Dana Stabenow - Whisper to the Blood

"Katya-," Auntie Vi said.

"Two more years," Kate said again, her voice not rising but her tone inflexible, "the time remaining in Billy Mike's term of office. Then I step down." She surveyed their consternation with no little satisfaction, and maybe just a hint of a tremor that she might be wrong about this. Only now was she beginning to wonder about Ekaterina's choices when she had been named to the board. Was it, after all, what she had really wanted? Or had it been forced on her, too?

She banished the niggling doubts and said firmly, "Two years is long enough to find and groom the next chair, and bring them up to speed. Two years is long enough to build a policy to ensure that Global Harvest treats fairly with us over the Suulutaq Mine."

"That mine not a done deal, Katya," Auntie Vi said sternly.

"No," Kate said, "and I imagine you and a bunch of other people are going to have a lot to say about that over the next fifty years."

"Somebody strong needed to guide the people during that time," Auntie Vi said.

"A lot of strong people will be necessary," Kate said. "I'm not Emaa, Aunties." She said it again just to be sure they heard her, whether they believed it or not. "I'm not Emaa. She was Association chair for twenty years, and after a while she got so she thought she'd been anointed rather than elected."

This was heresy. There were shocked and reproachful looks. Okay, fine. "You remember Mark Miller, Aunties? The park ranger who went missing seven years ago? Yes, I can see that you do. She was willing to have an innocent man convicted of that crime rather than see one of her own go down for it."

They didn't say anything, and prudently, she didn't ask them if they had approved of Emaa's actions. "I'm not Emaa," Kate said again. "I won't ever be Emaa. I'll do what I can for the shareholders, for the Association, for the Park during the next two years, and I'll do my best to handpick a competent successor. But you should also know one of the first things I'm going to do is propose an amendment to the bylaws for term limits for board and chair. Two terms, max, and then they're out. George Washington was right about that."

"What!"

"Katya, this lousy idea, you-" "Ekaterina would roll in her grave!"

"Then she rolls," Kate said. "No one should be in power for that long, Aunties. After too long, the people holding office start to feel invincible, arrogant, as if the power is theirs by right and not by the consent of the governed. One shareholder, one vote. One board member, two terms."

"Won't pass," Auntie Vi said.

"Yes, it will, Auntie," Kate said. "If I have to convince every shareholder one at a time, baby to elder, including every one of you, yes, it will."

They looked to a woman spitting mad, even Auntie Joy. Kate grinned at them, although it was an expression lacking any real amusement. "You wanted me to be on the board. You wanted me to be chair. Be careful what you wish for, Aunties. You might just get it."

She went to the door and paused for her parting shot. "Oh, and on a personal note."

She looked at Auntie Balasha. "I'm not moving into town, Auntie. I like my homestead, and I've got all the company I want or need. I don't want to be any closer to family. I don't want to be any closer to the other shareholders, or to the Association office. I'm right where I want to be, and I'm going to stay there."

She looked at Auntie Edna and her eyes hardened. "My personal life is my own affair, Auntie. Don't you tell me who I can or can't have a relationship with ever again."

The other three aunties looked at Auntie Edna in surprise. Kate looked at Auntie Vi. "I'm not going to be the next Association chair for life, Auntie. In case, you know, you didn't hear me the first sixteen times."

Lastly, she looked at Auntie Joy. "And thanks for being the only auntie who didn't try to rearrange my life, Auntie Joy. I appreciate it." She left.

As she was leaving the gym she felt someone touch her sleeve, and turned to see Harvey Meganack. "It wasn't a landslide, Kate," he said. "You only won by four votes. Next time it'll be different."

"Yeah," she said, "next time I won't be running."

He snorted his disbelief and walked away.

Why was it so difficult for anyone to believe that she didn't want it, any of it, not the power, not the glory, not the responsibility, none of it?

She thought again of Tikani vanishing slowly down the years, its patriarch starving to death, its youth wasted from a lack of occupation, sinking into a life of poverty and despair. Too many villages were going the same way. If something didn't change, if someone didn't bring in more jobs to the Park, they would vanish, too.

Niniltna could be on that list one day.

She turned and looked at the crowded room, the chairs shoved against the walls, filled with people gossiping with neighbors over plates of fry bread and smoked fish and mac and cheese, exchanging family news at the laden tables when they went back for seconds. Elly Aguilar, Auntie Edna's granddaughter, was sitting next to Martin Shugak, her belly pushing out almost to her knees. She smiled shyly in answer to a question Martin asked, and took his hand and put it on her belly. A second later he jumped, and they both laughed.

Kate shook her head. Every now and then Martin made her think that there might be more than a loser residing in that body after all.

The basketballs were out, a line of kids from eight to eighty doing layups, jumping, hooking them in, bouncing them off the backboard, and then by some unspoken osmosis the layup line re-formed in the key and it was free throws. Free throws win ball games. One of Coach Bernie Koslowski's immutable laws.

A little girl in a pink kuspuk skittered out of the crowd and careened into Kate's legs with such force that she bounced back and landed on her fanny on the floor. She looked up, eyes wide, too surprised to cry. Kate laughed and tossed the girl up into her arms. "Hey," she said, softly chiding. "Watch where you're going, you could hurt somebody."

The little girl stared at her wide-eyed, one finger in her mouth, a little snot leaking out of her nose, before wriggling free and careening off in a different direction.

Kate opened the door and went outside.

Not on her watch.

That night the Roadhouse was packed to the rafters. Everyone was back in their accustomed places, Old Sam with the other old farts at the table beneath the television, the aunties working on the new quilt at the round table in the corner, Bernie behind the bar. "I hear you kicked Association ass today, Kate," he said with a faint approximation of his old self.

"Not kicked ass, Bernie," she said, and gave it some thought. "Gently but firmly encouraged the shareholders to walk in the proper direction. Me and Robert's Rules of Order." Next to her, Jim grinned.

"What'll it be?" Bernie said, and they ordered all around. After a bit a couple of guys got out the beater guitars Bernie kept in the back and started singing from the Beatles' songbook, and a while later the belly dancers showed up, and from the jukebox Jimmy Buffett started threatening to go to Mexico again. Demetri stepped up next to Kate, gave her his reserved smile, and ordered a beer. Harvey Meganack was sitting at a table with Mandy and Chick, and from the nauseous expression Mandy had to repress from time to time Kate gathered that he was holding forth with his usual know-it-all swagger to GHRI's new representative to the Park. Be careful what you wish for, indeed.

"True what I heard?" Jim said, following her gaze. "You're going to make him boss of that mine advisory panel you're putting together?"

Kate toasted Harvey with her Diet 7UP. Taken aback, he was a beat late in returning the salute, but return it he did. "Keep your friends close," she said, "and your enemies closer."