The Liberation of Ravenna Morton

by Suzanne Jenkins

  “Daddy, did you ask George?” Ozzy asked. “Did he take her away himself? Or was the new family waiting?”

  “No, I didn’t think of it,” Mike answered. “I just wanted to find out who had the baby.”

  Walter got up abruptly, slamming the chair under the table. “Excuse me,” he said, leaving the house.

  The family sat in silence.

  Chapter 10

  After Wiley was out of sight the day of the first visit, Ravenna and Esme went back into the cabin. The sun was under cloud cover, and the temperature was falling again. Ravenna had hoped the warm afternoon was more than a tease, but it was clear that Indian summer was over for the year. Esme stood at the doorway while Ravenna went around the cabin, closing the windows she’d opened when the temperature rose to almost seventy. Esme watched her as she bent over to stick more split logs into the firebox under the cookstove. She could smell scents that were already becoming familiar: the vanilla of the sweet grass; wood smoke; sage, rosemary and basil drying; tea brewing. Ravenna filled the teapot from a large bucket of water she’d pumped earlier.

  “We have city water, but I like the taste of the well water, and it makes the best tea,” she said. The clouds grew thicker and the cabin darker. Ravenna lit an oil lamp hanging on the wall near the table and opened the door to the firebox.

  “A storm is heading our way,” she said absently.

  Deep in thought, Ravenna didn’t mean to appear as if she was ignoring Esme. She hoped to explain who she really was to the young woman. It was so easy to become who others thought you should be. She hid an aspect of her being from the family because it wasn’t okay for a mother and a lover to have certain qualities. Ravenna was a loner who gave of herself because she loved her family. But they really didn’t know her.

  Esme sensed Ravenna was distracted and didn’t take it personally, imagining that she was going through something similar to what Esme was experiencing—grief at its most poignant.

  “So what did you think of Wiley?” Ravenna asked.

  Esme was speechless for a moment, not expecting that question. “Ah, he’s very nice! It was great that he hung out with us today,” she answered.

  Ravenna looked at her out of the corner of her eye. “He’s considered a real catch in these parts,” she said softly. But she was grinning.

  Esme took a deep breath. Whatever sadness she observed a few minutes ago seemed to have passed.

  “You’re very attractive, you know. He has an eye for a pretty girl, too. You’ll do smart to stay in touch with him.”

  Esme tried not to gasp; Ravenna was being her grandmother already.

  “I’ll make the tea, eh?” Ravenna said, pointing to the chair Esme was standing behind. “Sit, sit.”

  Suddenly, Esme was tired. She stifled a yawn and pulled the chair out. The dark sky and the yellow light cast by the oil light inside the cabin made her think of a nice midday nap.

  “My bones are telling me rain is on its way, and the sky is concurring,” Ravenna said with a chuckle. The wind started to whip up, and Esme could see raindrops skidding on the window glass. “I hope Wiley is close to home by now.”

  “Does he live in town?” Esme asked.

  “Yes. Across the river from the bait shop,” Ravenna answered.

  When the teakettle whistled, she poured boiling water over the teabags. Hot milk and sugar came next. Esme remembered her grandmother heating milk up in a small copper-bottomed pan before she went to bed every night. It was supposed to help bring sleep. The women sat together and sipped tea in silence. Esme was struggling not to examine Ravenna’s face too closely. But she was amazed at their similarities. She decided Maria had looked almost more Native than Greek. She wanted to know about the family.

  “Where do we begin?” Esme asked.

  “We already did,” Ravenna replied, smiling. “We’re getting to know each other right now. I hope you’ll tell me all about you, and I’ll tell you what I think might help you understand me better.”

  “I don’t really have anything to tell,” Esme said. “I’ve lived with my parents all my life and never considered doing anything else until April called my mother. I’ve never even been on a trip unless it was to Greece.”

  “Children, especially girl children, should live with their parents until they get married,” Ravenna said. Looking carefully at Esme, she added, “My daughter Regina is a lesbian. We support her one hundred percent. But even here, in what they call a gay-tolerant community—don’t you hate that expression? It’s supposed to sound so positive, but it really isn’t—even here there are old-timers who are very closed minded.”

  “Yes, well, I’m from New York. I’d be very lonely if I started judging people on their lifestyles,” Esme said.

  “Do you have a boyfriend?” Ravenna asked. She pronounced it buoy freend.

  Esme smiled. “No, no boyfriend. I had one, but he got tired of me being sad about my mother,” she answered.

  “Good riddance!” Ravenna said. “Can I ask if you go to church? Not that it will make a difference to me. Mike goes to the Episcopal Church in town. Ozzy and his family, April and Walter go with him. I’ve never been. I have a place here by the river that feels very spiritual to me.”

  “I’d love to see it,” Esme said. “I went to the orthodox church with my parents every Sunday because that’s what we did as a family. But I think I might be having my own personal spiritual journey.”

  Ravenna was contemplating something; Esme could see it as clear as if she’d announced it to her.

  “You definitely are,” Ravenna said. “What was your childhood like? Can I ask that without seeming too nosey?”

  “Yes, you can ask me anything you’d like,” Esme answered. “I guess you can say my childhood was about as perfect as they come. Maybe too perfect. My parents were almost playing roles. Now I understand more about it because of my mother. My mother never felt comfortable in her own skin; it was a deathbed admission.” Esme made a decision to tell Ravenna everything Maria had said. About not knowing where her own infant came from when she saw her at birth.

  “She was brusque with April because she didn’t want to give in to her own curiosity. But it was really a blessing April called, because my mother could go to her grave with an answer, finally. She didn’t need to know the details. She just needed to know that her struggles were justified.”

  They spoke more about what Maria was like, the kind of mother she’d been—very much like Ravenna, it turned out—and what brought her joy. The more Esme spoke of her, the more relaxed and peaceful Ravenna seemed.

  “I’ve talked enough,” Esme said. “What was your childhood like?”

  Ravenna was silent again. When she finally spoke, her eyes were glistening, as though pondering what she would tell was enough to make her sad.

  “When I was a little girl, I spent most summer days in the woods surrounding my cabin here on the banks of the Kalamazoo River. I’d pick up anything off the forest floor that spoke to me of the life of the little creatures who live there. I shared my room with eight brothers and sisters, but we each had a small shelf to keep treasures and belongings we wanted no one else to touch. On my shelf, I had several nests I’d found on the ground, and lots of bird eggs and feathers. I had arrowheads of my ancestors and other primitive tools formed of rock. I had an empty wasp nest and a small honeycomb, and pressed flowers and leaves and pinecones of every variety.

  “One day, I came across a grouping of bird feathers. It was obvious a terrible fate had ended the life of the bird, but I couldn’t find any other evidence of its existence; no feet or beak or entrails littered the ground around it. It was as though something had intercepted it in midair, like a hawk looking for a meal. This clump of feathers alone had escaped and fell from his beak to the ground for me to find. I walked out of the darkness of the forest into the sunlight to examine the feathers, hoping to identify the bird.

  “It appeared to be from a much bigger bird than I originally thought. I
spread the feathers out on a rock, leaving their point of attachment intact. And then it hit me that what I was looking at was part of a wing of an eagle! I ran to our cabin to show my mother, who was not impressed.

  “‘Eagles molt,’ she said, dismissing me. I frowned; this looked like too big of a piece of wing to be simply a molt. Plus it had a small fleshy area, with a spot of blood.

  “You don’t think it could be part of a wing?” I asked.

  She looked at me with exasperation, but she did come over and gently take the specimen from me to examine.

  “‘Maybe,’ she answered. She pointed to the angle of the feathers and to the larger feather on the end. ‘Look; this here is broken.’ She handed the wing back to me.

  “‘What does that mean? Did it get in a fight?’ I asked. My mother laughed.

  “‘No, I doubt it. No other bird is stupid enough to attack an eagle,’ she said, dismissing me. ‘He probably injured it in an accident. Get back to work now, Ravenna.’ I looked at the broken feather at the end of the wing piece. I hoped the bird was still alive. I made it my duty to pray to the earth that the eagle would flourish, that its broken wing wouldn’t hamper its flight in any way. I put the feathers on my treasure shelf. It wasn’t illegal to keep eagle feathers yet.

  “A few weeks later, I was standing at the edge of the fishing cove with my brother John, our lines dangling in the water as we fished for our dinner. Suddenly, John called out, pointing to the sky.

  “‘Look! A lopsided eagle,’ he shouted. I looked up, and soaring a hundred feet above us, as graceful as could be, was the owner of my feathers. I handed my pole off to John.

  “‘I need to see Mama,’ I said, running to the cabin. She was standing over the stove, boiling laundry, when I burst through the door.

  “Nimaamaa! I think the eagle that belongs to my wing is flying above the fishing hole,” I announced.

  She frowned at me, but she did follow me out of the cabin. We went to the bank and looked up, and sure enough, there was the eagle swooping in elegant circles.

  “‘You might be right,’ she answered. ‘If that’s the one, he’s a strong’un.’ She grasped my shoulder with her hand. My mother was not demonstrative, and it took me by surprise. I was used to violence from her, and I thought she might be preparing to shake me because I’d stopped fishing.

  “‘We’re like the eagles,’ she said, getting right up in my face. I looked at her closely; her voice sounded sad. ‘Our parts can be ripped away, but it won’t kill us.’

  Nodding at me, she walked back to the cabin. I returned to the fishing hole and took my pole back from John. I wondered if my mother was referring to my father’s death. She’d never cried or carried on in front of us children.

  “The next week, we were no longer able to fish without chipping through the ice that had formed on the surface of the river. We fished from the small cove protected from the wind. The older children took turns watching the lines and baiting hooks. If we were having a good fishing day, we could catch enough fresh fish for several dinners. We fished before we walked to the school bus in the early morning. When it was my turn, I went out in the early morning before sunrise. It was freezing, so I had on my waders and warm mittens and a hat. I lit a torch from the cookstove and let myself quietly out of the cabin. As soon as I reached the cove, something prompted me to look up at the river by the light of my torch, and that’s when I saw him. I gasped and threw the torch without thinking. Running back to the house, I yelled for my mother, forgetting I might wake up the younger children. She’d heard my panic-stricken voice and was pulling a woolen shawl around her shoulders and walking toward me by the time I reached the cabin. She grabbed me by my shoulders.

  “‘What is it, Ravenna? Stop, tell me what’s wrong,’ she said sternly.

  “‘The eagle, Nimaamaa, it’s the eagle whose wing I found,’ I cried. I had her by the hand and was pulling her toward the cove. Although I’d thrown my torch down, the sun was coming up now and cast just enough light for us to see the granite boulder near our bank of the Kalamazoo. She saw right away. She didn’t stop, either, but went right into the frigid water, with her bare legs and leather slippers, and waded toward the rock. I stayed on the bank, crying. I watched as she gently bent over to pick the dead eagle up. She cradled him in her arms, her shawl around his body, too.

  “‘Oh, poor bird,’ she said as she climbed out of the water. ‘He must have been fishing and miscalculated the distance from the rock. It looks like his neck is broken.’

  “She showed me the body, as if she was holding a newborn in her arms. Seeing the majestic bird so vulnerable, dead in my mother’s arms, had a profound effect on me. I think it might have triggered a depression that I was unable to overcome. The idea that my mother had compared our people to the eagle, and then have it crash and break its neck traumatized me. It was a suitable metaphor.

  “‘What about our prayers to the earth?’ I said.

  “My mother snickered. ‘What about prayers?’ she said. ‘They mean nothing. It’s a ploy to bring yourself peace when you can’t do anything else.’

  “‘Her words stayed with me and influenced me for years. The tragedy of my father’s death, my mother’s treatment of me, the loss of my baby, the poverty of our lives seemed to conceal anything good there might have been. I became a sarcastic pessimist. That is, until Mike came back into my life twenty years later.” Ravenna stopped talking.

  Esme was appalled. What kind of mother would destroy the little faith her child had after losing her father? The hints Ravenna had made regarding the abuse she experienced at the hands of Peggy hadn’t registered fully with Esme. Ravenna was gazing out a window that faced the back of the cabin, toward the water. Her eyes were bright. Esme wondered if she’d ever told that story before.

  “The granite boulder is right there.” She pointed, and Esme got up to look. She’d seen the boulder in the water that morning. “I still have the eagle skeleton.”

  Esme turned around and looked at her. “You do?”

  Ravenna nodded her head and got up from the table. “I’ll get it.”

  Esme felt sick. She wanted to leave the cabin and go back to White Plains. The sad recitation she’d just heard had to be the tip of the iceberg of pain and devastation she was going to learn. She didn’t know if she was up to it.

  A feeling moved through her; it was a chance to experience reality, her own truth, unlike anything her mother ever had. It was something Maria had longed for. The knowledge of oneself, to understand where it was she had evolved from, the circumstances that led to this moment in time. If she allowed it, it might offer her more life than her own mother ever had. Or she could run from it, feign lack of interest or sudden illness, anything not to have to traverse the scary unknown. What would her mother have done? She’d asked herself that question just as Ravenna returned with a flat wooden box. She placed it carefully on the tabletop and waited for Esme to walk over from the window.

  Ravenna stood aside for Esme to see. At first glance, she thought she was looking at a pile of bones. But as she focused, she could see it was a perfectly arranged eagle skeleton with the bones laid out in precision, the wings in a position of flight. The way she’d placed the wings looked like he was flying high above the observer. The keratin beak and talons were intact. Seeing the regal bird’s delicate bones moved Esme.

  “I’d have thought his beak would be gone,” she said softly, pointing to the skull.

  Ravenna didn’t reply. She was thinking back to the day she’d discovered the dead eagle, the impact its death had on her life.

  “I don’t believe that the eagle dying served any real purpose,” Ravenna said. “It’s cliché now; you read it all the time. This tragedy happened for a reason. Maybe it did happen for a reason, but the reason is always bad. What was the purpose of Maria dying before she knew the truth? There can be no reason. The Christian notion is that she suffered because of a childish sexual encounter between her parents. That’s a lie.
It’s something made up to make people feel guilty the rest of their lives.”

  Ravenna plunked down in a chair. For the first time since Esme arrived that morning, Ravenna looked her age.

  “You’re grieving,” Esme said softly. “I’m so sorry you had to go through losing a child.”

  “I lost her twice; that’s what’s so bad. She was taken from me right away. The cord was still dangling out of my body when Peggy whisked her away. I’ve often felt it gave her pleasure to hurt me by taking my baby. She didn’t deny it either,” Ravenna said. “I remember going to the outhouse after the birth and looking over to the boulder. The same one the eagle dived into and broke his neck on. It’s granite, you know, left behind by a glacier that moved through here fifteen thousand years ago, carving out the Great Lakes. I walked over to the bank and looked at the boulder. I could’ve killed myself right then.”

  Esme didn’t know what to say. There was nothing she could say. Ravenna was in deep pain, and all the regrets she had, the shame and guilt, were rising to the surface.

  “Please don’t tell my family,” Ravenna said. “I’ve never mentioned it to a soul.” A crack of thunder struck, and both women jumped, grabbing each other’s shoulders, helping Ravenna to forget her pain for a moment. They laughed.

  “Miss Morton, thank you for your honesty,” Esme said, at a loss for words, but needing to acknowledge that something intimate had just taken place between them.

  “Please, call me Nicky, like my grandchildren do. It’s short for Nokomis,” Ravenna said. “Ojibwa for grandmother. What did you call Gus’s wife. Penny was her name, correct?”

  “Yes, Penny was Gus’s wife. I called them Yiayia and Papou,” Esme said.

  “Ugh, such unflattering names!” Ravenna said.

  Esme laughed but felt a little defensive. She’d loved her grandparents, and they loved her unconditionally. They were just names. It meant nothing to her now because her own children, if she ever had any, wouldn’t have Maria to call grandmother. Sad thoughts brought Esme back down to earth. She had her own sadness to contend with.