I Can Make This Promise

“I turn in the other direction, and an older woman catches my gaze and holds it. She’s seated on a stool at the edge of the crowd. Her T-shirt bears the message ‘Find Our Missing Girls.’ Huh. I wonder what that’s about.”

Edie never learns more about the “Find Our Missing Girls” slogan. In fact, this T-shirt references the high numbers of Indigenous women and girls who are murdered in the US and Canada each year. As an Indigenous girl, Edie faces potential dangers of which she is unaware. Her parents have deliberately kept these topics from Edie, not wanting her to grow up feeling afraid or angry.

“I think about Roger. He was the first person to ever say those words to me. You look Native. And it didn’t feel presumptuous. It didn’t feel like a wild guess. It was like he recognized me. Like he saw something in me. I wonder what that something was.”

Edie and Roger share a brief moment when Roger recognizes Edie for who she is. Edie already knows that she is Indigenous, but she has no connection to her heritage. This moment foreshadows her increasing interest in her family history and in Indigenous culture.

“She looks like me. She’s a complete stranger, but she has my face. Her eyes are shaped like mine. Her nose resembles mine. The apples of her cheeks are pronounced and a little pudgy as she smiles, and she has a gap between her two front teeth.”

Edie sees a photograph of her grandmother, Edith, for the first time. She is shocked by the family resemblance between them. Finding the photographs and letters starts Edie’s journey toward learning who she truly is.

“When we learned your mother was pregnant, that was one of the first decisions she made. She quit her job and didn’t look back. She knew that raising a child is the most important work in the world, and she wanted to dedicate all her time and energy to you.”

Lisa chose to be a full-time mother to Edie. Her own mother was also excited about becoming a parent and wanted to put her “time and energy” into raising her baby, but she never got the opportunity to do so due to racist policies that took her child from her.

“When these braces come off, will I still look like the other Edith? Or will my smile be completely different? Will I be completely different?”

Edie just found a connection to the past, and her new braces threaten to take it away. She wonders how tenuous her connection to her heritage really is. Later, Edie learns that she will always look like her grandmother, even if her teeth are a little different from hers.

“They keep secrets. They don’t always do the right thing. They make mistakes. But they’re not trying to hurt you, Edie. If they lied, or if they didn’t tell you everything yet—there’s a reason for it.”

Serenity advises Edie to ask her parents about Edith. She has personal experience with her family lying to her, as they hid their ongoing divorce from her for some time to try to protect her. Edie is unsure whether Serenity is correct in her assessment and delays confronting her parents.

“It would’ve been better if it turned out you were secretly related to someone famous. If that were the case, we’d probably get attention from news outlets, maybe even real reporters from Hollywood.”

Amelia assesses the photographs and letters the girls found in terms of their marketability, seeking an opportunity to attract attention for the short film. She lacks the compassion to understand why the discovery is emotional and personal for Edith. This is one of several rifts that arise in their friendship.

“I’ve been involved in ecological restoration projects ever since. I also work with a lot of local tribes who are trying to save their traditional fishing rights.”

Uncle Phil tells Edie about his own work, which he turned to after seeing how destructive salmon fishing could be. His commitment to these causes highlights the ongoing challenges that Indigenous communities face and the importance of allyship.

“Sure enough, Edith Graham is among them. She’s wearing a tan dress, long beaded necklaces, and moccasins. Her hair is styled in two braids and her gaze is distant. Like she’s watching something happen from miles away.”

Edie sees her grandmother in a trailer for an old film. Edith is playing an Indigenous character, but she has a very limited role in the story. Her lines of dialogue are reduced, and the film’s political message is modulated. This brief description alludes to Edith’s disappointment and sense of alienation in Hollywood.

“When we squeeze together for a picture, Amelia throws one arm around my shoulders and the other around Libby’s. As her mom takes the photograph, it might look like she’s standing perfectly in the middle. But the truth is, I can feel my best friend pulling away.”

When Amelia befriends Libby, Edie feels betrayed. She can see that a girl who was once her best friend no longer really cares about her. Amelia disregards Edie’s concerns about Libby’s cruelty and wishes Edie could just go along with her plans without complaint.

“There’s a huge lump in my throat. This isn’t going to work. I can’t make her choose the dog. I can’t make her choose me.”

Edie finally realizes that she and Amelia can no longer be friends. This is one of several passages that draw parallels between Edie’s story and Bruno’s. Amelia’s reluctance to make a short film about Bruno is partly due to her reluctance to continue a friendship with Edie.

“I already know that becoming a mother will be the greatest joy of my life. From the moment I found out, I realized this is what I’m meant to be. The leading role I’m meant to have.”

Edith writes a letter to her brother and her mother informing them of her pregnancy. She is excited to be a mother. She does not know that her baby will be taken away from her immediately after birth. This passage provides context for Lisa’s story and informs the story’s examination of Forced Adoption and Loss of Heritage.

“Movies like that show Native people as something exotic and mythical, but there is no truth to them. That was not a real Native woman. Her outfit had no cultural significance. Everything about it was fake and Hollywoodized, for the sake of making a profit.”

Lisa explains to Edie why the movie poster made her uncomfortable. She describes the practice of casting white actors in Indigenous roles instead of engaging with real Indigenous stories and people. Edie initially wanted to see the movie because she was desperate to learn anything she could about her own heritage.

“They just don’t want me to be proud of my heritage. They want me to forget where I came from.”

Lisa describes an Indigenous boy she knew when she was growing up. Like her, he was adopted by a white family. His adoptive parents want him to assimilate into their white family and culture. This kind of assimilation was a primary goal of America’s Indigenous adoption policies. The resulting Cultural Disconnection is a form of cultural genocide.

“But the American West has never been an empty wilderness. It has always had people and architecture, civilizations and traditions. If you want to draw these landscapes, Edie, please do it right by recognizing how full they are.”

Edie finds it difficult to draw people, but her parents encourage her to try. They help her understand that her art can be a powerful way of connecting to the past and keeping its legacy alive. Lisa wants Edie to use her art to tell a more honest story than those of landscape artists who depicted precolonial America as a pristine, uninhabited land.

“I know who you are. I know who you are. It’s you. You found your way home. You came back to us.”

Lisa explains how she found her birth family with the help of Edie’s father. When she met Theo, her uncle, this is what he said to her. Lisa never got the chance to meet her mother, but she got to know her uncle before he died. This reunion helped both of them start to heal from what happened.

“I used to believe that, too. But friendships only work if everyone remains kind to each other. Amelia used to be one of the nicest people I knew.”

Serenity is relieved that Edie no longer wants to be friends with Amelia. Edie is very loyal; she did not want to believe that Amelia was no longer a good friend. Ultimately, she learns that she is surrounded by people who love her, even if her friendship with Amelia is over.

“When Theo got to this part of the story, he told me he was on the verge of howling. That’s the exact word he used, howl. He said he wanted to cry and scream and sob all at once.”

Theo found it very difficult to explain to Lisa what happened when she was born. The pain of losing her was something that stayed with him all his life. The story’s intensely painful and harrowing nature drove Edie’s parents to choose not to share it with her until she was older.

“The social worker wanted to know how old the mother was. He wanted to know what their combined family income was. He wanted to know who completed what chores around the house. He wanted to know who the baby’s father was.”

Edith originally planned to give birth at home, but she went into labor while she was in Seattle and had to go to the hospital. There, a social worker made a quick judgment about her family situation. He decided that an unmarried Indigenous woman from a low-income family was unsuited to raise a child. Because of this decision, which was made over the course of a few minutes, Edith never saw her baby again.

“Between the 1940s and 1970s, about one-third of Native children were separated from their families. Until Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978.”

Lisa explains the history of Indigenous adoptions to Edie. Like many details in the novel, this historical description is true. The legacy of attempted cultural genocide of Indigenous Peoples still has a major impact on families across the US today.

“I think I was just afraid of how you’d react to this whole story. I was an adult when I learned everything, and it shook me to my very core. I wanted to protect you, as long as I could. I didn’t want you to feel lost or confused or angry.”

Edie wonders why her parents have never told her the truth. Lisa finally gives her an answer: She wanted to give her daughter the chance to have a happy childhood without being burdened by a traumatic history.

“Serenity and I take off on our own along the shore, observing everything, meeting gazes and waving hello to strangers. All the canoes have gathered here, each packed with visitors from all over—the Snoqualmie, the Cowlitz, the Swinomish.”

After Edie hears her mother’s story, she gets to attend an Indigenous event in Indianola. She feels a sense of belonging now that she understands her place in Indigenous culture. This scene echoes the book’s opening at the fireworks display, but this time, Edie does not feel lost. Her heritage is not a mystery, a secret, or something she has to fight to learn about. It is all around her, and she understands it.

“Bruno was bullied and ostracized, alone and afraid. The city was a large and unforgiving place. Especially for those who seemed different. Especially for those who had no family, no community.”

Serenity and Edie finish their short film about Bruno. Edie uses her own feelings of alienation and confusion to characterize the dog. Like Bruno, Edie gets a happy ending that allows her to feel connected to others instead of alone and afraid.