The Smell of Other People's Houses Read online

  “What are you looking for?” Bunny asks, running up and grabbing her hand.

  Dumpling doesn’t seem to hear Bunny as she walks up to the house with blue trim. In the yard sits a statue of a woman holding a baby, wrapped in an old sheet or maybe a tablecloth. The statue is covered with bird poop. Dumpling looks like she is trying to decide whether to go up the steps, when the priest we splattered with mud comes walking up.

  “I can’t imagine you’re really here to apologize,” he says.

  We all look down at our muddy boots and jeans. But he surprises us and laughs.

  “No harm done. You don’t think you’re the first kids to do that to me, do you?”

  I glance sideways at Dumpling, but she’s still looking at her feet.

  “Can I invite you in for tea?” he asks. “Or maybe a soda?”

  Dumpling shrugs, and I’m surprised that he understands this means yes. Why was Dumpling looking for this place? What could she possibly want to talk to a priest about? Bunny keeps staring at the woman with the baby, so I grab her arm to steer her up the stairs while the priest holds open the screen door for us.

  “I’m Father Connery,” he says, taking off his boots and sliding into a pair of gray slippers. He tells us to leave our boots in the arctic entryway and follow him into the kitchen. Dumpling tries to hide the hole in her sock as we stand in the doorway.

  “Tea or soda?” he asks, pulling things out of white cupboards: a plate, cookies, pilot bread, and cheese. Dumpling gives Bunny the hairy eyeball, meaning “behave,” and it makes Bunny instantly grumpy.

  Father Connery looks at us and smiles. “Scared of me?” Dumpling pushes Bunny closer to the table, where he’s put all the snacks, and I nudge in behind them. We all try to squish into the same chair.

  “There’re plenty of seats,” he says as he gestures around the table. I move into an empty one, but Bunny stays with Dumpling, one butt cheek hanging off the edge. He sits down and pours tea. All of us would much rather have soda, but nobody says anything. He must be used to village kids not talking, but he tries to strike up a conversation anyway.

  “So were you girls looking for someone special?”

  Bunny is plopping sugar cubes into her cup, one after another, until Dumpling reaches out and grabs her wrist. Bunny can be very unpredictable if she thinks Dumpling is bossing her around, and sure enough, she pipes up and says to Father Connery, “Why does that lady in the yard not want the baby she’s holding?”

  Dumpling and I exchange looks.

  “What makes you think she doesn’t want her baby?” he asks, amused.

  You can tell he’s trying hard not to smile. Dumpling keeps her hand on Bunny’s wrist.

  Bunny shrugs and says, “Her face, I guess. It’s like when we get a spawned-out salmon in the fish wheel and nobody wants to touch it.”

  I’m pretty sure Bunny is being sacrilegious.

  “Well, I don’t think anyone’s ever said that before,” says Father Connery. “Maybe the sculpture just doesn’t do her justice. Do you know who that woman is?”

  “A white lady?” Bunny says, as if that’s the best she can do. I roll my eyes. Would Bunny have said that if Lily had been here? Probably, I think.

  But Father Connery seems to find Bunny charming. “Yes, she is a white lady. She lived a very long time ago.”

  “She’s the mother of God,” says Dumpling. It’s not like Dumpling to talk around strangers. Bunny and I stare at her.

  “Yes, in a way. That’s the Holy Mary,” says Father Connery.

  “God is a baby?” Bunny is stunned.

  “It’s a long story,” Dumpling mutters, and looks over at me as if I can somehow help steer the conversation somewhere else. We both heard Lily trying to explain this to Bunny, but obviously it didn’t stick. Lily said that Jesus was the baby and his father was God. Because he was God he could put Jesus inside of Mary and she didn’t have to do anything nasty (which is how Lily said it), and Bunny was sure that was the bit about the man’s private parts. If Bunny brings that up now in front of this priest, I swear I will kill her.

  “Can I have a soda?” I ask.

  “Oh, of course!” Father Connery jumps up to get it.

  Dumpling digs her fingernails into Bunny’s wrist as a final warning. She gives me a look like maybe we should think about leaving, but just then the door opens and two elderly women step inside. They have crosses around their necks and long black robes. Their faces are red and they have little beads of sweat on their foreheads—possibly because they’re wearing black hoods that look like towels on top of their heads.

  They smile at us and say hello, as if they always come home to find kids eating their crackers and drinking their tea.

  “You three must be from the fish camp upriver,” the shorter one says.

  Dumpling nods but doesn’t look up. She’s suddenly very interested in the blue pattern on the china cup.

  “Well, I’m Sister Mary Pat and this is Sister Mary Louise. Welcome.” The one talking is skinny and wrinkled, but her eyes are sparkly and kind, like ripe berries. The other woman, who just nods and reaches for a cookie, is plumper and less wrinkled, and her glasses are so thick it’s hard to see her eyes at all. I wonder if all nuns are called Sister Mary something-or-other.

  “We should really get going,” Dumpling says. “They’re probably waiting for us in the skiff.” She pulls Bunny up by the shoulder just as Bunny grabs my soda and spills it everywhere. We all look with horror at the mess, but nobody else seems concerned.

  “Easy there, what’s your rush?” says Father Connery. “Was there something you wanted to ask?”

  But Dumpling is now hell-bent on getting us out of there. She’s fumbling with her boots and Bunny and I are trying to get into ours as well—made even more complicated by Bunny’s juggling of the soda can, which by now has left a sticky trail all the way to the door.

  “Thanks for the tea,” Dumpling mumbles.

  And then we’re outside, Dumpling’s grip tight on Bunny’s arm, steering us past the statue and down to the slough where we left the three-wheelers.

  I look back and see Father Connery and the two nuns standing outside, watching us. I lift my hand to wave just as another person comes out of the house. A woman in jeans with a black ponytail. Where did she come from?

  Dumpling starts up her three-wheeler and turns to make sure Bunny is getting onto hers, when she notices the woman on the steps. They stare at each other and then Dumpling turns the key and the engine sputters and dies again. She slides off the three-wheeler without even looking at me and walks back up to the house. The woman seems to sense something, moving like a wild deer, hesitant but forward, as if she’s sniffing Dumpling out. I slide off my three-wheeler as well and follow, baffled.

  “My dad said I might find you here,” Dumpling says when the two are standing face to face. “I have a note from Ruth.”

  This surprises both me and the woman, who looks at Dumpling like she isn’t sure she can believe her. “She asked me to give you this.”

  Dumpling holds out a piece of blue paper that she’s pulled from her pocket—the same one I saw Ruth give her the night she left on the bus. The woman looks at it for a long time, but her eyes are unfocused.

  “What is it?” says the woman. Her voice sounds like cottonwood fluff blowing in the wind.

  “It’s from Ruth.”

  “Ruth?” the woman says. “Ruth is only five years old.”

  My mind is trying to catch up with what is happening. Dumpling could have at least told me. I notice Bunny is just as surprised as I am.

  “Have you seen her do ballet?” the woman is saying. “When her daddy gets home, Ruth is going to dance for him. We’re just waiting for his plane to land.”

  “I can take that, dear,” says one of the Marys. She has swooped down with her winglike robes not making a sound. She reaches out to take the blue paper, but Dumpling won’t let it go.

  “I promised only to give it to Ruth’s mo
ther.”

  Ruth’s mother?

  “It’s okay, dear. We can sort this out.” The sister has her arms around the woman with the blank eyes, who is trying desperately to focus. The effort looks painful.

  “Please,” Dumpling whispers. “I promised.”

  And then a tear streaks down my friend’s dry, dusty cheek. It reminds me of the river that we should be skiffing up right now, going to fish camp, where everything makes sense and smells of laughter and smoke, and where Dumpling will stop being sad about some promise she made to Ruth, who she is barely friends with anyway. The shock of seeing that tear has turned to anger.

  “Come on, Bunny, let’s get back to the skiff,” I say as I grab her arm.

  But now Bunny is staring at the woman, too. “If you’re Ruth’s mother, then you must be Lily’s mother, too,” she says. “Do you remember Lily?”

  The woman stares at Bunny as if she’s staring at a ghost. “Lily?”

  And then without warning she lets out a loud piercing howl, as if she just stuck her finger in an electric socket, and lunges at Dumpling. I grab Bunny’s arm and pull her away as both nuns now throw their arms around the woman, trying to calm her. Dumpling shoves the note into my hand and says, “Go; take Bunny to the skiff.”

  As she says it her head is jerked backward, because the woman has grabbed her braid, and Father Connery comes running down the steps to help.

  Just when I think it can’t get any worse, Bunny starts kicking the woman in the shins, yelling at her to let go of her sister.

  “Get Bunny out of here!” Dumpling yells at me. I drag a flailing Bunny to the three-wheeler and have a hell of a time trying to hold on to her while starting it up. I have to leave Bunny’s three-wheeler behind, because I can’t trust her to follow me on her own.

  When I turn to look, I can see Father Connery and the nuns pulling the woman up the stairs of the little white house. Dumpling is running toward her three-wheeler, so I know she’s safe. Part of me hopes she got scratched herself. Since when did she make promises to Ruth?

  “Here she comes, Bunny,” I say, and she stops screaming and flopping around like a fish on a hook. “You didn’t help,” I add, but there’s no point lecturing at her now; the three-wheeler is too loud. Making sure to hold Bunny’s arms tight around my waist, we fly full throttle back to where the skiff is docked and Dumpling’s father is waiting for us.

  “Dumpling’s right behind us,” I tell him breathlessly as he lifts Bunny onto the skiff and she starts wailing again. I let her try to explain what just happened, and it’s even more unintelligible than the truth.

  “She didn’t even remember Lily,” Bunny says, as if this mattered most. Her face is streaked with mud and tears and there is a fresh scratch on her arm.

  Her father looks thoroughly confused, so I say, “Dumpling will just have to tell you when she gets here.”

  But Dumpling never shows up.

  —

  Now Bunny and I are sitting behind her father as he drives the three-wheeler back over the fresh, weaving tracks we made just minutes before. Something is pressing hard into my chest, and every minute that Dumpling does not appear makes it harder and harder for me to breathe. In the distance we see it—the upside-down three-wheeler looking so strangely out of place. My mind refuses to believe it. Maybe it’s just a rock, or perhaps a bear rolling around on its back? The front wheel is still spinning in the air. Something is terribly wrong. Bunny is strangely silent while her father spurs our three-wheeler forward, everyone’s hearts beating so loud we can almost hear them over the roar of the engine.

  Dumpling’s braid pokes out from under the metal body of the three-wheeler. Her arms and legs are pinned, her eyes are closed, and she is not moving.

  “Dumpling!” Bunny yells, but her father says, “Stay back, Bunny,” and is off the three-wheeler before we’re even fully stopped. I’m paralyzed by fear, watching him bend down over Dumpling, the handlebar of the three-wheeler blooming out of her chest like a strange plant. For the second time in less than half an hour, I am left alone with a wildly out-of-control Bunny. But this time I just let her wail because I am powerless to move.

  Other three-wheelers appear out of nowhere. The village has its own version of telephones: silent messages waft through the air and hang over every house during a crisis, and every able-bodied person comes to help.

  The engines compete with Bunny’s cries, as more and more people arrive on the scene. They position themselves to lift the three-wheeler off Dumpling in one swift motion, moving together as if they have done this a hundred times. I hope that isn’t true.

  Even without the weight pinning her down, nobody dares to move Dumpling. Her father kneels beside her and whispers in her ear, reminding me of the way he sat with her on the merry-go-round and how it made me feel alone. Was it just minutes ago that I hoped she was all scratched up by Ruth’s mother? I want to take that back, along with every other bad and selfish thought I’ve ever had, if she would just sit up.

  Someone says something about a plane and a medevac, but mostly it’s now deathly quiet. Even Bunny has stopped wailing. Kids are expected to never be in the way, but now it seems even more important that Bunny and I stand back unnoticed. We watch her father hold Dumpling’s head and neck stable while everyone else runs around talking into radios and zooming back and forth from town, bringing blankets and water and first-aid kits.

  Father Connery arrives, driving Bunny’s three-wheeler, which we left behind. For a minute I imagine Bunny flying at him the way she did at that woman, but she’s too busy watching the medical team, who are carefully loading Dumpling onto a stretcher and into a plane.

  It appeared like magic—landing on the narrow strip of gravel, bouncing its rubber wheels like basketballs on the ground, and filling the air with dust, making it impossible to see anything. None of us has ever flown on a plane before, and I hope Dumpling will wake up so she can tell us about it later.

  Adults usually ignore us kids, so it’s no surprise that nobody pays attention to me and Bunny now, but I wish I could at least get close to Dumpling. If I could just talk to her. Maybe if she heard my voice she’d wake up, but fear of being in the way is stronger and I stay rooted, holding on to Bunny’s shoulder for support.

  Father Connery is talking in a hushed voice with Dumpling’s dad. The two seem to know each other. The priest talks, his hands folded; Dumpling’s dad nods a few times, and then Father Connery hugs him and Dumpling’s dad gets into the plane, too. It taxis down the road like a fat goose, then rises precariously into the air, leaving me and Bunny alone.

  She pulls herself together first. “We need to tell Mama,” she whispers.

  Her mom is back at fish camp, probably watching the wobbly plane, not knowing that her daughter and husband are on it. I picture her looking up at the sound of the engine, shielding her eyes from the sun with the ulu she’s been sharpening, getting ready to fillet another washtub of salmon and hang them in strips to dry.

  We’ll need to pack up the whole fish camp early so we can get home to Dumpling. Now there won’t be enough salmon to last all year, but if Dumpling doesn’t wake up, salmon will be the last thing on our minds this winter anyway.

  The king salmon opening is almost over, and Dad says he’s heard a rumor about Sam’s brothers. They got off the ferry, but he’s not sure how or where. He’s on the radio all the time now, trying to figure it out without giving Sam away. It’s a tricky dance, and I can tell Sam is nervous. Every time the radio static cackles through the speakers, he jumps.

  I’ve lost all track of real time, which is what happens on a boat. You forget everything and everyone that isn’t right here, bobbing around in this small space of forty-six feet. For the most part, I mean. I still sometimes rehearse telling Dad that I’ve got to fly back to Fairbanks soon, because of the dance audition, but only in my head.

  The sense of urgency on the boat is electric right now, Dad and Uncle Gorky focused on helping Sam; Sam wondering an
d worrying about his brothers. I know I should care, too, that he finds them, and I do, but if Dad and Uncle Gorky can get this invested in helping him, why can’t they see that I might have other things in my life, too, besides this boat?

  —

  At the moment Sam is wearing an old gray sweatshirt of Dad’s and an even older pair of green rain pants that are rolled up three times so he doesn’t trip over them. He has fish blood all over his face from getting too close to the bloodline when he scrapes it. It’s a beginner problem, but I don’t say this. Over the past week, I’ve noticed that I don’t really look at Sam anymore so much as drink him up. I am trying not to be obvious.

  He smiles and my stomach goes wobbly. We must have hit the wake of another boat, I tell myself, trying not to stare at the brown mole on Sam’s lip, which at this moment is blending into the other reddish-brown spots of fish blood splattered across his face.

  “Okay, well, I’m done with my ten fish over here. Maybe we should run the gear again,” I say.

  We have already fallen into that teasing banter that happens fast on boats. Sam has learned most of the jobs quickly, but I still clean twice as many fish as he does. I’ve never been the most experienced one on the boat before, and it’s like watching my old self back when I only got to do the humpies: disgusting, stinky pink salmon that are small and not worth a lot of money. They also poop out gray slime everywhere, which I used to think was cool, but not anymore.

  Sam reminds me of what it was like to be curious about fishing, rather than bored. But then I see my dad looking at us quizzically from the wheelhouse doorway. I’m not sure if he’s thinking about the fish or the fact that his daughter is standing in the troll pit laughing with a boy she pulled from the ocean. I prefer to believe he’s thinking about the fish.