Chapter Seven
My father’s death released something within Bear. He planted himself on the front porch facing the road and drank all day long. It seemed to us that he never moved far from that spot, but one evening after we watered the horses, Amir went to fetch the whittling knives and returned to the back porch empty-handed.
“He took them,” he said. “Your father’s knives. I put them on the floor right next to my bed last night. They were there this morning. Now they’re gone.Hetook them.”
The moment Amir said this, a wave of understanding passed through me. For so many years I had blamed myself for misplacing the things that I loved, for forgetting which tree pocket in the grove held my stored treasures, for misplacing Rei’s library books, for losing the pretty little doll my classmate had given me and the fairy Amir had made for me. But I understood at last that all along it had been Bear who had been taking my things.
“THE CHILDREN NEEDto go to school,” Rei told Bear. She stirred a pot of soup at the kitchen’s small white stove. “Youare their guardian now, and you need to start thinking of their needs above your own. You are twenty years old. A young adult, but an adult nonetheless.”
Bear gave no indication that he was listening. Rei passed bowls of soup around the table. Bear set upon his immediately, slurping so loudly that it unsettled a cloud of rage within me. Rei had told him that the soup was only for those who sat at the table, but I wished she’d let him eat on the porch by himself. Before I knew what I was doing, I picked up my spoon and threw it at my brother.
“Hey!” Bear drew back his hand to strike me but suddenly Rei stood between us. Amir was so still that he nearly vibrated; his hand gripped his spoon as though he were readying to throw it, too.
Bear glowered at us but dropped his hand down to the table, where it encircled a can of beer. It was the kind our father had drunk. In a few short weeks, Bear had adopted most of my father’s things. He even wore my father’s brown flannel shirt and his work boots. I tried not to look at Bear because each glance threatened to erase some memory of my father. It was why the sounds of my brother’s slurping had annoyed me so; it was as though Bear were demanding that I look at him and admit that he was all I had left of the family I’d been born into.
Bear took another loud slurp of his soup. Then he said, “They’re not going to school anymore.”
Rei shook her head. “Theymustgo to school. It’s the law. You are their guardian. It’s you who will be held accountable.”
This seemed to surprise Bear. “I dropped out and no one came after my father about it.”
“You were fifteen. Merrow and Amir are ten.”
Bear shrugged. “I’m not taking them.”
Already, Little Earth felt like a memory. We had not been there since my father had died three weeks earlier. I still had a few books from the school’s little library hidden in my pillowcase. I longed to exchange them for new ones and to see the faces of my classmates.
Teacher Julie had come to my father’s memorial service the week before when we poured his ashes into the sea at the bottom of the cliffs. The ocean had been strangely calm that day. Rain fell slowly, and each raindrop had landed in the water like a stone, a thousand stones, a million stones. Amir and I stood side by side up to our shins in the cold, dark ocean and watched the falling rain. Bear was a little ahead of us. I was surprised when he had walked right into the water; I’d never seen him in the ocean before. His eyes had been as cold and dark as the sea that day. He had not waited long before opening the urn and pouring out the stuff that was our father. Then he turned and walked right by us, out of the ocean and up the cliff path. Amir and I stood there until Rei touched our shoulders and urged us back to shore. Her long skirt had been gathered up in one hand, her exposed knees as pale as bone.
Later that day, before she left Horseshoe Cliff, Teacher Julie handed me a cloth sack that held my journals. She had given me one each year I’d been at Little Earth and I’d filled them with my stories, comforted by her promise to help me keepthem safe. I took the bag from her, knowing Bear would steal them and hardly caring. How could I care if I lost my stories when I had just lost my father?
“I’ll teach them,” Rei told Bear in the kitchen now. She was still holding the soup ladle. “I’ll come as often as I can. I was a teacher once. I can arrange the papers to show that I’m in charge of the children’s schooling.”
Bear set down his can of beer. The look on his face made me sit up in my chair.“The children?”he said. “There will only be one of them soon.”
“What are you talking about?” Rei asked.
“I’m sending Amir away.” He looked at me as he said this. “He never belonged here in the first place. He’s not our brother. He’s not our problem anymore.”
“No!” I slammed my hands on the table. Bear’s beer can quivered, and he snatched it up, annoyed. Amir stared at my brother, and I saw his jaw twitch with fury. “Rei, you can’t let him do that!”
“Bear, may I speak with you outside?” Rei asked.
“No.”
“This land belongs to all three of you. That’s how your father left it in his will.”
It was the first I had heard of this. Amir and I exchanged a glance.
“Not until they’re eighteen,” said Bear.
“Yes, but until then your father left you in charge ofbothof them. You are Amir’s guardian. It’s what Jacob wanted. That is also in his will. I saw it myself.”
“Did he put how I’m supposed to feed all of us in that will, too?”
The garden and orchard were in as sad a state as they had ever been. Even in our grief, Amir and I were trying our best to take care of the land, but we were ten years old and our stamina only went so far. Bear knew what to do, he just didn’t want to do it. Without my father around to insist on Bear’s help, he did nothing.
“Perhaps he meant for you to get a job,” Rei said. “Construction, maybe. House painting.”
