“No, that won’t be necessary,” says the detective. “See, the autopsy results have come back, and there was a large amount of Xanax in his system. Did Seth suffer from anxiety?”
“Sure, but not enough for me to give him anything for it, in my professional opinion.”
“Any idea where he might have gotten it?”
“My first guess would be from his mother. I’d be willing to bet she’s had a prescription at some point. Having a depressed son causes a lot of anxiety. If not from her, a friend’s parent, maybe.”
“Thank you, Dr. Middleton,” says the detective.
“Of course,” says Tom, “if there is anything else I can do…” He stands up.
“Actually, there is one other thing,” says Detective Hendricks. He waits for Tom to sit back down. “Now, this is sensitive information, and I’d appreciate it if you kept it confidential.”
Tom agrees.
“You see, in the autopsy, there was no water found in Seth’s lungs.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yes. There’s a thing called ‘dry drowning’ when a victim doesn’t inhale any water and eventually dies of cardiac arrest. One sees this in a very small percent of drowning victims. But normally, even if someone wants to die, there is panic before it actually happens, and they open their mouth and, well, you know the rest. So in the case of a suicide, if someone were to ‘dry drown,’ so to speak, they would have to be, excuse me for saying this, very determined.” Detective Hendricks looks Tom in the eyes, but only to prove a point. He doesn’t invite Tom to respond. “Now, in your notes, there is almost nothing about Seth being suicidal, am I right?”
“That is correct, detective,” Tom answers. “I didn’t perceive it to be a concern. However, Seth was extremely intelligent. And if he was truly determined to end his own life, then he would have deliberately kept that from me.”
“I suppose so,” says Detective Hendricks. This time, the detective stands up first.
Tom puts out his hand, and the man holds on for too long.
As soon as the detective’s car is out of sight, Tom goes down to the unfinished side of the basement. He reaches his hand behind a shelf and pulls out several sheets of white paper. He kept his notes on “Marianne” separate from all else he and Seth talked about. The moral ambiguity of his decision to keep it confidential, and the unique nature of the affair-well, that’s what he’d done anyway. It’s no crime to keep something on a separate sheet of paper.
The night that Seth died, before the police arrived, he’d gone downstairs and removed those pages. He did it almost without thinking-it was a reflex of self-preservation-and now, here they were, stuffed behind a dirty tool shelf.
Tom stands there, reads through every word, and then burns them in the utility sink with a kitchen match.
The answer he gave Detective Hendricks is technically sound. If Seth had taken a lot of Xanax it might have helped him to stay calm through the experience, more so if he’d also been drinking. He might have even passed out and fallen in. Tom should’ve said that.
It’s a decent theory, but he doesn’t want it to be true. As soon as he admits that to himself, the dam breaks, his instincts rush in, and suddenly he is swimming in them. He must see Amelia.
Tom leaves the house out the back door, the one reserved for his patients, and walks directly to Amelia’s house. He resists the urge to run so as not to attract attention.
When Amelia answers the door she is crying. She has changed into a sleeveless red dress that grazes the tops of her knees, paired with the same turquoise earrings, as if she had planned to go out.
Tom touches her face, sensitively, to see if she’ll accept his comfort. She doesn’t pull away.
He steps inside, draws her to him, and they are kissing. He’s surprised by how much he wants her; his desire has its own inertia, like a feverish fit or a drunken tirade. Amelia wants it too, he can tell, but in her own way.
“Don’t stop,” she says.
He holds her tighter. She doesn’t want him to be anything he isn’t, he reminds himself.
After, Tom is getting dressed. There is no postcoital relief. Neither wants to hold the other. Tom goes into the bathroom to wash up and checks her medicine cabinet. Xanax.
In that bazaar of a living room, Amelia is lying on the couch in her bra and panties, smoking a cigarette. Tom looks down at her.
“Did you do it?” asks Tom.
“Do what?” she says.
“Kill him. Fuck him then kill him.”
“No I didn’t kill him. What the hell’s wrong with you?” Amelia stands up and starts collecting her clothes. She touches one ear, feels her earring, and then touches the other and finds a bare lobe.
“Wrong with me?” Tom yells, “Nothing’s wrong with me! How am I supposed to know what you’re capable of?”
“Listen to me,” Amelia says in a tone that indicates that actually, she is capable of a lot. “Seth killed
Tom is standing over her. He looks at her face, expecting to find either vengeance or guilt, but she is expressionless. He has never known her to lie.
He turns to leave, and in the foyer by the door he sees Amelia’s other turquoise earring lodged in the carpet. He picks it up, slips it in his pocket, and slams the door behind him.
The following day, Detective Hendricks tells the Middletons they’re going to drain the pool. Detective Hendricks comes to supervise a crew of crime scene investigators dressed in navy-blue jumpsuits and latex gloves. It takes half a day for the water to drain, siphoned out onto the street and running down the hill into the gutter. Tom and Jackie watch from the deck as the men sweep the cement and unclog the filter. The last remnants of summer combed together with the early signs of fall give the yard the look of an unvisited cemetery, the diving board marking the head of its only grave. Tom squeezes Jackie’s hand, knowing that after today he will have to deny almost everything, and knowing, too, that she will believe him. Satisfied, Tom watches a young man, not much older than Seth, reach his hand into the drain at the bottom of the pool and pull out a piece of jewelry that catches the light, ever so slightly, through its scummy exterior.
PART III.
FISHTOWN ODYSSEY BY MEREDITH ANTHONY
Megan stepped out of her fashionable red door in the trendiest part of Fishtown, drinking in the cold, clear afternoon air. She stood on the stoop, locked the door behind her, and turned, putting her keys in her handbag, juggling her Kenneth Cole overnight bag. She walked down the first of the three steps that led to the sidewalk and stepped on a woman’s hand.
Megan shrieked. The woman shrieked. Megan stumbled and, for a moment, thought she might fall.
“I’m so sorry. So sorry,” she said, apologizing reflexively as she righted herself. Luckily, she was wearing
