Three Weeks
“You can’t keep this door locked all the time,” Keith yelled in a drunken rage.
“Just leave us alone, come back when you’re sober,” Jean yelled back. She turned
on the bed and grabbed her youngest one, Lynn.
Jean, Charlotte and Lynn had been sleeping for a couple of hours on the
mattresses on the floor when Keith came back to the house. They knew he’d pound on the door. Lynn waited for the day the door would not keep him from beating her mother.
Outside she heard Keith yelling at Jean, who kept her and Charlotte close. She heard footsteps from down the hall and heard her grandmother, Leona; yell something at her father in Spanish. Keith hit the door with his fist once more.
Keith got his face smacked by his mother, Leona, “you leave them alone. You’re drunk.”
“But ma, she won’t let me see my kids.”
“Keith, get your ass to the couch before I…”
Lynn closed her eyes and fell asleep.
* * *
Waking up in her bed, Lynn looked down and saw her younger brother, Luissmiling in his sleep. The dreams kept her in a state of sleep for years. She was no longer that scared child, wrapped in her mother’s arms. She saw the poems hanging above her head, the pictures of various family members, as well as posters of her favorite artists. The TV sat a foot from the bed in the left corner of the room, underneath it her PlayStation 2 and all 13 of her DVDs.
Lynn looked and saw someone had been in her room, the door was partially open and she knew when she went to sleep the night before the door was completely closed. She heard her older sister talking to her brother-in-law. She figured it was one of them.
“Morning, sister,” her younger brother stretched and looked at her.
“Morning honey, what are we going to do today?” Lynn sat up and put on her
slippers.
“Let’s play the game,” he jumped from the bed and turned on the TV.
Outside her room, Lynn heard Charlotte, running water over her wrists, making
sure the temperature was right for Janice, her daughter. A knock came.
“Can you watch her for a second while I change my clothes,” Charlotte opened
the door.
“Yeah,” she looked back to Luis who furiously pressed the buttons on the
controller. “Put it on one player for a while, baby.”
“OK,” his eyes didn’t leave the TV.
Lynn stepped into the bathroom, with Janice, in the bathtub.
“Aun’key, I love you.”
“I love you too, baby,” she smiled at Janice’s reflection in the mirror.
“Thanks,” Charlotte pulled the shirt over her head when she walked into the
bathroom.
“No problem.” Lynn walked to the hallway.
Lynn stepped into the foyer separating the bedrooms and the living room; and
heard the theme music from her favorite TV show.
She fell into the oversized brown chair and propped her legs up on one of the
ottomans. She remembered the dream from the night before.
“Mom,” she said from the chair, not taking her eyes from the TV.
“What?” Her mom looked from her semi-propped position on the couch.
“How come you never beat dad up when he was drunk?”
“Your dad’s small, kid but he’s strong. He used to throw me around.”
Her twenty second birthday was quickly approaching and she knew it was a
matter of time before she’d start to wonder about her dad again. Luis tapped her on the shoulder.
“Sister, I need help,” he said when Lynn looked at him.
“Alright, hold on,” she waited for a commercial.
Back in the room, she put her head on her pillow and helped Luis with the level
he was having trouble with. This had become his favorite game. He knew where Lynn kept it stashed and she knew when he was in her room. Even though he tried to pick up after himself there was always one thing out of place. She looked at Luis when she beat the level and told him to pick up his clothes and put them in one pile. He stood up and sighed.
* * *
Lynn watched Keith walk to the house along the concrete sidewalk until he
reached the wobbly rail and started up the stairs that were in need of a paint job. She’d been playing with the black lab puppy they got a couple of days earlier. Charlotte and Jean were in the house watching TV, Leona was cooking dinner. Lynn noticed her dad had something hanging from his back pocket.
She followed him up the stairs and looked at him. There was something different, she thought. She reached for the thing swinging from his back pocket.
“Daddy, did you cut your hair?” She looked when he flicked his cigarette from
the porch.
“Yes, mija, I cut it,” he turned to open the door and she ran in in front of him.
“Daddy, cut his hair,” she ran through the house, holding her dad’s ponytail in her hand.
“What are you talking about,” Leona walked from the kitchen holding a spatula.
“Look, gram, daddy cut his hair.”
“Come look at your daughter,” Leona looked in the living room at Jean.
“What is she doing now?” Jean stood up from the couch.
She walked into the dining room and saw Lynn running around the table
screaming daddy cut his hair at the top of her lungs. Jean laughed and looked at Keith.
“Mom, how come dad not helping you?”
“Your dad’s an asshole, kid,” Jean glared across the room at Keith.
“Dad’s an as…”
“You better not even say that,” Jean looked at the little girl with a single dimple
on her left cheek when she smiled.
“Oh,” Lynn ran to the couch and jumped into her dad’s arms. “Daddy, are you
coming with us?”
“I’ll follow you guys in like three weeks,” he took a drink from his Budweiser.
“Ok,” she ran off to find Charlotte.
* * *
“Hey, you want to help me, everyone else is going to sleep. I just talked to your dad he’s coming up. He’ll be here in the morning,” Jean opened the door to Lynn’s room and found her and Luis playing games.“Three weeks, my ass,” she sat up and put her feet on the cold linoleum floor.
“That’s your dad, kid,” Jean said from the door frame.
Lynn cleaned the whole house and when she was done she wondered why she’d done that. Keith had done nothing for her for the past 18 years. She was in the middle of mopping the living room floor when Jean came downstairs.
“I don’t even know why I’m doing this mom. He hasn’t done a thing for me since I was three.”
“He’s still your dad.”
“That man ain’t my dad, mom.”
Through the anguish she’d been through not knowing her father, she often
wondered about him. Was she like him? Did she look like him? Did she talk like him like her grandmother said she did? Did they have the same cocky attitude?
An hour later, after she showered, she got into the silver truck with her mom.
“Did you sleep last night, kid?”
“Nah, I slept all day. Kept dreaming ‘bout my dad.”
“You musta known he was coming.”
“I dunno,” she shrugged her shoulders and put on her seat belt.
“He’s really anxious to see you.”
“He promised he’d come and see me after three weeks. It’s been eighteen years.”
She looked out to the evergreen trees that lined the road to the main road on the reservation. It was then she realized why they called Washington “The Evergreen State.” Inside she smiled, there was something missing from her life and she felt like it was being filled by meeting Keith.
Down at the casino, Jean parked the truck and told Lynn to look for a green
Lumina with Idaho plates. Lynn rested her head on the window and closed her eyes.
“Are you watching,” Jean closed her eyes and put her head on the head rest.
“Yeah,” Lynn lied. She pulled her beanie over her eyes.
A knock on Jean’s window fifteen minutes later woke both of them up.
“I thought you were watching for him,” Jean rolled down her window.
“How am I supposed to know what this man looks like?” Lynn said through
closed eyes.
“Is it too early in the morning for both of you?” Keith smoked a cigarette.
“She slept all day yesterday and was up all night cleaning my house,” Jean looked to Lynn.
“Early? This is late for me,” Lynn laughed.
“That how come you were sleep when I knocked on the window?”
“Who said I was sleep? Shoot, I was studying the back of my eyelids.”
“I told you she acts like you,” Jean looked at Keith.
Jean got out of the truck and gave Keith a hug. Lynn hid her tears. She climbed out of the truck, adjusted the beanie on her head and wiped the tears from her eyes. She walked to the front of the truck and laughed when she saw Keith.
“Damn, you’re short,” she lit a cigarette.
“I knew you were gonna say something like that,” Keith smiled. “Just ‘cause
you’re taller than me,” he hugged her.
“Taller and cuter,” she laughed.
It was easier than telling him how she really felt. The birthday’s he’d forgotten
and not to mention the Christmases and she especially hated it when she saw her friends playing basketball with their dads. She looked up and saw the cameras. Great she thought they’ve captured our family reunion on tape.
They walked into the restaurant inside the casino and sat down to eat breakfast. She ate fast and asked Jean for twenty dollars. Her mom dug in her purse.
“I only have this fifty,” she held up the fifty.
“That’ll be fine,” she grabbed the money and ran from the restaurant to the casino.
“She’s your kid, sure enough,” Jean looked at Keith.
“Yeah, we run don’t we,” Keith lit a cigarette and waited for the check.
“She,” Jean watched Lynn walk past, “is like you in so many ways.”
“Does she not like me?”
“She remembers the promise you made at the bus station.”
“That was eighteen years ago,” Keith looked toward the table games.
“She waited by the window for three years. When you didn’t show up, I held her.”
Lynn was on the other side of the casino, playing max bet on the penny machines.
She watched as five scatters came up, the bells started to ring. She stood up, smiled and ashed the cigarette she was smoking.
“You just hit the jackpot,” the black lady next to her smiled.
“I know, I know,” she inhaled the cigarette. “You’re good luck,” she reached in
her pocket and handed the woman twenty dollars before she walked away.
She collected twenty five hundred and found her mom and dad sitting together.
“Did you lose it all,” Jean asked staring at the screen.
“Nah, here,” she handed Jean a thousand dollars.
“You won?” Jean looked at Lynn.
“Yeah, hit the jackpot over there,” she peeled off fifty dollars and gave it to her
dad. “Gas money for you to get back home.”
Emerging Native American Voices
January, 2010
Celeste Adame
Celeste Adame, Muckleshoot, started married to poetry, but she's since strayed and is having an affair with screenwriting. She is currently writing her first feature length screenplay. She is the recipient of the 2008 Naropa Poetry Scholarship and has had a poem published in the Santa Fe Literary Review. She received her BFA in Creative Writing in May 2010.