Blackbird Fly Read online

  Chapter 22

  Key West, March 2009

  The place they had borrowed to stay in from Andrew's colleague turned out to be a two-story townhouse in a resort on Marathon Key. It was located right on the white sandy beach and had spectacular views of the ocean. Andrew had never stayed in a place so fancy, nor had he ever relaxed so much.

  Every morning, he and Anna went fishing while Julia slept in. It was the first time Andrew had spent so much time alone with his daughter and he truly enjoyed every moment of it.

  They ate breakfast at the Stuffed Pig, where they had Shrimp and Grits, Barnyard Brunch, and Alligator tail. They laughed at the many pig decorations and petted the cats, then stuffed their faces till they couldn't eat anymore and swore they would never eat again.

  Halfway through their week of vacation, they went parasailing—which turned out to be a lot more fun than Andrew expected once he pushed through his fear of heights—and jet skiing. Andrew even caught a Blue Marlin when they went out on his colleague's boat. Anna took a picture of him holding it in his hands, his smile almost as wide as the fish was long.

  "Now, what do we do?" Julia asked. "With the fish, I mean?"

  Andrew looked at it, then shrugged. "I don't know. Eat it?"

  Julia laughed. Her laughter was light and genuine. She was truly happy. And so was he.

  "How?" she asked? “Do you know how to handle it?"

  Andrew felt embarrassed. He should know something like this, shouldn't he? But he wasn't exactly the outdoorsy type. He was book smart.

  He started to laugh too, still holding the giant fish in his hands. "I don't know either. I don't even know if I’m allowed to keep it or if I have to throw it back."

  "No. I’m sure you get to keep a fish like that," Julia said. "But the question is if it is good to eat or not?"

  "Maybe you should throw it back, Dad," Anna said.

  Andrew felt disappointed. The fish was squirming between his hands. It felt uncomfortable.

  "All right," he said. He bent down and let the fish slip back into the water. "There you go, little fishy. Go play with your friends."

  He watched as the fish swam away, slightly sad to see it go, but also relieved he didn't have to figure out how to cut it open.

  "Let's get back to shore," he said. "I’m getting hungry. I think I'm having a fish sandwich for lunch."

  As the boat made its way back towards land, Julia and Anna both fell asleep on the deck. Andrew watched them, lying so close, looking so peaceful. His heart was overflowing with love for them both, thinking about how lucky he was when suddenly Anna woke in a scream of terror.

  Startled, Andrew stopped the motor and rushed to her. She was holding both hands to her head while screaming. Julia had woken up too and was trying to comfort her. Her screams soon turned into sobs and heavy crying.

  "Another nightmare?" Andrew asked.

  "Sh, sh…” Julia said, nodding while brushing Anna's hair away from her face. "I think so."

  It had been a while since Anna had had nightmares and Andrew had thought she had grown out of it. It threw him out of balance every time. He couldn't stand seeing his little girl in pain like this, even if it was just a dream.

  “There is no such thing as just a dream,” his mother had always told him. But she had said so much nonsense.

  Andrew kneeled next to her. "Are you okay?"

  She sniffled and wiped her nose with her hand.

  "It's Nanna," Anna said.

  Andrew's heart sank.

  "Did you dream about her, honey?" Julia asked.

  Anna nodded and sniffled again. "She's fallen. She’s on the floor of her house. Flies are crawling in her nose."

  Julia scoffed. "It's nothing but a dream, Anna. Don't worry. I’m sure Nanna is fine."

  "Your mother is right. Don't worry. She's fine,” he said, started the boat back up, and headed for the shore. When they walked off the boat, Julia took Anna to the restroom to wash up. Andrew grabbed his cellphone and called Igoshi. When no one picked up, he tried his cousin who lived two houses down.

  Chapter 23

  Hollywood Reservation, March 2009

  Losing your mother was never easy. No matter how old you were, no matter how close you were with her. It hurt. It hurt a great deal.

  Seeing her face the last time made Andrew burst into tears. He had been good at holding it back when his cousin had called back and told him no one was answering the door and that they were going to break a window. He had even held it perfectly together when they told him they could see his mother on the kitchen floor and when he heard the window break. He hadn't cried when they told him she was definitely gone, nor had he shed any tears when they had driven back all evening and rushed to the reservation.

  But now that he was looking at her, lying on the floor of his childhood house, flies crawling on her open eyeballs, lying not many inches from where his father had been lying when Igoshi had shot him dead on that fatal night many years ago, finally defending herself from his beatings, he started to lose it.

  And defending you. Don't forget she did it for you, Andrew. You're the one he would have killed. You were the one he was about to hit with the ax.

  Andrew felt his wife's touch on his shoulder as he let it all out. All the tears, all the sadness of losing the only spectator to your entire life. The only one who will always love you, no matter what.

  "It's okay, baby," Julia said. "You couldn't have done anything."

  Still, Andrew was sobbing. He hadn't expected to react like this and it took him quite by surprise. He wasn't prepared for losing her. Somehow, he had thought she would go on for many years to come, maybe even forever. He had never thought about actually losing her and what it would do to him.

  The Tribal police arrived and Andrew felt Julia pull him away. "Let them do their job," she said.

  Andrew walked into the living room and sat on his mother's worn couch. Anna sat next to him, leaning on his shoulder. He looked into her eyes and caressed her cheeks. "You look so much like her. Do you know that?"

  Anna nodded. "I know."

  They sat in silence, listening to voices from the kitchen. Andrew broke the silence. "How did you know she was dead? You even knew about the flies."

  "She saw her, right, Anna?" Julia said. "You saw her in your dream."

  Anna nodded. That was when Andrew realized Anna didn't seem as sad as he had expected her to be. She was smiling and goofing around. Other than the scream when she saw her in her dream, she hadn't been sad at all.

  Andrew smiled. Seeing Anna's happy eyes made him feel better. It was bound to happen at some point. His mother was old and had lived a hard life. He knew he was going to lose her, of course he did, deep down, he had just never thought about how it was going to make him feel.

  "Why aren't you crying, huh?" he asked. "You love your Nanna more than any of us."

  Anna laughed. "Because I'll see her again, silly. I see her all the time. She only died in this world."

  Andrew wrinkled his forehead, and then shook off what she had said. He was too broken to even ask what she meant.

  "We need you to sign some papers," his cousin said when he approached him. "It looks like a heart attack, they say."

  Andrew nodded. Nanna had her heart broken more than what can have been healthy. It made sense. A sudden thought hit him with the weight of a freight train.

  Did I do this to her? Did me keeping Anna from her break her heart?

  Chapter 24

  Fort Lauderdale, April 2009

  Life goes on. It's what they say, right?

  Julia thought about it while holding her coffee between her hands. Andrew was eating his breakfast, sitting across the table from her, shoveling in scrambled eggs without even stopping to chew. He hadn't spoken much since he lost his mother, and Julia was worried about him. He had moved past it a little too fast for her taste, never giving himself much time to be sad or even mourn. He had cried on the day he had seen her, but after that put a lid
on it and didn't want to talk about it, only stating clichés like death is a part of life, whenever she asked.

  In the meantime, Julia was worried. The death of Igoshi had come as quite the shock, but what had startled Julia the most was the fact that Anna had predicted it, that Anna knew and saw her grandmother somehow lying on the floor, flies and everything. It had gotten Julia thinking. A lot.

  "Do you think we should move back?" she said.

  Andrew didn't even look up from his plate. He had been like that for several weeks now. In his own mind, not noticing much what was going on around him.

  "What's that?"

  "Look at me, Andrew," she said and dropped her fork. "Dang it. Look at me."

  He did. Her heart dropped when she looked into his eyes. They were so distant. It was like he wasn't really there. She knew work had been quite challenging for him lately since they had fired one of his colleagues on the faculty and Andrew had to take over all his classes. But it was more than that. She was losing him. She had never felt so alone.

  "I think we should move back to the reservation."

  He wrinkled his nose. "What? Why?"

  She exhaled. Her hand was on her glass of juice rubbing the sides of it, not picking it up to drink. "I’m beginning to think she was right."

  "Who? What? Julia, you're not making much sense here."

  "I’m serious, Andrew. I’m worried about Anna."

  "Why?" he said in a condescending voice. "She's perfectly fine. She's getting straight A's in school, right?"

  "Grades are not everything. She has no friends, Andrew. She's alone."

  "There’s nothing new in that. It’s always been like that for her," he argued. "Why are you all of the sudden talking about all this?"

  "Because I fear your mother was right. Anna needs to be with children of her own kind. There, I said it."

  Andrew pointed his finger at her. "Don't bring my mother into this. She was crazy, you know that. Crazy till the end."

  Julia swallowed hard. It had taken her some time to find the courage to address this with Andrew. She wasn't giving in.

  "She saw her. You were there, Andrew, when Anna saw your mother. She knew she was dead. Not only that, she knew where she was and she knew about the darn flies, Andrew. That's not normal. Nothing about this is normal. Nothing about her is normal."

  Andrew scoffed. "It was just a dream."

  "Your mother always said, there is no such thing as just a dream. I am beginning to think she is right. Or was. Anna has a gift of some sort and we're not equipped to help her with it. We don't even acknowledge it. How are we supposed to be helping her? She'll become a teenager soon and face things…"

  "Geez. You’re even beginning to sound like her," he said.

  "The girl might be in danger, Andrew, and we're completely ignoring it. Igoshi believed she was. What if she was right? What if she is actually in danger?"

  "Where is this coming from? She's not in danger, Julia. Don't you start this too. You're just scaring the girl. Stop talking about these things."

  "She has a gift, Andrew, how will you deal with it? How will you take care of her? You know how they used to talk about people like her when we were children. People who could travel between dimensions, between worlds. I don't know how to guide her with that. Someone at the reservation might be able to…"

  "That's just nonsense, and you know it. She does not have a gift," he hissed, making quotation signs with his fingers. "She's smart, yes, but all that other stuff is just old nonsense. You know I don't believe all that old superstition. I am a man of science. And I certainly don't want her to hear anything about this from you. I don't want you to talk more about this at all in my house, you hear me?"

  "Don't you ever feel the longing?" Julia said, ignoring him.

  That hit a nerve. Andrew rose to his feet. He slammed his fist onto the table. Julia jumped.

  "We're not moving back. Not now. Not later, not ever. You understand? And I don't want to hear any more about it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I want to enjoy my Sunday.”

  Chapter 25

  Fort Lauderdale, April 2009

  Andrew looked at his book. He had read the same passage at least four times over the last half hour. He closed it and put it away with an exhale. He wanted to catch up on some reading this afternoon, but he couldn't focus.

  Julia had talked about the longing. The darn longing. All his life, he had heard about it. "Don't you ever feel it?" Julia had asked him.

  He had wanted to tell her, yes, he felt it so bad he wanted to scream, but how could he? She would use it against him, use it to convince him they had to go back. It was the darn sensation of guilt, of being apart from your family that ate at him every day. But it was also the same feeling that made people come back to a life of poverty. The thing was, he didn't really feel like he belonged out here, like he was properly accepted here. It felt like he had to pick a side and ask himself the question, just how Indian am I?

  Many believed that if you left the reservation, you turned your back on your people. He had heard it all his life. Come back. The same mantra had been coming from his parents and tribal leaders.

  "Go get a formal education, then come home and share your skills."

  Always the same and it had gone with him everywhere he went.

  Andrew had left the reservation at the age of eighteen for the University of Central Florida. The plan was to major in theatre arts. At first, he couldn't relate to the other students or his teachers and often made the long drive back home just to feel what it was like to belong. But that anxiety didn't last. He began to crave the unknown and wanted to see what it was like, first outside the reservation, then outside of Florida. Driven by that childhood dream of getting away and being independent that had emerged when waiting for the white man's charity at Christmas, he dropped out of college his sophomore year and joined a multicultural acting troupe, with which he traveled through nineteen countries in one year. But all the time, he was filled with the sense of guilt. Guilt from leaving school and especially leaving Florida and the reservation. It made him feel like he had given up on his tribe and family.

  He returned to college to study anthropology, driven by the many different cultures he had met when traveling the world. Indigenous cultures and their languages became his specialty. Once he graduated, they all wanted him to come back. The leaders, his mother, all his cousins, and uncles.

  Andrew was torn for years. Divided between his life outside and the…longing. He constantly felt like he was abandoning his roots, who he was. Still, he was drawn by the world outside and the possibility to be able to care for himself and, hopefully, a future family. Still, being away from the reservation for so long made the tug in him grow each day. And soon enough, he returned. After a decade away, Andrew moved back. He never regretted doing so because that was when he met Julia and the rest was history. But being back didn't feel good either because there was nothing for him to do there. As soon as they were married, Andrew once again started to talk about leaving, this time for good. This time to start his own family. That was when his dad tried to kill him. Drunk out of his senses, he pulled an ax and swung it at Andrew, hitting him hard on the shoulder; he still has a wide scar. His dad was angry with him for wanting to leave, said he had ruined his life and humiliated him. That was when Igoshi pulled the gun. If she hadn’t, Andrew's dad would have killed him. He knew that much.

  The next day, Andrew took Julia's hand and told her they were moving away. He had seen enough drunk fathers try to kill their children and didn't want to become one of them. That was why he fought this longing so much. Simply chose to ignore it. He wasn't going to end up like his father; no matter how much he felt the pull inside of him.

  Andrew grumbled, rubbed his eyes, and picked his book back up. He started reading the same passage for the fifth time.

  Part II

  Learn how to fly

  Chapter 26

  Fort Lauderdale, January 2010

  In a
world where John Kerry won the election in '04 and again in '08, when he wiped out Hillary Clinton in a landslide; in a world where all the members of The Beatles were still alive, where they still played concerts and made new songs and were as popular as ever, Anna was walking on the beach, her feet bare in the sand. With one hand she was holding her Grandmother Igoshi’s hand, with the other, her baby brother Lucas’s hand. Their dog Peppi walked between them.

  "I think Daddy misses you," she said and looked up at her grandmother. "He’s not been himself for the past year. Not since you died."

  "I know," Igoshi said and squeezed her hand. "I miss him too. But, unfortunately, I can't go back there. Not anymore. I am dead to that world. Once you die there, you can't go back. I, at least, have never found a way."

  "I'm just glad I still get to be with you," Anna said.

  "It's not fair you get to see Mommy and Daddy," Lucas said.

  Anna smiled. Lucas was five years old and belonged only to this particular world. He didn't have the ability to change worlds, to travel like Anna had. In this world, their parents had both been killed in a car accident when Lucas was two. He hardly remembered them anymore and envied Anna because she saw them often. In this world, Igoshi had raised them on the reservation, and Igoshi had told Anna everything she needed to know about her gift.

  "You can travel into other worlds at night when you sleep," she told her when she believed Anna was ready and would understand. "Some call us Shadowpeople, Anna. Because often all they see is a shadow of us when we visit their worlds. But you and I are more than shadows, we live in these worlds, we more than visit them. That's why I like to call us travelers. There are millions of different worlds out there. Most people get only to peek into them when sleeping and don't remember much from them when they wake up. Just little bits and pieces. But you and I, we're different. We live entire lives in these other worlds."