We love you, don’t cry.
Sorrow eats time.
Be patient.
Time eats sorrow.
Josette served up the first piece of cake.
This is the most beautiful cake ever, said Hollis, his voice scratchy with emotion.
Wait! Wait for the cake song!
Oh no, said Josette. Cake song?
It was Randall, who had come late, but made his way straight to the front to stand with Landreaux. He had a hand drum and a big grin. Randall and Landreaux began to sing a song about how sweet the cake was, all full of sweetness like the life before Hollis, like the love everyone had for Hollis, and the love that Hollis felt for his people. It was a long-winded song and Hollis stood there in front of everyone, feeling a little foolish, holding his piece of cake, nodding, serious but filled with the happiness of the moment, though awkward, the sweetness, smiling along with the song.
Anyway, said Josette, edging around the table, still holding her cake spatula. You can quit the National Guard now, right?
No way, he said, surprised. I signed the papers.
Oh, Hollis.
Josette was staring straight ahead, standing next to him, and her voice was the voice of a woman.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
RITA GOURNEAU ERDRICH, my mother, mentioned an Ojibwe family who allowed parents enduring the loss of a child to adopt their child — a contemporary act that echoes an old form of justice. Thank you, Mom. Thank you, Dad, Ralph Erdrich, for thirty-five years of National Guard drills. Thank you, Persia, for teaching Ojibwe immersion to a new generation of LaRoses; Pallas, for your close readings and constant cheer; Aza (see below); and Kiizh, Nenaa’ikiizhikok, Sky Woman, for calmly fixing our world. Thank you, Richard Stammelman; Dr. Sandeep Patel; James and Krista Botsford; Brenda Child; David Gizinski; Preston McBride; Jin Auh; Terry Karten, my editor; and Trent Duffy, my copy editor.
My grandfather Patrick Gourneau, Aunishinaubay, attended Fort Totten Indian Boarding School and Wahpeton Indian School. All his life, he wrote in his trained and beautiful script. Aza Erdrich used his boarding-school handwriting when she designed the cover of this book. In doing this, she connected us all with her great-grandfather and his great-aunt, our ancestor, the original LaRose.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LOUISE ERDRICH is the author of fifteen novels as well as volumes of poetry, children’s books, short stories, and a memoir of early motherhood. Her novel The Round House won the National Book Award for Fiction. The Plague of Doves won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and her debut novel, Love Medicine, was the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. Erdrich has received the Library of Congress Prize in American Fiction, the prestigious PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. She lives in Minnesota, with her daughters, and is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore.
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