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looked at his long-time friend as if seeing him for the first time, “Well, now that we know that she can’t tell me – I’m listening, Harvey,” Dalian said softly.
    “Yeah, okay. I guess since your mom can’t tell you, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t.” Harvey propped his elbows on his knees and quietly began recounting what he remembered.
    “What I don’t get is why you couldn’t when I first met you.”
    “It wasn’t my place and, well . . . let me see if I can’t rectify that now. When I met your mom, she was barely fourteen, and married to a man in his fifties.”
    “Wait, so you knew my mom for years before I was even born? And what business does a fourteen year old have marrying a man in his fifties?”
    “That’s the reaction I had, except I think my exact thought was, damn, that’s weird. I thought he was her granddaddy, you know? I do know that back then, some states didn’t have a legal age limit for marriage, like we do now, and as long as the girl had parental consent...”
    “But fourteen?”
    “I don’t know all about how it happened, man. I just know that when they bought the place next door to us, they did so as man and wife.”
    “Why’d she marry him? Why didn’t she ever mention him to me?”
    “You are asking a lot of questions that I never got the answers to myself, and I can’t tell you why she never mentioned him to you. Maybe because he was a part of her life she wanted to forget. As for why she married him – her father made her.” Harvey raised his hand to ward off the barrage of questions he saw that Dalian was ready to hurl in his direction, “That’s all she ever told me. Now are you going to let me tell this, or are you going to keep interrupting me?”
    “Sorry.”
    “That you are. So anyway...”
    “How did she know you, though?”
    “So much for letting me talk.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Yep, you said that already. Mind if I continue?
    “Yeah, sorry.”
    “You keep saying that, and I’ll slug you. Now zip it.”
    Dalian struggled to keep his mouth closed as Harvey continued relating those things he never knew.
    “Anyway, you could tell she was miserable being married to a man older than her father, but she made the best of it. As for me, I was only ten, but we soon became fast friends. Probably because I was the only person within a fifty mile radius that was close to her in age and fun to be around.”
    “But how’d she end up with the Blackfoot?”
    Harvey sighed again.
    “Sorry.”
    “It’s okay. I’ll answer that one. You don’t have to stretch your imagination too far actually. Our ranches bordered the reservation. She met a young Blackfoot man when she was in town and started seeing him on the sly. Fell in love with him.”
    “So she divorced her first husband?”
    “Dadblasted, Dalian! I’ll probably get to your questions eventually, so would you just let me talk? All of this happened so long ago that I need to get my thoughts organized, or it’ll all come tumbling out of my mouth in a jumbled, incoherent mess.”
    “Then talk faster!”
    “Lord!” Harvey huffed. “Okay. No. She didn’t divorce her husband. He died, and don’t ask how, because I don’t know. I only know it was fortuitous timing, since she discovered she was pregnant with you, and her husband wasn’t the father.”
    “Damn.”
    “Yeah, well. As soon as possible, she married Jake Twin Rivers and he moved them to the reservation. Unfortunately, the magic didn’t last. Of course, we both know what living on a reservation is like, especially since the government stopped permitting the building and operation of casinos on Indian land back in 2027. A lot of Natives depended on those casinos for employment. Your dad was one of ‘em. Your mom became severely depressed as Jake bounced from job to job and started drinking more and more. Growing up, you became a source of contention for him. According to your mom, he blamed you for all his woes; and he made you pay for