Disharmony #

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"I really appreciate the book you gave me for my birthday.  I've already read a few essays.  I stayed up until late.  That's why I am so sleepy today."  Albert was unreserved in his praise for the gift.

Dahlia looked away, tears welling in her eyes and threatening to overflow down her cheeks.  She looked away as she spoke. "That's good, I'm glad you liked it."  She started to move away to her first class.

Albert reached out and placed his hand on her forearm.  It felt warm.  It tingled and caused her to shiver and flood her cheeks with the bounty of tears brimming over her lower eyelids.  She tasted the warm and salty tears as she gathered her strength so she could turn and face Albert.

"Why didn't you come to my party?  You were the only one I wanted there.  I looked for you."  Albert was sincere and his hurt surfaced in his voice and on his face.

"Do I look like a 'digger squaw'?  I wouldn't have wanted to scalp any of your Yankee friend,  incidentally." Dahlia was turning hot in her cheeks. 

 She stood rigidly erect and stared Albert directly in the eyes.

"What are you talking about?  I don't understand.  I never called you those names."  The total bewilderment was obvious in Alberts tone of voice and body language.

"No, but, your Mother did.  She would not admit me to your party. First,  your maid stopped me.  Then your mother was summoned.  She said I stole the invitation and you would never have a' digger squaw' for a friend."  Fury and indignation fueled her wrathful righteousness.

"I didn't know...I...I...didn't know"  Albert sputtered.

"I will not be part of what destroys your life."  She said and turned abruptly and strode away from him leaving him there to try and pick up the pieces of his self-respect and independence.

Albert stood alone under the weeping willow and felt like weeping himself.  He moped around and scuffed the fallen leaves around into small piles.  After there were sufficient piles on the ground to indicate that enough time had passed, he knew that she wasn't coming to the trysting place. 

 Albert scuffed his way to his house with a heart so heavy with loss that he was mindless.  His arms and legs were heavy and it seemed useless to try and to command movement from them.

"Mother dear, did you insult me and my patrician upbringing that Father has tried to instill in me?" He was subdued  and toxically deliberate.  He pulled himself to his full height and prepared for a mortal joust.

"Whatever on Earth are you talking about?  Don't ever take that tone with me.  I am your Mother and I deserve respect."  Mrs. McKinley, the Belle of the San Joaquin, was piqued and not about to be spoken to in any other way than was appropriate to address such a grande dame of her stature.

'You chased my best and only friend from our door to which she had been invited as my guest."  His indignation helped him take flight above and beyond the petty prejudice of the landowning class.

"Oh, my heavens, do you mean that little vamp who was only interested in trapping you for our money?  You should have seen how she was dressed."  Mrs.  McKinley was flippant in her response to Albert's deep dilemma. 

"Yes Mother, I should have seen how she was dressed." Albert brushed by his Mother and mounted the staircase to his room two steps at a bound.  Once in his room, Albert tried and tried to summon a vision and communication with Dahlia, but to no avail.  This was the first time that he could not reach out to her.

After changing from her school clothes, Dahlia sought out Joel to cheer her up.  He was always  good for something humorous.  He was nowhere at hand.  

Dahlia left a note for her Mamma that she was going to visit  Abuela.  When she arrived, she found Abuela sitting under the  enormous walnut tree weaving baskets from reeds.

"Hija, take some reeds and let me show you haw to work like a Miwok."  The big smile on Abuela's face was so contagious that Dahlia broke into a radiant smile herself. 

 She gathered a lapful of reeds and sat down cross-legged across from Abuela.  

"Abuelita, I have had a great loss.  My friend Albert is no longer to allowed to be my friend.  His mother insulted me and would not let me go to his part.  She is a 'Bruja'."  Dahlia said with a pout and a sneer.

"No child, she is not a 'Bruja'.  She is a Mamma Oso keeping her cub safe.  You are lucky she did not bite you in the neck and kill you."  Abuela spoke slowly but wove quickly and still had time to correct Dahlia's weaving. 

 "It is just the way it is.  A Miwok by his side would destroy Albert's future in the Yankee world."

"We are not getting married, we are even too young to become anything more than friends."  Dahlia retorted.

"To a madre oso, 'friends' is enough to bring out her claws and make a big show of growling to scare the little Miwok maiden away."  Abuela began humming an ancient chant.  Her eyes were smiling at her beloved granddaughter.

"Hmmm,  I will think as though I was her,"  Dahlia said pensively.

"Hija, you did not come here to learn to weave baskets.  Do you want to practice with some of your gifts?"  Abuela stopped weaving the reeds and looked up at Dahlia.

 "The gifts are not spirits of the dead.  They are not from some God.  Your gifts are here and now.  Because we cannot understand or explain them we say they come from another world.  The thoughts you think are real.  The stone you deflected was real.  The boy who bled was real.  They are here now and nowhere else.  You are not cursed.  There is no curse.  There is only what good people do or bad people do."  She placed her knobby sweet hand on Dahlias hand.  Dahlia looked at Arbuela and understood.

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