There was a creek running behind the family home on the reservation. It was wide and fast moving, but relatively shallow. Even though I'd never been to Grand Ronde, it was something my mother had showed me pictures of in a book once or twice. I knew it met up with the Rogue River eventually. I'd seen pictures of that one too, but it looked nothing like the Willamette, which was the only river I'd actually seen before in person. The Willamette was walled in by my city. The Rogue River was aptly named. It was free of the urban confines; rogue.
As my father and I walked along the creek silently, I couldn't help but notice how out of place I truly was. There was such heavy tree cover over head. There were bugs suspended in the air, buzzing. The damp ground was soaking into my posh boots. I hadn't thought to bring something different for my feet, and as I watched the light mud cake into the suede, I wanted to take them off entirely and walk barefoot. I wasn't sure exactly how Daniel would react to that. Would he see more of my mother in me? Or would he pretend to be amused before running back to his secret wife to revel in her juxtaposed normalcy?
"I was going to tell you," Daniel broke our silence.
It was a relief to hear him finally speak. After the initial awkward moment where we'd stared at eachother back at the house, he'd asked me to take a walk with him. Everyone in the home had watched us go with interest and I'd been looking forward to explanations. We'd walked for several minutes now, the house nearly invisible in the distance and I was beginning to worry he didn't actually know how to speak.
"When?" I asked. I tried not to sound amused, but I was tired. There was only so much a 16 year old half orphan could take. It's not as if I'd been raised to respect Daniel for his parental role or anything. This was all truly laughable in a twisted kind of way.
"I was going to," he repeated, the timeline of his thoughts remaining an untold mystery. "Before you found out at the very least, Benny."
"I would very much appreciate not being called that," I said, my eyebrows raised at him ever so slightly. "Is that what you've told them all to call me?"
"What do you want to be called?" He asked.
"Not that."
We walked a moment longer. I could only assume we were both contemplating eachother. Every few moments he'd glance at me, sizing me up from my curly head of hair to my muddy boots. I wondered desperately what was in his head. I imagined he was wondering the same about me.
"I didn't want to hurt Florence," he finally added, quietly.
"So you lied to her," I suggested. I put my hands in my pockets to avoid clenching my fists.
"I met Marta before I knew you existed," he attempted to explain. "I hadn't seen Florence for over a year. I didn't think I was ever going to see her again. We'd only been married a few months when I met you."
"Such a lovely way to start a marriage," I mused.
"It all moved too fast," he added. "Florence was so insistent about certain things and you were my son. I fully intended to leave Marta for the both of you. I swear I had pure intentions. I wanted to do right by my kid."
I laughed. I shouldn't have laughed. My mother had implored me to have empathy always. She'd begged me to give Daniel the benefit of the doubt more than once. I want to blame the fact that I was just a teenager in this moment, but truly it was because I'd just never liked Daniel that much. That was maybe my own fault.
"You maintained two seperate families in secret," I scoffed at him. "That wasn't doing right by anybody."
Daniel stopped walking and stared at the creek. His face had darkened. His hair fell into his eyes like he was attempting to hide behind it.
"I came home to leave Marta for you and found out she was pregnant," Daniel said.
"Tamara's only 12," I stated.
"The baby didn't make it."
He said it quietly. It was barely above a whisper. I wiped the stupid mocking look off my face and stared down at the water too, slight shame creeping up by way of a reddening patch on my neck.
"Martas first baby had a birth defect," he added. "He died minutes after he was born. How was I supposed to leave her after that?"
"So you stayed with her and kept me a secret?" I asked on a smaller voice.
"No," he clarified, shaking his head and looking back up to me. "I told her about you. I said you lived with your mom in Portland and that I had to be there for you too. She was upset, but... in our culture family is everything. Children are everything, and mothers... you belonged with your mom. She thought I just couldn't bring you home because that's where you belonged, and so I visited you regularly and lived part time in Portland to be closer to you. I told her I had an apartment there. She didn't know about Florence and I..."
He trailed off and it occurred to me that although it was clear that Marta knew exactly who I was, Daniel had not given her the whole story.
"How did you convince her you had your own place?" I questioned suspiciously. "She had to notice you didn't pay rent. I know my mom sure noticed you weren't paying bills around there."
Daniels eyes stayed back on the water. His jaw went tight and without so much as a single word I deduced that Marta did notice money going missing. I obviously couldn't know the exact details, but Daniel was a consistent person in the most inconsistent of ways. His money went where it always went.
"The casino," I said out loud in a quiet murmur.
Daniels eyes stayed down.
"How'd you keep her from finding out about my mom?" I pressed.
"I told her Florence would have been uncomfortable with you meeting her," he said softly. "I told her it was best if she didn't come to the city with me."
"You blamed Florence?" I demanded harshly.
Daniel flinched.
"You made her out to be jealous," I repeated my qualm. "You were lying to her about everything and then you spoke ill of her behind her back?"
"Darli—"
I felt anger rise up to replace any semblance of shame I could have mustered.
"She loved you!" I exploded. "She gave you everything and you only ever gave her half, and she accepted it because she wanted you so badly. She never loved a single other person and you were lying to her the entire time! How could you do that? Why couldn't you just let her move on?!"
"I loved her!" Daniel snapped back.
It was my turn to flinch. He'd turned to face me quite rapidly, with pure anguish in his eyes that I'd never seen on him before.
I thought to everything I knew about him. I thought about the way he'd been there, so absent and so close at the same time. I thought about how they'd bickered about Christmas with Grandfather Benjamin, and how it had been the beginning of the end. He'd slowly drifted after that. I wondered how much it had to do with the fact that Tamara must have been born sometime slightly before or after then. She was the shiny new toy and I was left forgotten alongside my mom, who waited for Daniel to flit in and out of her life at his leisure until the end. I tried to reconcile such a cold description of his motives with that anguish, but I simply couldn't.
"I loved her," he repeated when I hadn't responded. "I loved her and Marta at the same time. If that makes you believe I'm a bad person, then fine. It doesn't matter. I loved Florence and I wanted her to be happy. I wanted to be with her, but I also loved Marta and my family here."
I wished Daniel was lying. I wanted to think that he was a bad person, and I wanted to be angry that he'd betray Florence, but I'd known her. I'd known how she felt and she wasn't ever angry at Daniel. She was always just amused and mildly dissappointed, and maybe sometimes annoyed. She loved him anyways. She'd still love him anyways.
"I just wanted to be enough for everyone," he said. "But I wasn't, because you're wrong. I wasn't the only person she loved. I certainly wasn't the person she loved the most."
He gave me a pinched look. It was almost hateful, I thought, until I realized it was jealous. He was jealous of me. It was like we were children pining for the attention of someone. We'd raced and I'd won.
"You left her when she was dying," I stated. I was attempting to sound cold but instead it came out like a question.
"Because you deserved to have all of her while you still had the chance," Daniel said, and the anguish in his face only deepened. "You didn't want me around did you, Darling? You tolerated me. Who was I to insert myself while you only had moments left with the parent you actually wanted?"
For a moment, I felt like I was going to cry. Then I bit my tongue hard to distract from it. I would not cry infront of him. I would sooner bleed into my mouth then let him see a single tear escape. My eyes did gloss over anyways. I pointedly ignored it. I had too many unsaid grievances for that.
"You left me there at the hospital and never came back," I stated stonily. "You were supposed to come get me. You weren't supposed to be sending me a letter in the mail two years too late. You were supposed to come get me. You just left me there with him."
The emotion in Daniels face left for confusion. Then shock. He shook his head quietly. Then he stepped forward and placed a hand on either shoulder. I thought he was going to hug me. I couldn't remember the last time I'd gotten a hug from my father and I didn't know if I wanted him to do it, but I just stood there and waited.
That's when he told me what Grandfather Benjamin had done. He told he'd been there at the hospital. He told me about the threat. He told me how he saw no other options, and that if he tried to fight it he didn't know what would happen. Marta would have found out about his involvement with Florence. She'd find out how bad the gambling was, how broke he was. He'd just lost Florence and he risked losing Marta too. He had two other kids to think about. Scout was barely 3.
He chose his other life, his other kids, over me. I couldn't even find it in myself to blame him for that. The math was simple. There was two of them and only one of me. How could I blame him?
"When I came back empty handed, I told Marta that you'd chosen to go with your grandfather. I didn't know what else to say."
I nodded in acceptance of that. Then I said, "Your life is a fucking mess Daniel."
He said, "I know Benny."
I said, "don't call me that."
We talked about other things that didn't matter. I think he was trying to make me less red in the face before we went back to face his family. I think that even though I'd tried, I still appeared emotional in a way I couldn't quite suppress. Being in Daniels presence just evoked something unrestrained in me. There was a vulnerability. Where I'd attempted to remain collected and impersonal infront of his other family, I had nothing of the same for him. He was too familiar. I was scrappy, and as I'd witnessed in myself throughout our conversation, I was all too ready to fight.
"While you're here we can go to the library or the cultural center or the museum... what about the casino?" He was saying as we walked back to the house, my unspoken agreement to remain silent about his love for my mom hanging in the air between us.
"I'm not old enough to get into the casino Daniel," I reminded him. "And you need to stay away from there too."
"Right," he said as if needing the reminder. I watched him wring out his hands nervously. We kept walking.
"I'd enjoy the other places," I added, for his benefit.
"I thought so," he confirmed with a nod.
Daniels family was lively and loud. When we returned, preparations for dinner were in full swing. The kids were helping set the table. Marta was whisking around the kitchen barking orders and the men were both very active in helping her. Daniel jumped in immediately, sweetly kissing Marta as he passed before picking up a bowl of something edible and stirring it for her.
I wished I wasn't comparing, but I saw the love Daniel had mentioned. It was just as real as what I'd seen at home with my own mother. The difference between them was that there was a different level of domestication in Marta. It was something he'd longed for in my mother, but never received. I wondered if he'd earned it more with Marta. His kids seemed to respect his presence too.
Now that I wasn't alone with Daniel, I was being polite again. I sat at the safest point of the table, between John and Scout, and told myself to be as accommodating and kind as possible. I answered questions to the group about school, and my friends back home, and about the excitement of living in the city. Tamara especially seemed enthralled by that idea. I tried to smile a lot.
The content of dinner was a bit more difficult. They were eating salmon. The season had just ended and they were passionate about living off the land. I had piled my plate high with salad instead and hoped nobody would say anything but the older one, my paternal grandfather presumably, had been shooting me eyes about it all night. His name was Richard.
He was the one to push the topics I'd been avoiding. "Do you not like fish or something?"
I knew there was a hierarchy. Everyone silenced every time he spoke. He was very obviously the head of the family and even Daniel shot me eyes about it. I remembered everything I'd ever heard about him. He'd been the one to call the police on Daniel when he came home after meeting my mother for the first time. He was cut throat. He didn't laugh often.
"I'm a vegetarian," I said, because I thought calling myself a vegan might have been a smidge too far.
"A vegetarian," he repeated, almost like a curse word. He smiled. "I should have seen that coming. Benny, you are a city kid through and through, aren't you?"
"My aunt Whaya calls us concrete Indians," I said, because I had nothing else helpful in my brain.
"He doesn't like being called that," my father said, although it was choked and quieter, almost like he was gagging the words out.
"Well what the hell else do we call him?" My fathers father demanded.
I swallowed and tried to tell myself to be a slight bit braver.
"Oh my goodness," John exclaimed, his hand dramatically slapping the table as he stood. His son, Adam, groaned from where he sat at his other end, apparently familiar with his dads dramatics. I shot John thankful and longing eyes. "I forgot about desert!" He said. "I hope the pie didn't burn."
He rushed over to the pie very obviously sitting atop the stove and not in the oven. I smiled. Scout grabbed my hand and I didn't know why but I let her all the same. I looked down at her and she beamed up at me like the acknowledgement was everything she needed.
I wasn't feeling very much like myself by the nighttime. The day had just been long. It was a silly and childishly private thing to do, but after closing myself in the guest bedroom, I pulled out the makeup Bonnie had gifted me and wrapped my eyes in charcoal eyeliner with gold glitter, lining my lashes in mascara afterwards. I was going to wash it off within the same few moments. I just needed it to remember who I was for a time. Then the door opened with a light inadequate knock and I found myself under the gaze of Daniel.
"What?" I asked, after consenting to let him stare at me for a moment. I was still dressed, wearing a purple and green patterned yarn sweater of my mothers and tight black jeans. My boots were discarded sad and muddy in the corner. I self consciously tucked hair behind my ears. Then I pulled it forward again when I remembered the makeup.
"Nothing," he said shaking his head. "Sorry... it's just... I didn't... well you've always looked like her, but you just look exactly like her now. It's uncanny, I think. You're just so obviously her son—"
"Child," I cut in. "I'm her child."
He nodded almost vigorously like he was afraid to disagree.
"What did you need?" I pressed.
"Thank you for... being accommodating," he said earnestly, which sounded a lot like he was actually thanking me for not outing him to his entire family for intermittently cheating on his wife for over 12 years.
"Anytime," I responded casually.
He was still standing in the doorway. I swallowed and braced for impact.
"What do I call you?" He asked me on a small voice. Before I could parrot myself, he added. "Not Benny. I know that. I just... is it still Darling? Do your friends really call you that?"
I wanted to just say Florence, but I couldn't do that here. With friends who didn't know her, it was fine. It came without implications. It came without expectation and there was no face in memory that would surface for them. Daniel was already looking at me like I was a ghost. He was already fumbling over words and calling the likeness uncanny, and I couldn't just feed that. It would eat me alive.
So I shrugged lightly. Then I frowned. I got that odd and random urge to cry again.
"If youd been there when I was born," I said instead of answering. "What would you have called me?"
Daniel blinked. He stepped further into the room, but only slightly. Boards creaked beneath his feet.
"John," he answered. "After my brother, but it wouldn't have fit. Now that I've known you, I know it wouldn't."
"What would you call me now?" I pressed.
He seemed thoughtful for a moment. It was almost like we were playing a game with it, like this conversation was banter. Like it didn't matter at all. I liked it that way, because it didnt. It was minuscule and unimportant.
"River," he said softly.
"Why?" I pressed.
"Because I was up on the waterfront when I first saw you," he admitted. "You and your mom were walking towards me away from the railing and behind you was the river. It's like a picture I can still see in my head. There were pigeons and seagulls, and a shipping barge was making its way upstream."
I nodded. I tried to remember the day, but I couldn't because I was too small.
"Okay," I agreed. "You can call me that."
He was backing out of the room to leave when Scout barreled past him into the room, followed closely behind by Tamara. Scout tan straight into the bed, almost falling as she came. I caught her before her face could hit the floor. When caught chasing her little sister, Tamara froze, standing tall and acting as though she'd appeared in the room almost by circumstance. Her forhead was sweaty.
Daniel glanced at the three of us once, then rolled his eyes and walked away.
In my arms, Scout looked up at me again. She stared at my face for a moment, and then grinned.
"You're so pretty," she told me.
I looked at Tamara, afraid that looking at Scouts big eyes any longer would elicit some type of uncontrolled emotional response.
Tamara smiled at me too, her head cocked slightly to the side with interest. I was about to ask why, when she spoke instead in a very small voice.
"Can you do that to my eyes too?"
I realized for the first time that I was standing alone in a room with my sisters. That was the first time I'd ever experienced anything like that. I'd never had siblings. I'd certainly never been looked up to.
So I said, "Yeah, it's easy."