someplace else. And this, oddly, filled him with relief. Because this was not fake or unreal, there was no hidden meaning. This was the Nola he knew, not the supersmiley one. This was the family dynamic, not the manufactured happy family with no aggravation, no anger, no loud voices, no pain allowed, where he felt alone.

eight points. The Warriors high-fived it and made a subdued exit. It didn’t feel exactly good, like a win; it felt like something bigger and darker had just played out.

still quiet with joy at the sight of Braelyn’s blood on the floor.

Nola gave Emmaline a long look as she turned away. It was something, the way Emmaline had hugged her. It hadn’t felt bad or good. She didn’t know how it had felt. Maybe normal was the way it felt.

IN MARCH THERE was the war. Father Travis started to watch the shock and awe, then switched it off.

Everyone else was home right now watching the war, so he and Emmaline were alone.

Yet the reassuring news that no homes were being damaged, no collaterals damaged, no buildings even, only ruined tanks and other weaponry to be found.

How useless, thought Romeo. You cannot stop a warlike people from doing what they like to do. Besides, frugality. Those giant flares were probably due to expire next week.

Perhaps one day Hollis would look at the bank account that shared his name and say something. Maybe he’d think that Romeo wasn’t such a shithead father after all. That’s what, said Romeo to CNN, that’s who I am saving for. That’s why I am eating this petrified cheese and this tagboard pizza. That’s why I have no sound on my TV.

Lately, Maggie had given him several characters to play: Bumbling Dad, even though he was the handiest man he knew. Wet Blanket Dad, even though he just liked to check in on reality once in a while. Careless Dad Who Lost Things, even though he was beginning to understand that somebody else had long been losing stuff. Maybe he really was Emotionally Lost Dad because he understood that Maggie was taking care of Nola all of the time, in ways he could not define. He couldn’t tell, couldn’t remember what she’d been like before, anyway. So maybe he was Absentminded Dad. And Spaced-Out Dad because he liked to avoid these questions.

Romeo made his way toward Peter Ravich, whom he’d spotted in the Alco parking lot. To keep walking, he had to keep arguing with Landreaux in his head. Still, still! Landreaux had never talked to Romeo about the old times, and was too high and mighty to give Romeo a sign he even cared one shit about the sacrifice that Romeo made, trying to save Landreaux, even to this day. Plus he was stealing Hollis and Emmaline and all that Romeo should have. Getting away with stealing these because they all believed in a false Landreaux, a saved and sober Landreaux, a Landreaux who could do the worst thing possible and still be loved. That Landreaux must fall.

he is proud of that as you will see, which Mrs. Peace once called foreshadowing. He makes a pious sorry-face, like he’s sad to give the news of Landreaux’s hidden character to one who believes in him.

Peter’s shoulders hunch and square, his chest expands, his neck swells, his heavy hands itch to grab that red bandanna and twist to choke the words off. This guy is slime. This guy is doing violence here. At the same time, this is something Peter can’t help coming to know. It will be there whether he hears it now or walks away. It will exist behind the sorry-to-tell-you mini-frown with the smugness boiling up behind Romeo’s unctuous manner.

Sometimes he tries to self-medicate, you know? Looks like he tried to that day. I heard the guys who were on the ambulance crew that day. I obtained access to the coroner’s report.

There was no sense in looking at the paperwork of death. It would not have brought his son back. Reports were the cold logistics of death and he’d been dealing with the hot truth of grief.

He marvels at how intelligent he makes himself sound—his brain though wormholed is a smart brain, after all.

It says that Landreaux’s shot missed Dusty’s head, heart, lungs, liver, aortic artery, femoral artery, and stomach. It says that Dusty was not killed by the shot but by the tearing shrapnel of the branch he was sitting on. Shallow wounds, sir. He bled to death while Landreaux was restraining your wife in the house. It doesn’t say this in the report, but the guys speculate Landreaux’s judgment—tragically!—impaired. If Landreaux had not run or panicked, but stopped to treat the boy’s bleeding, which as a personal care assistant he certainly knew how to do, he would probably have saved Dusty’s life.

Romeo embroiders for furt...