The day is somber, the rain slashing down in a way that feels malicious, deliberate, the sky an angry, roiling sea of steel. Which is how Max would have wanted it, I’m sure. Dramatic. Across the street and down the block from where I’m parked, people are filing out of the Boston Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, hunched against the onslaught under umbrellas, dark coats, funeral programs. Same place Ted Kennedy had his funeral. Not bad.
I’m sitting in Gram’s old Tacoma, watching everyone come out the same way I watched them all go in. I thought for a second about going in to Max’s funeral when it was getting under way just over an hour ago. But I decided it wouldn’t be for the best. Too much hubbub has arisen around me, around that weekend since his death. So I sat in my own kind of vigil, the rain thrumming the cab of my truck, the sound overpowering, unrelenting. I wept. I can admit that. It was a buildup of everything, I think. The stress. The catharsis. Reliving my mother’s own death so viscerally. And the fact is, I’ve spent the last few years of my life singularly fixated on him, getting close to him, springing this plan on him—him, him, him—so now his absence feels palpable. Strange. Impossible, somehow. Impossible that what I did could be done. Impossible that I was the one to do it. And now he’s gone. Dead. And as his obituary reminded me, he was still a talented man only at midcareer.
He had more in him. I’m sure this is what President Dana Switzer spoke of in her eulogy. Max’s dedication to his life’s work, which was both his own art and the institute itself. There would have been indirect hints of the way he died, I’m sure—but only hints, would be my guess. I’m sure she never said the word suicide. She must have said things like suffering, relief, trials, burden, burning too brightly, forgiveness, have mercy on his soul, etc. All the usual phrases.
As soon as the news got out about what happened at Lupine Valley, it was clear to me that everyone had assumptions about why Max secretly traveled all the way to Maine to see me for a weekend, alone. Let them think what they want. I know the truth. I never let him touch me like that. I never let him kiss me. Over the past year, were there hugs he lingered in too long? Yes. Were there flirtatious comments or texts from time to time? Sure. I went along with it. I had to, to keep him close enough, to keep him within striking distance. But it went no further than that. I knew I had to keep the tease going if I had any chance of drawing him out of his comfort zone, if I had any chance at getting him to Maine. Max was known for having had affairs in the past, for being a little too friendly with students. Some of those stories—and new ones, too—came up again when he died. The Boston Globe has written a story about what happened, for Christ’s sake. The Bangor Daily News, Portland Press Herald, too. In the first few pieces, as the details were still coming out, they mentioned these past indiscretions with a light touch, and they mentioned me in a separate breath and were fine with letting the readers draw their own conclusions.
Renowned art professor dies by suicide in Maine.
A Boston professor’s trip to student’s hometown ends in his tragic death.
I was honest with the police. I had to be. I had to stick as close to the truth as possible. They would find the veiled texts I sent in return to his not-so-veiled texts. Because of this, all the dirty laundry came out—or most of it, anyway. Max Durant, esteemed artist and professor at the Boston Institute for the Visual Arts, died by suicide while on a weekend away with a student he’d hoped might become a lover. Some conjectured he had ended his life over the guilt because other affairs from the past then came to light, brought forth by other lovers who now made it clear his predatory nature with students had been a pattern of behavior, not a one-off. I have received so many emails from friends and colleagues with an incredible variety of tones in the last two weeks. Some are furious with me, calling me a slut, a whore. Saying that Max only liked my work best because he wanted to fuck me or was fucking me. Those are the ones that hurt the most, actually. You can call me a whore, a slut, whatever—that’s all meaningless. Because I know I was never with him that way. But a bad artist—that stings. Others have been more sympathetic, telling me that Max clearly had a history of seducing young women and that older, wiser people have fallen into such traps before. To take that part as a lesson. That set assured me that his death was not my fault. That I couldn’t blame myself.
I didn’t blame myself.
I made it clear to the other members of my thesis committee that I would need time to clear my head. A brief leave of absence. That I would return when I felt ready. They were supportive of this. So I’ve been tucked away in Rockveil these last two weeks. Trying to forget that Max died where my mother died. That they both died in a place I’d loved; I’d seen it as magical before I knew the details of my mother’s death. And it’s a place she had seen as magical, too, before she and Moss and Mantis went there. The tree will go. I don’t want to be reminded of what happened there any more than I need to be.
Some part of me felt bad for the small part of Max who could be kind, generous, funny when he wanted to be. I am not heartless. I wanted to punish him, but that doesn’t mean I have no sense of humanity. If I felt nothing, I would be no better than Max.
I am better than Max.
The night he died, I let myself cry. For him. For Coral. For the way he destroyed her. For the way something she made destroyed him, ultimately. I even vomited. The cops hurried me into the powder room just in time. I puked until there was only yellow bile left. I was sweaty and clammy and sick and crying. I couldn’t shake it.
They ended up taking me to the hospital. The one in Greenville. The one I was born in. The one Cindy was born in. At the hospital, they cleaned me up, assessed me, gave me Valium for my panic. At around nine a.m., the cops finally came in to take my official statement. I told them my truth. They asked me how Max “seemed” over his last few days. I told them that he seemed himself, for the most part. That he was a little preoccupied on the ride up, which was true. A little distracted or nervous. Flipping the knife open and closed, open and closed on the way to my house. They were interested in the knife. Whose it was, where it came from. His, I told them. He—very uncharacteristically—bought it for himself when we stopped at the Dirigo Hill Trading Post. They jotted some notes down about that. They later checked that out and verified Max had indeed bought the knife himself. It made me glad Max had gotten bored and come into the trading post. When god closes a door…
I told them about our walk to the lake. I left out the part about getting him drunk and shoving him out into the lake in my rowboat. And the note at the shore, and Lance hunting him, shepherding him up to the clearing with the boulder and the birch. I left out Coral’s words. Her drawings. I left out Coral entirely. I left out our talk in the clearing, the bargain we made. I told them that we talked and hung out in the kitchen for a while after our hike and dinner, and then at around one thirty, I went to bed. I woke up a couple hours later and found his note. Then I found him.
They came and talked to me out at the house a few more times over the next few days, but it was clearly a crossing-t’s-and-dotting-i’s type thing. They even kept the kitchen note for a day or two but eventually returned it to me. It was a suicide, plain and simple. I hadn’t laid a finger on him, and everything about the circumstances of his death showed that. A washed-up, middle-aged artist who’d peaked many years ago and just couldn’t take it. A man who manipulated and slept with his students. A man with a temper. I mentioned what happened in my studio. I showed them the pictures, which they studied with concern. They told me I was lucky that he hadn’t turned his violence on me, that I should have called on them. I said I never imagined it would ever go this far, and that it had been scary and I hadn’t known what to do. They’d patted my shoulder, expressed their condolences, said they were just so glad I was alright.
In the meantime, I’ve played my part well. Devastated. Shell-shocked. Keeping to myself up in Rockveil. But in a few days’ time, I’ll be reuniting with Lance, perhaps a little earlier than he’d expected. For another funeral. One I’ll actually be able to attend. One I’m looking forward to attending. Lance’s uncle Marcus Peters, my unwitting pen pal, died in a hunting accident recently. He was wearing white gloves way out in the woods and someone—god only knows who—mistook him for a deer.
But these things happen. I’m sure he’d tell you that himself, if he could. Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug.
It’s getting cold in the cab of my pickup. I start the engine and smear the heavy rain away, turn up the heat. I look down the block and see there are no more mourners trickling out of the basilica. I pull out of my parking space and just start driving. I find myself drawn toward the institute and let myself glide slowly by, water skidding away from my tires as I look up into the big, plate-glass windows that face out onto St. James Avenue.
I keep on going, heading for Storrow Drive, then I-95 North. Traffic is thin as I pass Exit 286. By the time I cross the state line into New Hampshire, the rain is letting up. By the time I cross the Piscataqua River Bridge into Maine, the sun is out and shining.