The Shade of My Own Tree

by Sheila Williams

  Troy was undeterred. He had another idea.

  “Then, I’ll bet—”

  “Troy! Wipe your mouth!”

  Pam daintily pulled the mushrooms off her pizza and stacked them neatly on the side of her plate.

  “Obviously the mural was here all the time. It might be valuable. Or at least it may have historical significance. Maybe Miss Caroline’s great-grandparents commissioned it in the early eighteen-hundreds. Decorative styles changed and she had it covered up.” Tré reached for a piece of pizza, and a can of Coke was in his way. “Tré! Don’t!” Skillfully Pam moved it out of the way just in time.

  “I agree with Pam,” Jack said just before he stuffed a tomato-covered piece of crust into his mouth. He was as bad as Troy. “You’ll probably want to call the university and get the name of an art historian or restoration expert. Somebody who’ll know whether you have a decorative mural or a historic treasure.”

  A historic treasure? In my house? Was that Miss Caroline’s secret?

  There wasn’t time to consider the possibility, however. Tyler knocked over Pam’s glass and pop went everywhere and over everyone.

  “It’s probably worth five hundred dollars!” said Troy, who does his best thinking in the midst of chaos and confusion. He snatched a piece of sausage off the pizza while his mother wasn’t looking. “And I found it,” he added proudly. “Is there a reward?”

  I had grabbed some kitchen towels and handed one to Troy.

  “Wipe up the pop, Troy. I’ll give you ten dollars; how’s that?”

  “Cool!” he said.

  I was rewarded with a huge open-mouth grin that revealed a nicely chewed wad of pepperoni, sausage, and pizza dough. Yum.

  Things quieted down after dinner and even Troy, who was wired up after all the excitement and all of the Coca-Cola, went to bed early. The hospital called—Beni’s operation was successful. As much as I enjoyed being with Jack, I was glad that he, Pam, and the boys left, too. I hadn’t slept more than five hours since Beni’s run-in with P-Bo and I was tired. But I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the mystery painting on my dining room wall.

  I had finally gotten hold of Rodney, but he wasn’t any help.

  “I told you that I wanted to show you something!” he said earnestly. “You said another time.…”

  Details, details, I said to myself.

  “I come across murals once in a while,” he continued.

  “In my line of work, you never know what’s on those old walls. There’s a professor at the university that I call in when I find ’em. She might be able to help you. Now, what did I do with her card?”

  Rodney hadn’t found it by the time we ended our conversation but promised to call me back. I let the dogs back in, checked the doors and windows, and headed up to the computer. I came across an entry on the Internet:

  Duncanson, Robert S., 1821–1872, Landscape painter, United States; African-American painter …

  I fell asleep that night amazed, and embarrassed, that I, who had studied what I thought was American history and art, did not recognize the name of this painter.

  I caught up with Rodney’s “art expert” the following afternoon.

  Dr. Eva Innis, who smiled indulgently at me from behind owl-sized eyeglasses, was not surprised that Duncanson’s name was unknown to me. She pulled a book off her shelf and laid it flat on the desk. The paintings were glorious and had intriguing names to go with them:

  Land of the Lotus Eaters

  Minnenopa Falls

  Cliff Mine, Lake Superior

  “During his lifetime,” she commented, “Robert Duncanson was hailed by some critics as ‘the best landscape painter in the West,’ ” she said. “And yet, within fifty years of his death, he was virtually unknown. Times change; tastes change. The style that made him an icon in the mid–nineteenth century fell out of favor.”

  The more Dr. Innis talked, the more fascinated I became. It was also serendipitous. Duncanson had lived and set up a studio in Cincinnati just west downriver. He had studied in Europe and had influenced a Canadian school of art technique. He made his living accepting commissions from the wealthy citizens in the region, painting their portraits and painting murals on their walls, a decorating touch popular at the time. And, in the summers, he traveled around the river valley, sketching and painting.

  Dr. Innis filled me in, briefly, on the details of his life.

  “Robert Duncanson was born, a free man of color, in Monroe, Michigan, and grew up there. He came from a family of housepainters, if you can believe that,” she said, her pixieish face beaming. I could tell that Duncanson was a favorite of hers. “It’s a sad footnote to a remarkable life that the same profession that started him on his art career also killed him.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, turning the pages of the book until I came across a photograph of Duncanson, proud and elegant-looking and wearing a fur hat.

  The explanation was poignant. Lead was a primary ingredient in paint. Duncanson, who began his career as a housepainter and ended it as an experienced artist who mixed his own paints, had prolonged exposure to high levels of lead. The effect was deadly. By the end of his life, he was unable to paint or even to function and eventually died in a home for the mentally ill in Michigan in 1872 at the age of fifty-one.

  I shook my head at the irony of it as I flipped through the plates of his landscapes. They were incredible. Some of them were mystical and dreamlike. What could he have accomplished had he lived ten more years? Twenty more years?

  “He doesn’t put a lot of people in his paintings,” I said to Dr. Innis. “And I don’t see many African-American faces in his work. Why not?”

  Dr. Innis pulled another volume from her shelf and leafed through it.

  “The painting of African-American subjects would have been considered provocative,” she said simply. “He painted before, during, and after the Civil War and may have felt that he had to be particularly careful in that regard. Fortunately for Duncanson, however, many of his commissions were from wealthy citizens who had abolitionist sentiments.”

  She found the page that she was looking for and turned the book toward me.

  “But it’s not true that he didn’t paint African-American subjects. Here is a piece painted for a commission from Reverend James Francis Conover, an abolitionist. It’s entitled Uncle Tom and Little Eva. It was painted in 1853 in response to the book by Harriet Beecher Stowe.” She flipped the page and there was another plate, this one in black and white. It was entitled View of Cincinnati, Ohio, from Covington, Kentucky, and was painted in 1851.

  I glanced at the plate and then asked Dr. Innis a question.

  “Are all of his works accounted for? Did he keep a record of every painting that he did?”

  “Yes and no,” Dr. Innis replied. She flipped through another large book and showed me several color plates of landscapes that were unsigned. “Duncanson had a fairly large body of work,” she said in an attempt to footnote what I was seeing, “and, frankly, most of them are unsigned.”

  “What if there was an uncataloged Duncanson mural, signed and dated? A mural that depicts the crossing of the Ohio River by fugitive slaves? Would that be a valuable discovery?”

  Dr. Innis nearly jumped out of her underwear.

  “Assuming that it could be authenticated,” she said sharply.

  I nodded.

  “Yes, assuming that it could.”

  Her huge glasses shifted to one side.

  “I would say,” she answered breathlessly, “that if such a mural was to be found and authenticated, and if it had African-American subjects, which Duncanson rarely, if ever, used, it would be an unprecedented find.”

  The yellow house was turning out to be a lot more than I had bargained for.

  The full moon came in the second week of August. Every screwy thing that could happen did happen that week. It was eno
ugh to drive me to drink. If I’d been so inclined.

  So far, there had been no word from Imani. I was on needles and pins. I had cleaned her room so many times that I was getting sick of myself. I arranged the furniture one way, then changed my mind and moved it around again.

  Jack grumbled.

  “I am not accepting calls from you anymore,” he warned me. “I don’t want to move that damn armoire again.” Not to mention my studio, which was housed, temporarily, in the front parlor. The light was better in there.

  Gloria’s apartment would be ready in three weeks, so she and Troy had been packing. I would miss Gloria’s dry wit and, despite my allergies to children, I would miss Troy, too. Thank God, Gloria had agreed to continue working the rose garden. I was petrified that if she left and the roses got wind of it, they would commit suicide rather than let me take care of them.

  I had a new “guest” coming at the end of the week, a writer, who was staying through the end of the summer and early fall to finish a manuscript. And Beni was released from the hospital and went home to Illinois with her parents for the rest of her recuperation.

  I’d called an art historian to evaluate the mural, and Troy had taken to disappearing again looking for pirate’s treasure. But even those adventures couldn’t keep his mind off what was really bothering him. His father.

  As I climbed the stairs to the second floor, I heard Troy’s voice.

  “I don’t see why we can’t go home!” Troy’s whine carried out into the hall.

  I was carrying up a stack of towels to put into the chest. I heard Gloria say, “… burned down, Troy! We can’t go back there!”

  “But Dad says that we can move into his new house! He’s got a bedroom for me and I can get a dog.”

  Gloria’s voice faded out. Troy’s response, however, was crystal clear.

  “I can’t have a dog at that apartment. I can’t even have a cat!”

  “Troy, you will have your own room and you’ll go to the new elementary school on Rockwell. They have a computer lab and you can join the science club that the principal was telling us about.”

  “But I won’t have Dad!” was Troy’s response.

  I put the towels away and headed up to the third floor. Bear lumbered up after me.

  How do you explain to a ten-year-old that having Dad might mean physical damage to Mom? Again, I didn’t hear Gloria’s response, but I could guess what it was because Troy said, “But he said he was sorry. He didn’t mean to do it.”

  Imani was older, but I didn’t think that I would have an easier time explaining things to her. She had wanted me to leave Ted. But Ted was still her father. She knew that he beat me and slapped me and locked me in closets. But when he was with Imani, he was kind, charming, and generous. It was like living with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I was married to Mr. Hyde. Imani and most everyone else in the world saw Dr. Jekyll.

  Imani finally called.

  “Momma, I’m flying standby, so I don’t know when I’m coming exactly.” Imani’s words came across a telephone line that was, as usual, popping with static.

  “What day?” I yelled into the receiver.

  She gave me the tentative date and flight number. I marked my calendar in red: “Imani! Home!” Something wonderful to look forward to.

  The date coincided with another appointment on my calendar. I hadn’t told Imani that on the day she was coming home I was hoping to finalize my divorce from her father.

  The hearing was held bright and early on Wednesday morning. Judge Paul Perry was about seventy years old (mandatory retirement hasn’t reached River County yet) and liked to take a nip after lunch to help him “deal with the insane and the ugly.” He was reputed to be a ladies’ man and had been the subject of more than a few juicy rumors and “situations” over the years. He had also been on the domestic relations bench for almost thirty years and had heard it all. He was not sympathetic to situations that involved abuse or violence. Ted’s attorney knew this, so he tried to move the case to another court. Unfortunately, Judge Perry caught wind of this and it made him mad. My case stayed in Courtroom 14A.

  I wore my best and most boring business suit with pearls and tried to pull my unruly corkscrews up into a semblance of a French twist. I brought along my own file, which had grown to be as thick as a stack of Bibles. Georgy just stared at it.

  “Opal, what on earth?”

  What can I tell you? I am a paralegal, and note taking and paper saving are second nature. I am an incurable pack rat and cannot throw any piece of paper out, no matter how small or insignificant it appears to be. My file landed on the table with a loud thump.

  “What do you have in there?” He tapped the file with his hand. “Your file is thicker than mine! And I’m the lawyer!”

  “I just want to be prepared,” I told him, taking a deep breath. My stomach was jumpy and I was getting a headache. “I don’t want anything to go wrong, George. I don’t want to come back here.”

  He patted my hand.

  “You won’t.”

  Judge Perry, tall, slim, and distinguished-looking, with nearly black hair that was graying at the temples, peered over the top of his reading glasses at Ted’s attorney.

  “Is your client running late, Mr. Schwartz?” Amazingly, Ted wasn’t there.

  I had never seen a person squirm standing up, but Mr. Schwartz managed it.

  “Ah, yes, Judge. He is.”

  Judge Perry swung his arm around in a rather dramatic gesture as he looked at his watch. Then he cleared his throat and opened his file.

  “We will begin. If Mr. Hearn comes in, fine. If he doesn’t, then the court will assume that he is willing to accept the outcome of this hearing.”

  “Your Honor, I would like to formally request a continuance,” Mr. Schwartz responded.

  “Request denied, Mr. Schwartz.” The judge turned his attention to his notes.

  “The file contains an Agreed Entry prepared by Mr. Cox with a notation that the terms have been agreed to by, by verbal consent, Mr. Schwartz and his client, Mr. Hearn. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Georgy replied.

  “Yes.” Mr. Schwartz’s voice was subdued.

  Judge Perry reviewed the terms of the agreement, including the payment of Imani’s college tuition and a cash settlement for me, which was a surprise. Mr. Schwartz looked more and more unhappy and kept glancing at his watch.

  Judge Perry didn’t miss much.

  “Are we holding you up, Mr. Schwartz?” he asked.

  “No, Your Honor,” the attorney replied with a sigh.

  “Good. Now, Mr. Schwartz, I do not see your client’s signature on this document. However, I note for the record that this hearing has been rescheduled twice at Mr. Hearn’s request. I note also that on the last two occasions Mr. Hearn did not appear before this court. Further, I note that there is a restraining order in place. I see, from a report included in the file, that Mr. Hearn, after agreeing to pay the college tuition of the couple’s daughter, Imani Michele Hearn, has failed to do so and that Ms. Sullivan has paid this obligation. Is that a correct statement of the facts as they pertain to this case, Mr. Schwartz?”

  Mr. Schwartz looked unhappy.

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Mr. Cox? Is that correct from your standpoint?”

  “Yes, Judge.” Georgy was trying very hard not to look smug.

  “All right, let’s get this wrapped up, gentlemen and Ms. Sullivan. As Mr. Theodore J. Hearn has repeatedly decided not to participate in these proceedings, he has signed agreements that he has not fulfilled, and the parties have not lived together for one hundred and twenty days, I hereby grant a divorce to Ms. Opal R. Sullivan, pursuant to the terms outlined in the Entry in this file. I hereby amend the order adding that Mr. Hearn will reimburse Ms. Sullivan for the tuition payment made by her within thirty days. Further, I will leave the restraining order in pla
ce for the next six months.”

  The judge took off his eyeglasses and looked straight at me.

  “Ms. Sullivan?”

  The judge’s voice startled me. His tone was soft and personal and he didn’t look stern anymore.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I left that restraining order in place for a reason,” he told me. “I suspect that Mr. Hearn will be none too pleased when he finds out that this divorce has taken place without him.” The judge glanced over at Mr. Schwartz, who looked away. “I have read your file thoroughly,” he added. “Please be careful. And good luck to you.”

  I wanted to smile and I wanted to cry. Instead, I took a deep breath and nodded.

  “Thank you.”

  I was a free woman.

  Now what?

  Everyone had a suggestion. Bette sent over champagne. Jack wanted to take me to dinner. Gloria suggested a night on the town, and Pam wanted to treat me to a visit to a day spa. I liked Troy’s suggestion best of all: an ice-cream cone, two scoops, purchased with his allowance money. My hips didn’t need even half a scoop, but the idea was a good one.

  I turned them all down and took a solitary walk instead. Excuse me, I didn’t walk; I strolled. It was way too hot to march around like you were actually going somewhere.

  The humidity had settled gently on Prestonn like a flannel blanket on a sleeping child. I walked down the street, being nosy as usual, looking to see who had up a FOR SALE sign and who hadn’t brought in the paper. So many contrasts: a brand-new Saab convertible in one driveway, a 1980 Cadillac with its hood up in another. The house on the corner still had its Christmas decorations up. Well, it was August now, so I wouldn’t bother to take them down, either. You’d only have to put them up again after Halloween.

  The old Rebel was at his post, sitting in a lawn chair with a six-pack at his side. A piece of fur with legs stood on the sidewalk along the house.

  “Hey!” he yelled at me, grinning from ear to ear. “How you this evening?”

  I waved as I passed but didn’t stop.

  “Fine! How are you?”

  “Doin’ all right for a museum piece,” he replied. “I like what you done to Caroline’s house,” he added.