The Drowning Tree

by Carol Goodman

  “And then she sees Lancelot in her mirror and she just has to look at him and the spell is broken. ‘Out flew the web and floated wide; the mirror crack’d from side to side. “The curse is come upon me,” cried the Lady of Shalott.’ ”

  I try to hide my surprise at the detective’s command of Tennyson but I can tell from his grin that I have failed. “Freshman Comp at John Jay. I liked ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ better myself. Kind of a coincidence, though, when you think about it, that your friend died in the same way as the heroine of the poem she’d just been reciting in her lecture.”

  “The Lady of Shalott didn’t drown,” I say primly. So much for your command of Tennyson, I think.

  “Your friend may not have either.”

  “HOW CAN YOU KNOW THAT?” I ASK. “ISN’T IT TOO EARLY FOR YOU TO HAVE THE autopsy results?”

  Detective Falco tilts his head sideways and narrows his pale gray eyes. I have a feeling that the look he’s giving me is pretty much the same one I gave him when he quoted from Tennyson.

  “You’re right,” he says. “We don’t know it for sure but the medical examiner’s preliminary report says there’s little or no water in the lungs—and we found this—” He pulls a plastic bag out of his jacket pocket and holds it up. Inside is an amber-colored plastic pill case—the kind with little compartments to store a daily dose. It’s exactly like the one that Fay Morgan said she saw Christine take a pill from last Sunday. “—inside Miss Webb’s jacket pocket.”

  “Pills? You think Christine took an overdose? She paddled up Wicomico Creek and then swallowed—what? How do you know what was in there? They could have been vitamins.”

  Falco gives the bag a sharp shake and I hear a rattle. I lean forward to get a closer look. The early morning light turns the ordinary plastic into a surprisingly lovely shade of buttery yellow—not unlike the silver stain in medieval glass. I notice that all of the numbered compartments—enough for a month’s worth of medication—are empty except for the last one, in which a pink oval tablet rests next to a round orange pill.

  “The pink tablet is Luvox, an antidepressant, and the orange one is Klonopin, a tranquilizer that is also used as an antianxiety medication. I reached Miss Webb’s physician last night and he confirmed the prescription for Luvox, but not the one for Klonopin. Did your friend ever mention to you that she was taking either one or the other of these pills?”

  I lean back in my chair. “I knew about the Luvox but not the Klonopin, but then she might not have wanted me to know she was taking a tranquilizer.”

  “Why not?”

  “She had a bad history with tranquilizers. She was given some to help her sleep after she broke her leg and she kind of got hooked on them.”

  “In fact she overdosed on them, isn’t that right?”

  “Did Fay Morgan tell you that? God, it’s amazing how gossip lives on in a little college like Penrose. The overdose was an accident …”

  “I didn’t say it wasn’t. Still it is a history, as they say. Was that time in college the only time she overdosed?”

  I look away from the detective toward the river. It’s still early enough that there’s mist rising from the water, an opaque coating that reminds me of the white enamel paint I use on glass sometimes. I think of Christine lying beneath the surface of that water and feel cold in spite of the sun. I realize that my reluctance to answer the detective’s questions comes from a desire to protect Christine, but clearly she is far beyond any need for my protection.

  “No,” I answer, “but you probably know that already. Four and a half years ago she was admitted to Bellevue because she overdosed on tranquilizers.”

  “Yes, in fact, Christine’s mother mentioned it. Still, I’d like to hear it from you. How did the substance abuse problems begin?”

  “Well, she probably had a drinking problem as far back as college, only we all drank a lot then, so I didn’t really think about it. Then six or seven years ago she started taking pills, too. It started when she was writing regularly for an art journal and she said she was having trouble making her deadlines. She took Ritalin, because she said it helped her focus, and some other kind of amphetamines to stay awake. Then she would need tranquilizers to help her sleep … she mentioned she was taking Halcion once. She told me about it because she thought I’d get a kick out of the mythological reference—” I pause to see if Falco’s Greek mythology is up to his Victorian poetry but he’s shaking his head.

  “You Penrose girls! Never at a loss for the literary reference.”

  “I’m sorry—I know it sounds silly. It’s not important …”

  “No, no, I’ll never rest now unless I hear the story. Can I have the Cliff’s Notes version though?”

  “Sure. Halcyone was the daughter of Aeolus, god of the winds, and she was married to Ceyx, son of Hesperus, the evening star.”

  “A match made in heaven.”

  “They were very happy together, but Ceyx decides to go on a sea voyage and Halcyone has a presentiment of doom. She begs him not to go, or at least to take her with him, but he goes anyway. If he’s going to die, he figures, he’d rather she be spared.”

  “Big of him.”

  “Yes, well Halcyone’s fears prove grounded. Ceyx’s ship is caught in a storm. In his last dying moments he begs the gods to bring his drowned body home to Halcyone so that she can bury him.”

  “That’s what I never got about these Greek myths—if he could ask for that why couldn’t the gods just save him?”

  I laugh. “I know. My ex-husband always explained it by quoting his favorite literary source, ‘You can’t always get what you want—’ ”

  “ ‘But if you try sometime, you just might find, you get what you need.’ ”

  “Tennyson and the Rolling Stones. I’m impressed, Detective Falco.”

  “Yeah, call me Mr. Renaissance Man,” he says. I notice that he hasn’t asked me to call him by his first name. “So go on. Ceyx’s body comes back to his poor grieving widow?”

  “Well, not at first. Halcyone keeps praying to Juno to bring her husband back …”

  “Your namesake.”

  “She is the goddess of marriage. It bothers Juno, though, to go on hearing these prayers for a dead man—she feels it defiles her altars—so she sends Iris to the god of sleep, Somnus, who sends his son, Morpheus, in a dream to Halcyone to let her know that Ceyx is dead.”

  “Quite a chain of command there.”

  “The gods are big on delegating,” I reply, getting into the spirit of the story. For now I have forgotten why I am telling it. I am back in college telling it to Neil, who loved it so much he did a series of paintings based on the myth. He especially loved the part where Morpheus visits Halcyone in the guise of drowned Ceyx.

  “Halcyone believes the dream because her husband appears to her not as he was in life, but pale, naked, and dripping in seawater. In the morning she goes down to the shore and there, floating out in the water, she sees Ceyx’s drowned body. As she reaches out to him she’s transformed into a bird and when she touches Ceyx he, too, is changed into a bird.”

  “So they get to live together as birds?”

  “Yes. And for seven days during the winter when they’re sitting on their nest—which floats on the ocean—Aeolus reins in his winds. Hence the term halcyon days—a time of peace and tranquility.”

  “Or a drug to make you feel that way. Who knew the pharmaceutical companies were so literary? And you say this was why your friend Christine called up to tell you she was taking these pills? Because she thought you’d appreciate the mythological reference?”

  “My ex-husband, Neil Buchwald, did a series of paintings based on the Halcyone myth. She said she thought it was ironic—that if Neil had taken Halcion instead of painted Halcyone he might not have ended up in a psychiatric hospital …”

  “Wait a second, back up. Your ex is in a psychiatric hospital?” For the first time this morning I see a look of genuine surprise on the detective’s face.


  “You mean none of the Penrose gossips you spoke to this morning mentioned that? The story’s usually hauled out any time something goes amiss at Penrose. You see, Neil was admitted to the college as an exchange student during my junior year. The college was experimenting at the time with the idea of going coed. After I got pregnant and Neil had a rather spectacular mental collapse the plans for coeducation were ditched.”

  “A spectacular mental collapse?”

  I get up and walk to the railing. Only a few patches of mist remain, leaving streaks of white against the blue as if a layer of enamel has been scratched away to reveal the colored glass beneath. That’s what Falco’s questions have been—a scratching away to reveal some pattern in the glass.

  “There was one incident senior year, but the real clincher is what happened the next year. Neither of us was attending Penrose at the time so it shouldn’t have concerned the college but still it was here in Rosedale …”

  “Why don’t you just tell me what happened, Miss McKay?”

  “He took a boat out on the river and tried to drown himself.”

  “I see.”

  “No,” I say, turning back to the detective. “You don’t. He took me and Bea along with him. He tried to drown us as well.”

  DETECTIVE FALCO GIVES ME A FEW MINUTES TO COLLECT MYSELF BEFORE ASKING HIS next question. “Did you and Christine discuss the incident with your ex-husband—the drowning attempt—last Sunday night?”

  “We didn’t discuss it, but she did allude to it. I told her that I sometimes dreamed about Neil, and she wanted to know which Neil I dreamed about—the sane Neil or the crazy one, the Neil we knew when we first met him or the Neil that took me out on the river that day.”

  “And?”

  “I didn’t tell her. I lied and said I really didn’t dream about him at all.” Falco looks away from me when I confess my lie, as if to spare me the embarrassment. I think of the things he must have heard people confess to and try to believe that my little lie to Christine must seem slight in comparison, but then I remember the closed look that had come over Christine’s face when I lied to her. Had she brought up the incident on the river because she was already thinking of killing herself? If I hadn’t lied would she have told me what she was planning? And if she had, could I have stopped her? Could I have helped her any more than I’d been able to help Neil?

  I expect that these are the questions going through Falco’s mind, but his next question takes me by surprise. “But you do dream about him—like Halcyone dreams of Ceyx. So who does Morpheus send in your sleep? Sane Neil or crazy Neil?”

  I can’t imagine what bearing my answer could have on his investigation, but I tell him just the same. Maybe to make up for not telling Christine. “Neither. The Neil who shows up in my dreams is dead. It’s as if he succeeded that day and drowned. He comes to me, just as Ceyx came to Halcyone, like a drowned man.”

  I LET DETECTIVE FALCO OUT THE SIDE DOOR AND WATCH HIM GO DOWN THE FIRE stairs, hoping he doesn’t notice the rusted-out spots and cite me for some code violation. When he gets to the bottom step he lifts a hand up in farewell but doesn’t turn around. Instead of turning toward River Street where he left his car he turns left and heads toward the boathouse. I wonder if he has more questions for Kyle, but when he gets to the boathouse he veers right, toward the landing beach. When I lose sight of him behind a stand of willows on the edge of the water I go back inside.

  The sight of the mess left in the wake of Bea’s departure does nothing to cheer me and even though I’m exhausted I know that if I lie down I won’t be able to sleep. So instead I start collecting the piles of laundry that lie scattered around the loft and stuffing them into a black garbage bag. I move quickly, not even stopping to find a tissue to wipe my eyes, but no matter how hard I work I can’t keep at bay the image of Christine hanging upside down in the clear water of Wicomico Creek. The thought that she got there by her own hand is unbearable. How could I have let her get on that train? I knew something was bothering her and with her history—as the detective put it—I should have known not to let her leave alone. I also know, though, that the minute she started talking about Neil I was ready to see her go. Had she brought up Neil’s drowning attempt because she was already planning to kill herself that way? Would she have asked me to go with her if I hadn’t lied to her about the dreams?

  And is that what Detective Falco thinks happened—that I went along with Christine on her suicidal mission and fled the scene when her kayak capsized? If only I had been there.

  I pick up the bag I’ve just stuffed as well as the bag that still holds the dust-covered work clothes I wore last week and haul them both down the side stairs. I’d usually take the car with this much laundry, but today I seem to crave the backbreaking labor of dragging the heavy load down River Street—like some medieval penitent flogging himself through the streets of plague-ridden Europe. A homeless man wheeling his shopping cart full of tattered possessions, and the tolling of bells from St. Aloysius’s help complete the image for me.

  At the laundromat I sort the regular laundry into light and dark loads and then dump my work clothes—after covering my mouth and nose with a clean bandana—into one of the oversized machines. I set the dial for hot. I’m just about to pour in detergent when I notice some papers sticking out from under a pair of jeans. As soon as I reach in and touch the thick, rough pages I remember what they are—the discarded sketches we found in the stone groove during the removal of the Lady window.

  Cursing at myself for forgetting about them, I pull the wad of folded paper out of the washing machine and tap them against the edge of the tub to shake the dust off them. Some conservator, I think, about to use industrial-strength cleaning solvents on fragile archival material.

  When I’ve pumped in enough quarters to start all the machines I stick the pages in my bag and walk down the street to Cafe Galatea, or Gal’s as the locals call it, an Italian bakery that’s one of the few surviving downtown businesses. Housewives and society matrons from the Heights still stop off at Gal’s after dropping their husbands off at the train station, to pick up cannolis and biscotti for bridge luncheons and Italian cheesecake and tiramisu for dinner parties. In an hour, when late mass lets out at St. Al’s there’ll be an after-church crowd, but for now there are only two old men playing chess at a corner table and a teenage boy who, between sips of black espresso, is stealing glances at the beautiful girl behind the counter.

  “Ciao, Portia, Come stai?”

  “Bene, Zia Juno.” I’m not really Portia’s aunt—I think we’re second cousins actually. After my mother died my father avoided her family, and most of them repaid the favor. Because Portia’s just a few years older than Bea, though, I’ve stayed more in touch with her and her mother—who was my mother’s favorite cousin.

  “Any news from Penrose?” I ask. Portia shakes her head and sighs. She’d been wait-listed at the college a month before. I know it’s her first choice and I can’t help thinking that if only I had graduated I might have more pull in getting her in.

  “E tuo amico? Chi e?” I ask after ordering an amaretto cappuccino and a hazelnut biscotti to go.

  Portia rolls her lovely almond-shaped eyes up toward the stamped tin ceiling and tells me, in Italian, that he’s a new kid in school and that her English teacher assigned them to do a project together on The Merchant of Venice. “E’ sempre qui.”

  I glance over at the poor love-struck boy. It’s obvious why he’s here all the time. He’s smitten with Portia. The patches of red streaking his acne-pitted skin, though, must be coming from more than his proximity to his beloved. I notice that’s he’s reading La Vita Nuova in the original Italian and guess the cause of his blushes. I quickly scribble on a Cinzano coaster, “I think he understands Italian,” and slide it across the bar to where Portia’s lowering the press to make my cappuccino.

  “Shit,” Portia says in English and loudly enough to draw the attention of the two chess players.

 
; “Scusi, Zii, mi sono bruciato il dito sul macinino da caffe.” Portia points to the offending machine and holds up the supposedly burnt finger. I notice, as I leave, that the boy is grinning into his Dante.

  I take my coffee and biscotti to a bench outside facing the river, remembering only after I sit down that I haven’t washed my hands since handling the lead-contaminated clothes. Fortunately, Portia’s put the biscotti in a bag so I put it aside and take out the coffee, being careful not to touch the rim of the blue and white to-go cup with its stylized rendering of the Parthenon. I take a sip, savoring the combination of rich, bitter espresso beans and the sweet almond amaretto. Christine told me once that she was forever ordering amaretto lattes from Starbucks and forever being disappointed because they never got the combination right like Gal’s did.

  I push away the thought of Christine and take out the folded pages from my bag—figuring I might as well handle them now before I wash my hands. The first page—the one I looked at in the library last week—is covered with sketches of a woman’s face. I remember that Ernesto thought they were probably discarded sketches for the window, and the face depicted does resemble the face of the lady of the window even though none of the details of costume or setting are the same. Still, the curve of her cheek, the way her head tilts to one side, even, in one sketch, the way the woman’s fingers trail through her own hair, all recall the image in the window. So I’m surprised when I turn the page sideways and see that the writing there is dated June 21, 1892—three years before the Penroses came to America and thirty years before the window was installed at Penrose. Could the window actually be based on sketches that Augustus Penrose did thirty years earlier when he was still in England?