During the summer I went on long, daily walks with Tonya, but other than that, I hung around the house missing Roland and not wanting to miss any call. I slept in the basement bedroom and ached for him constantly. When I was given money from my school, I called Roland and gave him half of it. I was lonely without him.

I was so bent on getting back with Roland; I bought airline tickets to Las Vegas with my credit card and talked Dad into lending us money for the trip using the Buick as collateral. He agreed reluctantly.

A week before we were to leave, Roland called. "Someone stole the Buick. I got up this morning and it was gone."

I went to his house to call the police. The police located the car later that day in a wrecking yard. They had towed it from where it had gone off the road and through a guardrail. It was totaled.
Roland had some cuts on his arm and his glasses were missing, but told me he had fallen off of the curb while drinking the night before. After over four years of sobriety, he was drinking again.
"You were drunk and crashed it, didn't you?"

Roland denied it. But at the wrecking yard I found his glasses on the dash of the car under the broken windshield. Despite my suspicions, I told Roland that I believed him.

Cheri, angry at her dad for both drinking and seeing me again, moved back with her mother.


Although our collateral was gone, I took my dad's money and time off from school and we went on the trip to Las Vegas anyway. I wasn't really interested in gambling. I had only suggested Las Vegas because I knew it would interest Roland. The manipulation (his or mine?) had worked; we were a couple again. The first half of the week was fun. We played games, walked the brightly-lit streets and saw a show. On an evening about half way through the trip, Roland slid a wrench into his boot and went off by himself to what he said was the Indian side of town. I stayed at the motel and studied my homework. He wasn't gone as long as I thought he'd be.

"Some people thought I was a nark, so I didn't hang around." Instead, he took some money and went downstairs to gamble. When he came back up, he was drunk.

While getting our breakfast at a buffet the next morning, Roland claimed he'd lost our last $100 dollars in a taxicab. I was four months pregnant, and we were broke. Our room was paid for, but the plane ticket couldn't be used until the reserved day. In the meantime, we'd have to find a way to eat. My dad refused to accept anymore collect calls.

Late one night, after a couple days of not eating, Roland returned to our room with a plate full of chicken. An employee had set it aside in a back room for his own dinner, and when the man had gone to grab a drink, Roland slipped in and took the plate. Chicken had never tasted so good.

And the plane ride back couldn't come soon enough. But we were now back together again.

A week or so later Roland woke up shaking. The weather was hot, but that wasn't the reason he was sweating. He needed a drink. After calling around, he found out people were drinking over at his ex-brother-in-law's. We got in the car to drive the mile or so to his house. As we passed the park, a tire on our car suddenly blew.

"Here," he said, "go over to that store and call AAA. I'll meet you over there."

And he left.

So five months pregnant, I waited in the heat for AAA to come fix the tire. But I said nothing when I finally arrived at the brother-in-laws. I just smiled and laughed with the rest of them.


"The reason you can't leave me is because I have medicine in my bag that keeps you with me. Wanda’s dad gave it to me a month ago," Roland told me.
But he wouldn't tell me just what a medicine bag was or what was in it. All he would tell me was that it was personal, and that he shouldn't have said as much as he did.

"I shouldn't have even told you I was carrying it."


It was hard for me to decide whether or not he was just being melodramatic, but I chose to believe him. I wanted to believe there was a real reason, not my fault, for continuing with this relationship.


How comforting it was to now have an excuse. My behavior was now beyond my control.

That spring I knew I was pregnant almost as soon as it happened. Roland was thrilled. Working as a night janitor at a downtown hotel, he even began bringing sweet rolls home for me in the mornings. We sat together on the stairs in the doorway of our apartment, enjoying the morning sun.

But now I knew I had to quit smoking marijuana and get a skill. There was no way I was going to raise my child on welfare and food stamps. My child was not going to live the depressed life I saw so many other Indian children living. On TV, I saw an ad for a school for Medical Assisting. It was only a nine-month course. I took a bus over, applied and was accepted.

In April we purchased a Buick. He paid for it, but it was in my name because Roland didn't have a driver's license due to his bad record.

The sunny mornings didn't last long. Cheri and I fought again and Roland threatened to kick me out.

Fed up with them both, I walked out.

This time I was through. I moved back to Dad's.

When my younger sisters played with their Play Mobile Indian set, I kicked it around.
What does anyone want to be playing with that stuff for anyway.

In November, Cheri, having run away from her mom, showed up on our doorstep. I was glad she came to us, but once that happened, the other kids weren't allowed to see or talk to their dad anymore.

"Blame Cheri," their mom told them. And they did.

I wish I could say Cheri and I got along well together, but we didn't. She wouldn't help with chores, she didn't care about school, and my jewelry and make-up disappeared. During school hours one day, Cheri brought a group of friends down into our apartment.

"What are you doing out of school?" I asked her, "Get on back."

Another time she came home late at night with a couple of friends, one of which needed help coming down our stairs. The girls all went straight to the bedroom and stayed there. When Roland told Cheri the next morning that she better not be out drinking like that again, she got mad and denied it.

"Well what did your friend need to be carried for?" Roland demanded.

"She was sick," Cheri lied.

I found out later that Cheri was also lying about me to her mother. But anytime I would try to bring up any of these issues, Roland would become angry and somehow show it was all my fault.

"She didn't steal your things. You gave her those earrings," he asserted, with Cheri standing defiantly beside him.

"No I didn't. I know I'd never give those away. I liked them!"

"Yes, you did. I saw you."


I was sure I hadn't.


At least I'd thought I hadn't.



Maybe I did, and just don't remember.

I returned to his home after not too long. Later that October, Yvonne was in the hospital in labor with Bradley and needed someone to go to her house to take care of Wanda. I didn't mind helping and the county would pay me, so I offered to go.
There would be no phone for me to keep in contact with Roland, but he told me he'd come up and visit in a couple of days.

The first night went all right. The next day, I helped Wanda into my wagon and we went for a drive. We ran into her cousins down on the Avenue. Climbing into the car, they asked if we'd drop them off at a bar down the road. One thing led to another, and we stopped at a couple of bars.
I usually never drank at all, let alone with Roland's relatives. I am still not sure why I did this time.
Maybe because it was Indian summer and the weather was great.
Maybe because I felt it was my job to take Wanda where she wanted to go and who was I to tell her what she could or could not do?
But more likely, it was because it was exciting for me to be away from Roland and with people that just wanted to have fun. So I had a couple of drinks with them.

"I always wanted to be like Roland," Verlin, one of the cousins, proclaimed to me over his beer, "Ever since I was a little kid watching him and Dan Hunter drinking with my ma in our kitchen, I always wanted to be like him."

Outside of the second bar, while transferring Wanda from the car to the wheelchair, I misjudged and almost dropped the chair backward with Wanda in it. I decided that I shouldn't drive and asked Verlin to. I didn't drink anymore that evening.

Eventually we found ourselves back at Wanda's. Somewhere along the line, a couple of girls none of us really knew had joined our group. As everyone sat in the living room laughing and drinking, the new girls, one skinny with straggly, sandy-colored hair and the other heavier and more Indian looking, tried to snag on Roland's nephews.

As their partying progressed into the night, I became bored and went in to the bedroom to read. But that didn't help.
Restless, I returned to the main room and sat down. I don't remember saying anything; I don't think I even had time to. I wasn't seated but a moment when suddenly, the skinny girl with straggly hair jumped up and came at me. In her right fist was a knife. It happened so fast I had no time to think beyond, "Oh my God, what do I do?"

She was just a couple of feet away, ready to lunge, when Roland, Pam, and Pam's boyfriend came in the kitchen door. Roland took one look at what was happening and he and Pam’s boyfriend chased the girl out the living room door.

Everyone else in the room stayed where they were, guffawing to each other about what just happened. Still in shock, I neither heard what they were saying or cared. After what seemed just a moment, Roland came back in.

"The girl must have been stoned, because both of us together couldn't get her down," said Roland, "we hit her over the head with a 2X4 and she was still standing."

They didn't know where she went. She'd run off somewhere behind the houses.

I left with Roland then. As we stood with Pam and her boyfriend outside by our car, Roland asked me what had happened. I started to tell him, but to my embarrassment, began to cry. My whole body, tense as a rock until that moment, was now crumbling. What might have happened had Roland not come in when he did?

But I knew it wasn't okay to cry, especially with Pam watching, so I stopped.

A man came to our door with a bike. Did Roland want to buy it? For some reason, I didn't think of my own small thievery as a real crime, nor was buying food stamps at half price, which I was more than happy to do for people that would rather have drinking money then a good meal. But fencing bikes, in my mind, was a real crime.

"Roland," I begged, "we can't buy stolen bikes."

Roland turned the man down and told him not to bring stolen stuff around anymore.


That spring we broke up again for a short time. During that time I heard about a program coordinating volunteer reading assistants with schools that needed them. Great, I thought, it will give me something to do.

They gave me a choice of schools to work at. I chose Cheri's Junior High and Misty and Junior's elementary school. I would remain connected to them somehow. With no training of any kind, only an instruction to help the teachers as directed, I reported to junior high school first and was assigned two students. I heard much about this school from Cheri; students carried guns and teachers were scared of them. I had only to be there part of a day to see it was true. The elderly, frail looking math teacher made no attempt to discipline her class. I reported to the office at Misty's school next.

"You'll be with the fourth grade," I was told.

Reporting to the classroom, I was assigned one student: Junior. Imagine, out of all the students in the school I was placed with this one. Junior greeted me happily. We went to a table in the hallway and I sat him on my lap as we went over his worksheets together.

When Roland heard of the arrangement later, he didn't seem happy, but he said nothing about it.

I heard rumors that Savannah had been beaten and molested by Annie’s boyfriend out near Mission. It was a rumor said in passing; it was just part of a conversation. I’m not even sure who said it.

Late one night during that ricing season some relatives drove up to Dorothy's house. Roland and Dorothy went outside to talk to them. I stayed inside knowing it was none of my business. From the window I could hear Savannah screaming and crying, "I want my mom! I want my mom!"
Annie was gone again, drinking, and no one wanted the responsibility of keeping the girls. Poor Savannah, she knew that no one really wanted her and Candis, so she screamed for her mom to let her aunts and uncles know that she didn't want them either. I'm not sure who finally took the girls or where they went, but they didn't stay at Dorothy's.


Ricing was almost over.

"My dad said this will be the last time we rice together," Roland told me ruefully.Walter had a feeling and just "knew" this was the last time. His dad wouldn't come out and say something like that unless it was true.


At home, Roland’s daughter Cheri had stopped coming on the weekends. She spent time with her friends instead. I was sorry she didn't want to see us but also secretly relieved and even more relieved when Misty also quit coming. The fewer kids to take care of, the easier the weekends were. Besides, we never really went anywhere anymore, except to visit my family, and Roland didn't go with us. It was easier the fewer children I had.

We were hearing from Junior and Joy that Cheri and Misty were running around. The little ones also said that their mother was paying the older girls to steal cigarettes from their corner store.

Sitting on the warm sidewalk with Junior and Joy one morning, I wondered why I was hanging around. Why couldn't I just walk away?

Suddenly, Joy looked up at me, smiled, and asked a question. Junior laughed at her question, and I hugged them both.


Maybe God wants me to stay here for them.

I made the mistake of taking my sister Tonya up to the reservation for ricing that year. She was about twelve-years-old. I thought I was showing her another side of life and that it would be good for her. She didn't like it. I don't know what about it I had expected her to like. People weren't friendly to her and there's nothing glamorous about poverty. After a few days, I walked her and little Joy uptown to catch the bus.

I was supposed to ride with her back to the cities, so I don't know why I brought Joy with me on the walk. Once there, I had to bring her back to the tract. Tonya waited for me at the bus stop. The truth was I didn't want to go and was purposefully dragging my feet.

A half-hour later at Dorothy's house, Tonya burst through the door and went straight to a bedroom. I followed. Tonya sat in tears on the dirty mattress that served as a bed.

"I made the bus wait for you. I told the driver you were coming right back," she sobbed. "It was so embarrassing, making them wait for you and you didn't come."

I sat and said nothing. I knew I should feel something. My sister was crying, and it was my fault. But I felt nothing. The next day, I took the bus back with her, then returned up to Roland on my own. My desire to stay up there wasn’t because I was having fun. I stayed because Roland was shunning me and I was afraid of losing him.

Everything was subtle. Roland never said outright that I couldn't say "no" to him or his family. It was just that everytime I tried, I paid some consequences. In addition, if I had a problem with someone in his family, he always believed them before he would believe me. So I was getting the silent treatment a lot that summer.

Two weeks earlier, Dorothy had told him I was flirting with her boyfriend. So for two weeks Roland and his sister were hostile to me and I had no idea why. When Roland finally told me, I was stunned. All I had done was talk to the guy. He was telling me about having been an extra in Hollywood Indian movies. It was interesting! But in Roland's world, women just can't talk to other men.