Finding Their Son by Debra Salonen Page A

wasn’t a stranger. She knew more about him than he thought possible. And it made him curious. “What else do you know?”
    She got up to refill her mug. He could have offered to do that for her, but this way brought her closer to him.Standing shoulder to shoulder, he could smell her light, citrus fragrance. When she leaned over to retrieve the creamer, he caught a wonderfully evocative glimpse of her breasts—even though they were completely covered all the way to her chin. Still, the outline was sexy. Black was sexy. Funny how he already knew she didn’t think of herself that way. At all.
    “Well…” she said, closing the fridge. “I knew that your cousin, Robert, and Bobbi—people with the same first name should never get together, don’t you agree?—had a thing going before you broke up with Jenny Reid. She was a nice girl. A lot friendlier to the less popular kids than Bobbi was. But I’ve observed that sometimes nice isn’t as exciting as naughty. That was certainly the case with my mom.”
    Eli hadn’t thought of Jenny in years. “Jenny’s parents didn’t like me.”
    “Why?”
    He shrugged. “They were white. My dad was the groundskeeper at the State House.”
    “You think they were prejudiced?”
    He couldn’t explain something as complicated as race relations to a woman like her. But she appeared so scandalized, he tried anyway. “They were nice to my face, but I always felt as though they were relieved when I left. Especially after a quick count of the silver.”
    Her jaw dropped. “Did you discuss this with Jenny?”
    He shook his head. “It was easier to date Bobbi. Her mom’s Lakota. Her grandmother was Nell Thompson. Did you ever meet her?”
    She took a box of instant oatmeal—the variety pack of flavors, he saw—from the cupboard. She looked at him andsaid, “I get jittery if I drink coffee without eating something.”
    He wasn’t sure he believed her, but he got out of her way and returned to the table. After she set a kettle of water to boil, she answered his question. “Yes, I remember Nell. I was sorry to hear of her passing.”
    “I’m glad she’s gone,” he said, without really meaning to. “She never would have understood any of this.”
    She tilted her head to one side and fiddled with the long, silver and turquoise earring. The design looked complicated and expensive. For someone living in a mobile home—even a nicely finished double-wide on a permanent foundation—she seemed to have expensive tastes in jewelry.
    “What else did you observe about me?” he asked, both curious and anxious to fill the silence between them.
    “Well, you got better grades than anyone else on either the football team or the basketball team. Several of the track guys had 4.0s, but you were pretty smart for a jock.”
    “Not really. Look where I wound up.”
    She gave him a scolding look that reminded him of his mother. He wondered how it was possible to miss someone who had been dead for half his life.
    “I do a lot of business with members of your tribe, Eli,” she said. “Mostly by phone or over the Internet,” she added, as if anticipating his question. How come I’ve never seen you in Lower Brule?
    “From what I’ve heard, you’re a good cop. Serious. Conscientious. Forward-thinking. My friend Linda Thompson said your son was involved in ritual dancing thanks to you.”
    Eli didn’t dance. He would have felt like an imposter.But he had tremendous respect for the art and passion of traditional Lakota dances. He’d gotten into the project as a way to connect with E.J., who had a bit of the performer in him. Bobbi’s contribution, he’d always assumed. Now he wondered if that came from Robert’s side of the family.
    “Yeah, well, that’s in the past. My s…so—” The word wouldn’t come out. “E.J. quit dancing. The only ritual I’ve been involved with was courtesy of my uncle, whose brain has probably become pickled from all the booze he’s imbibed over the