Outside the Ordinary World

by Dori Ostermiller

  Have I acquired a phobia in the years since I’ve been on a plane? Maybe I’m scared to see my family, after all this time, worried they’ll detect my secret life. Afraid of their judgment, estrangement or indifference. Or perhaps dreading how inevitably they’ll have changed—my own mortality mirrored back in their lined and falling faces, their diminishing beauty.

  But when we arrive in Oakland, I see that Alison’s face has not fallen one millimeter in the past half decade; her beauty is anything but diminished, though she has a sort of stretched, surprised look—clearly one of the perks of marrying a plastic surgeon. She struts across the terminal like an ambassador in her cropped chartreuse jacket, black pants and spike heels, her bleached blond hair twisted in a sleek knot at the back of her head, lanky adolescent boys galumphing behind her. She stares straight at me for twenty seconds before the recognition creeps across her face. I wonder how much I’ve changed since the last time she saw me, four years ago when she came to visit following Emmie’s birth.

  “You’re so thin.” She looks me over as if unsure I’m the right passenger off this flight.

  “Well, haven’t just squeezed out a baby this time, have I?” I reach to embrace my nephews, Donny and Ben, ages fifteen and eleven, who hug back half-heartedly—do they even remember me? Donny’s grown at least a foot—he’s black-haired and lanky as a yearling colt, his hands huge at the ends of scrawny forearms. Ben is stocky and fair, a sarcastic twist to his chapped smile, cheeks glazed with pale freckles.

  “And where are your girls? You didn’t leave them home with Nathan, did you?”

  “They’re just over there, looking for the bags. For some reason they find this whole air travel thing entertaining,” I say.

  “Jeez—I can’t imagine,” Ali concedes, and without warning, she grabs and hugs me tightly—the same old vise grip around my neck that I’ve always had trouble managing. Even in her most affectionate moments, Alison is an abrasive woman, but I suppose that comes from serving as Assistant D.A. for ten years, and being married to Kurt even longer.

  Now Hannah’s calling from the moving belt—she’s toppling with my enormous bag. Ben and Donny sprint off to help and Emmie’s wandered away again. Where is she? I’m clutched by momentary panic, but when I turn around again, my sister is holding her on one hip. Ali’s eyes are moist and her voice buckles. “So this is the gorgeous little niece you’ve been keeping from us. How could you, Sylvie? How could you?”

  So begins the six-day parade of guilt. Dragging our baggage to the sidewalk, I learn that it’s been hell here, absolute hell, that Gram’s hanging by a thread—that Poppy’s in one of his deep, Biblical funks and Mom’s had to upend her entire life because Uncle Peter is useless, useless.

  “And Sylvie’s gone and run off to the east coast,” I add, trying to smile.

  “Yeah, well—” She arches her perfectly waxed brows. “Thank God Robert didn’t mind moving back here. He’s been a saint, actually. He’s out playing golf with Kurt right now. They barely have room for us in the apartment but I wanted to let you and the girls stay at Orchard Hill. I’ve been here so much. I’m doing half my job through faxes and e-mail!” All this as we’re standing curbside in the breathtaking California day—this fragrant golden air unlike anywhere else I’ve been—waiting for Mom to collect us in her aqua Suburban.

  I sit up front with my mother. Ali has insisted on sitting beside Emmie so she can “get acquainted.” As I fasten my seat belt, Elaine appraises me over her dark glasses, then squeezes my hand. “It’s high time you came,” she scolds. At sixty-seven, she’s still elegant, though a bit more careworn than the last time I saw her. She pulls away from the curb just as the police officer is coming to move us along.

  “You look tired, angel,” she notes, veering onto the freeway. I laugh.

  “I guess I’m the only woman in my family who ages. Must be something about the east coast winters.”

  “You won’t say that when you see poor Gram.” She bites her lip.

  “So I hear. Sorry it’s been so hard, Mom.”

  “Well—it’s just life.” She sighs. And then, “That’s quite a getup your eldest has on,” she delivers with a wry smile, as if Hannah’s ripped jeans and cropped Wicked T-shirt don’t bother her in the least.

  “It’s just a T-shirt and jeans.” I brace myself.

  “Yes, but why all the rips and safety pins? Did she do that herself or did you buy the pants that way?”

  “Ah. The jeans come that way, believe it or not. Nathan and I have decided to choose our battles.”

  “I’m surprised Nathan’s not here,” she says a few minutes later, as we shoot through the Caldecott Tunnel. I glance behind at Alison, who is good-naturedly reading Emmie’s pony book for the third time. Hannah and the boys are swapping iPods in the back.

  “He might come Christmas eve,” I answer, knowing he probably won’t.

  “So then, everything’s good with you and your husband?” Mom whispers as we enter Happy Valley Road. She’s tap-tapping her nails on the steering wheel, obviously onto something. It’s so like her to launch right into this, to start probing and criticizing in the first five minutes of my first visit in five years. She still has no boundaries with me.

  “Things are as good as can be expected, Mom,” I snap. Does she really think I’m going to launch into a treatise on my marital issues right here, with my children in the back and my sister now leaning over the seat, ears poised?

  As we start the ascent up Orchard Hill, Mom says quietly, “That’s fine, Sylvie—you can keep your secrets.”

  Who was it who taught me about keeping secrets? I’m thinking a few hours later, standing in the narrow kitchen with its familiar cracked yellow tile, its custard cups full of buttons and peanuts, aspirins and safety pins. Nothing here has changed, including my mother, who trained me in duplicity early and well, making me what I am today—a woman who can walk this line, inhabit parallel worlds, carry a lifetime’s worth of guilt without flinching, hold a secret as exquisitely as if it were one of these Wedgwood teacups Gram still insists on using, though one seems to shatter every couple years. This one has tiny roses painted on the sides, reminding me of Tai—of that first rose he offered, of his weakness for these extravagant transplants.

  Only a dozen hours into my trip, I’m missing him more than I want to, shocked by how insistently my mind wanders back—to the thick, resonant voice in the cave of my ear, his thumb stroking the fleshy part of my palm, the disquieting shards of light in his eyes. As I face my family’s accusations—that I’ve abandoned my heritage, failed to stay in touch, become a liberal Easterner—I’m continually warding off these illicit thoughts, or drawing them close like the threads of a protective cocoon. I keep reaching into my pocket, fingers curling tight around the rough blue agate.

  The last time I saw him, he’d appeared during the annual Open Studios that our building hosts before Christmas. I’d decided at the last minute to participate, opening my doors and displaying a dozen of my landscapes, along with a sampling of student art. Eli’s work was represented, of course—I’d hung two of his best watercolors on the center wall—and part of me was anticipating father and son, watching the crowds, feeling a tiny explosion of disappointment each time someone else walked through the door. Still, I was somehow unprepared for the moment when he finally entered in his chocolate-colored tweed blazer and worn jeans, Eli close behind.

  I was talking with the director of development and a board member from Smith College—a conversation that should have mattered to me. They were asking if I’d ever considered teaching in an academic setting. One was saying she’d like to send two artistic nieces my way, the other asking how much for that piece with the harbor? I should have given them every molecule of my attention and salesmanship, but all I could do was steal glances over their shoulders, wondering when I’d get away. He was sipping wine in the corner, laughing with my petite friend Jules, who owned the studio across the hall. Was he actually flirting? So con
vinced of his appeal? Was there a shade of cruelty I’d never noticed before in that sensuous smile? I was blazing with jealousy, regretting the moment when the world became divided into Tai and Everyone Else. When was it that he hijacked my wits?

  The Smith women introduced me to the art museum curator, who had the audacity to take my time talking about Lesser Known Impressionists. I thought I would die of agitation and longing as the curator droned on about Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt—a topic I normally would’ve found interesting, had my lover not been walking toward me, jump-starting my heart.

  And then he was taking my elbow, mercifully, saying, “Would you excuse me, ladies?” Flashing a radiant smile. “I just need to speak with Ms. Sandon about one piece before I go.” I was muttering my apologies, dissolving into the solid warmth of his shoulder as we traversed the perimeter of the studio.

  “I can’t stay,” he whispered. “I’m taking Eli to the movies tonight, but I wanted to see you, before you go west.”

  “You smell yummy,” I said.

  “Do you think people would suspect anything if I bought all your paintings?” he asked. “Well, except that one with the boats.”

  “Oh? Why don’t you like that one?” I pulled away, feigning offense.

  “Too cheerful,” he remarked. “It feels like a facade—doesn’t have the intensity of your other ones somehow.”

  “Well, I’m not only gloomy, you know.” We had stopped before the paintings and were standing a few feet apart, pretending to talk shop. He’d trimmed his beard closer and was wearing the sagey aftershave that I loved. My head seemed to float several feet over my body, though I hadn’t had any wine. I handed him a business card, just to be cute. He looked at it, pulled out a pen, and scribbled a few lines on the back, then slipped it into the pocket of my black silk jacket just as Eli sauntered up.

  “Your paintings look great, you know,” I told him. “They’re the centerpiece.”

  “You won’t believe this, but that woman in the furry hat just asked if they were for sale.” He was flushed, running his fingers through his hair in a Tai-like gesture of mock humility.

  “See what I’m telling you, Eli? Aren’t you glad you came back to class?” I pressed.

  “Yeah, but what do I say? Are they for sale? And how much? I’ve never even flipping thought about what I’d charge.”

  “Start at five hundred,” Tai instructed, and when Eli raised an eyebrow he shrugged and said, “You can always come down.”

  After Eli left, Tai took my hand as if to shake it and pressed it between his own—the exact gesture he’d used to calm me in the Plainfield woods, after our first kiss. I suddenly felt I was made of glass—brittle, transparent—all my need and treachery apparent to anyone who might look.

  “If I don’t see you before you go,” he said, “just try being with the family you’ve got.” He released my hand.

  “Are you speaking Buddhist again?” My heart was dropping like a pebble through a bog. I felt him preparing to go, taking all my energy with him.

  “My family’s gone, Sylvie. Parents, grandparents, brother…Except I do have one great aunt in Florida. And a cousin in Brooklyn. The point is—just enjoy them while you can, if you can. I’ll be here when you get back.” He pulled himself away, collected his son and left without another glance, only minutes before Nathan and the girls came bustling in, tardy and tousled, bearing white carnations and a cheese platter. Nathan looked haggard and Emmie’s eyes were puffy—she’d clearly just had a meltdown over something. I hugged them all, feeling wretched and faithless as a tomcat.

  Strangely, it feels wrong to be at Orchard Hill without Nathan, unsettling to be three thousand miles from his grounding presence, the comforting weight of our shared history. Painful to picture him at the construction site alone, tromping back and forth through the Ashfield snow, the distant sound of carolers reaching him through the pines.

  The water has boiled. I fill the rosebud teacup with Postum and warm milk, the way Gram likes it, then bring it to her on the living room sofa. In the five years since I’ve seen her, she’s shrunk to the size of a nine-year-old child, her veins knotted beneath tissue-paper skin, eyes sunken and cloudy. She’s a woman teetering on the brink between worlds, unsure, from one second to the next, which way she’ll lean.

  Now she holds out a crooked hand to me and I take it in my own. Her bones feel as fragile as a bird’s wing, and I can sense the nearness of death. My eyes start to fill and I will myself to stay composed. I don’t want to alarm her.

  I sit down on the corner of the couch, setting her Postum on the table beside her and tossing a crocheted throw blanket over her lap. She smiles grimly.

  “Your daughters are spirited, Sylvie,” she croaks. “Just like you, and your mom.”

  I laugh nervously, pushing away my inclination to hear an accusation in her words. “Yeah, they have minds of their own,” I say. Gram looks at me and nods—I can see in her milky irises that she’s chasing some thread of memory.

  “Don’t talk to that runaway girl, Mama,” grumbles Poppy as he shuffles past the room, apparently done with his nap. At ninety, he’s still striking, albeit diminished, his shoulders now bowed under the weight of years and Gram’s illness. “That girl’s a deserter,” he calls back, winking once before he disappears into the kitchen.

  “I hope this, this—independent spirit doesn’t complicate your daughters’ lives too much,” Gram says now. “I hope it serves them.”

  “Times are different, Gram,” I note. “Women have to have spirit to survive.” But she doesn’t seem to have heard; her eyelids are lowering. Mom is setting out Christmas decorations in the den. She hasn’t stopped working since I got here. Just as I’m preparing to leave Gram to her nap, her eyes fly open and she says, “How’s that house you and Nathaniel were redoing?”

  “Nathan,” I correct. “We’re still working on it; a bit of an albatross, actually.”

  “Oh, my.” Her tiny face crumples. “Hasn’t that been going on for an age?”

  “Nearly a decade,” I admit. “There was more work than we thought, and Nathan doesn’t like to hire it out. That’s where he is now.” I resist the urge to add, That’s where he always is.

  “It’s important to have a home, Sylvia,” Gram rasps after a pause—it’s costing her vital energy to talk to me. “I don’t know what I’d have done all these years without Orchard Hill…. If I’d have stayed married, even without it. Our home reminded us—” she trails off. I feel I should let her alone now, let her sleep, but I want the conclusion of this thought.

  “Reminded you of what, Gram?” I place my hand on the powdery, soft skin of her forearm. “What did Orchard Hill remind you of?”

  “Oh.” She smiles sadly, her head quivering. “Just—there were things we both wanted. Good things. Things worth working for.”

  I don’t know what to say to this. My mind flashes to the first time Nathan and I saw the property in Ashfield, the first time we sat together on the crumbling front steps of our house, sharing a bottle of Chianti, savoring the view. Hannah was wrapped in fleece, asleep on the picnic blanket under the apple tree, so we spoke quietly of our dreams: how we’d renovate the outbuildings into a studio for me and a shop for him; how we’d grow blueberries and tap the sugar maples for syrup, fill the old coop with chickens and the pond with koi. We’d even have horses and teach Hannah to ride on trails that wound through the Berkshires. I remember how the afternoon light slanted across the planes of his face; how I felt like the luckiest woman alive.

  “Here, Gram—you’ve forgotten your Postum.” I pick up the cup to hand to her. Just then Emmie crashes into me, spilling the brown liquid all over my silk jacket, down my jeans to the antique Oriental rug. Gram smiles, and it’s this more than anything—this uncharacteristic disregard for her precious things—that makes me understand she is letting go.

  Two days later, we’re standing in the circular driveway—Ali, Kurt, my cousin Nick and I—debating how much free
dom to grant our children. Nick’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Ursa, wants to take Hannah, Ben and Donny to the mall. Emmie’s napping, and the teenagers are eager to sneak off before she wakes and demands to be included.

  “Why not play tennis or golf?” insists Kurt. “Do something wholesome, for crying out loud.” He picks lint off his Ralph Lauren cardigan.

  “Yes, why slum it with the mall rats?” asks Alison. I stare at my sister in her burgundy cashmere, wondering if she’s forgotten her own “mall rat” days.

  “How much trouble can they get into in a few hours?” I wonder aloud.

  “Let the kids have some fun, for God’s sake,” bellows Poppy from the lawn chair by the garage, where he’s been observing, legs sprawled before him, straw hat propped over his eyes.

  Just as I’m fishing in my pocket for cash, laying down some ground rules, Mom emerges from the guest room, looking shaken, and takes me by the arm. “I want to talk to you, Sylvie.” She leads me across the driveway. “Let’s go for a little walk.”

  We start down the hill in the fog, Mom’s arm linked too firmly to mine, her face stony, though when she finally speaks her voice is melodious, betraying nothing. “The kids are off shopping?”

  “Yeah. I hope they can stay out of trouble for a few hours.”

  “More than we can say for you, huh, angel?”

  I’m silent, trying to keep pace with her down this treacherous hill. She suspects something, of course—that much has been clear since our ride from the airport—and I’ve decided not to offer her a thing, to float cool and impermeable outside her radar. Still, I’m not prepared for what comes next.

  “Do you love this man, Sylvia?”

  “What man?” I halt at the entrance to the orchard, next to the pomegranate tree. Pulling my arm from hers, I cast her a steady gaze, trying to ignore the adrenaline swamping my veins.