LaRose by Louise Erdrich Read Free Book Online

story was the reason he had become a priest, and a story was why he’d not yet walked off the job. In the evenings, between action movies, Father Travis parsed out the New Testament.
    Mary gave her child to the world, he almost said, looking at Emmaline. It all made sense for she was wearing a sky blue parka. The hood was missing the fur band, so it capped her head in a way that reminded him of pictures of the Blessed Virgin. Her hair, parted in the middle, flowed back under the blue material in smooth wings.
    You tried to do a good thing, said Father Travis. LaRose will understand that. He will come back to you.
    Emmaline stopped and looked closely at him.
    You sure?
    I’m sure, he said, then couldn’t help himself. Neither life, nor angels, nor principalities nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, not height, nor depth, nor any other creature will separate you.
    Emmaline looked at him like he was crazy.
    It’s a Bible quote.
    He looked down at the scraped path. Quoting Romans like a pompous ass . . .
    LaRose is young, she said, her hungry eyes blurring. They forget if you’re not with them every day.
    Nobody could forget you, thought Father Travis. The blurted thought unnerved him; he made himself speak sensibly.
    Look, you can retrieve LaRose at any time. Just say you want him back. Peter and Nola have to listen. If not, you can go to Social Services. You are his mother.
    Social Services, she said. Huh. Ever heard of rez omerta?
    Father Travis abruptly laughed.
    Besides, I am Social Services. The crisis school is all a social service. I’d have to get in touch with myself.
    What’s wrong with that? said Father Travis.
    She shook her head, looked away as she spoke.
    You mean I didn’t see it coming? Didn’t know it would be thisdifficult? Can’t understand why this is unbearable when there is history and tradition, all that, behind what we did?
    She rubbed her face with her hands as if to erase something else.
    Yes, I wasn’t exactly in touch with myself. Also, there’s Nola. She gets mad at Maggie, I think. What if she treats LaRose that way?
    Father Travis was silent. He still heard individual confessions and knew about Nola’s temper.
    As they walked back to her car, a sensation he didn’t recognize kept him from offering the usual offhand comment, to seal things off. He stayed silent because he didn’t want to ruin the confiding way she had spoken to him. Emmaline got in the car. Then she pulled her hood back and rolled down her window. She looked up into his face. Her longing for her son was so naked that he seemed to feel it pressing into him. He closed his eyes.
    When his eyes were shut, Emmaline saw, he was an ordinary man with weather-raked skin and chapped lips.
    She looked away and started up the car. Her tragic thoughts shifted as she drove off, and she remembered laughing until her stomach cramped as Josette and Snow discussed the priest.
    He can’t help his eyes, one of them said.
    His sex-toy-robot eyes.
    Josette and Snow had a thing about male robot/cyborg movie characters. They had an ancient Radio Shack VCR-TV in their room, and picked up old movies for it at yard sales and discount bins. Their collection included Westworld , RoboCop , The Black Hole. They rifled through video sale bins hoping for their favorite, Blade Runner. They’d made drawings of robots and cyborgs—smooth, perfect, doomed for feeling something, maybe like Father Travis.
    He’s got replicant eyes!
    No shit, Father Travis could be a replicant. Batty!
    I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe , they intoned together. Attack ships off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate.
    Their voices dropped to exhausted rasps.
    All those moments will be lost in time. Like tears in rain. Time to die.
    They lolled their heads over and Emmaline had cried out, Quit this! She frowned now. Like any mother, it made her uneasy to see her children feign death.
    The Iron