The Drowning Tree (50 page)

“I don’t think so, honey.”

She turns, the look of disappointment on her face making her look like a child again. She would like, I know, to make sense out of Christine’s death. She has been able, at least, to take some comfort in the fact that her father died saving my life—but Christine seems to have died for nothing. “It just seems like such a waste,” Bea says. “That she died trying to find out something that turned out to be untrue.”

“I think she started out looking through those files to prove she was Clare’s granddaughter,” I say. “Her own family had given her so little that she wanted to belong to something else. But then when she found your father’s file and learned he was doing so much better she wanted me to know. She thought that maybe we—me and your dad and you—could be a family again. So, in a way, that’s what she died trying to do. In the end, I think we were the people she really loved—we were her family.”

W
HEN
B
EA LEAVES TO FIND
P
ORTIA AT THE RECEPTION
, I
STAY A LITTLE LONGER, SIT
ting below the window in just about the same spot where I met Christine for the first time. I close my eyes and pray for inspiration.

“I hear that anyone who studies under this window gets an A on their paper,” a voice says. “I’m hoping for a little inspiration on a report I’m writing.” I open my eyes and look up into Daniel Falco’s clear, gray eyes. “What are you working on?” he asks.

“A question,” I answer.

“Just one?”

“A hard one,” I say. “It’s something Christine asked me on the train platform. She asked if I agreed with this line from Dante.”

“Oh, Dante, my favorite. Such good punishments. The criminal justice system could learn a lot from him. Which line?”

“ ‘Love, which absolves no one beloved from loving’ …”

“Oh yeah, that one. Francesca, right?”

“Yes.” I’ve ceased being surprised at the detective’s command of literature. “What do you think? Do you agree with her that when you’re loved you have no choice but to love back?”

He shrugs and looks up at the window. The cloud cover must be lifting
outside because the window is now full of late afternoon light. The light opens up a path in the mountains and releases a stream that tumbles into the pool beneath the weeping beech and churns up the water. As the light flickers behind the tree you can make out the form of a woman trapped within the bark. Any moment she will free herself from her long imprisonment. The figure below her in the water holds both arms up toward her as if beckoning her sister to join her in the pool. Just before the light fades I catch the look in her eyes and I’m almost sure, this time, that what I see is forgiveness.

“What did you say?” I ask. I’d been so busy looking at the window that I’d missed Falco’s answer.

“I said there’s plenty of unrequited love around.”

I sigh. “Yeah, that’s what I was going to say to Christine.” I don’t mention that I’d thought of another answer before she got on the train.

“But then, you know,” Falco continues, looking down at me, “all Dante’s saying is that once you’re beloved you’ve got to love someone. He doesn’t say who you’ve got to love. It could mean that when you’ve been loved once, you’ll love again, because … you know … you’ve been taught how.” He turns back to the window and goes on, his voice sounding suddenly shy. “I guess that sounds pretty silly.”

“No,” I say. What I don’t tell him is that it’s exactly the answer I’d thought of when the train pulled out. “I don’t think it sounds silly at all.” I look up at Falco’s back, framed against the darkening window. When he turns and looks at me the only light in the room seems to be coming from his eyes.

C
AROL
G
OODMAN
is the author of
The Seduction of Water
and
The Lake of Dead Languages
. Her work has appeared in such journals as
The Greensboro Review, Literal Latté, The Midwest Quarterly
, and
Other Voices
. After graduating from Vassar College, where she majored in Latin, she taught Latin for several years in Austin, Texas. She then received an M.F.A. in fiction from the New School University. Goodman currently teaches writing in New York City. She lives on Long Island.