The Day the Falls Stood Still

by Cathy Marie Buchanan

  “Was she disfigured?” Father asks. Mother looks up, waiting.

  “Her dress was torn,” I say.

  She stands. “I want to see her.”

  “She’s at Morse and Son. They’ll bring her here once she’s prepared,” I say. “It’s what they do with the bodies from the river. I’m supposed to bring a dress.”

  Mother collapses back into her chair, and I wonder if it was a mistake, letting someone other than her tend to Isabel. Father goes to her and wraps his arms around her head, cradling it against his waist. I kneel at her feet, my cheek on her knees. Her fingers are in my hair, comforting, soothing both of us. The awfulness of it is as much as I can bear, another ounce and I think I should be crushed, yet I know it is worse for Mother.

  In the doorway of Isabel’s bedroom, Mother stumbles, and I grip her forearm and the sobbing begins anew. We cling to each other a long while, until I say, “They’re waiting for the dress.”

  I have no idea what is usual, but it seems right that Isabel should be properly clothed. I select a pale blue gown with a fleur-de-lis motif, high collar, and gathered skirt, as well as undergarments and stockings. From the tin where she kept her hairpins, ribbons, and combs, I lift a length of velvet of the same blue as the dress. I hold up each selection and wait for Mother to nod, but she only shrugs and lifts her palms. “You decide,” she says.

  The three of us drive to Morse and Son, Father thumping his fists against the steering wheel several times as we go. Because Mother has chucked her hat to her feet and clawed at her hair and given in to reckless weeping by the time we arrive, Father stays put with her in the Cadillac, behind a black carriage with glass windows and velvet drapery, and a pair of horses with black plumes on their heads. All the way here I had been calming myself with assurances of Mr. Morse having the grace to conceal the roundness of Isabel’s belly. Still, when Father says, “You okay going in on your own, Bess?” I am relieved.

  A bell tinkles as I step through the vestibule into a parlor like any other, except that the air is heavily perfumed. I hear muffled footsteps coming up carpeted stairs, and a moment later Mr. Morse is dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief and looking more ordinary than I had expected an undertaker would. I suppose Isabel is in the basement, with the formaldehyde and tubes. I expect it is where he works, in a smock, with the black suit he is wearing underneath, an ear cocked to the bell. He takes my hand in one of his and places the other on top. His palms are damp but not clammy, as though they have been freshly washed. “My deepest sympathies,” he says.

  As I hand over the package of Isabel’s things, I catch myself sizing him up, the way Mother would. He seems as unlike a gossip as anyone can—tired, somber, glum, as though, given the choice, he would prefer not talking at all. Still, I linger, wondering how I might exact some bit of reassurance from him. But then he says, “Tom talked to me, and I gave him my word.”

  At Glenview there is no supper, just a mother staring into space and a father pacing, relentlessly. “There is cold chicken,” I say, but Mother only shrugs, and Father turns to retrace his path. I climb the stairs.

  I lie on my bed, wondering. Had Isabel gone to the falls with the intention of killing herself? She knew the legends, the stories the hack drivers churn out for the tourists in their carriages—the accidents, the suicides, the botched stunts. It would have been easy for death to slither into her mind as she stood at the brink. Even Mrs. Stowe had written about the lure of the falls, the sudden impulse that seized her when she gazed too long. I take Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe from the secretary and easily enough find the passage. “I felt as if I could have gone over with the waters; it would be so beautiful a death; there would be no fear in it.” Though she does not say it, it seems Mrs. Stowe had the wherewithal for careful deliberation, even at the brink. It seems her more rational mind prevailed. In a calmer, clearer moment, would Isabel have made a different choice? Was she able to wonder, to think about the possibility of the hopelessness she surely felt letting up in a day or a month or a year? Had she been lucid enough to understand the finality of what she was about to do?

  If she had told me she was pregnant, if I had guessed it, might her burden have been lightened enough for her to bear? I ought to have been a better sister, one she felt she could tell. At the very least, I should have pieced together the facts. But no, I rushed off to the Clifton House, rather than staying home and taking her into my arms and making her believe all could be put right. Mother and Father would have come around.

  Was my acceptance of Edward’s proposal the final straw? She had told me I could marry him with an earnestness that could not have been feigned. But still the words we spoke, as we lay huddled with her cheek resting between my shoulder blades, come to me. I said, “I’ve given up,” and she said, “Me too.”

  I understand so little of her death, though a single fact is more than clear: She chose certain death. She chose the falls.

  Mrs. Stowe’s book hurled across the room, I slam a fist into my bed. Then I am standing, uselessly kicking my mattress and pulling up sheets and wanting my pillow to burst as I thwack it against the headboard. Exhausted, I slump down onto my knees, close my eyes, and fold my hands in prayer. I want to pray that Isabel remained firm in her desire to die even as she met the brink of the falls. I want to pray that there was no moment of doubt when she struggled in vain, the shore beyond her reach.

  But history cannot be altered, even by God. And if there was a chance, I should not be asking for anything as easy as peace of mind for Isabel. I should be asking for today to be rolled back to yesterday or the day before or the day before that. I should be asking for a second chance.

  Instead I think of Sister Leocrita, who taught Christian doctrine, saying that suicide violates our duty to God, that the length of our time on earth is up to Him. And I wonder why, then, does He give to some the will and the capacity to take their lives? Is it possible God is not nearly as benevolent and omnipotent as I have always thought? Would He not have wanted happiness for Isabel if He were good? Would He not have made it so if He were all-powerful? But she threw herself from the brink of the falls, and there is one conclusion to be drawn: When it comes to goodness or power, maybe even both, God does not meet the grade.

  I make a solemn promise or, more accurately, a threat. If Isabel is weeping and gnashing her teeth, then for me God is dead. I glance around my room, but despite my blasphemy, nothing has changed, and it is more worrisome than comforting.

  If Isabel could read my thoughts just now, she would laugh. She often claimed a sore throat or headache as Mother bustled about her room Sunday morning, pulling back bedclothes, opening drapes, and imploring her to get up. And at Morrison Street Methodist, until Mother put on her sternest face and gave out a quick thwack, Isabel’s hymnbook was upside down. Was she right to scoff?

  Standing in front of the wardrobe mirror, I seek some trace of Isabel in my reflection, but there is only my untidy hair, loose tendrils hanging limp, without her soft curls. Some have said she and I are similar around the eyes, and I have glimpsed the likeness in the odd photograph, also once when she was reading quietly across the table from me in study hall. But I see nothing now, only myself, exposed, defenseless, as naked as I have ever been though I am fully clothed. Just when it seems she is entirely gone from me, the reflection of her aluminum bracelet on my wrist catches my eye.

  As I smooth my thumb from one oval plaque to the next, I wonder if the bracelet should be brought to her at Morse and Son. But then her words, as she fastened it around my wrist, come to me: “Wear it so I’ll be there in spirit.” Lips to the bracelet, I say, “Isabel,” and know that she meant for me to wear it always and be reminded of her, that she loved me, even as she set out for the falls.

  14

  The clip-clop of hooves on Buttrey Street wakes me, and as the sound gives way to whinnies and blusters beneath my window, I know Isabel’s body has arrived. My gaze drifts from the ceiling, falls to the somber, bla
ck dress pressed and hung over the back of my chair while I slept. Has Mother managed to compose the announcement, too? Maybe she is already copying it onto sheets of black-edged paper to be circulated around Niagara Falls. I climb out of bed, quickly, thinking I should get up and help, but then flop back down again. There is no need to rush; the announcement will bring only old news. The plumed horses clip-clopped all the way from Main and Ferry. They stopped at Glenview. Everyone knows.

  From the staircase I see Mother sitting on the edge of a straight-backed chair, her attention given over to the carpet beneath her feet. Father is wearing his black suit and holding open the screen door while the casket and a pair of claw-footed stands are transported into the house by a couple of Mr. Morse’s sons, judging by their looks. Mr. Morse stands aside, directing—lilies here, casket there, ferns at either end. Then he opens the lid.

  Isabel lies on a bed of pink satin, her hands at her waist, one clasping the opposite wrist. Her nails are filed as they seldom were and painted to mimic their natural color. Her eyes are shut, her hair set in a soft halo of perfect curls. Her cheeks are smooth, lightly rouged. Her lips are tinted pink and tightly closed, unnaturally so.

  “They sew the mouth shut,” Mother says. With that she begins to tremble and an otherworldly sound escapes, deep and hollow from her lips. “It’s not Isabel,” she says.

  “No,” I say. “Isabel is gone.”

  The first to arrive is a woman called Mrs. Calaguiro. I’ve seen her before, picking grapes from the vine-clad arbor of a house at the base of the bluff. She holds out a pot and lifts the lid. “Farfalle,” she says.

  Before she relinquishes the pot, she wraps a sturdy arm around my neck and pulls me into her bosom. “Dio ti benedica,” she says. She kisses my hair twice and rocks me back and forth, and I let her because she is soft and scented with garlic. She shakes her head when I lift my palm, directing her to the casket. I expect that there is a rosary deep within her apron pocket, that she will pray, uselessly, for Isabel tonight.

  Then Reverend Tiplin from Morrison Street Methodist is on the veranda and, a moment later, through the door, though I have not yet invited him in. He stands, head bowed over the casket, his voice sure and so loud I can only conclude he is speaking for the benefit of Mother, Father, and me rather than Isabel.

  Father, I commend the soul of Isabel Heath into

  your hands,

  With boundless confidence,

  For you are our Father.

  Do with her what you will.

  Whatever you may do, we thank you.

  We accept all.

  Amen.

  In meek objection I open my eyes midway through the prayer and find Mother’s open as well, her focus shifted from the carpet, severe on the reverend’s back.

  After a few moments of one-sided talk about shepherds and lambs and surrender, the reverend finally seems to notice her hard gaze. Yet he blathers on about God’s infinite knowledge, about His wondrous plan for each of us. And just when it seems he will never stop, just when I begin to suspect he is rattling on because he is afraid of what Mother might say, she interrupts. “We want a private ceremony at the graveside,” she says, “only us and the Atwells.”

  “No service at the church?”

  She shakes her head.

  The reverend speaks slowly, tentatively. “Your friends will want a chance to grieve.” She shrugs away their need.

  The Coulsons are the next to step into the drawing room, and for once I am not left agog. No, Mrs. Coulson’s eyes are red-rimmed, and her cheeks and lips without the hint of color I had assumed was their natural state. Her hair is unornamented, as are her wrists and ears. There is no décolletage, not so much as a locket to lure the eye there. When Father stands to take Mr. Coulson’s offered hand, Mr. Coulson only shakes his head, and then I see, for the first time, two grown men embrace.

  Soon enough the house is filled with women, Mrs. Forsythe, Mrs. Cummings, Mrs. Hall, Mrs. Woodruff, each bustling about with a tea towel flung over her shoulder, making coffee, arranging chairs, setting out the steady stream of food that arrives at the door. Before settling down to work, each stood alongside the casket a moment, shaking her head, saying how lovely Isabel looks, Mrs. Forsythe daring to pat Isabel’s hair. “She looks thinner than I remember,” Mrs. Coulson whispers to Mrs. Hall. Mrs. Coulson turns to me and says, “Was she ill?” and in doing so undoes any bit of goodwill her stricken face had aroused. By now they have all heard the whispered truth, that so-and-so said so-and-so’s son had been sent away from the whirlpool the afternoon before. Yet another suicide had turned up.

  Midmorning, Mother is accepting condolences, albeit with a barely perceptible nod. But by noontime, she is slipping her hand from beneath any hand placed atop her own on the arm of the chair. And by midafternoon she has laughed twice, a short, derisive huff each time, once in response to Mrs. Westover, who said, “She’s in a better place,” and then just after Mr. Hall mistakenly referred to Isabel using my name.

  I had wondered if Mother refused a church service out of fear that with our reduced standing no one would come. But she seems not a bit surprised by the mounds of food accumulating on the countertops. As I watch her glare into yet another sorrowful face, I see the extent to which she holds the pie bakers, the dish driers, the matchers of cups and saucers responsible for appearing on our doorstep only now. To accept a jellied salad or a ham, to offer an opportunity for prayer is to forgive the smirks, the whispers, the flippant remarks, the turned backs our family has suffered. And Mother will not allow righteousness to be as easy as that. When she finally shuts herself in her bedroom, I breathe a sigh of relief.

  I keep an eye on Father, and he does not sneak off, thank goodness, even for a minute, to some private stash of rye whiskey. Rather, with Mother gone, he takes charge, thanking those who come for their kindness, their prayers, their offering of pork loin stuffed with onion and sage. “We’ll manage,” he says. And I wonder about the awkwardness that does not seem to exist with these people who had judged him so harshly just yesterday.

  Much of the congregation from Morrison Street Methodist, Mother’s garden society, also her bridge club, crowd into the drawing room. Father’s business associates step through the doorway with their wives and shift their hats to their waists, as do other less familiar men, maybe his compatriots from the Windsor Hotel. Most of the men leave their women at Glenview and stay only a short while; there is no liquor set out, and they can hardly busy themselves scraping dishes and slicing loaves. The local girls from Isabel’s graduating class come, too, my classmates, as well. Each weeps and sniffles, and Mary Egan collapses, her knees buckling with shame. The sisters from Loretto step into the front entranceway, and I walk among them with their carefully selected words, their clumsy embraces, their prayers. I want to be soothed by those who come, but, like Mother, I am not.

  Edward arrives with the entire Atwell clan and is tender and sweet, and holds my hand and tells me that he is glad he knew Isabel, that he will always help me remember her. And I wish I did not want to pull my hand away and I wish I was not displeased when Father asks the Atwells to join us at the cemetery in the morning and I wish I did not feel compelled to whisper, “I’d like some time alone,” when his family is leaving and he offers to stay.

  When all has quieted downstairs, I lift the pearl choker Edward gave me from its heart-shaped box and slip it into the pocket of my skirt. If I am to wear Isabel’s aluminum bracelet and be reminded of her, it seems she ought to have with her a memento of me. From the staircase, I can see the drawing room is empty, though there is the sound of teacups clinking in the kitchen sink.

  I struggle with the clasp of the choker, with fastening it, blindly, at the back of Isabel’s neck. Once I have straightened her collar, hiding what I have done, I lean in close. “Show me,” I say. I am not so daft as to expect the lights to suddenly dim or the floor to tremble beneath my feet. But I want something, a fullness, a scrap of certainty, a breeze like a wa
rm embrace, something to help me believe that this lifeless body is not Isabel, that she is somewhere else. I wait. No comfort comes. I lay a hand on her cheek and recoil at the cold rigidity beneath my fingertips.

  On River Road I put one foot in front of the other and count my steps and recite Portia’s mercy soliloquy and hum, anything to drown out the voice inside my head that says I must not take another step. And I wonder if maybe Isabel had done the same as she walked toward the upper river, toward the brink of the falls.

  An automobile pulls up beside me. “Bess?” It is Mr. Forsythe, who has likely just picked up his wife at Glenview.

  “Hello,” I say.

  “Where’re you headed?”

  “Just walking.”

  “We’ll take you home,” Mrs. Forsythe says, from the passenger seat.

  “I’d like to walk.” I turn my body toward Glenview and take an appeasing step.

  “You’re sure?” Mr. Forsythe calls out.

  When the automobile is out of sight, I resume my march in the direction opposite Glenview. At the whirlpool Tom had said, “She’s still with you,” and I had not asked what he meant. And the afternoon we rode the trolley in the gorge he said that it was the crevices without scrub that told him we were in for a rockslide but also that there was something more. We had not finished the conversation because the men clearing the fallen rocks were watching and waiting for Tom to say what should be done next. And now Isabel is gone and I am doubtful there is anything he can say that will let me believe otherwise. Still, I cling to a flimsy bit of solace, a lifeline of sorts, pretending that he can.

  I stand for a moment outside the Windsor Hotel, willing Tom to look from his window and see me in the darkness below. On the second and third stories of the front façade alone, there are ten windows spaced well enough apart that each must belong to a separate room. I remember Tom saying he seldom heard the other tenants, that his room was at the end of the hall. But the hall on which floor? And does his room face the street or the lot to the rear? As I peek through a main-floor window, I see that the saloon is full, that the staircase leading to the second and third floors is clear across the room. I can ask the barman exactly where Tom’s room is, or make my way from door to door, testing my luck. Either way I will have to cross the saloon. Either way someone is bound to tilt a pint of ale in my direction. “What on earth? It’s the Heath girl and still in mourning dress.” But what does it matter? My sister is dead.