Daniel Hecht - Land of Echoes

"He touched my face. He caressed my face for a long time, like he wanted to know my bones. My expressions, the feelings I'd had? It was slow, but it was… urgent the whole time." Julieta's eyes went wide as if she'd just heard herself, the degree of confidence she'd indulged.

Cree held her breath, unwilling even to mutter encouragement, afraid it would break the flow. Or that Julieta would notice her reaction: The image of Mike had materialized and she could feel the shape of his body against hers. In the vaulted architecture of her heart, some supporting pillar or buttress bent and faltered agonizingly. Blind, she let Breeze find her own way. The sky had taken on the same feeling, turning gradually an opaque, cataracted white; the sun was the color of a blood orange, dimming, and in the odd light the landscape felt artificial-some stark, digital, virtual place. The school was still several miles away.

They were lovers for a year. They were very careful to keep it secret. Julieta confided only in Joseph, whom she trusted absolutely. She introduced Peter to Joseph, they liked each other. She grew stronger. She realized she'd have to divorce Garrett, even if her father lost his job as a result. Now when she took her husband's arm for the occasional function they attended together, she felt dirty not because of his infidelities but because of hers: She was betraying Peter. When Garrett came home, she made excuses to avoid sleeping with him.

At first, she did a good job of planning the divorce. She hired a private detective to take photos of Garrett entering motel rooms with different women. She made copies of his credit card bills showing incriminating purchases, travel, and hotel stays, which she kept in a secret file. When they went to court, she'd have him by the balls.

But just about the time she was ready to file and move out of the house, two things happened to blow the whole thing apart.

She discovered she was pregnant. She knew it was Peter's child because she hadn't slept with Garrett for months and because, yes, she had been less than cautious with Peter. When she told Peter about it, he was shocked and, understandably, perturbed. As she was: Being visibly pregnant or having a baby that was obviously not red-blond Garrett's child would reveal her infidelity and put the impending divorce process at risk.

At the same time, she never once considered having an abortion. She wanted that child. Really, it was no accident that she'd gotten pregnant. She'd let that last, most intimate barrier fall, she'd needed it to. She'd wanted her life to begin at last.

When she told Joseph, he helped her make a plan: keep the pregnancy secret, file for divorce immediately-before she started to show-and move to her own place.

But before she got that far, Peter left her.

The first time he didn't show up to visit her, she was upset, but she didn't worry until the next day, when she called his house and got no answer. The following day, she drove past his place and found it abandoned: The truck was gone, Bird wasn't in the corral.

He's young, Joseph told her. You know how he is, Julieta, he's a free spirit. That's one of the things you love about him. He got scared. If not of Garrett, then of being a father, making a commitment. But he's a good guy. He'll think about it for a while and he'll call you. He'll realize pretty quick he can't live without you. Don't worry.

And it was true that Peter was intimidated at the prospect of being a father, a husband, a full-time companion. The ardor and excitement in his eyes had been mixed with doubt ever since she'd told him.

But he didn't come back. Weeks went by and he didn't reappear.

Julieta went through with her plan. One horrible afternoon she told Garrett she was divorcing him, then moved out of the house and set up in a cramped third-floor apartment in Gallup.

For a while she tried to make excuses for Peter: Maybe Garrett had found out about him, had threatened him or had him beat up and scared him away. But then she thought, no, there was no way Garrett could have found out, they had been too careful. The proof was that if he had, he'd be using her infidelity against her in the divorce; he certainly fought her proposed settlement terms tooth and nail, and he followed through on his threat to fire her father, but he never brought Peter into it.

Still, she couldn't bear to believe Peter had left of his own accord. But when she finally mustered the courage to call Peter's mother, up near Shiprock, she said yes, he'd brought Bird to stay at her house and had left the rez. He'd said he was going to California, but she hadn't heard from him. Julieta begged her to have him contact her if he came back or called.

Heartbroken, she lived on in her little apartment. Every day brought a dozen changes of heart toward Peter: hope and fear, strength and devastation, anger and forgiveness. Her confusion wasn't just about men, or even love, it was about life. The sense of betrayal that all the good things you believed should be so untrue.

She started to show, a little. The divorce process dragged on. She received no visitors. She saw Joseph often, always at the hospital or at restaurants. The longer she stayed in her tiny apartment, the more anger she felt toward Peter. But she still wanted to have the baby. It was the child of those beautiful moments, when the world opened up and it seemed there was love in it after all. And maybe Peter would come back. Maybe he just needed more time.

"In retrospect, I wish I didn't do it the way I did. But you have to understand how angry I was. How terrified I was of what Garrett would do if he found out."

"That he'd hurt you? Physically, I mean?"

The muscles on Julieta jaws rippled. "Remember Donny's remark about the quality of my horses? It goes back to the day I told Garrett I was divorcing him. He didn't love me, but he liked sex with me and he owned me-plus he knew the divorce would cost him some money and property. And by God one thing Garrett did was, he fought for what he owned! The day I handed him the papers he argued and threatened me and his eyes literally turned this horrible bloody color. He… he did something very terrible."

"What?"

"I had gone to my bedroom and locked the door, I was that afraid of him. So Garrett went out to the barn. He shot my horses. All four. I listened to the shots and screams. One after the other."

Sickened, Cree couldn't imagine a response.

It took her a while, but after a few minutes Julieta managed to grind out the rest of the story: "I was scared to death. What he'd do if he found out about the baby. About Peter and me. Especially that I'd slept with a Navajo, was carrying a Navajo child. That would be a blow to his ego he'd never forgive."

The searing fear and horror of that day fired her determination to get away from Garrett, cemented her sense that he really owed her. He had betrayed her, turned her into a paid courtesan, not a wife; he'd made her practically a prisoner for four years, he'd ruined her father, he'd murdered her horses. Even now, he ruled her life through fear and intimidation. Turning over a new leaf meant not accepting that crap from him, or anyone, ever again. Despite Joseph's tactful recommendation that she divorce quietly and amicably, even if it meant a less lucrative settlement, she continued to press ahead with the very hard terms her attorney said she would certainly get. All she had to do was keep her pregnancy secret and get the divorce over with quickly.

But the final court date ended up being set for late winter. Showing up in court eight months pregnant was out of the question. She had to change plans.

Again, Joseph helped her think it through. The solution they came up with was to have the baby in secret. Postpone the court date until spring, a month or so after she'd given birth. In the meantime, live a covert life in Gallup, withdraw from public contact, do all her business by phone, let her lawyer handle everything. It was only a few more months, and over the last five years she'd gotten good at waiting, at living alone. At having a secret life, a secret self.