The Memory Everyone has memories they don’t like but can’t shake. This is one of mine. I was small and my parents were driving back through a desert in the southwestern states. We hadn’t seen a town for hours, and I’d gotten used to seeing the endless miles of saguaro, yucca, and empty skies. So, when we started to pass a row of shacks that lined the empty road, I was surprised. These structures didn’t seem to be part of any town or village, and it would be generous to describe them as houses. With concave walls, covered with tarpaper and tin, they were the worst excuses for houses I’d ever seen but, judging from the faint light coming from the windows, someone seemed to be living in them. Even odder, each shack’s sway-backed porch seemed to hold at least one shiny, white, refrigerator or washer and dryer. My mom made a noise of disgust. “It’s terrible the way they are treated,” she said. I asked what she was talking about. Then, with a soft, but angry voice, Mom related this country’s history concerning Native Americans as if she was telling me an unhappy bedtime story. Attacked, betrayed, segregated…