The Wood of Suicides Read Online Free

that he was looking; sure that he saw it all, and was not exactly sickened. In the end, however, my father was a sick man; too sick to survive the sheer, dark force of my fixation.

    T HE MEDICINE cabinet. Labels to read. Side-effects, including: dizziness, drowsiness, dryness of the mouth, nausea, diarrhea, constipation, headaches, aching joints, muscular pain, loss of appetite, and impotence. The opiates were all gone, on his person at the time, presumably confiscated. All that remained were the anticonvulsants, antidepressants, and muscle relaxants, along with his abandoned shaving kit, his neglected toothbrush, and the cologne and alcohol-free mouthwash upon which he had become dependent.
    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