Questing for a Dream, page 7
Nadie didn’t look at Jacky, but could feel the anger and discontent coming off of her like waves of heat. What was she so angry about? It wasn’t her child, her little cousin. Luyu was a stranger to Jacky, who couldn’t even get her name right. Jacky had threatened to take Luyu away, but then had left her there to be killed.
When Nadie was finished her story, she didn’t look at Mac. She looked at Jacky, expecting a tirade.
Jacky didn’t disappoint.
“That child was in your care. You knew the dangers she faced. You knew she needed to be constantly supervised. How could you let a thing like this happen?”
“Ms. James,” Mac started warningly.
“It’s true,” Nadie said. “I know. I should have dropped out of school, so someone was watching her properly. I just thought… I thought Grandfather could do it. He raised me. He knew how to take care of children. But…”
“But he didn’t take care of Lulu. You knew that. You knew he was not feeding her or taking care of her. It was obvious to me when I came all the way out there to visit. What did you think was going to happen?”
Nadie gazed at her, schooling her own anger. She had been taught anger was destructive. It wouldn’t help her here. “I thought… you were going to help.”
It stopped Jacky cold. Her eyes widened. She made several sputtering sounds, like an old car that was trying to start, but couldn’t spark.
Mac was nodding. “This child was on Child Services’ radar from the time she was born,” he pointed out. “Many different agencies were in touch and promised to do something to help her. Child Services has to bear some of the responsibility if they put her in a home where the caregivers were unable to provide the level of supervision needed. Especially if Child Services was aware of that fact.”
“I did my part,” Jacky snapped. “I did report it to my supervisors. I tried to get a decision made to take her out of the home. I knew something like this was going to happen. I told them. And I was right.”
“Not something you want to be right about,” Mac observed.
“No. Of course not.”
“Who was the child’s legal guardian?” Mac asked.
Jacky didn’t answer immediately, her eyes wary of a trap.
“Was it Nadie Laplante?” Mac persisted.
“No. It was Willie Laplante. The grandfather.”
“And we will be speaking with him soon. In the meantime… it would be best if you don’t put the responsibility on the wrong person. Nadie was a schoolgirl, unrelated to Luyu, not her guardian. A child trying to help out with household duties. She isn’t responsible.”
“She took responsibility. When I asked her who was taking care of the baby, she made it clear she was. And she’s old enough to be held legally responsible.”
“I’m not sure that is true.”
“Other teen parents have been held responsible.”
“She’s not the parent.” Mac’s gaze shifted to Nadie. “Unless you are Luyu’s biological mother…?”
“No!” Nadie shook her head. “I’m going to get off the reservation! I’m not going to have babies I can’t take care of and leave them for someone else to look after. I’m not like that. I do good at school. I’m going to graduate and I’m going to go to college.”
“Good for you. Sorry, I had to ask. Sometimes the relationships on the reservation can get a little bit… complicated.”
“Luyu’s not my baby. I’ve never had a baby and I don’t plan to anytime soon.”
“So Nadie… why don’t you tell me what you think happened? The last time you saw Luyu alive was before school?”
“I told you, I fed her and got her dressed like usual.”
“And then? What did you do when it was time to go to school?”
“I put her back in her room. I shut the door so she couldn’t get into any trouble. I… tried to wake Grandfather up and told him I was going to school.”
“You tried to wake him up.”
“Yes.”
“Which implies you weren’t successful in getting him up?”
Nadie frowned. “He was moving around a bit. I thought he’d wake up the rest of the way once I was on my way. It takes him a while to get his motor running, sometimes.”
“And you told him you were going to school?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you bother to tell him that if he wasn’t awake?”
“I just did. So he’d know it was time to wake up. I always told him.”
“And did he ever get up?”
“Yes.”
“Before you walked out the door?”
“Yes… I… think so. Sometimes. But usually after I left.”
“But you didn’t see that.”
“I know he got up. He wasn’t still asleep when I got home from school.”
“But you don’t know what time he got up. Whether it was right when you left for school or not.”
“He got up,” Nadie repeated.
“Right. So you imagine he got up pretty soon after you left for school. Then what would he do? Let Luyu out again?”
“Yes. To play with her. Or she would go with him and learn by watching him.”
“What would she learn?”
Nadie shrugged. “Everything. That’s how we learn. We go with the adults and we watch, and we practice.”
“And you go to school.”
“Yes, but Luyu wasn’t old enough for school yet. She just learned by going with him.”
“Did she go with him?”
“When he went out.”
“He never left the house and left her locked in her room?”
Even though Nadie had come to the police station with the intention of telling them all about her Grandfather’s shortcomings and his responsibility for Luyu’s death, she was finding it difficult to do. The policeman was trying to back her into a corner, and even though it was where she had planned to be anyway, she didn’t like to be trapped like an animal.
“I wasn’t there. I was at school.”
“Yes. Now I want you to think about something, Nadie. When you went home after school and went to get Luyu out of her room most days, do you think she had been out during the day with your Grandfather? Or do you think she was locked in the room the whole day?”
Nadie thought about it, trying to quantify ‘most’ days.
“Was she still in the same clothes?” Jacky suggested. “Or had she been changed into a different shirt because she had gotten dirty during the day?”
“She didn’t keep her shirt on,” Nadie reminded her. “She wouldn’t wear anything but her diaper and the pony undershirt.”
In a flash, she remembered pulling Luyu out of the mash bucket. In her diaper and the pony shirt. She had drowned in the pony shirt. Nadie closed her eyes, trying to block it out.
“Was her diaper wet or dry when you came home from school?” Jacky persisted.
“Wet.”
“Always?”
Nadie concentrated. Always? Had Luyu ever had a dry diaper on Nadie’s return?
“I don’t know.”
“Ninety percent of the time? Fifty? What?” Jacky leaned forward in her chair, eyes hard.
“I… I can’t tell. I don’t know.”
“Was she always hungry when you got home?”
“She was usually hungry,” Nadie agreed.
“How hungry?”
Nadie looked at Mac for help. She had no idea how to answer Jacky’s questions. Mac’s were easier. Nadie needed Mac to be the one asking questions.
“Do you think your Grandfather fed her lunch most days?” Mac asked, his voice soft and uninflected.
“No… not most.”
Nadie heard Jacky’s intake of breath to ask another question, but Mac shook his head at her and just sat in silence for a few minutes.
“Did you ever have any indication your Grandfather had taken Luyu out of her room during the day?” Mac asked.
Nadie nodded. “Yes. Yes, sometimes.”
“What made you think that?”
“She got into things during the day. Grandfather said if the door wasn’t locked, she would get out, and she would get into things. And I saw the messes; things she had broken or gotten into. So I knew she’d been out during the day.”
“How often did that kind of thing happen?”
“He kept the door locked most of the time. He didn’t want her to get into trouble. So… not a lot.”
“What other clues did you have he was taking care of her during the day? That she had been out of her room?”
Nadie bit her lip. “She… sometimes she had bruises…”
Mac bent over and flipped through one of the stacks of paper on his desk. He looked down at one page for a minute, pressing his lips together in concentration.
“She had a pretty big bump on her head. They said that wasn’t from the day of the accident.”
“No. It was from a little while ago. A few days. She was very sick…”
“Did she have a concussion?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did a doctor look at her?”
“No.”
“When you say she was sick, do you mean she was throwing up?”
“She threw up once. And she was… tired and dozy… not like Luyu usually is. She didn’t want to eat. Just cuddled and slept.”
“How do you think she got that bump?”
“I don’t know. She couldn’t have just gotten it in her room. She must have fallen down.”
“She could have fallen down in her room.”
“From what? She climbed out of the crib without hurting herself all the time. There was nowhere else to fall from.”
“So you think she fell off of something and that’s how she got the goose-egg.”
“Goose egg?”
“The bump on her head. You think she fell.”
“Yes…” Nadie drew the word out. She didn’t actually think Luyu had fallen down, but she didn’t know how to approach it.
“And the black eye, too?”
“I don’t know. She must have fallen.”
“Or someone hit her. Maybe because she was getting into mischief again.”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t home.”
“And she had a recent injury to her hand. A couple of fingers.” Mac wiggled his index and middle finger for her as he read the report.
“I don’t know what happened. Maybe they got shut in the door. But it was while I was at school. So she had been out. Grandfather had been looking after her.”
“More or less,” Mac commented.
Nadie frowned. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Maybe he took her out of her room, but he wasn’t watching her well enough to prevent her from getting injured.”
“Oh. No… but she’s pretty quick. You can’t stop kids from getting bruises.” She knew she was echoing Chief Frank’s excuses. All normal, active kids got bruises.
Mac sighed, looking further at the notes on his desk. “She had a number of other bone breaks that had healed. Breaks not treated by any doctor.”
“Bones?” Nadie repeated. “She broke her arm once.”
“She had quite a number.”
“I… don’t know how she got them. It must have been before she came to us.”
She endured the looks of the social worker and policeman. Mac dropped his gaze first.
“The day Luyu died, did you lock her door?”
“Yes.”
“Was the door at the top of the stairs locked or latched?”
“No… I don’t think so.”
“It does have a latch on it.”
“Back when I was a little girl… I wasn’t allowed to go down there, and the latch was out of my reach.”
“But your grandfather never used it to keep Luyu out of the cellar.”
“No… she was already locked up.”
“Unless you didn’t lock the door.”
“I’m certain I did.”
“If you locked it, then your grandfather unlocked it. And failed to lock it again.”
“I… I don’t know. I wasn’t there. Maybe it didn’t latch. You have to pull it tight, or it doesn’t latch properly. You can’t turn the handle, but you can just push—or pull—it open.”
“So you think you locked it but didn’t pull it shut tight?”
“Or Grandfather didn’t.”
“Just an accident.”
Nadie looked down, nodding.
“That child was horribly neglected,” Jacky jumped in, unable to hold back any longer. “Locked in an empty room all day long, with no interaction, nothing to play with. Like a prison. That’s criminal negligence. A child’s brain can’t develop properly in an environment like that! She was dirty, starved, and abused. Somebody should have done something about it!”
“Yes,” Mac agreed, looking at her.
Jacky flushed red. “I was only out there one time. I asked her to be moved after my visit. It isn’t my fault she was placed in that home, or that she remained there. I was doing what I could to get her out.”
“We are aware of that. Nevertheless, Child Services has had their hand in this from the start. Not you. But others.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Nadie said.
Her heart broke at the image they painted. Luyu wasn’t neglected. She was dearly loved. Nadie did everything she could to make Luyu’s life happy and to take care of her. And if she was abused… Nadie had never seen Grandfather hit her. Ever.
Nadie and Grandfather were both silent all the way back to the reservation. It was an uncomfortable car ride. Nadie wondered what Mac and Jacky had said when they talked to Grandfather. Had they accused him of hitting her? Had they said they thought he was neglecting and abusing her, and that had led to her death? Did they say that was what Nadie said?
It was rare for Grandfather to be so solemn for so long. Normally, he was making wry jokes, trying to cheer her up, chatting away about gossip among the band or things that had happened while they were in town. It was always an adventure. A car trip back from the town was never quiet.
Chapter Ten
Won’t you come back to your own room?” Nicole asked Nadie when she got home. “There’s plenty of space. I can sleep on the floor; I don’t mind. It’s your room and I hate kicking you out.”
Nadie shook her head.
“Don’t you know I love you, just like you loved Luyu?”
Nadie just looked at her, unable to find the words.
Nicole looked away. “Well, I do,” she said with a pout. “You’re my baby.”
“I’m not yours and I’m not a baby. If you loved me, you would have taken care of me.”
Nadie turned her back on Nicole before she could argue the point. She went back to the baby room and pulled the door shut behind her. She picked up the red blanket and wrapped it around herself. Lying down on her other blankets, she closed her eyes and tried to shut it all out.
Nadie awoke at the voices and movements throughout the house. She had expected everyone to go home and to leave them alone. The normal routines would resume, other than the loss of Luyu. But it was obvious something was going on.
She got up and, tying the blanket around her shoulders, shuffled out to the living room. Various elders of the band, men and women, were gathered in the living room and kitchen, speaking in low voices. Nadie didn’t hear their words or understand what they said to her as she entered the room. She looked into the kitchen, not understanding what the noise and activity was all about.
Luyu’s body had been returned and was stretched out on the table. Nadie felt sick to her stomach, seeing the small naked body lying there. One of the women grasped Nadie’s arm and pulled her into the room, speaking to her softly in the traditional tongue. One of the other women pressed a wet cloth into Nadie’s hand. Like a sleepwalker, Nadie joined them in washing the body. It was so tiny and frail, the flesh mottled with what looked like bruises.
The white man had desecrated it with a Y incision down the front of her chest and belly, stitched up with small, neat black stitches. Had they taken anything from her that they had kept? Was she whole? Nadie tried to push all thoughts aside, losing herself in the task at hand. She had washed Luyu many times before, but never had she been so cold and unresponsive.
She helped the women to dress Luyu again. Or they helped her. Gone was Luyu’s pony undershirt. She would have hated the clothes they pulled onto her still body. Beth gave Nadie a small pair of moccasins that she slipped onto Luyu’s feet. Beth had tears in her eyes. Most of the women, like Nadie, were dry-eyed and gave no sign of grief.
The medicine woman put a bundle of sweetgrass into Luyu’s right hand and folded both hands across her chest. The men arrived with a tiny coffin. Nadie’s throat constricted as she watched them pick Luyu up and lay her inside. Someone put Luyu’s red ball into Nadie’s hand and she nestled it beside the child’s head. The medicine woman put tobacco in the casket as well and started to sing.
They sang and they told stories about Luyu. And they laughed. Nadie stood, staring at the small coffin and didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t cry. She felt nothing but Luyu’s absence. She had known as soon as she walked into the house that day that something was missing. She hadn’t realized how big the little girl’s spirit really was. How she had filled the whole house with her presence. And now it was gone.
Someone guided Nadie into the one unbroken chair. She sat there, not singing or laughing. She had seen other women mourn their children and had never realized the immensity of the loss they felt.
On the third day, they took the casket to the burial grounds where the men had dug a hole. It was so big for such a tiny girl. Nadie thought Luyu would have been frightened of it if she had been alive. The thought of laying Luyu in the cold, hard ground, burying her and leaving her there forever increased the pain in Nadie’s chest. She thought she would faint from it. Maybe she would die from it. They could lay her beside Luyu and Nadie could keep her baby company there for the rest of eternity.
