LaRose

by Louise Erdrich

She stored pieces of her being in the tops of the trees. She’d retrieve them later, when the bells stopped.

Girls were not named for flowers, as flowers died so quickly. Girls were named for deathless things—forms of light, forms of clouds, shapes of stars, that which appears and disappears like an island on the horizon.

He’d wish himself out of existence to take it or not take it over again. But the harder, the best, the only thing to do was to stay alive. Stay with the consequences, with his family.

Every time she said the words run away, Landreaux had a feeling about the word: runaway. The word bounced him up inside.

She turned around, her face alight with emotions the boys exactly knew: the fury and shame of kowtowing to a righteous person who controlled your destiny.

He felt calm, loving, and powerful. That moment would endure in his memory. It was the last time in his life that he did a heroic thing.

Everything would happen to them. They’d be one. They’d be everyone.

In English there was a word for every object. In Ojibwe there was a word for every action. English had more shades of personal emotion, but Ojibwe had more shades of family relationships.

LaRose looked into her eyes and said, Please? That look got him things. He was learning to use it. Maggie had taught him.

It is only me. He whispered to the noises and their nature changed. They became a whispery chorus, willing to accept him.

because a man had ears, tough little pinned-back ears that pricked up when people whispered. A man had a brain that decoded guarded talk between professionals. A man’s heart, shriveled raisin, prune of loneliness, burnt clam, understood what it was to lose out on love. And lose to a lying liar.

She began to feel more at home outside than inside.

In Nola’s eyes, her daughter saw the authority of the self and the self alone.

Mother, daughter. They fell into each other’s arms like terrified creatures. They clung together like children in the panic cellar.

It felt so adult, so take-charge, to examine these shapes for his future, make decisions, lay out a plan, sign papers, and finally shake hands.

She loved Maggie with all of the ripped-up pieces of her heart now.

They rarely said more than Hey and Hey. But the way it was said would stay with each of them as the day wore on.

Although LaRose was used to going where he was supposed to go, and doing what he was supposed to do, sometimes they just threw these big surprises at him.

She was sorry that she couldn’t do the right thing. Sorry that she couldn’t do what her mother needed done. Sorry she couldn’t fix her. Sorry, sometimes, that she had come across her mother in the barn. Sorry she had saved her. Sorry sorry sorry that she thought that. Sorry she was bad. Sorry she wasn’t grateful every moment for her mother’s life. Sorry that LaRose was her mother’s favorite, although he was Maggie’s too. Sorry for thinking how sorry she was and for wasting her time with all this feeling sorry.

It was exactly what priests were supposed to do. Keep their personalities subservient to their service. Endure whatever God gave them to endure without complaint. Was a priest ever not fine? Who could tell?

They trusted him to be all things except, actually, human. Be all to all in order to save all.

He was not all good, would never be; yet there were slender threads of okay.

He will be okay, he muttered, pulling out and driving away. This was a phrase he repeated like a mantra when things were not okay. After a while it made him feel better and after a time it worked.

Nobody knew her. Nobody hated her yet. Light, she felt light. Shed of an insufferable responsibility.

When they argued, he turned to air. His atoms, molecules, whatever he was made of, started drifting apart. He could feel himself losing solidity.

To feel was nearly too much to bear.

Ohhhh-kayyyyy . . . LaRose has learned the okay of a skeptical eight-year-old from wise-ass sitcom eight-year-old boys.

but he isn’t mean at all anymore, except in football. He has certain codes of honor now, because of Jesus and football. He only kills people in football.

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.

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.

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.

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.

They used to think they were something special. Lucky. They used to say they were sure nobody else had ever been this happy, ever been this much in love.

If he had just turned back in time to see the look on her face. He would have known. He would have known in all certainty. Her love was pouring straight out of her eyes.

If he’s giving you love, he gotta wear a glove, said Snow. Above or beneath, he gotta wear a sheath, said Josette. If he’s spoutin’ crude, he gotta cap his dude! If you’re gonna rock, make him wear a sock! Snow and Josette were becoming hysterical.

He still didn’t know how to feel. His morose dark vibe was definitely compromised. He caught himself smiling.

Somehow the fall had not killed him but fixed him, pushing everything all back together. That’s how it felt. A mysterious inner alignment was occurring.

People always said speak from the heart. What would that even mean? Speak from the squashed flask, the dead shoe, cheap cut of meat pulsing in his chest? Speak from the old prune of crapped-on hopes? Well then, be brief.

He watched as they moved together and apart, frowned or laughed, in a dance of ordinary joy that kept moving and vanishing as soon as it happened, and moving again.

They spoke in both languages. We love you, don’t cry. Sorrow eats time. Be patient. Time eats sorrow.