The Secret Letters by Abby Bardi Page B

letter-writer.”
    â€œSorry, no. Really. I can’t.” She stuck the address book in my hand and hurried out of the room. I ran after her.
    It took another fifteen minutes of begging, but same as with everyone else in my family, there was no part of “no” I understood. She drove a hard bargain, and I had to promise to mow the lawn, repaint the porch, and scrub the rubber strip on the fridge door with a toothbrush. I was ready to pick up the dog shit in the yard (there was plenty of it) with tweezers if I could get her to write to J. Fallingwater.
    â€œI just don’t want to get sucked into any craziness,” she said a while later as we carried garbage out to the street.
    â€œCraziness?” I said as if I could not imagine such a thing.
    â€œYou’ve jumped to a conclusion based on nothing, and I don’t want to encourage you.” She set a box of burnt-out light bulbs at the curb.
    â€œDon’t be so strident.” This was a word the state’s attorney had used to describe her, so we always threw it in her face if we could. “You’re just writing a letter to your mother’s old friend. It’s the polite thing to do.”
    â€œSure. And we’re so fucking polite.” She scratched herself like an ape. “I think you used to be able to return these things for money.” She pointed to the old light bulbs, obviously trying to change the subject.
    â€œI just recycled three big bags of S&H Green Stamps, whatever those were.”
    â€œI think they belonged to Mammaw. We should be selling that shit on eBay.People will buy anything.”
    As we opened the screen door to the house, the dogs started barking like we hadn’t just been there a second ago. I thought of taking them for a walk, but as far as I knew, there was nowhere to go any more. I could put them in the car and take them down the street for a latte, but that was about it.
    â€œYou just have to drop him a line. I’ll take it from there.”
    â€œWhere will you take it?”
    â€œI don’t know.” I really had no idea what I should do at this point. I thought for a second about adopting Fallingwater as my last name, but that seemed awkward. “It’s a weird, name, right?”
    â€œYeah, I guess so.”
    â€œWhere do you think it’s from?”
    â€œMaybe it’s one of those Ellis Island names that got translated weird. Pfallingwasser.”
    â€œNo, I don’t think so.” I was getting an idea—and it was a big one. It was so powerful that I started to actually hear a buzzing in my ears, like a swarm of ideas had suddenly flown into the empty hive of my brain. “Think about it. Arizona. The southwest.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œIsn’t it obvious?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œArizona. The southwest. Who lives there?”
    â€œI don’t know, who?”
    As I stood in our familiar living room, I felt myself growing taller. All the furniture seemed to be shrinking. The dogs dashed over and bowed down at my feet as if they sensed something important was going on. “Pam, it all suddenly makes sense.You know how I’ve never felt—” I couldn’t think of how to say it.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œLike in high school. I never fit in.”
    â€œEveryone feels that way in high school.”
    â€œNo, you don’t get it.” She was starting to annoy me. I tried again. “It’s like I was really someone else, but no one knew. No one could see who I really was. But now I figured it out. Jeez.” I stopped. I could hardly breathe.
    â€œWhat did you figure out?”
    â€œI’m an Indian, Pam.”
    â€œYou’re what?”
    â€œI’m an Indian.”
    â€œYou’re what ?”
    â€œI’m an Indian. A Native American.”
    â€œOh, for fuck’s sake, Julie,” she said in the stern voice she used on the dogs.
    â€œFallingwater. It’s an Indian