The Past Is Never

by Tiffany Quay Tyson

  I couldn’t picture Cheryl paddling the rivers. “How can you afford this?”

  Willet grinned and Audie said, “It’s been a good year.”

  I didn’t understand how Willet could be doing so well. We’d been in Florida for six months. Already he was permanently tan and the mosquitoes didn’t feast on him the way they feasted on me.

  “Take it out whenever you want, Bert,” Willet said. “Pay some mind to the weather and be careful, but she’s all yours.”

  With my own kayak, I wouldn’t need help from Willet or Iggy or anyone to get on the water. It was one more thing I could do all by myself.

  “I thought you’d like it,” Willet said.

  “I do,” I told him. “I love it.”

  I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, but I wanted more. I wanted my brother back. I missed how we used to be. I missed the wild days when Willet and I would roam the woods and swim in the quarry without any sense of time or obligation, back before both turned sinister. Everything was different now.

  Granny Clem sent me a package in the mail. I opened the box late at night, when Willet was on the water and the apartment was quiet. It was a packet of dried herbs for tea—nothing medicinal, just a blend I liked. She included a salve for my mosquito bites and a tiny hourglass charm. I hadn’t spoken with Granny Clem since that rainy day nearly four months earlier, but she’d obviously stayed in touch with Willet. I made myself a cup of tea with the herbs and opened the envelope she’d enclosed with the gifts.

  Dear Bert,

  I know you are angry with me and I understand. It is a hard thing to want answers and not get them. I want you to know I am not angry with you. You asked me why I came for you when you were fifteen. This is why: I looked at you and I saw myself. When I was your age, my life was hard. You get used to hardship when you don’t know anything else. I didn’t want you to get used to it. After your sister and your father disappeared, I wanted you to know something other than sadness and loss. I came for you because I thought I could help you escape from grief.

  I was wrong.

  One person cannot save another person from grieving. It was wrong for me to try. Time is the only thing that makes grief bearable, not because it makes you forget but because you learn to live with your loss. It becomes a part of you. The hourglass charm is filled with wildflower seeds rather than sand. If you scattered them in a patch of dirt, they would grow. Something from nothing.

  When I was young, I wanted to travel and see the world. You’ve already traveled farther than I ever could. But I have seen an awful lot of the world from this little spot in White Forest. Everything the world has to offer is here.

  I’m not sorry I came for you. Most of the young women I deal with are weak and desperate. You have never been weak or desperate. Neither have I. Not even when my parents died. Not even when I was giving birth. Not even when I believed I’d lost everything. Not even when I pulled you into the world.

  We are more alike than we have any right to be, Bert.

  Happy birthday. I love you.

  Clementine

  P.S. The story of your father’s childhood isn’t mine to tell.

  I didn’t call Granny Clem or write her back right away, but I kept the folded letter with me nearly all the time. I put it in my pocket each morning alongside the quarry rock and the anhinga carving and the photo of Daddy and Uncle Chester and the girl. I kept everything in a sealed plastic bag so I wouldn’t destroy it when I went out on the water. Willet never asked about any of it. He’d turned over the clues, just as he’d turned over the keys to his truck. Somehow Willet had managed to move on with his life, but I couldn’t. Not yet.

  I felt like the answers were right in front of me, like I was staring into a blind spot. If I could soften my gaze or shift my vision, the shadows and ghosts would come together as something solid and true. The mysteries of the Everglades were no easier to solve than the mysteries of the quarry and the haunted woods. The trees had shifted from oak and pecan and water ash to mangrove and cypress and gumbo-limbo, but the shadows were the same. The creature from my childhood, any creature, could hide in these trees just as easily as it hid in the trees back home.

  Over the next few months I spent every clear morning on the water in my kayak. I explored islands and inlets and bays. Iggy taught me how to read a map and a compass. He taught me how to read the sky. I paddled farther from shore, leaving behind the rivers and venturing fully into the wider waters of the Gulf. I imagined Daddy taking the same routes in the rowing skiff he bought from the old man in Chokoloskee. My charm bracelet clacked against my paddle and I began to feel a new strength in my shoulders. The water calmed my mind. I remembered how comfortable Pansy had been on the water, how she swam and floated without fear. I never felt so brave about swimming. I needed the security of my kayak, something to separate me from the swirling, menacing water, but I understood, finally, how Pansy must have felt when we left her in the quarry. I understood why she wouldn’t give up such a peaceful feeling to tromp the woods and search for berries. We were wrong to leave her, and she was right to stay. I wished I could tell her so.

  Whenever I got off the water, I spent a few hours with Iggy. He taught me how to paddle more efficiently and how to seek shelter in a storm. “Soon,” he said, “I’ll have you leading tourists through the tunnels.”

  It sounded better than selling cheap souvenirs to sunburnt families, which was the only other job I seemed qualified to land. It was clear that we weren’t going back to White Forest anytime soon, though I supposed I could go on my own. I no longer felt the strong pull to go home. I’d begun to feel as if I had no place of my own in the world. I had no idea what I was supposed to do with my life. I couldn’t picture going back and working with Granny Clem. Cheryl said she’d let me know about any openings at the grocery store, but I didn’t foresee much joy in the prospect of ringing up fish dip and live bait. Willet told me not to worry about working. He made enough money for both of us, but I knew I couldn’t rely on him forever. I was old enough to earn my own way. Iggy employed a few seasonal tour guides, mostly students taking time off from studying botany or marine biology. I didn’t have their expertise, but Iggy said he could teach me enough to keep the tourists satisfied.

  “Most of them want wild stories more than anything,” Iggy said. “I can fill your head with wild stories.”

  Iggy told me about the Calusa and Seminole Indians who’d settled the area. He said he was part Seminole on his maternal grandmother’s side. “I don’t claim it official, though. I don’t like being pinned to one group or another. If you claim it, you gotta live by their ways.” I understood.

  Iggy told me about the sugar baron from Arkansas who’d been shot to death in the middle of town. The man bragged he’d killed fifty men and the Queen of the Outlaws. The residents of the Everglades believed in second chances. They believed a man with a bad past should have a chance to start new, but this man wasn’t interested in starting new. He stole their land and one of their wives. “He needed killing,” Iggy said. “When a man needs killing that bad, you can’t sit around and wait for the law to handle it.”

  Iggy taught me to recognize the poisonous snakes and the harmless ones. He taught me the difference between alligators and crocodiles. He showed me how to pull meat from the claws of the stone crab without shredding it. He gave me advice about navigating the maze of islands and mangrove tunnels. He taught me to pay heed to the tides and the wind. Sometimes I got lost, but I always found my way back.

  “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” Fern asked him, when Earl showed up with Pansy at her house late the next day. Fern bathed Pansy and made her a sandwich, but she wouldn’t eat. Earl sat at the kitchen table, his head in his hands. He felt like a man waking up from a long, deep sleep.

  “She’s sick,” Fern said. “Feverish.”

  Fern tucked the girl into her own bed with one of the rag dolls from White Forest. The doll contained a pouch of dried lavender, she told Earl. A soothing scent. At i
ts heart was an empty cradle, no bigger than her pinkie toe, carved from a bit of soft gray driftwood.

  “They’ll be searching for you,” she said. “For both of you.”

  “I can’t send her back there.” He told Fern how he’d found her floating in the quarry.

  Fern was incensed. “What kind of mother allows such a thing?”

  “She doesn’t understand,” he said of Loretta. “She doesn’t have the same history we do.”

  Fern told him there could be no excuse for such carelessness. “You understand you can never go back,” she said. “Not for any reason.”

  He thought about the birth certificate he’d taken from Clementine so long ago. He’d known he would need it someday. He could become someone new.

  “Can you leave your wife?” Fern asked. “Can you leave your children? Can you leave Clementine and Chester? Forever?”

  He swore he could. It was a terrible thing they were planning, but no more terrible than the things done to them.

  They sat up with her for three days, pressing cool cloths to her forehead and replacing the bedding when her fever broke. Fern sent her brother to Naples to purchase clothes for the girl. He came back with T-shirts and cotton shorts and a pair of plastic sandals.

  He called Chester, who told him the police were searching for him. He knew Chester would never betray him, but he didn’t admit to having Pansy. He said he’d be gone for a while and he didn’t want anyone coming after him. Chester said he understood. Pansy slept while he and Fern talked about what to do next. Earl said they had to tell the child something to explain why she’d been uprooted from her home.

  “We’ll tell her there was an accident,” Fern said. “She’s young. Her memories will fade.”

  Earl thought back to the years before his mother died, when he was as young as Pansy. His memories of those years were fragmented and fuzzy, but not gone. Fern knew what he was thinking. “Clementine always said people believe what you tell them to believe,” Fern said. “Your daughter will believe what you tell her.”

  On the fourth day, Pansy woke with an appetite and Fern brought her a bowl of barely warm broth and a sleeve of saltine crackers. Fern looked happy. He couldn’t take Pansy back now. Too much time had passed and the detectives were searching for him and his wife would never forgive him, just as he couldn’t forgive her for letting his children swim in the quarry and play in the woods. Things had gone too far. He couldn’t unspool the mess he’d made. And as he watched Fern care for Pansy, he believed he’d done the right thing. His sister needed a child to love.

  SIXTEEN

  IT WAS LATE JULY when I pulled the kayak onto an island on the south edge of Chokoloskee Bay. We’d been in the Everglades for nearly seven months and the one thing I’d come to expect were the unpredictable storms that seemed to churn up out of nothing and pass just as quickly.

  That morning, wind swept over the water in a sudden gust. The sky turned from bright blue to slate gray. Thunder rumbled. Rain blew in from the Atlantic. I dragged the kayak to a high spot on the sandbar. The morning had been a scorcher and I’d been paddling for hours. I welcomed a bit of cooling rain. From the looks of the sky, I figured it would be at least an hour before I could head back. The island where I landed was an old Calusa shell mound and I thought I heard children laughing as I pushed past the rim of mangroves, but it was only birds calling or maybe the ghosts of an ancient family.

  Rain came down dark and sideways. At the island’s high point, I found a small fisher’s cabin on concrete blocks. Even in town people rarely locked their doors and I wasn’t surprised to find the cabin open. I ducked inside. A jar of peanut butter and a sleeve of unopened crackers sat on the counter. A half dozen cans of potted meat and generic label soup were stacked next to an aluminum pot and a pile of newspapers. A camp stove and a container of propane sat beside a small sink. I found a stash of paper towels, a roll of plastic wrap, and a tube of tinfoil. Three fishing poles and a good-size net leaned against one wall. A tackle box was tucked behind a rolled sleeping bag. I wondered how often someone slept in the small cabin and why. Did they come here to escape something or because they wanted to be alone? Iggy had told me about the hermits who lived on some of these islands, but I could tell no one lived in that cabin year-round. It smelled musty and stale. The countertops were furred over with a thin layer of dust. I lit one of the propane lanterns, figuring no one would mind if I used a bit of fuel. I pulled a newspaper from a stack near the sink and settled into one of the folding chairs. The Gulf Breeze published tide tables and big fish stories alongside classifieds for swap meets and boat sales. It wasn’t exactly riveting reading, but it was all I had.

  I flipped through the February edition from 1980 and wondered why someone would keep a newspaper for more than a year. Most of the stories were about the price of stone crabs and the high school baseball season. But on the fourth page, below the fold, I found this article:

  Fisherman Reports Close Encounter with Skunk Ape

  by Letitia Duplass, staff reporter

  Grandin Bell was setting crab traps near Dead Man’s Key just after midnight when he spotted unusual movement among the mangroves.

  “I heard something strange,” Bell said. “My first thought was a big alligator, but then I saw yellow glowing eyes coming from a spot about eight feet high. It was bigger than any man or bear I’ve ever seen and the smell would just about knock you out.”

  Bell said a smell “like rotting flesh” filled the air in the moments before he spotted the creature, which he described as “a great ape in need of a haircut.”

  Reported sightings of the large apelike creature date back more than a hundred years. More common are reports of the terrible smell associated with the creature. Known as the Southern Bigfoot, the Swamp Ape, the Skunk Monkey, and various other names, the Skunk Ape is part of the folklore of the Florida Everglades and widely considered a myth.

  J. L. Stinson, wildlife biologist from the University of Florida, says Bell may have seen a large black bear. Stinson says the strong smell reported by Bell could be attributed to a number of things, including a dead animal along the banks of the river.

  Bell disputes Stinson’s assertion that the Skunk Ape is a myth. “I know what I saw and I won’t rest until I prove it,” he said. Bell has been making nightly excursions into the swamp to hunt for the Skunk Ape. “I don’t intend to harm him,” Bell said. “I’m just looking for proof.”

  Bell takes out tours most nights, weather permitting. The cost is 50 dollars per passenger. He says the money he collects is used to offset his cost for fuel and to invest in night vision goggles and photography equipment.

  Interested persons should meet Bell at sunset at the northeast launch off Sweet Nectar Road. He accepts passengers on a first come, first-served basis.

  The man in the picture wore a full beard and his hair was dark black. He smiled. He was heavier than I remembered or his beard made his face seem fuller, but I knew him. I’d know him anywhere. The man who called himself Grandin Bell was my father.

  I pressed my face close to the newsprint photo and then held it at arm’s length. I ran my fingers over it, softly, so as not to smudge the ink. I imagined I could feel the contours of his cheekbones. The article and photo were dated four months before we got the call about Daddy’s body. The detective told us Daddy’s teeth were rotted and his body was destroyed by alcohol and years of living on the streets, but in this photo Daddy looked healthy and strong. His teeth were straight and white. I worked to make sense of things, but I kept coming back to the most sensible idea: we’d buried some stranger’s rotting corpse. The stench at the funeral was the stench of deception, the stench of lies and secrets left too long to fester. But why? I wanted to launch the kayak in the middle of the storm to find Willet, but rain pounded against the roof of the cabin and wind wailed through the trees. Getting on the water would be suicide. I waited.

  I laid the contents of my plastic bag alongside the article: the quarry rock
, Granny Clem’s letter, the anhinga carving, and the photo of Daddy as a teenager. I compared the face from the photo to the face of the man in the newspaper. You had to want to see the resemblance, but I saw it. The smile, the eyes, the bare tilt of the head; there it was. There he was.

  “Daddy,” I said.

  I put my hand on the quarry rock. It was warm and growing warmer. The wind, the rain, the choppy waters beneath my kayak had delivered me to the cabin and to the newspaper as surely as the oppressive heat had delivered us to the quarry on the day Pansy disappeared. Willet said monsters weren’t real, but I knew better. Superstition was my birthright. Ignoring the signs never led me any closer to the truth. No matter what Willet said, the creature from the woods was real, the quarry was cursed, the ghosts took my breath away, and no amount of explaining made any of it less terrifying. But even though it scared me, I closed my eyes and begged for more.

  In August it would be five years since Pansy disappeared, even longer since Daddy left us. Mama had tried to wait and hope and pray for them to come back to her, but waiting and hoping and praying didn’t do a damn bit of good. She’d died with nothing. Willet played amateur detective by gathering bits of evidence and showing it to strangers. His way got us no closer to the truth. Granny Clem distracted us with lies and secrets. Uncle Chester hid away in his fetid trailer like a hermit without an island. Bubba, poor Bubba who wandered into our family tragedy, could only point at the sky and blame others. And I kept right on denying I believed in anything unbelievable. All of us had spent years averting our gaze from any hint of the ugly truth, but I was done looking away.

  I launched the kayak as soon as the rain slowed to a drizzle. Waves slopped over the side of the boat, soaking my legs and my seat. My charm bracelet clacked against my paddle. I’d folded the newspaper article in the plastic bag where I kept my growing collection of clues.