Daniel Hecht - Land of Echoes

The bitter emptiness was all too familiar. The power she'd given Julieta's supposed connection to Tommy said a lot about where Cree Black was in her own life.

"What?" Ellen asked. "What's the matter?" She watched Cree, worried at the sudden change in her odd guest.

"Nothing," Cree said hoarsely. How would she break it to Julieta? "Nothing. Really."

And that about summed up her progress, Cree thought. Now she was left with nothing. As Julieta was.

Julieta was halfway to Window Rock when her cell phone rang. She almost drove the truck off the road as she grabbed it and flipped it open. It was Joseph.

"Where are you?" she shouted. "I've been trying to reach you since last night!"

"I'm at home. I was here. I just had a lot to think about."

"I've been so worried! Are you all right?"

He seemed to consider that. "I was hoping you could come up to my place."

"I'm on my way to your place now!"

"See you shortly, then," he said. And he hung up.

Joseph lived in one of the flat-roofed, sandstone-block houses on the hill in the center of Window Rock. He opened his front door before she reached it. He looked bone tired, but he struck her as handsome and fine as he stood there in T-shirt, khakis, bare feet. When she came up the steps, he put his arms around her and she leaned against him. She wanted to bury herself in him, hold him forever, but the hug he gave her was guarded and brief.

He led her into his living room. As always, she liked the feeling of his place, the mix of tastes. The house was small, just a one-story, two-bedroom shoe box, but well built and charmingly decorated. This living-dining room ran from one end to the other, so windows gave light at both ends, one set offering sweeping vistas to the south and the other shorter views uphill to the red pillars and cliffs of the Chuska bluffs. Over the years, Joseph had bartered his services for the splendid Navajo rugs and other artworks that decorated the place, but he had also hung his walls with framed prints of Miro and Chagall. His bookcase was filled with photo collections, medical texts, biographies, and a collection of comic books, and was topped with a collection of cards and gifts that grateful patients had given him. The Formica dining table and chairs looked as if they were left over from his med school days, but he had invested in a nice calfskin couch and oak coffee table.

The rooms were spotless and fresh, as always, but today there was something different. It took Julieta a moment to realize it was the flowers: a big vase of mixed blooms on the table, another on one of the stereo speakers. Through the door, she saw a cloud of carnations in a clay pot on the kitchen counter.

She caressed the petals of a rose and looked a question at Joseph.

"Well," Joseph said. "I wanted it to be pretty here. When you came. Not much in the way of fresh flowers in Window Rock, but I found these in the cooler down at Basha's."

They stood there for an awkward moment. He looked exhausted and wary, yet somehow at peace with himself. Like a man who had made some decision and had resigned himself to the consequences.

"Thank you for coming. Can I get you something? Coffee, or-"

"Joseph, what's going on? Why are you talking to me like this? I'm not some stranger."

He tossed his shoulders uncomfortably. "Let's sit down."

She let him lead her to the couch. She sat on the edge of it as Joseph took the big chair across the coffee table from her. She waited for him to do whatever it was he intended to.

"I didn't answer your calls because I needed time to think. Before I talked to you. Didn't want to talk to you until I'd figured something out. Figured out a starting place."

"For what? You're scaring me!"

He looked fiercely at her for a moment before springing out of his chair and crossing the room to one of the windows. He leaned against the window frame with one hand and massaged his face with the other. Against the light from the window, he made a trim silhouette, thin at the waist, strong at the shoulder. The muscles in his jaw rippled and rayed from tension.

"Julieta. You see the door to my bedroom?"

She glanced over. A short hallway, the narrow door of a closet, then the door to his room. From this angle she could just see the corner of his bed, covered in a patchwork quilt, and the bookshelf beyond. Another vase of flowers stood on the bookshelf.

"There's a man who lies in that bed every night. And he thinks about you. He wants you to be in there with him. But that's never happened. For a lot of reasons, that's never happened. And that's a big mistake."

Julieta felt heat spread through her: embarrassment, alarm, longing. This was something they'd forbidden of themselves. Why? The taboo had begun, unnoticed, in the months after Peter, and solidified in the time after giving up the baby and the scary period of the divorce. Then for a while they had both been scared of love, of consequences, of mistakes. Later, the taboo had been reinforced by her occasional lovers and his, the distance and tact and accommodation required. Living around it, not looking straight at it, was so habitual that it seemed impossible to face it now. What could she say? There's a bed like that down at Oak Springs School, too. True, but such a contrivance. He deserved better.

Before she could find the right words, Joseph turned back. He came across the room to her and sat on the edge of the coffee table. He took her hands and held them as he looked into her eyes. His eyes were deep brown, rimmed with dark lashes, unhesitant and unyielding.

"So what I figured out was, that's the starting place. That's the first thing I had to tell you-I wasn't going to pretend anything different, ever again." He paused to let that sink in: Wherever they were going, there was no going back to where they'd been. "The second thing was, I need to ask you for a promise. There are things I want you to promise me you'll do today. You have to promise you will do all of them, not just some, no matter what. I need to talk to you, we need to go for a drive, then we need to come back here and figure something out. After, you can do whatever you need to. Can you promise?"

It can't be happy, she was thinking, and it can't be easy. Or he wouldn't do it like this. The thought scared her to death. There was so much to fear right now. But then she thought: It must be necessary, or he wouldn't do it like this. This must be the only way through.

"Okay," she said.

"You're sure."

She mouthed the word soundlessly, cleared her throat, and tried again: "Yes."

He held her hands so hard they hurt, still looking into her eyes. Then he got up and pulled her with him. To the door, out to his truck.

Not talking, they headed east on 264 and then north on 666. The mountains loomed on their left, the flat, empty basin of the Chuska Valley yawned to the right. Late-afternoon sunlight washed the land, a chilly white light in the dry air.

Still Joseph didn't talk. In the silence, Julieta's fear grew. She took his hand and held it there on his thigh, making him steer with one hand, too scared to ask him to explain.

This was the way they'd have to go to get to the Keedays' place, but Joseph wasn't saying anything and at last she couldn't stand it any longer.

"Are you going to tell me where we're going?"

"Julieta, all these years, I didn't know where your baby went. I wasn't the one who found a home for him. My uncle did. He's the one who knew the family who wanted a child. But he made the same deal I made with you, and he'd never tell me. Sometimes I asked him, and he wouldn't. Even when you were… when it was so hard for you not to know. That's why I couldn't tell you anything about Tommy. I didn't know."

"Your uncle Joe Billie?"