The Widow's Season

by Laura Brodie

  A flock of Canada geese arrived at the dock, honking and flapping. David went inside, found his binoculars, then came back and focussed on a black head with shimmery eyes. How to begin to draw this creature? He studied the proportion between its large body and small head, measuring the width of its white chin strap with the lines on his knuckles, before counting the rows of feathers across the bird’s back. The goose obliged by extending its neck, displaying a five-foot wingspan, so that David was struck by a vision of Raphael’s angels, layer upon layer of feathers bridging the human and divine.

  That evening as he drifted into sleep, he thought of the birds sleeping in the trees around him—finches and titmice, robins and wrens, cardinals male and female. Deep in dreams of feathers and flight, he barely registered the storm that passed in the early morning. When he woke he heard only the slow, repetitive call of mourning doves. Which was why, when he walked onto the deck with his first cup of coffee, he was startled by the river’s change. The water was high with muddy bubbles foaming at the shore; clusters of pine straw and leafy branches flowed by at a fast clip. Now the rapids and rock gardens would be submerged; the swimming holes would look like frothy cappuccino. So be it, David sighed. He had paddled muddy water before, and the river’s pace promised a quick trip. The usual five-hour journey to Buck Island would take half the time. If he left by two o’clock he could still meet Sarah on schedule, and perhaps the river would recede a little by lunchtime.

  He went inside to set up his easel, planning to work by memory. Yesterday’s blue-green water and gregarious birds were gone, but in his mind the river remained transparent down to its flickering trout. He opened his sketchbook and examined the pencil drawings of splayed tail feathers, puffy breasts, and one long beak extending from a small forehead. Then he dipped his brush into a circle of gray oil and marked the canvas.

  It was noon by the time he stepped outside, his back and hands aching for release. Leaning against the deck rail, he rubbed his neck, lifted his eyes, and was surprised to see dark clouds forming in the west. The possibility of another storm hadn’t crossed his mind. Hurrying into the cabin, he changed into his swimming trunks and stuffed his clothes and gear into his waterproof pack. He pulled the covers across his bed and shrugged at the unwashed dishes in the sink as he filled his water bottle. If he was going to stay ahead of the weather he would have to get on the river now. Down at the water’s edge, he turned his kayak right side up and stuffed his gear behind his seat. As he waded into the river, the current yanked at his boat; he climbed inside and was off, the sun in his face and the clouds lengthening at his back.

  The river wrestled against his paddle, alive as any body he had ever tended. He imagined himself as a drop of blood flowing through an artery, but it was a cold-blooded creature that he inhabited; yesterday’s sun-warmed current had been replaced with chilly rain. His boat was rushing down the veins of a snake, twisting its way through the mountains, and at each turn he steered clear of the meshes of fallen limbs that extended from the banks in impromptu dams, waiting to overturn him.

  He was fifteen minutes downstream when he heard the first roll of thunder. The storm was still distant, but the wind was blowing in his direction. Paddling faster, he mulled over the best plan if lightning were to surround him. He had heard of a family of canoeists, electrocuted as they stood on a damp island in the middle of a lake, trying to wait out a storm. The best course was probably to take shelter under the shortest trees, crouching on the balls of his feet, to minimize contact with the ground.

  When the first raindrops tapped his shoulders, he paddled harder, not looking back. But when the rain began to pelt down on his helmet, he turned his head and saw the dark clouds extending for miles. A lightning strike in the mountains convinced him that it was time to get off the river, but he hadn’t counted on the strength of the current. As he tried to paddle toward the bank, he felt the inexorable force of the water, pulling him downstream. He would have to wait until the next sharp bend in the river. When the channel veered left or right, he would paddle straight ahead toward shore. Squinting forward through the rain, he tried to spot the best place to carry out his plan.

  It was then that he heard it—a roaring like a jet engine, two hundred yards downstream. He was approaching a rock garden where the river dropped fifteen feet, while to the left, two crumbling stone walls jutted skyward. He recognized the tall stone ruins of the canal locks which had once enabled large boats to navigate the Shannon’s shallow rapids. As the water hit the locks it was turning in upon itself, spitting back upward in a ten-foot geyser.

  David began paddling with all his strength toward the left bank. There was no beach to aim for; the river was now swirling at the base of sycamore and maple trees as the bank sloped sharply upward. But the trees seemed to be reaching out, urging him into their arms, and in his rush to avoid the churning rapid, he did something stupid.

  Seeing a large maple lean its branches down to the river’s lip, he steered toward it, and as he passed under one of the limbs, he clutched it with his right hand. The idea was to stop his forward motion, to grab onto something solid and hold tight. But although he succeeded in abruptly halting the forward momentum of his upper body, his legs and hips, strapped into the kayak, raced on in front. With his chest leaning back and his waist yanked forward, he found himself instantly flipped over in the river, racing toward the rapid upside down.

  As his head rushed forward in the darkness, he thought to attempt a roll, something he could manage in flat water and swimming pools. But with the river screaming around his ears and his mind disoriented, he reached instead for his pull cord, yanking his spray skirt away from the kayak. Emerging from the muddy water with a gasp, he reached for his boat but felt it being swept away. He was thirty yards from the geyser, with no chance of reaching shore; he would have to swim the rapid and hope that it spat him out safely at the other end.

  His only thought was to get his legs downstream and lift his toes into the air. He had heard of paddlers fallen into rapids, who tried to stand up and had their feet trapped in rocks. Either their knees were broken backward or they were held underwater and drowned. Now, as he was swept toward the edge of the rapid, he took a huge breath of air and released his paddle, watching it disappear over the ledge. Then he was falling into the vortex, sucked vertically downward, legs first.

  Underwater, his body tossed like a puppet. He tried to scramble upward, scratching toward sunlight, but the water’s force pum meled him back down. He was caught in a hole, and in the midst of his panic he remembered what he had been taught in his earliest kayaking lessons—don’t try to swim directly upward. Swim down toward the bottom, then make your way to the side, away from the hole, before attempting to ascend. With his breath almost gone he tried to swim downward, though the rush of water was so confusing he could scarcely get his bearings. Touching rocks at the bottom and the canal wall to his left, he began to pull himself to the right, away from the hole, but it was pointless. The water was pouring down in every direction, his lungs were bursting, his arms weakening. Even as he dragged himself along, rock by rock, he could feel his mouth opening, his lungs ready to breathe water. He imagined the mud settling into his windpipe, his blood fading to brown, and he lurched about with a last flutter of panic as he felt the water enter his throat. Then his mind grew dizzy, his muscles relaxed, and he saw Sarah waiting under a poplar tree, reading her paperback. The water rolled him over onto his back like an old log, and now Sarah was standing, waving at him. She was coming down to the river’s edge, urging him ashore. Hurry up please, it’s time.

  And suddenly his body and soul were reunited on the water’s surface, thrown clear of the hole. He was floating with the current past the locks and away from the heaving rapid. Am I dead? he wondered. Is this my corpse? But the sound of his gagging interrupted his dream.

  With aching legs he kicked toward shore, thankful for the life vest that kept him bobbing. As he neared the bank, he reached again for a sycamor
e branch hanging over the water, and this time he was able to hold fast. He pulled his body forward leaf by leaf until his feet touched river bottom. Then he staggered out of the water, onto the wet leaves, and allowed his legs to buckle as he coughed up phlegmy streams of muddy water. On his knees for the first time in a decade, he rocked back and forth, hovering between moans and prayer: “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

  • 10 •

  David rested on the bank for almost ten minutes, the rain forming puddles around his knees. Finally he stood and tried to get his bearings. He had lost his kayak, his paddle, his food and water and cell phone, but he still had his wallet, Velcroed into the breast pocket of his life vest. The thought of the salvaged credit cards and wet green dollars gave him an ironic sense of substance. He had his Visa; he would live to see another day.

  But which way should he go? His rendezvous point with Sarah was several miles downstream, past an unpopulated stretch of river. He didn’t think he could walk that far with his legs still trembling. He remembered passing a cabin on this side of the river, shortly after the rain began. That was his best bet for a telephone.

  Ten minutes into his slow walk home, the bank ascended into a steep, rocky cliff, and David had to climb with it, pulling himself from ledge to ledge, gripping the trunks of saplings. From the ridge above the river he saw no houses, only trees and hills, rolling into the distance. The lightning had passed; that was a blessing. He had only to endure the cold misery of trudging through woods in soaked clothing. Another half mile and the ridge descended through a steep gully, where a stream flowed into the river. What was usually a clear trickle from an underground spring was now a seven-foot-long jump. He paced up and down the edge of the stream, looking for the narrowest crossing, then took a running leap and almost made it, one foot landing on the leaves, the other sinking into the water, wrenching his ankle.

  “Son of a bitch!” He fell forward and clutched at the pain. “Motherfucking son of a bitch!” He raised his face to the clouds and released a long, wordless howl that dwindled to nothing beside the roar of the muddy river. And then he began to laugh—how pitiful, the fury of one man against the rage of nature. Rising to his feet, he spotted an adequate walking stick not far from his hand, and accepted it as a sign of providence.

  When he reached the strange cabin he saw no lights or cars. The door was locked, a few windows were shuttered, and he briefly thought of breaking in. But these hunting cabins rarely had telephones; if the owner was not around with a cell phone, it was pointless. The best he could hope for now was to return to their own cabin and ride his trail bike up to the general store, four miles away.

  As he continued through the woods he noticed muskrats and mice, scurrying along the river’s overflowing bank. He felt aligned with them, one more refugee from the flood. When a snake startled by his foot, he recognized the danger of stepping on a cop perhead so far from help, and he trod more carefully on his throbbing ankle.

  He hadn’t realized how far he had traveled from the cabin. Although he had been on the river for only thirty minutes, the speed of the current had carried him several miles downstream, and when he finally saw his backyard clearing, visible in green flashes between the pines, it seemed like an oasis—a fluorescent hallucination.

  Inside the cabin he peeled off his wet clothes, threw them on the bathroom floor, and turned on the shower. His skin was too numb to tell whether the stinging stream was hot or icy, but when the steam began to rise, he sat on the tub floor, letting the water pour down his face and chest and knees, thawing him cell by cell. After twenty drowsy minutes he realized that he was in danger of falling asleep, spared by the river only to drown in his tub. He turned off the water, dried himself with a towel, and lay down in his bedroom, wrapped tight in a warm comforter. The digital lights on the radio clock read four-thirty; the general store closed at five on Sundays. It was too late to ride there and use the phone. Anyway, he was too exhausted to move. Sarah would be frantic, but for now, his only desire was to feel the miracle of his lungs, breathing in and out.

  The clock read five-thirty when David woke, and as he waited for his mind to clear, he thought that he had slept for less than an hour. But gradually he noted the voices of birds, and the glow of dawn falling through the window. Pulling on a T-shirt, he walked into the living room and opened the door onto the deck.

  The river was still high and muddy but the sky was clear, all traces of storm swept away. Around him the world was dripping—from the trees, the eaves, the corners of the bird feeder, and the sound triggered again the deep sense of calm he had experienced on Saturday. Pleased by the rain-soaked boards beneath his feet, David spread his arms, lifted his eyes to the sky, and thought, I am Adam, newly created, Lord of my garden.

  With three hours before the general store opened, he carried his easel and palette outside, wiped off the deck furniture, and brought out a cup of coffee. Never had the trees glistened so brightly, their branches a slick ebony. His eyes followed the spread of one sycamore’s limbs, from arteries, to capillaries, to each leafy cell nodding at the water’s edge. He watched the lowest leaves bob in the current, thinking how his body was equally fragile, little more than a floating stick.

  All morning David painted his ideal river, green water sprinkled with white flecks of sunlight, tree shadows skimming the surface. When it was time to leave for the store, he felt disappointed. His painting wasn’t finished, and neither was his soul’s rejuvenation. But Sarah would be sick with worry and his patients would be waiting, so he stuffed his wallet into his front pocket, walked outside to the storage shed, and lifted his mountain bike from the stacks of flowerpots and lawn chairs.

  It had been years since he and Sarah had ridden together on these mountain roads. Shortly after buying the cabin they had gotten matching bikes, hoping to explore the area without the accompaniment of a car engine. In the first few years they had spent long afternoons pedaling logging trails, startling chipmunks and deer. Once, an adolescent black bear had paused in their path, assessing them with slow curiosity. David could still remember his reaction—a mixture of awe and vulnerability. Far from the hard shell of his car, how would he protect his exposed arms, and his wife’s bare throat?

  But on this morning there were no bears, no deer. His eyes were trained on the gouges in the muddy road, where the flash flood had swept gravel into the woods. Rocks and puddles jolted his kidneys, so that by the time he reached the first cluster of houses outside the village of Eileen, his calves were spattered like a Pollock canvas.

  Inside the general store, he waved at the woman using the pay phone in the back, but she gave no sign of acknowledgment. He bought a donut, a bottle of orange juice, and a local paper, then walked outside to the picnic table and spread the news before him.

  The lead story described the new dean of students at the college, a former Yale professor who had arrived in town with a clear mission to curb the excesses of the Greek system. Good luck, David thought, opening his bottle of juice. Scanning down the page, he stopped at the headline FLASH FLOOD CLAIMS THREE. Two small girls had been swept down their backyard creek. Sad, very sad. Then he read the name of the third victim: David Robert McConnell .

  Goose bumps prickled along his arms as he stared at the words missing and feared lost. He recalled that odd sensation in the river, when the sun appeared like a divine revelation and he felt his spirit rising to the surface. Here, in the infallible medium of print, was the confirmation of his death.

  Reading on, he learned how Sarah had called the police after waiting an hour in the rain, trying to reach him on his cell phone. Poor Sarah. He walked inside the store again and glared at the woman on the telephone. She turned away.

  Back at the table David read the final paragraphs. The police had found his kayak and personal belongings along the banks near Buck Island. Today rescue teams would drag the deep water above the dam, using dogs in the boats to try to sniff out the corpse. They’ll never find me here, David thought, and as he ima
gined their futile searching an unexpected smile tugged at his lips. It occurred to him that he didn’t need to contact the office right away. No one was going to be expecting him at work that morning. Death had granted him a holiday, and he felt like a child, waking to an unforecasted snow.

  Of course he would have to call Sarah. By now she would be stricken. But even as he rose once more to check the telephone, a strange sensation held him back. From some remote corner of his mind, one emotion surfaced—morbid curiosity. How would Sarah react to his death? Would she be overcome with grief? Miss him terribly? Would she care as much as she had cared for all those babies? Or would she, deep in her quiet soul, feel relieved? They had been struggling on the edge of separation for so long, perhaps this was an opportunity—perhaps, an act of God.

  And then the impulse came, so concrete it almost hurt—an unmistakable desire to run away. Of course it was ridiculous. He had a wife, a job, a mortgage. He was a responsible person, known for doing the right thing. But what was the right thing for a man in his midforties, when his marriage and work had stagnated? Wasn’t there something else that he had envisioned for his life, some dream that might still be possible? All around him the trees were whispering invitations, encouraging him to fade into their shadows, and as he watched their branches nod, David sat back down.

  • 11 •

  Ten minutes later he was pedaling to the cabin, the telephone growing distant behind him. He assured himself that this retreat was only temporary. He would finish his painting, rest a little, and return to his life the next day. The painting could be a gift for Sarah, an atonement for his selfish absence. She was his Penelope, waiting for her shipwrecked husband.