The cold, late November air silenced the music of the birds and crickets. In the stillness, Merritt could hear the faraway river rushing through the woods. He sat on a fallen tree and Lily leaned on a tall oak. The afternoon sun peeked through the few leaves that still clung to tree branches, and the golden rays danced in Lily’s light hair. She blew a thin line of smoke from her lips. “You know we’re on Wabanaki land?” Lily said to the ground as she dug her boot into a soft pile of decaying leaves.
Merritt lifted his chin towards her, “What did you say?” He flicked on his Zippo and snapped it shut.
“The land where we’re standing. It’s where the Wabanaki used to live.” She looked up into the tree branches. The sky silhouetted the black boughs in blue. “They say erasure is complete when you can say a name, and it holds no meaning. Colonizers took this land from them, and just like that,” she snapped her fingers, “poof. No one even cares to remember their name.”
He threw his head back so far; she thought he might fall backward off the log. “God, Lily! Can you quit making colonization about yourself?”
She stood up straight from the tree and passed him the blunt. “I am not making this about me!”
He raised his eyebrows at her and took a long drag. “I’m supposed to sit here,” he said, holding the smoke in his lungs, “believing that comment has nothing to do with the fact Claudia brought Vance to dinner today?”
She glared at him. She forgot how little she could get away with when Merritt was around. “Okay, fine. That comment might have been a tiny bit about me.” She surrendered. She faced the tree and mindlessly picked bark off its ancient trunk. “But it still doesn’t change the fact that this holiday and this country are children of genocide,” she quickly added.
“Oh, come on, Lil,” Merritt turned the blunt in his fingers, inspecting his work, “You’ve always liked Thanksgiving. Try not to let this whole thing upset you too much.”
She turned to face him, and he looked up. “I don’t like Thanksgiving,” she said with clenched fists hanging by the end of her maroon party dress. “It’s a white people holiday. What I do like, however, is getting fried with my favorite cousin and then eating way too many slices of pecan pie. That activity has the potential to exist outside of this holiday; therefore, it has nothing to do with Thanksgiving itself.”
“Wow, they’re really teaching you how to build some solid arguments in that fancy Ivy League Philosophy program of yours, aren’t they?” He said through a smile.
“My professors would be proud of that one, even though it lacks proper citations.” She flipped her hair and curtseyed to him.
He threw the butt of the blunt into the ivy that crept along the trail. “We should get back soon. If we take any longer, they’re gonna know we made a pit stop.”
“Oh, please. I’m sure they are aware that any sane person cannot get through this mess of a holiday without some form of chemical dependency.”
Their dress clothes stuck out in the forest like a burse on white skin as they walked back to the dirt parking lot. Merritt scraped the mud off his boots before climbing into his red pickup. Lily put her feet on the dash and turned on the radio. She switched the channel from Merritt’s usual country station to 94.3 WCYY – Maine’s Alternative Rock. She smiled at her ability to remember the call sign of her favorite hometown radio station, even though she had been out of Portland living in New York for three years now. She let the sound of The Smiths flow over her as Merritt pulled the red pick up into the 7-Eleven. He got out, leaving the keys in the ignition.
She spent so many of her high school afternoons in this parking lot, loitering by the Redbox with her friends in their school uniforms. Vance and his posse would come by in their beanies some afternoons and smoke Marlboro Reds near them. She remembered how far away he felt then. An unattainable and dangerous public-school boy who could step on her if she looked at him the wrong way.
It was years ago, but looking at the stoop, she can still feel the chill of the winter air on her bare legs. She realized how high she was. She closed her eyes and only opened them when Merritt got back into the driver’s seat.
***
“We’re back!” Merritt called cheerfully to no one as they walked through the front door of their grandma’s split story. The bag of ice slung over his shoulder and dripped little beads of water down his dress shirt. Everything was just as Lily expected it to be. The uncles in the den yelling at the football game on TV, the aunts in the kitchen setting out appetizers, and the younger cousins in the yard, the girls were sitting on patio furniture while the boys played football in their khaki pants. She saw Claudia and Vance through the French doors. They were sitting close together on the porch swing. Claudia smiled as Vance picked up their youngest cousin and put her in his lap.
Merritt went outside, dumped the ice into a blue drink cooler, and shook Vance’s hand. Vance stood up and hugged him like they were brothers.
Lily stood in the living room and shifted her weight from foot to foot on the wool rug. She checked the time on her phone, wondering how much trouble she would be in with her mom if she walked home. She weighed her options.
“Is that my beautiful college girl?” Her aunt Stella called to her from the kitchen. Lily looked up from her phone and went towards her smiling aunt. Stella wore a purple patterned dress and gaudy costume jewelry. “How are we, Lily? I swear to God, you get more and more stunning every time I see you.” She placed a sloppy kiss on her cheek, and Lily could smell the wine on her breath. “Sit down and have a drink. I’ve been waiting for the day we could drink together since you were literally this big.” She held out her fingers into a little pinch. They chatted about her classes and life in New York and boys from her grade who were already getting married. As they talked, Stella never let Lily’s wine glass run dry. She filled it again every time the red line neared the bottom.
When the clock on the oven read six, people began filing into the formal dining room and picking out their seats. Lily stood up from her place at the island and felt heavy on her feet. She made her way to the dining room and found her seat next to Merritt. The aunts set the vast table with real silver forks and knives and soup spoons. Plates piled high with mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, and cranberry sauce covered every inch of the surface, but Lily had no appetite as she looked across the table at Claudia and Vance.
Her grandma always started the meal with a prayer. Everyone joined hands as she began, “Dear Lord, Thank you for this wonderful day. Thank you for all my beautiful grandchildren. It is especially nice to see Vance back in my home after all this time.” Every muscle in Lily’s body tensed as she looked down at her plate. She squeezed Merritt’s hand hard. Her grandmother continued, “I am thankful for everyone’s health, and I pray for peace in the world.” She opened her eyes and looked to her right. “Mary, would you like to go next?” The prayers of thanks rolled counterclockwise around the table until it was Lily’s turn. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as she began to speak.
“Today, I am thankful for the land on which we gather.” Her words slurred together slightly. “Today, I am thankful for the Indigenous Wabanaki people who were stewards of this land, who were brutalized and terrorized for not adhering to the rules of colonizers.” She had let go of Merritt’s hand and leaned forward on the table, so her elbows rested at the edge and her forearms laid flat on the tablecloth. “They tended this land for thousands of years, only to bring us here today, convening with people we don’t even like that much.” Silence ascended over the leafed dining room table. Her pretty, polite cousins stiffened with attention. “We gather as a family who holds on to one another, who can count on each other for anything, regardless of the paths in which life takes us.” Lily’s eyes meet Claudia’s as she pressed on. “I want to acknowledge the Wabanaki people.” She dug her pointer finger into the table, punctuating each syllable of the phrase. “We are taught in school that their legacy is dead, that these people and their memories no longer exist. They are here among us, however, on the same land we continue to occupy today. They have memories on this land that go back farther than any of us can conceptualize. We snuffed them out. We continue to turn away from our history of destruction and genocide. I want to bring to the forefront of our minds something that has always been true,” She stared deeper into Claudia’s eyes, “Wabanaki people are here at all times. They share space with us at the supermarket, at church, and in our schools. Though they have been silenced, though their time has passed, the legacy that they leave, their love for this land, lives on. They are still among us, as much of a part of our history as you and I. I would like to raise a toast,” she said as she picked up her wine glass, “to all those who have had something taken from them. May we never forget their loss.”
Everyone remained still. Vance and Claudia exchanged a nervous look. Merritt pushed hard away from the table, making the candelabras sway, and walked quickly out the front door. Lily’s gaze tracked him for a moment before she put down her wine glass and took the napkin off her lap to follow him.
The sun was setting on the suburbs as she quickened her pace to keep up with him. His hands pushed deep into his pockets as he walked. “Merritt! Wait! What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” He snapped, “What’s wrong is that you’ve been acting like a total brat all day, Lily!” He stopped walking and faced her. “You just caused a scene at family dinner over a guy you broke up with more than four years ago. Do you even know how crazy you look right now?” She took a step back. Merritt only talked to her like this once before, after he had to pick her up from Prom because she was too drunk to stand up on the dance floor. When the disciplinarian asked for her dad’s number, she gave Merritt’s instead. “I know you’re off in New York, so you don’t get it, but here, things are the same.” He shrugged and pulled his hands from his pockets. He pointed to the ground. “This is still a shitty town with shitty guys and no way out.” He pointed at her, “You should be happy that Vance and Claudia found each other, but you’re too selfish to even care. You’re too self-centered to even say hi to him. Do you know how much better off you are than they are anyway? Claudia who’s doing two years in community because she can’t afford college like your family can, and Vance who’s biggest dream is one day taking over his father’s landscaping business. Damn, Lil, what do you want from these people? You have all of New York to fall in love with. There are only so many good guys around here—only so much opportunity. So stop. Just stop being a brat.” He held her gaze for a long moment after that. For what felt like the first time in her life, she couldn’t find words to defend herself. He rubbed his eyebrow, and spoke more softly, “I feel like I don’t even know you anymore.” He turned his back and walked back into the house. The front door closed behind him.
The sun had set, and the street lights flickered on. Lily stared at a mailbox across the street. It rocked back and forth in her vision, mocking her. She leaned over and threw up. It was stained red. Her throat burned. She lifted her head, she thought that throwing up might have been the first good decision she made all day, she sat down on the curb. The cold sidewalk dug into her bare thighs and the feeling reminded her of the 7-Eleven stoop. Every house on the street was lit up with warm lights; each a tiny dollhouse. When she got up to go back inside, she only had one thing on her mind: pecan pie.
Necromancer Walking 