The Wood of Suicides (4 page)

Having found what I wanted, I closed the cabinet door, avoiding my reflection. I made my way back through their room, trying not to be arrested by the marital bed, with all its associations, or by that particular Caravaggio print in the hall (
Judith Beheading Holofernes
), which made me sick with guilt. I recalled how she would pass that painting on weekend mornings in her dressing gown, with a laden breakfast tray—coffee, cream, Splenda, piled toast with marmalade, and a single plucked marigold, her feminine touch—shutting the door before I could see him sitting up, all scant chest hair and sheet-draped loins.

Their bed was a wrought-iron queen canopy, with wadded, white bedcovers and a thin, white awning. How frequently those sheets were rumpled, that air darkened with the aromas of their sex . . . and yet, it was a holy room, a matrimonial room, a room from which I understood my exclusion. Potpourri in tiny china bowls along the dresser-bureau, and perfumes in tiny glass bottles. The glass of the vanity, and her reflection in it as she recapped her perfume or selected some bit of jewelry—a brooch, a ring, a bracelet, from the Japanese hand-painted chest with the many drawers, or a necklace, stolen from the body of Christ himself. For there was a sizeable antique crucifix that stood by the mirror, draped in the fine chains that had strayed from her jewelry chest. A Christ draped in gold and silver, looking almost as thin as my father had been.

The smaller crucifix that oversaw his coffin was not so encumbered. It was a Catholic ceremony, in spite of everything, since his motives were understandable, and since the year was 2002, not 1802 (how I longed to have been born in the latter, earlier). In the open casket, his face was refreshingly clean-shaven, his eyes closed in supreme knowledge or ignorance. That was the Sunday night. Monday morning, in the green, in the open, in the dirt, with a lone hornet haunting and my underwear chafing, he was buried. He was buried in the silent city of Colma, while a hornet grew crazed on my pheromones.

O
N
THE
morning of my father’s burial, I sat on the edge of my parents’ bed as my mother knotted my hair into a chignon, identical to the one she was wearing. After she had finished, she stood behind me in the mirror for a moment, hands resting on my shoulders, beauty a ghost of my own. I cast my eyes away while the impression was still fresh, before my glory could be undermined by that ancient guilt.

The funeral and subsequent reception were attended by a throng of professors, professors’ wives, admiring grad students, and my popular mother’s friends, who more than made up for our lack of living family. I moved about, dry-eyed yet downcast at my mother’s side, accepting the hand-claspings, cheek-brushings, and misplaced compliments that came my way (“How tall and slim you’ve gotten! Like a model,” “Doesn’t Laurel look lovely in black?”). Out of sheer boredom, I kept coming back to the refreshments table for more cucumber sandwiches. I was nibbling on my third when I found my mother talking to Mr. and Mrs. Walden.

The Waldens were a middle-aged couple who had known my parents for almost twenty years. About ten years ago, they’d relocated to Carmel-by-the-Sea, an artsy little town down in Monterey County. Since then, my mother had been in touch with Jillian Walden only sporadically, calling her on the phone and lunching with the couple whenever they came up to the city. My father, busy with his professorly duties, preferred to forgo these meetings. Nonetheless, they had driven up expressly for his funeral, and extended their sympathies—Jillian, with brimming eyes, lamenting the terrible illness that had cut short poor Jonathon’s life; Lee, with brusque joviality, stating, “Jon was a great guy. Really, he was great; a fine man.”

“We’re just sorry we can’t stay longer,” Jillian told us, “Lee’s working to a deadline.”

“Another English garden. They want hedge animals—squirrels, rabbits, the whole deal—but tell me it can’t look
kitsch.”

“Oh, dear,” my mother frowned in sympathy.

“Hedges are all he can talk about! He isn’t very good company at the moment,” Jillian laughed, “And, as for Josie, she spends all her time with the boyfriend. It doesn’t matter that she won’t be seeing us when she goes back to college. Laurel, do you have a boyfriend?” Mrs. Walden turned to me.

I shook my head and tried not to roll my eyes, giving her a polite simper. I had long since finished my sandwich. The women exchanged coy glances.

“Good for you. All Josie’s man is good for is tracking sand in from the beach and stealing my beer,” Lee griped.

“We make him stay in the guest room, of course,” his wife added.

Lee gave a snort of derision. “Jill, you know as well as I do that that bed has never been slept on.”

“It
is
a lovely room,” Jillian continued, diplomatically. “We renovated it last winter. It’s a shame for it to go unused. Josie’s room will probably just sit empty for most of the year as well . . .” She glanced at her husband, who nodded. “Lee and I were talking on the way here: we’d love to have you and Laurel come to stay sometime! Carmel is beautiful in September—still sunny and warm. Perfect weather for you to paint in. And Laurel can swim.”

“Oh! Jill, how nice of you!” My mother’s brows went up in gratitude. “But we couldn’t impose like that.”

“Really, Lizzie, we wouldn’t ask if we didn’t mean it! We hardly get to see you anymore. And Laurel—you probably don’t even remember ever coming to Carmel.” Jillian swatted me gently on my bare arm.

“Oh . . . I do.” I had to turn my attention away from the napkin that I had idly been folding and refolding to look at her. In fact, I did vaguely recall a weekend by the beach when I was eight or nine, and sharing a slant-ceilinged bedroom with their dark-haired daughter. I also recalled that I would be starting school again in three weeks’ time. I informed the adults of this fact and there was a general murmur of disappointment.

“Of course, there’s always Josie’s old school,” Jillian said, after a deliberative pause. “Boarding isn’t for everyone, but we were very impressed by Saint Cecilia’s. Their music program, I think, was what got her into Pomona.”

“Great campus too. Built in the thirties. A bit Deco, a bit Gothic. You’d love the chapel, Lizzie.” Lee shot my mother a glance, hooking his thumbs into his belt.

“I don’t know if boarding school is the best thing for Laurel right now.” My mother looked up at me. Once again, I was forced to rein in my wandering attention: this time, from a group of male professors who I’d been inspecting.

“It might be good for her to get away from all the grief. What do you think, sweetheart?” Jillian smiled at me. I gave her another simper.

“You should at least let us show you around the place. Wonderful stuff. Carvings, clerestories, willow trees. I think there’s even a lake . . .”

“Don’t forget the woods, dear,” Jillian interrupted her husband. “Such beautiful woods!”

September 11, 2002

Saint Cecilia’s Catholic School
Marin County

Dear Mom,

Everything is fine here. I like my new uniform better than the old one. We actually have proper kilts, and the emblem on my blouse (an eye and a harp, the same as on the letterhead) is really well stitched. There was a memorial assembly this morning, but we still had to go to classes. I couldn’t be bothered playing hockey in P.E. though.

I hope that you are having a good time at Yellow Leaf. You deserve a break from things. Tell Lee and Jillian hello. I will be down at Thanksgiving to help with the house. Write soon.

Your daughter,

Laurel E. Marks

P
ART
T
WO

I
n many ways, my life only truly began on a day in September, when I was seventeen and far from everything. Before that day, life had been elsewhere; something utterly apart from me and the slanted sunbeams and wooden floors of my childhood. I like to think that I was born in those woods, in a flash of green and stream of sepia sunlight—the mythic haze of that Marin County Monday. Everything before that September day was simply a prelude, leading up to the shock of my conception: bereft, kneeling, as he stood like a god in my sunlight, his white shirt ablaze.

The tears that brought me to the woods were nothing. They were the strain of staring through a classroom window in the hour before lunch break. They were three weeks of pent-up grief and self-condemnation. They were an exacerbation of my fragile beauty, luring that god into the shadows of my arbor, where California laurel grew heady and tangled as a dream.

He was a god. His arms were strong, his shoulders broad. His manner was warm and paternal. He had hair on the back of his hands and a pale gold wedding band that flashed when he moved to console me. I didn’t resist his embrace, but cried into his shirtfront—sweet, salt tears that mingled with the smell of his skin. He kneaded my shoulders. He stroked my hair. He murmured in my ear—smooth, hot-breathed nothings.

If it weren’t for the bell, sounding over the school grounds to reach us in our leafy recess, our illicit embrace, he might have had me then, as any god would a nymph. As it was, we broke apart: I, with the sudden awareness of how old he was; he with the awareness of how young I was. He looked upon my innocent white blouse, my kilt and high white socks, with something akin to horror. I looked upon his collared shirt and sensible, belted trousers, and looked away in embarrassment. He didn’t try to prevent me as I gathered my things and fled from that green inferno.

W
HILE
ENROLLING
at Saint Cecilia’s three weeks earlier, I had been obliged to make the usual selections among subjects. There were the sciences: biology, chemistry, and physics. There were the foreign languages: French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Mandarin. There were the mathematics: algebra, calculus, geometry, and statistics. Finally, there was English literature. At senior level, this was divided into three classes: Modernism, taught by Mr. Wolfstein; women’s literature, taught by Mrs. Poplar; and Romantic poetry, taught by Mr. Steadman.

I had no real interest in the writings of women. Meanwhile, though only a month ago, the word “modern” would have held more appeal for me, my father’s death had effected a change, which made me linger over the final option. I skimmed the reading list. My pen hovered above my page. I sighed and scribbled in my small, jerky hand:
Romantic poetry.

After Monday’s lunch hour, I arrived outside my fifth period art class, flustered and grass-stained, with a stray leaf in my hair. The leaf was pointed out to me by Jade van Dam—a slight, snooty girl with seed-like green eyes and bobbed brown hair—and subsequently plucked out by bold little Marcelle Lavigne, who had been in my French lesson prior to lunch, and who wisecracked, “What have
you
been doing?” When the door to the art room was opened by Ms. Faber, I made a point to sit away from both girls at the communal table, taking a place beside fat Winnie Maddock, who obscured me from general view.

I passed from fifth period to study hall, study hall to dinner, dinner to dormitory, as if in a dream—granted, a very warm dream, invaded at times by hyper-real flashes of foliage, pearly buttons, and dark arm hair. I recognized these flashes as a different kind of reality, which had very little to do with eating or sleeping, or with buttoning my blouse, slow-fingered, in the still near-darkness of my private dorm room on Tuesday morning. Nor did it have anything to do with walking alongside Sadie Bridges, another senior, to check the beds of the younger girls under our charge and asking her whether she had biology class first period. “No, sorry, I take chem.” She yawned into her palm.