He gave Naomi’s hand a squeeze. “I guess we don’t, but Tina says he’s a good man. She says the people think well of him. Also, he wants to pay for a paternity test.”
A paternity test?
Winona stepped through the back door. “I came as soon as I could. What’s going on? Naomi, what is it?”
While Chaska told Winona about Tina’s phone call, Naomi’s mind reeled. A man in South Dakota whose name was Doug Otter Tail said that her medicine wheel had once belonged to him and that he’d given it to a teenage girl he’d hooked up with twenty-eight years ago at a summer youth camp.
Summer.
Naomi did a little quick math. “I was conceived in June.”
Chaska and Winona stopped talking and looked over at her.
She explained. “They found me on March 12, and they say I was just a few hours old, so I’ve always thought that must be my birthday, though Peter never let us celebrate birthdays because that’s a pagan tradition. If I was born in early March, I must have been conceived in June. That doesn’t prove or disprove anything, but it fits his story.”
You’re babbling.
Winona got herself a glass of lemonade and joined them at the table. “Do we know what Doug looks like? Does he look like Naomi?”
Chaska drew out his cell phone, tapped it a few times, turned it so Naomi could see. “What do you think?”
Blood rushed into Naomi’s head. She found herself looking at the face of a handsome man in his early forties, a man whose nose and lips and cheeks were familiar because she saw them every day in the mirror. No, she had to be imagining it.
She looked up at Chaska and Winona. “Do you think we look alike?”
Chaska handed the phone to Winona, who glanced down, then stared at Naomi through wide eyes. “Youdolook like him.”
“There’s more.” Chaska took Naomi’s hand again. “He and Old Man are on their way here. They’re staying with some of Grandfather’s powwow buddies in Cheyenne tonight, but they’ll be here tomorrow. Tina found a lab in Denver that does legal paternity tests with a twenty-four-hour turnaround, and Doug wants to get the tests done there.”
This was all happening too fast. Ten minutes ago, she’d learned for the first time that she might have found her real father, and now he was coming to meet her?
She shook her head. “I don’t know about this. What if he’s lying? What if he’s not my father? What if…”
Okay, so she’d run out of questions for the moment.
Chaska pressed her fingers to his lips. “I know this must be overwhelming, Naomi, but there’s only one way to find the answers.”
Chaska couldn’t imagine beingin Naomi’s shoes right now, wondering whether a man who was a total stranger would turn out to be her biological father. He’d told Old Man that he’d thought it was a bad idea for the two of them to drive down now, that they should do the paternity test first and wait for the results, but Doug had been dead set on meeting Naomi as soon as possible, certain that she was his daughter.
Chaska made lasagna, the fanciest meal in his limited arsenal, he and Winona doing their best to support Naomi through a difficult evening. She barely ate, all of their attempts to distract her failing until Chaska began telling her about the massacre at Wounded Knee and the later occupation of that same site. This led to a conversation about famous Oglala people.
“Crazy Horse was Oglala.”
“He was?”
His quick biography of Crazy Horse led to Winona giving Naomi a history lesson about Pine Ridge and the Oglala Lakota people. “We’ve had two women presidents, which I think is pretty cool.”
“Thatiscool.” Naomi got a faraway look on her face. “Wouldn’t it be strange if this ismyhistory, too?”
Winona reached over and took Naomi’s hand. “I think it would be wonderful.”
Naomi helped Chaska with the spirit plate and then the dishes, while Winona went out to feed Shota and give him some attention. Then the three of them settled in front of the television to watch a movie.
Chaska pointed to the DVDs. “You get to pick, Naomi.”
“I didn’t watch movies growing up,” Naomi said. “Do you know how amazing it was the first time I went to a movie theater?”
He’d grown up with it, so of course he couldn’t imagine. “What did you see?”