Nick?“
“Hmm?“
“Can I work on the photo albums?“
“Sure. If you don’t mind going through this mess.” He retrieved a manila envelope. “There’s lots of junk here.” He opened the clasp, removed some crumpled papers. “I even saved report cards. Of course, your dad always got better grades than me.”
Lexie took the envelope. “Did you go to Indian schools?”
“No. They were public.”
The girl turned to Elaina. “Daddy asked Uncle Nick to teach me about being Comanche.“
“He did?” Stunned, she glanced at Nick. Grant had never mentioned educating Lexie about her heritage. He was Comanche, and Elaina was French and English, with a splash of Gypsy blood. The world was a melting pot of race, religion and color, he used to say. So why make an issue out of your child’s ethnicity?
“When did he ask you to do that?” she asked.
“On the night he died,” Nick answered, meeting her gaze with a haunted yet tender look.
The following morning Elaina and Lexie gathered in Nick’s workshop for a leather-craft lesson. Nick taught classes at the youth center, something that surprised Elaina. She hadn’t known he had experience as a teacher.
Elaina glanced around, assessing the man and his workspace. His bench was a little messy, but his tools lined a backboard, each one easily accessible. Knives were protected in sheaths, and awls and punches rested in leather loops.
The air smelled of beeswax and mink oil. A cutting table and two sewing machines dominated a large portion of the room, shelves and benches occupying the rest. Leather ranged from vegetable-tanned hides to soft, furry skins. Trays of beads, hair-bone pipe and feathers reflected Nick’s roots—a Comanche skilled in the art of cowboy crafts.
Elaina and Lexie sat at separate benches. While Lexie worked, Elaina marveled at her daughter’s Christmas project. She was decorating holiday stockings Nick had designed. The pieces weren’t sewn, but the patterns were cut, awaiting Lexie’s imagination.
Elaina’s and Nick’s stockings were made from tooling leather, each in the shape of a cowboy boot, one smaller and slightly feminine, and the other bolder, with strong, masculine lines. Lexie’s stocking was constructed similar to a knee-high moccasin, fringed at the edges and tall enough for an abundance of elf-inspired goodies.
The girl lifted the front piece of the larger cowboy boot. “Should I stamp your name on it, Uncle Nick?”
Gathering supplies for Elaina’s project, he looked up. “Sure.”
“Uncle? Nick? Or both?“
“How about ahpi? It means uncle in Comanche.”
“Ahpi.” Lexie tested the word the way he had pronounced it. “That’s cool. How do you spell it?“
“A. P.” He smiled at her. “That’s easy. Not too many letters.“
“Yes.” She was still holding the boot, watching him with awe. “Can I call you that?“
“Of course you can.” He stood near his workstation, his expression mirroring hers.
Elaina sat quietly. This was only their third day in Oklahoma, yet Lexie’s relationship with Nick was blossoming already.
“Ap means father, too,” he said.
“Really?” Intrigued, Lexie scooted to the end of her chair. “So a Comanche kid called their dad and their uncles ap?”
Nick nodded. “Let me see if I can explain why.” He glanced at Elaina, then back at his niece. “It had to do with a marriage exchange. In the old days, brothers were potential mates to each other’s wives.”
“I don’t understand.” Lexie turned to Elaina. “Do you, Mom?”
“I’m not sure.” She had an idea what potential mate meant, but she didn’t want to say it out loud, not with her husband’s twin just a few feet away.
Nick settled onto a chair, and Elaina’s skin warmed. His legs were spread, his hands resting on his thighs. Typical male posture, she thought nervously, as a silver buckle glinted at his waist. He was going to detail the marriage exchange, something Elaina wasn’t sure she wanted to hear.
“In the old days, brothers lent each other their wives,” Nick said. “The gesture was considered a gift from one to the other. But there wasn’t supposed to be any jealousy between them. And the wife couldn’t go to the other man on her own. Her loyalty remained with her husband.”
Lexie made a face. “That’s weird. I’d be mad at my husband if he did that. Especially if he had like ten brothers or something.”
Nick chuckled, and Elaina sat like a pillar of salt, her heart banging against her breast. If she had been Grant’s wife in an earlier century, would he have lent her to his twin? Would she have become Nick’s gift? His occasional lover?
“I doubt they were that free with this exchange,” he said to Lexie, addressing her comment. “And sure, it sounds strange, but it wasn’t meant to dishonor the woman. One of the brothers might become her husband someday.”
“How?” the young girl asked.
“If her husband died, a brother would take his place. He would protect her and the children.”
Children who might have been his, Elaina noted. The wife could have borne the brother’s babies as easily as those of her husband.
Nick left his chair and brought a box of supplies to Elaina, placing it on her bench. He was standing too close, she thought. She could smell his cologne—a deep, rich spice. Now the image wouldn’t go away, the forbidden curiosity about making love with her husband’s brother, of being given to him as a gift.
Nick bumped her arm as he leaned over, and she kept her eyes on her lap, on the wedding ring that shone on her finger. Shame coiled its way into her belly. How could she even think such immoral thoughts?
“In a sense, the Comanche used to form a marriage group,” he said, still talking to Lexie about their ancestors. “Sisters were often married to the same man. It wasn’t uncommon for a warrior to have more than one wife. So a child’s mother and her sisters were all called pia. There’s no separate word for aunt in the Comanche dialect. At least, not within a marriage group.”
“Just like there’s no separate word for uncle.” Lexie searched through the alphabet stamps, setting aside an A and a P. She dampened the leather with a sponge, then picked up her mallet. “And that’s why Daddy asked you to teach me about my heritage. Because you’re my other ap.”
Ap, Elaina thought. Her daughter was accepting Nick as a second father, but Lexie craved a paternal bond. She still cried for her daddy, still fell asleep with tears in her eyes.
Emotion swirled around the room, the only sound the gentle tap of Lexie’s hammer. Elaina glanced at Nick and saw that he watched her.
“We
