Heart Berries

Mailhot reflects on thunder, which comes to destroy and heal. While in a coffee shop, she doubles over in pain after having the sudden memory of an adult man in the shower. She calls Casey though she is afraid he’ll mock her or call her dramatic.

She realizes she has been repressing a memory of her father touching her in the shower as a five or six-year-old girl. She sees a therapist, who encourages her to buy a teddy bear and hold it the way she would hold and soothe her younger self.

The bear reminds her of honey. She finally comes to terms with the memory and speaks it aloud. She tells Casey, simply, “He hurt me” (111).

Mailhot graduates from the Institute of American Indian Arts with an MFA and takes an editorial position. She becomes a fellow. She realizes that the Indian condition might be pain, but that pain is an education. She recalls her graduation day, and the education she received from the reservation, motherhood, love, and her drunken father. She believes that Casey “wants her sorrow more now that it is more sophisticated, it’s less contrite” (115)—there is power in educating yourself and processing pain.