The sun is low and red in a golden sky-the park looks different in this light-darker shadows, brighter colors. It’s six o’clock, and it has started to cool down. The whole park is strewn with red-faced, semi-naked bodies, like a beach or a battlefield, on blankets or benches or spread out on the grass. More like a foreign country-Greece or somewhere. We’re into our fourth week of the heat wave, and it feels like an endurance test. They are buried alive, and will come forth later, in uglier ways. When I think of Alicia, I think only of depth, of darkness, of sadness. There was a pause as Max thought for a moment.Kathy makes me think of light, warmth, color, and laughter. “Who was the doctor? Do you remember his name?” And he … the doctor-agreed to keep it quiet.” “But-surely she saw a doctor? It was an overdose, you said?” I was wondering, which hospital treated her?” Max sighed and lowered the phone to say something unintelligible to Tanya. “I just want to ask you a couple more questions if you don’t mind.” I rang Max the next day, catching him just as he was leaving the office. There was no mention of it in her file, and I wondered why. I KEPT THINKING ABOUT what Max Berenson had said-about Alicia’s suicide attempt, following her father’s death. I had to sneak away and write all this down-I want to remember this day for the rest of my life. We hugged each other and cried and laughed. Gabriel looked at me hopefully, expectantly, waiting for my response. I was so taken aback I didn’t know what to say. The way he said it made me instantly nervous. There’s something on my mind I want to talk to you about.” And Gabriel held me in his arms and said something astonishing: We finished the picnic, went home, and had sex. He looked like a little boy, curled up asleep and breathing gently, crumbs around his mouth. It was easier because they were closed-but at least I got their shape right. I did a better job with his eyes this time. Gabriel fell asleep, and I sketched him, trying to capture the dappled sunlight on his face. And now it was as if the past and the present were coexisting simultaneously in one perfect moment. I may not have been a happy child, but during the time I spent under the willow tree, I felt a similar contentment to lying here with Gabriel. I saw myself when very young, sitting under the branches of the willow tree in our garden in Cambridge.
Perhaps it was simply a recollection of childhood stories, fairy tales, and magical trees being gateways to other worlds.
Somewhere, in the back of my mind, was a vague feeling of familiarity, a nagging sense of déjà vu I couldn’t quite place. We drank champagne and ate small sweet tomatoes with smoked salmon and slivers of bread. The willow branches formed a canopy over us, and the sun burned hazily through the leaves. We lay by the pond under a weeping willow, on the blue blanket we bought in Mexico. A cool breeze was coming off the water and the air smelled of cut grass. The sun was barely up, so the heat wasn’t unbearable. Then he took me for a picnic in the park for breakfast. He pricked his finger on one of the thorns. Gabriel was so sweet this morning-he kissed me awake and presented me with thirty-three red roses. I will grow older and older-but she won’t. She got to thirty-two, and then she stopped. I’ve outlived my mother now-it’s an unsteady feeling, being older than she was. It’s strange-it’s older than I ever saw myself as being my imagination only ever extended this far. It means I have some evidence-some proof. I feel safer, somehow, having it on paper. I feel better for having written this down. I’ll have to face it again next time we see Max-but something tells me that won’t be for a while. Gabriel gave me a disbelieving look but he let it go, for the moment.