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Tookie’s job, which she also loves, is at Birchbark Books, a real-life independent bookstore that author Erdrich (who is a member of the Chippewa tribe) owns in Minneapolis. Pollux and Tookie are floored but instantly in love. Hetta and Tookie don’t get along and haven’t spoken in months when the girl shows up one day with a newborn baby, Jarvis. There is a fly in the ointment (and the exceedingly well-read Tookie will explain the origin of that phrase): Pollux’s niece, Hetta, whom they’ve adopted but don’t see much now that she’s grown. He’s left the police force to study and perform traditional Indigenous ceremonies, and that pursuit grounds both of them. She and Pollux are soul mates, their loving, laughter-filled marriage one of the great delights of this book. Taking the bookstore job and accepting the proposal let Tookie turn her life around. After her prison stint, she runs into him in an outdoor supply store - and he immediately proposes marriage. Pollux, a towering Potawatomi man, was already a longtime friend when he gently handcuffed her in a diner. The other gift is the man who arrested her. When she’s released, Jackie gets her a job in the bookstore she manages. A former teacher, Jackie, who always saw a spark in the neglected, tough child, starts sending her books, and she becomes obsessed with reading. Tookie gains two gifts from that prison time, though.
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