Chapter 5 #3
So I bask in it. I let myself be me. “You’re welcome, Mama,” I say.
We fly to New Mexico the week that Kai’s sister’s baby laughs for the first time.
He tells me that when a Diné baby is about three months old—-the age when that true, belly--deep giggle happens—-relatives and friends will fall all over themselves trying to be the one to elicit that first giggle.
Whoever succeeds must throw a party—-Awéé’ Ch’ídeeldlo’—-with the baby “hosting.” It’s the way to welcome the baby from the spirit world into the physical community.
During the drive from Albuquerque to Newcomb, I ask Kai how to greet his mother and sister, how to pronounce a greeting in the Navajo language. The more anxious I become, the more entertained he is. “Yá’át’ééh,” he says for the fifth time.
It basically means hello, but literally, it translates to It is good.
“I want them to like me,” I say. “What if they don’t?”
Kai reaches out and squeezes my hand. “How could they not?”
The landscape as we drive into the reservation is mostly scrub brush and baked earth.
Kai’s told me that not everyone here has electricity or water.
He turns down a dirt road. A home at the end of it is humming with dozens of people.
A group of kids chase each other around the rusted remains of an old pickup truck.
The rich smell of lamb wafts from a grill.
Kai honks the horn as he parks. The moment he gets out of the vehicle, the kids swarm him, throwing questions like darts: Kai!
Did you bring your gun? Have you caught any bad guys?
He ruffles the hair of the youngest ones and gives fist bumps to the bigger boys.
Then he anchors me to his side, calling out hellos as we make our way through the crowd.
When a man steps out of the squat little house, Kai breaks into a smile. “Frank,” he says, “long time.” The man holds two plates with sizzling fry bread, which are quickly appropriated by giggling teen girls.
“Hey, man,” Frank replies, hugging Kai.
“This is—-”
Before Kai can introduce me, a woman hustles out of the house, carrying a baby.
“Has my brother finally decided to grace us with his presence?” Her eyes dance.
“And you must be Georgia. I’m so sorry you’ve been stuck in this one’s company.
” She elbows Kai, who laughs and pulls the baby out of her arms.
“Hi, Little Peach,” Kai coos. “Can you say Shiyáázh?”
“How could she possibly know you’re her uncle?”
Kai transfers the baby to his other arm and wraps his sister in a crushing embrace. “I see motherhood hasn’t changed you, shideezhí. But I’m going to forgive you because you produced the world’s cutest niece.” He turns to me. “Naya, Frank—-this is Georgia.”
“It’s so nice to meet you,” I say.
“You better get inside. It’s been two whole minutes and you haven’t said hello to nihimá,” Naya warns, taking the baby.
“Oh,” Frank says, reaching into his pocket. “Here.”
He hands each of us a bag of rock salt before following his wife into the thick of the celebration. “Salt?” I ask, as Kai leads me into the house.
“It’s a whole thing,” he says. “Salt used to be really hard to get, so giving it away reminds the baby to be generous with her joy as she grows up.”
I smile. “Who was the person who made you laugh for the first time?”
“My grandfather,” Kai says. “He tickled my feet with a feather for two consecutive weeks to make sure he was the one who’d get the honor.” We turn a corner to the sound of spitting oil. A small woman places rounds of dough into the giant pot.
Kai wraps his arms around her. “Is that one for me, shimá?”
She whirls, her face radiant. “Shiyázhí’,” she cries. “You can have them all.” Kai submits to her as she smooths his hair and wipes flour off his cheek. “Oh, how I’ve missed you.”
“Shimá,” Kai says, pulling away gently. “This is my girlfriend, Georgia. K’aalógii, this is my mother.”
His mother takes my hands. Hers are surprisingly strong. “Yá’át’ééh,” I say.
Her eyebrows shoot up. “I like this one,” she tells Kai, and then to me: “Please, call me Florence.”
Behind her the oil starts to smoke, and she lets go of me and starts pulling the fry bread out to drain on a metal rack. “Look at what you made me do,” she accuses Kai.
“Me?” He laughs. “What did I do?”
Her eyes sparkle like gems. “You’re here,” she says. “That’s all it takes.”
Little Peach throws a fit three hours into her party, but by then the lamb is gone and the tinfoil containers with fry bread toppings are empty. Kai cleans up while Frank does the dishes and Naya nurses the baby. I offer help where I can.
I was introduced to dozens of people today, all somehow related to Kai. He has a tangled, messy surfeit of family. It made me realize how alone I’ve been, and for how long.
The house is still a sweatbox, thanks to hours of frying oil, so I sit on the step of the porch, where it’s cooler. The sunset stripes the sky like a tiger hiding behind clouds, and my fingers itch to capture it on canvas.
Gradually I become aware of rhythmic clicking.
I follow the sound to the back of the house.
Underneath a small copse of trees, an upright loom hangs, little fists of wool tucked into the open warp.
As I watch, Kai’s mother threads red--dyed wool in and out through the vertical threads.
When she gets to the far end, she uses a wooden comb to beat the line down flush with the rows that she’s already finished, cream and crimson and yellow.
“That’s beautiful,” I say. “Do you have a pattern?”
She taps her temple. “Up here.”
“Has it told you what it’s going to be yet?”
Florence regards me. “Spoken like an artist,” she says.
“No, I’m just a receptionist at a doctor’s office.”
“No one is just any one thing. My son tells me you are a mother, too.”
I am shocked—-that Kai told her this; that she, a virtual stranger, would bring it up.
“Was,” I correct. “I was one.” I change the subject. “Thank you for including me today.”
“Do you know why we celebrate a baby’s first laugh? Because you aren’t born with joy. You have to be taught it.”
I think about this, hoping Adam taught Molly joy.
“You know, even when they’re not with you, you’re still a mother,” Florence adds.
For a few moments there are only the whispers of wool and the tap of the comb. Then she points to the bottom of the weaving. In a line of red is a nearly invisible dotted white line that breaks the otherwise flawless pattern.
It makes me think of the mosaic I did in college when Evie had kicked me out of our dorm room—-two facing silhouettes, the seam between them, and the tesserae I’d swapped at the very end, so that there was a white chip in the darkness and a black chip in the light.
“We call that the ch’íhónít’i’, the spirit line,” Kai’s mother says. “It’s a mistake we make on purpose, so the artist’s spirit isn’t trapped in the finished work.” She smiles gently at me. “You see? Nothing is meant to be perfect.”
The Black Place is at the end of an unmarked, parched service road. As we walk, we pass metal dinosaurs that gnash their teeth and groan, pulling oil out of the earth. “So,” Kai says. “Why this place?”