Chapter Forty-Six
brEANNA
THE OFFICIAL meeting is scheduled for the week before Christmas. Instead of enjoying the magical weeks before the holiday with games, cocoa, Christmas movies, and cartoons, we’ve added walking on pins and needles and forcing smiles.
The Tribal Services building is all hard surfaces and fluorescent lights, and I feel every bit of it. I’m not used to rooms like this, I feel far away from stables, surgical bays, and places that smell like hay and antiseptic where I know what I’m doing.
Here, I’m just another woman sitting in a hard chair at a long conference table with my hands in my lap and my knee bouncing like crazy.
I didn’t notice I was doing it until Mato’s hand is warm and heavy on my thigh, stilling me, his thumb moving across the denim.
I flick my eyes to him and make myself breathe.
Mrs. Harjo sits across from us with her folder open in front of her, and her reading glasses low on her nose. She’s been kind every time we talk, but kind and yes are not the same thing.
Dawn is at the end of the table. She nodded politely when we came in, the same as she was at the ranch.
I’ve spent two weeks trying to read a verdict into her face, but no matter how I looked at it, I didn’t get one.
I haven’t slept. I’ve lain awake running every outcome, and I’ve only succeeded in making myself exhausted all day, every day.
“I want to make sure everyone understands where we are.” Mrs. Harjo announces.
She folds her hands over the papers in front of her.
"Under the Indian Child Welfare Act, when we're determining placement for Cherokee children, there's an order of preference the court follows.
The first preference is placement with a member of the child's extended family. "
Her eyes move gently to Dawn.
The floor seems to drop a few inches.
"Mrs. Walker is the children's first cousin once removed, and she's an enrolled citizen.
That places her at the top of the preference list." She lets that sit a moment, not unkindly, just plain, like a doctor giving someone a diagnosis.
"Mr. Blackwell, your own enrollment is meaningful, and the current placement is going well by every account I have.
But I want to be honest with you. On paper, family comes first."
I feel Mato go very still beside me. His hand doesn't leave my knee.
I want to say something. I want to stand up and list every reason why they belong with us. Maybe if I can explain Koda’s guard going down, and Nova sitting on my lap to lean against my chest while she twirls my hair around her finger, the trust both of them have put in us.
But my throat is closed, and the damn room is too bright, and Dawn is sitting there with her hands folded on the table exactly like Mrs. Harjo’s, and I’ve never in my life felt so far from anything I can control.
This is what it is to love something you might not get to keep. I know the feeling well. I just spent ten years pretending I didn't.
"So before we go any further," Mrs. Harjo says, turning a page, "I think the most important thing is to hear from —"
"Could I have a few minutes with Breanna?" Dawn interrupts and sets her hand flat on the table. "Just the two of us."
The room goes quiet. Mato’s hand squeezes my knee under the table, and I make myself nod as if my heart isn’t trying to climb out of my throat. Mrs. Harjo looks at me in questions and I say, “Of course.”
She looks at Mato. “Mr. Blackwell, would you like to get a cup of coffee with me from the break room? I can’t promise it will be good.” She laughs as she pushes away from the table.
Mato’s brown eyes focus on me, and I can read the question in them: Do you need me to stay?
I grasp his hand under the table and nod. “I’ll be okay.”
He nods at Dawn as he stands and walks out of the room with Mrs. Harjo. The room is silent for several agonizing minutes as it looks like Dawn is collecting her thoughts. I feel like I might be sick.
She finally looks at me. “Renny and I grew up two streets apart. That’s the children’s mother; we called her Renny. We were more like sisters than cousins all the way up until we were grown.”
I don’t say anything and I don’t move.
“She was beautiful. Boys were always chasing her. After I got married, we stopped hanging around each other as much; I had responsibilities at home. That’s when the using started.
” She pauses and takes a deep breath. “She got involved with a guy who introduced her to a life we’d never experienced.
I tried for years to help her, she’d come stay with me for a few days and then she would disappear again.
And then it got to where letting her into my house meant letting in everything that came with her, and I had my own kids to think about. ”
She swallows and goes on. “I tried to get her to let me have Koda, but he became a bargaining chip for her, and she refused. I had to let them go. So, I stopped answering and told myself I would help her after she got clean. I kept thinking there’d be a later.
“I didn’t even know about the little girl,” her voice is quieter. “Nova. I didn’t know Renny had another baby. That’s how far we’d grown apart.” Pain moves across her face. “I couldn’t save her.”
“I’m so sorry.” It’s all I can say.
She nods once, accepting it. "When the Nation called me, I knew I'd take them.
There was never a question. You don't let family go into the system; you just don't. It's not how I was raised.
" A breath. "I've got three of my own and a small three-bedroom home and a husband working doubles.
I'd have made it work. I'd have torn the whole house apart and made it work, because that's what you do. "
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my clenched fists. Here it comes. I brace for what she is about to say the same way you brace before a horse bolts.
“And then I went to your house.” She shook her head slowly. "And I watched that little boy sit on the floor and take apart a radio without a care in the world. And the little one won't talk to me, but she won't take her eyes off you. She's already decided who she wants her mama to be.”
I realize I’m crying, and I don't bother wiping the tears.
"I’ve been asking myself what I'd be doing if I took them," she says.
"Whether I'd be saving them, or just… moving them.
Pulling them out of the one place they've started thinking of as home and putting them somewhere I'd be running ragged just to keep the lights on.
" She takes another deep breath like she’s preparing for something.
"I couldn't do anything for Renny. I'll carry that.
But I can do this. I can make sure her babies stay where somebody already loves them.
" Her voice hitches, and she swallows. "Where they get to be Cherokee in a house that's proud of it. That's what I can still do for her."
I can’t speak, so I lean closer and put my hand over hers.
She puts her other hand over mine and nods. “I’ll tell the worker I want them to stay with you.”
As soon as I open the door and step out into the hallway, Mato stands from the bench, forgetting about the paper cup of coffee sitting next to him.
His shoulders are squared like he’s bracing himself for a blow that might take his feet out from under him.
His eyes are locked on mine, trying to read any kind of verdict on my face.
I shake my head a little, trying to convey it’s okay, it’s not bad, and I watch him not understand.
As we walk back to the table, I grasp his hand, and we all sit back in our seats. Mrs. Harjo looks at Dawn. “Mrs. Walker?”
Dawn folds her hands on the table like she did before, her voice is even and clear. “I’ve made up my mind about the children’s placement. I want the children to stay where they are. With Ms. Harlow and Mr. Blackwell.” She takes a small breath. “It’s the right thing for them.”
Swiveling my head to Mato, I watch it happen.
His breath goes out of him all at once, and his shoulders drop an inch, like the weight has been officially been lifted.
He squeezes his eyes shut for just a second.
When he opens them, they are glassy, and he looks at me, his jaw working, and then he turns in his seat and grabs me.
Throwing my arms around his neck, tears run down my cheeks and I squeeze him as hard as he’s squeezing me. “We get to keep our babies.”
He turns his head into my neck, his lips next to my ear. “We do.”
We sit back in our seats and Mato looks at Dawn. “Thank you.” His voice is thick and scratchy. “Thank you. I don’t…” He stops and starts over. “We’ll raise them right. I swear that to you. They’ll know where they came from.” He can’t finish because the emotions are overtaking him, so he nods.
“I know.” Dawn says. She looks at him for a moment. “I’m not worried.”
Mrs. Harjo is saying things then about transition and paperwork and the steps that are still ahead.
I tried to pay attention to the words, but they slid off my happiness.
I’ll think about steps later. The only steps I care about right now are the ones that take me to a door at the end of the hall with toys and a little window in it, where my kids are.
Mato carries Nova to the truck even though she can walk, and Koda climbs up into the back seat, going on about whether we can open one present the night before Christmas because that’s what Lainey Rai’s mom and dad let her do. It’s just as if the afternoon has been a regular afternoon for them.
I turn back to Mato, who’s looking at me like his world starts and stops wherever I am, and he softly says, “They’re staying.”
“They’re staying.” I smile.
He starts the truck, and we take our kids home.