Love Medicine

Nector Kashpaw comes from a family that can trace their heritage to the last hereditary leaders of their tribe. This grandiosity follows Nector in his youth. He never worked hard for his opportunities; people seemed to always offer up jobs and romance. He was cast in a Western film as a dying Indian, then spent a year working odd jobs–always employed, always on the move. One time, a woman pays him to be her nude model for a painting. When the painter shows him the product, in which Nector, nude, jumps off a cliff to certain death, he realizes that white people only want to use him for their fantasies of dead Indigenous Americans. Nector goes back home to his mother and his brother Eli. He contemplates a book he had been taught in high school, Moby Dick. He compares himself to Ishmael, because Nector also perseveres through challenges big and small. Nector thinks back to his adolescent love for Lulu. He was sure he would marry her, but his life changed so dramatically the day he ran into Marie on his way to the Convent. Now, 17 years and many babies later, he still misses Lulu even though he loves Marie. He works in local politics, but the work is not as glamorous or important as people make it out to be.

In 1952, Nector’s life takes another turn. He goes to work at the tribal offices and finds that two semi-trucks carrying butter have broken down on the hottest day of the year. Lulu drives by and Nector calls her over to help them transport boxes of butter in her air-conditioned car. She begrudgingly obliges, and they are alone together for the first time in years. Lulu doesn’t seem to remember or care about her past with Nector, how young they were, or how attracted the girls were to him. Nector needs to take the last box home to his family. Lulu stops on the way and they admire the view. They kiss, and he spreads the melting butter over her body. They have sex and later, when he is back at home with Marie and feeling guilty, he realizes he forgot their butter in Lulu’s car.

When Nector takes a job as a night watchman, he starts a five-year affair with Lulu. When she gives birth, Nector isn’t sure if the baby is his or someone else’s, even though he is certain the baby looks like a Kashpaw. When Beverly Lamartine visits Lulu, Nector is concerned Lulu will marry Beverly. Nector takes a swim in the lake, thinking through his limited options. Nector decides he must leave Lulu. As tribal chairman, Nector signs a notice evicting Lulu from the land her husband had squatted on. The land belongs to the tribe, not to Lulu individually, and the tribe plans to use the land to build a factory.

Even so, Nector can’t put Lulu out of his mind. After some deliberation, he writes a note for Marie that he is leaving her and runs off to give himself fully to Lulu. He waits outside of Lulu’s house. No one is home and he waits fitfully, smoking one cigarette after another. The flame from a discarded cigarette accidentally sets Lulu’s house on fire. Nector watches the house burn until he can’t bear the sight any longer, then spots Lulu coming out of the fire. Instead of punishing him, she brings him to a standing position and leads him away.

By 1957, Sister Leopolda is old and ill. Despite her animosity towards Leopolda, Marie decides to visit her and bring some freshly canned apples to the nuns. She takes her daughter Zelda with her to prove to Sister Leopolda that Marie was a woman of the world with an honorable husband and well-educated, well-behaved children. However, Leopolda is as cruel and dismissive of Marie as ever. She mocks Marie’s dress and defames her husband. Marie argues back, shocking Zelda with the truths and old resentments that come forth in their argument. Then, Leopolda starts hitting the irons of her bed with a spoon. Marie notices that the spoon is actually the poker Leopolda once assaulted her with, and Marie is seized with the desire to possess that poker. She asks Leopolda for her blessings and plans to grab the poker when Leopolda reaches her hand out for the blessing, but Leopolda uses the blessing as an opportunity to try to hit Marie with the poker. The two women struggle over the poker, and ultimately Marie lets go, pitying the old and frail woman before her.

On their walk back to their house, Zelda tells her mother that maybe she will go join the nuns. This makes Marie sad, but she also knows that Zelda is aimless and could use some experience. When they get home, Zelda finds Nector’s note to Marie. He confesses to his affair with Lulu and promises he won’t forget about his family. Marie wonders what she should do, but she isn’t angry and doesn’t feel driven by any emotions. She feeds one of her foster children and starts peeling potatoes to feed the other children. She calls out for Zelda’s help, but Zelda is gone, presumably to find her father. Marie thinks of Lulu’s late husband Henry, who put up with all Lulu’s infidelity and sons from different fathers out of love. Marie thinks she wouldn’t take her own life for Nector like Henry did for Lulu. Marie is struck by the part in Nector’s note in which he tells her that he is in love with Lulu.

Marie waxes her kitchen floor, proud of her cleanliness and order even through the chaos of her husband leaving her. She hears Nestor come back with Zelda. Marie folds Nector’s note back under the jar where Zelda found it, wanting Nestor to wonder if Marie had ever seen it.

At 15 years old, Albertine runs away from home and ends up in Fargo. She follows an Indigenous-looking man out of the bus station, only because she can’t think of anything else to do. On a strip of seedy bars, she spots him again. The man is aware that she is following him. A veteran and former prisoner of war, he is newly back in society after finally leaving his imprisonment and enduring psychological tests by the military. The man is Henry Lamartine Junior. When he finally approaches Albertine and they talk over drinks, they realize they know one another’s families, but not each other.

Henry brings Albertine to a motel room. He is much drunker than she is, and at first she tries to stay away from him. Reluctantly, they go to bed, him drunk and not a little ashamed and her scared of his ranting. He has sex with Albertine twice that night, and Albertine reacts with resignation to this exchange. In the morning, Albertine reaches for him and says his name. Henry reacts violently, scaring Albertine into a corner, certain he will beat her, but when he reaches her, she sees that he is crying.

Lyman Lamartine has a special talent for making money. By age 16, through his shrewd business acumen and work ethic, he owned a diner all on his own. It was eventually destroyed in a tornado, but the diner was a source of pride and earned him enough money to buy a red convertible with his brother Henry Junior–the first convertible on the reservation. They loved it dearly. One day, as they are driving around, they stop for a hitchhiker, an Indigenous American girl who needs to go back to her home in Alaska. The boys enjoy Alaska, so they stay a while. The girl, Suzy, shakes down her pinned-up hair for them, and they are awed by its length.

When the Lamartine brothers get back home at the end of summer, Henry receives his orders to report for military service. Three years later, Henry comes back traumatized by the war in Vietnam. While he was gone, Lyman took good care of the car, sprucing it up for his brother’s return. Henry’s behavior alarms Lyman: Henry is jumpy, mean, and one day even bites through his own lip without realizing it. The family discusses what they should do to help Henry. They worry that bringing him to a hospital would mean that white doctors would drug and institutionalize him, but their mother Lulu doesn’t want to bring him to Moses Pillager, the reservation doctor, because of their romantic past. Lyman decides to give Henry a purpose. Lyman bangs up the car and waits for Henry to notice its condition. Henry scolds Lyman for letting the car get so wretched, and Lyman pretends he doesn’t know how to make it better. Henry spends hours fixing up the car, and even smiles for a picture when he’s done refurbishing it.

Lyman and Henry take the car on a trip, just like the old days. While sitting together in the cold woods, Lyman realizes how chaotic Henry’s psyche is. Henry tells Lyman he knows Lyman wrecked the car on purpose so Henry would fix it, but Henry doesn’t want it anymore and tells Lyman it’s all his. Lyman argues, then they fight. A hard punch from Lyman makes Henry laugh, then Henry jumps into the nearby river. Lyman sees the river swiftly taking Henry away. He tries to follow Henry, but Henry is lost to the river.