children should be born. And they would carry with them their debts. Their debts would be like secrets in their hearts that made them dark and quiet. They would sometimes hurt each other and would not know why. After their children were born, mothers would grow old, and their children would find them ugly. But because they had debts in their hearts, children would become men who would find wives who looked like their mothers. And their wives would love them. As their mothers had. And the love of men for their wives and mothers would be a kind of murder
.
When Old Man sat down to eat fish with his wife, he found it was cooked in fat and delicious and hot in his mouth, and he ate up his share and hers. Although it burned his hands, he did not wait for it to cool. He saw the way she looked at him and knew she was sorry for what she had done, but he would not forgive her
.
When he fell silent and looked at us, my mouth was still open. Not much surprised me, but I never thought he’d make a lie of something like that. Those stories were ours. I never remembered half of them, though my father had liked to tell them to my sister and me. His stories were not the same as my mother’sor the Elders’, and he never told them the same way twice. But somehow they were always the same. And the stories were about the way they’d always been told by other families before us, and not about twisting them to tell someone something you didn’t have the guts to say.
I remembered him and his mother and how they’d tell those stories back and forth to each other. Mara loved them. They weren’t her own people’s stories, but she took them like they were and would tell them to Jason over and over. They both were like that, though, and would sooner give you a coloured-up tale than a simple answer to whatever question you asked them. When we were all still kids, my sister used to bring me by Mara’s house most nights in the winter, and we’d sit there round the stove while she told Jason a story to put him to sleep. The house always had a smell about it like old rotted leaves, like the forest in fall, when everything is waiting for winter. But it was warm round the stove, and Violet and I weren’t the only ones to come sit there to listen. When Jason was not even school-age yet, the stories were mostly from the Bible, or that’s what Mara said, but they were different from the ones we heard at St. Paul’s on Sundays and maybe had the mark of her on them too. For somebody blind, she could make you see every solitary thing she spoke of. I remember in that stale-smelling house half-buried in snow knowing just how a grain of sand shone under a Jerusalem sun. And then when Jason got older, the stories weren’t about God or St. John anymore, but about Raven or Bear, and Mara made them her own too. And even as Jason got older, she kept telling him those stories, one a night, and sometimes he would even tell her a story back, and it was the way they talked to each other and told each other things, because I heard few words passbetween them other times. Remembering the stories Mara told him, I got up and took a seat beside Aileen, to watch her.
And it was then I realized who she reminded me of. Though it had been almost ten years since I’d seen that wide-mouth smile. And though Lopita’s eyes were black and bright and had never looked unsure or caught like Aileen’s always did. But when she showed her teeth, when her mouth stretched around a grin that seemed to catch her by surprise, it made me think of that other smile. And even now, with just the glint of a question in her eyes, I thought of Lopita.
She seemed to be trying to think what to do next, and I knew from her face the story made her like him better, made her want to ask him more questions, made her want to stay here longer. And I knew before I opened my mouth that she wouldn’t believe me. She would be the kind to prefer a well-told lie to the truth. And there’d be nothing I
.
When Old Man sat down to eat fish with his wife, he found it was cooked in fat and delicious and hot in his mouth, and he ate up his share and hers. Although it burned his hands, he did not wait for it to cool. He saw the way she looked at him and knew she was sorry for what she had done, but he would not forgive her
.
When he fell silent and looked at us, my mouth was still open. Not much surprised me, but I never thought he’d make a lie of something like that. Those stories were ours. I never remembered half of them, though my father had liked to tell them to my sister and me. His stories were not the same as my mother’sor the Elders’, and he never told them the same way twice. But somehow they were always the same. And the stories were about the way they’d always been told by other families before us, and not about twisting them to tell someone something you didn’t have the guts to say.
I remembered him and his mother and how they’d tell those stories back and forth to each other. Mara loved them. They weren’t her own people’s stories, but she took them like they were and would tell them to Jason over and over. They both were like that, though, and would sooner give you a coloured-up tale than a simple answer to whatever question you asked them. When we were all still kids, my sister used to bring me by Mara’s house most nights in the winter, and we’d sit there round the stove while she told Jason a story to put him to sleep. The house always had a smell about it like old rotted leaves, like the forest in fall, when everything is waiting for winter. But it was warm round the stove, and Violet and I weren’t the only ones to come sit there to listen. When Jason was not even school-age yet, the stories were mostly from the Bible, or that’s what Mara said, but they were different from the ones we heard at St. Paul’s on Sundays and maybe had the mark of her on them too. For somebody blind, she could make you see every solitary thing she spoke of. I remember in that stale-smelling house half-buried in snow knowing just how a grain of sand shone under a Jerusalem sun. And then when Jason got older, the stories weren’t about God or St. John anymore, but about Raven or Bear, and Mara made them her own too. And even as Jason got older, she kept telling him those stories, one a night, and sometimes he would even tell her a story back, and it was the way they talked to each other and told each other things, because I heard few words passbetween them other times. Remembering the stories Mara told him, I got up and took a seat beside Aileen, to watch her.
And it was then I realized who she reminded me of. Though it had been almost ten years since I’d seen that wide-mouth smile. And though Lopita’s eyes were black and bright and had never looked unsure or caught like Aileen’s always did. But when she showed her teeth, when her mouth stretched around a grin that seemed to catch her by surprise, it made me think of that other smile. And even now, with just the glint of a question in her eyes, I thought of Lopita.
She seemed to be trying to think what to do next, and I knew from her face the story made her like him better, made her want to ask him more questions, made her want to stay here longer. And I knew before I opened my mouth that she wouldn’t believe me. She would be the kind to prefer a well-told lie to the truth. And there’d be nothing I
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