by Nancy Morse
The woman standing beside him was smaller than she expected. The top of her head barely skimmed his shoulder. Her face was exquisite—fair-skinned, oval, delicate, with just the hint of cheekbone that added an almost primitive strength. Her eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. The hand on his arm was slender and pale. The hair that brushed her shoulders was a dark golden shade, lightened by the sun in places. Tawny. The color of the panther.
The hand Lorena offered was warm and smooth and betrayed none of the shock she felt when she realized the nature of the danger her son was in. The woman could only represent to him a painful reminder of all he had lost and might never have again.
“Won’t you come in?” She took that pale white hand in hers and guided Rennie inside, tossing her son a warning look as he moved past her through the door.
John performed the introductions and guided Rennie to the sofa.
“I’m so pleased to meet you, Mrs. Osceola,” she said. “I heard about you from Dr. Billie. Please excuse the dark glasses. I didn’t want to wear the bandages on my eyes today, so John said I could use his sunglasses.”
Lorena watched and listened. The woman’s voice was soft and refined, not the kind of voice that was heard in these parts. Her hands were smooth and unblemished and fidgeted nervously in her lap as she spoke, hands that had not known a day of hard labor in her life. She was dressed in jeans that fit her too perfectly to have been someone else’s, and then Lorena remembered something John had said a few days ago about stopping off at the Army Navy store in Fort Lauderdale. Interesting that he would know her size so well. She wore a white T-shirt with a denim shirt she recognized as John’s over it.
Lorena learned early in life not to trust outsiders, but she had also learned not to judge in haste, so with the flat inflection and measured tone of many English-speaking Seminoles, she said, “The glasses are a good idea. I used to be a nurse, but I’m also a woman.”
Rennie was glad that the woman understood why it had been important for her not to be all bandaged up and looking like the poor blind woman today. Lorena was, after all, John’s mother. She’d never met Craig’s mother. Divorced from Craig’s father, the woman lived on the Côte d’Azur with her young French lover and was the scandal of Palm Beach society. Being taken by a man to meet his mother was a brand-new experience, and Rennie was unusually conscious of herself.
A moment of silence passed in which Rennie sat helplessly in darkness and John and Lorena exchanged a worried look.
“I’ll bet you two are hungry,” said Lorena. “John, why don’t you and Rennie have a seat at the table and I’ll go get the food.”
Rennie slipped her hand into John’s familiar grip and followed him to the table, where he pulled a chair out for her to sit down.
“Your mother doesn’t like me,” she said.
He sat down next to her and said, amused, “Reading between the words again?”
“No. I can just tell.”
“She worries about me, that’s all.”
“I’ve heard mothers can be that way. But what does she have against me? How can I possibly hurt you?”
He cursed his unintentional remark. Was there nothing he could say that would not lead to questions he could not answer?
“It’s not you,” he replied truthfully. “It’s me.”
He was spared any further explanation by his mother’s reappearance. He took the platters of food from her, avoiding her eyes.
Rennie breathed in the fragrant aroma. “It smells wonderful.”
“That’s the black-eye pea bread,” said Lorena. “I learned to make it when I was a little girl. We used to canoe from our hammocks in the Everglades to downtown Fort Lauderdale where my uncles would trade at the Stranahan House, exchanging the hides and frogs’ legs they hunted for coffee and flour. I used to watch the women mix the dough. When my hands were big enough, my mother let me do it.”
“It looks like you’ve made enough for an army again,” John teased.
Lorena chuckled. “To this day I have trouble preparing it in small quantities because when I learned to make it from the village women, they used ten pounds of flour for one batch of dough. We had a big family to feed. With the grandparents and parents and siblings there was close to thirty of us.”
As she spoke, Lorena watched John place his hands over Rennie’s and guide them to platters of food, as easily and naturally as if he had done it a hundred times before. Her heart filled with pride at his caring nature. Her son was a good, honest man who had done one wrong thing in his life and was paying heavily for it.
It was good that he had found someone whose need was more imperative than his own, that he was able to see past his grief and sorrow to look after the white woman. But one look at his face and Lorena’s heart sank. His feelings shone in the barest uplifting of his full lips in a smile he wasn’t even aware of. They were written in the dark eyes that lingered overly long on the white woman’s face, before disappearing self-consciously beneath a fan of thick lashes. Lorena didn’t want her son to hurt anymore. A year and a half was enough. But was this the answer? She had hoped he would eventually find a woman to make him forget his vow of vengeance, not one like this who would only make him remember.
Who was this woman who John said had fallen from the sky? Beauty like hers was a danger for any man, and Lorena Osceola’s son was only human. Surely, that tawny hair had not failed to remind him of something else. He admitted that he didn’t know much about her, other than that she was wealthy, intelligent, inquisitive, genuine and scared.
“And you, Rennie? Do you come from a large family?”
John’s dark eyes darted to Rennie, to see her reaction to his mother’s question.
But she answered smoothly, without suspicion, “No, it’s very small. Just myself and my stepfather.”
“Does your stepfather know where you are?”
“I called him and left a message.” She popped a piece of bread into her mouth. “Mmm. This is good.”
John was right when he said there was no pretense about her. It was odd, thought Lorena, that a woman with her background would be so lacking in guile. Something must have happened to her, the kind of thing that forces all the pretense out of a person and leaves them indefensible against pretext.
“I would love to know how you make these,” said Rennie, munching on tiny dumplings. “They seem to be flavoured with all kinds of things. Is that pumpkin I taste? And tomato and corn?”
Lorena smiled to herself. The white woman had a curious nature and knew how to get to her without consciously doing it.
“You don’t have to eat that,” Lorena suggested when she saw Rennie lift a piece of fry bread to her mouth. “It’s fried in lard and you’re probably not used to it.”
“John has it at the cabin all the time,” said Rennie. “Now I know where he gets it. I’ll admit it took a little getting used to, but no more so than the mushy spaghetti I make.” She gave a little self-deprecating laugh. “We’ve both made some adjustments to our diets.”
Lorena noticed the unconscious familiarity in Rennie’s voice as she spoke about herself and John. It was almost as if they were a twosome and neither of them knew it.
“I think it’s wonderful that you keep to the old way of cooking,” said Rennie. “There’s precious little of old ways of anything in my family, such as it is.”
“No customs?” Lorena questioned. “No holiday rituals?”
“When my mother was alive, the holiday rituals were grand, ostentatious, impersonal displays of material goodness that included about two hundred of her closest friends. Not the kind of thing a kid looks forward to every year, if you know what I mean. That’s why I’m so fascinated by Seminole culture and its emphasis on the family.”
Lorena nodded knowingly. “I remember the lessons I learned as a child, huddled in a thatched hut under the medicine woman’s blanket and mosquito netting. Don’t lie. Don’t steal. Be kind. Be ready to help. And respect the family.”
Rennie knew now where John had acquired those lessons. He had not stolen from her, nor had he lied to her about her condition. Her survival was proof of his kindness and readiness to help, and his respect for his mother was evident. With the exception of the kind and honest father she had adored and lost, he was unlike any man Rennie had ever known.
She didn’t want to admit the vicarious thrill she got from hearing about the kind of family she’d never had. “It’s so fascinating. I’d love to know more. I’ve heard there’s a museum that was built with bingo dollars that houses artifacts and photographs, but my present condition makes it unlikely that I could enjoy things I can’t see.” She gave a little laugh, as if to say that if it weren’t so pitiful it might actually be funny. “So I have to rely on the kindness of strangers.”
“You and Blanche Dubois,” John muttered.
Rennie’s head turned in his direction. In addition to the hunger of last night, it seemed they had Tennessee Williams in common, as well. The unexpected reminder of last night sent an undisciplined thought racing through her mind and made her grateful for the dark glasses that hid her eyes, for, blind or not, if her eyes were exposed, surely John and Lorena would have been able to read her thoughts in them.
“Ah-Tha-Thi-Ki,” Lorena said, snapping the moment of silence that threatened to stretch too long. “That’s what the museum is called. But there’s not much there, anyway. The Seminoles are unique in what they haven’t kept. Our traditions are passed down from mother to child by word of mouth. Our art is represented in personal possessions, clothing primarily, and cooking utensils. But those material items are always buried with the dead. Collecting another’s possession is disrespectful and unlucky.”
“There doesn’t seem to be much documented history, either,” said Rennie.
Lorena nodded solemnly. “We have lost priceless knowledge of our people because in the past we failed to properly record our history so that we can always remember.”
“I would love to hear what you remember.”
Lorena sneaked a look at John, but his eyes were downcast and unreadable. “You have a healthy curiosity.”
John’s gaze lifted. “Rennie is an anthropologist.” He took a sip of sofkee, a drink made with wild oranges, licking the sweetness from his lips the way he’d been doing since he was a boy. “She’s studying the culture of our people. The myths and legends, to be exact. I thought maybe you could, you know, share with her some of the…stories.”
Now she knew the cause of the apprehension she’d heard in his voice over the telephone and knew he was in deeper trouble than she imagined.
Lorena rose and reached for one of the platters. “Why don’t I clear the table? Then we can talk.” She forced herself to smile, knowing that even though Rennie couldn’t see it, she might hear it reflected in her voice and not suspect her concern. “John, bring those dishes inside for me, would you?”
As soon as the kitchen door was closed behind them, Lorena grabbed her son by the arm and forced him to look at her. In a strained whisper, she repeated, “Legends?”
His face had always been like an open book; he’d been unable to hide what he was feeling. Among his features she saw now a shadow of guilt.
“Just some of the lesser ones,” he suggested. “The alligator who ate the little boy. The meaning of the Green Corn Dance.”
“Then why didn’t you tell them to her yourself?” She waved away his suggestion. “She can hear them anywhere. If she’s an anthropologist, she wants more than simple stories.”
“That’s why I brought her here. You’ll know which legends to tell her. Besides—” his face broke into a smile he reserved only for her “—who else can bring those legends to life the way you do? You did it for me when I was a boy, now I’m asking that you do it for her.” He paused, the smile fading. “Just don’t tell her…you know…that one.”
Lorena’s dark eyes flashed a warning, but her voice was soft, gentle, understanding. “Be careful.”
“I told her I’d help her.”
“Go keep your pretty friend company,” his mother told him, “while I go inside to get something.”
He’d only been gone a few minutes, but more and more his absences felt interminable to Rennie. Sitting alone at the table in a house filled with strange smells and customs made her realize all over again how little she knew about him. When he returned, she asked, “Do you see much of your brother?”
“Tommy’s cattle keep him busy.”
“What about cousins or uncles?”
“I have a great-uncle who grows citrus in Palm Beach County, an uncle who’s a computer programmer in Chicago, and cousins scattered all over the place. My people are adaptable and pragmatic. They’re as at home raising cattle, growing crops and living in cities as they are canoeing through the Everglades.”
“Our entire way of life is tied to the Everglades.” Lorena entered the room and placed on the table something wrapped in fading tissue paper. “My people have lived in the heart of the Everglades for generations. Some call the Everglades a swamp. We call it our mother.”
With a reverent touch she opened the fragile folds of paper to reveal a dress inside. “This is made in the traditional patchwork way.” Reaching across the table she took Rennie’s hands in hers and placed them on the aging fabric. “It was my great-grandmother’s. Here is the apron that falls from the shoulders. And the skirt, with hundreds of bits of cloth all stitched together, blue and red and white and yellow. I can remember my great-grandmother wearing this very dress, with more than twenty strands of beads around her neck and falling down her back. I can tell you stories, about this dress, about women like her, about what it was like in the old days.” She glanced up at her son, adding, “And maybe a legend or two.”
Rennie ran her hands respectfully over the supple fabric, imagining the bright colors and intricate pattern of the dress. “But I thought it was unlucky to keep things like this.”
“The dress was given by my great-grandmother when she was still alive to my grandmother. And by my grandmother while she was still alive to my mother. And by my mother while she was still alive to me. So the dress continues to belong to the present, not to the past. I wear it on special occasions, like weddings.”
The last time she wore the dress was more than five years ago at John’s wedding. She wondered sadly if she would ever see him that happy again.
“I have no daughters to give it to, and my sons have no wives, so the dress will go with me when I go.”
Lorena sat back and stared at the dress that brought back so many remembrances of good times and bad. She could see five-year-old Tom grasping on to the skirt, the fabric bunched in his small fist, two-year-old John standing off by himself, solitary and somber even at that young age. She had taught her boys to deal with the white world, but to live in the Indian world, and to know that there was good and bad in everything. They had grown into self-sufficient, strong men. But while her older son knew about the age-old battle of good and evil from the stories he’d been told, her younger son knew firsthand just how terrible it could be. It brought to mind the legend of the sun and the moon and of the young Miccosukee woman who, like John, learned about good and evil the hard way. Lorena drew in her breath and began to speak.
“There was, and is, and will be the Spirit Being. He is one yet many. He is visible and invisible. He is the physical and the immaterial. He is the good in the world…and the evil. There was a Miccosukee woman who was possessed of great charm and beauty, but she was more devoted to this than she was to the welfare of her sons. Upon seeing her, the sun was so struck by her incredible beauty that he forgot his wife, the moon, and invited the Miccosukee woman to sit beside him in the sky. The Miccosukee woman, being vain and ambitious, accepted. But when the Spirit Being learned that the sun had forsaken his wife and the mortal woman had dared to usurp the place of a goddess, he sentenced the sun to rule only by day, while the moon ruled by night. But the sentence for the Miccosukee woman was even
more severe. In condemnation of her vanity and ambition and her negligence of maternal duties, although she would remain the most beautiful of women, only half of her would be so. The other half would be so ugly that no one could look upon her. Every time the Miccosukee woman saw her beautiful side reflected in the stream, she knew just how good the world could be. But it was never so good, that she could not turn her face to the side and see the evil.”
She paused purposefully, letting silence fill the room.
“What a sad story.” Rennie’s voice broke the stillness.
“Not if you look at the lesson,” said Lorena. “The Miccosukee woman didn’t know what was important in her life, so she chose the wrong thing. That is not to say we must always suffer for our choices, for just as the Spirit Being made her ugly, He also left her beauty remaining. Often, when things seem at their worst, we need only turn our heads to see them at their best.”
Rennie was deeply touched by the story of the Miccosukee woman whose wrong choice had led, like her own wrong choices, to such misery. If Lorena had been looking, she would have seen the flush that rose to Rennie’s cheeks and the almost imperceptible quiver of her lip. But Lorena was looking directly at her son as she spoke.
Rennie cleared her throat and said, “There seems to be a universal theme of good and evil running through the Seminole legends I’ve heard. What can you tell me about a legend centering around a panther?”
Lorena stared dumbfounded, not knowing what to say.
John’s face paled, and he sat there in stunned silence when he realized, at the same time as his mother did, that Rennie already knew of the existence of the panther legend.
“Remember that old Seminole man I told you about?” Rennie said to John. “The night janitor?” she prompted, when the only response she received from him was silence. “Just this morning, I told you—”
“I remember.” His voice was strained and tense.
