Outside the Ordinary World

by Dori Ostermiller

  “‘Death is the mother of beauty…’” he intones. “Of course I remember—‘Within whose burning bosom we devise our earthly mothers’—Emmie, sweetie, put that down please. Now!” There’s some terse scuffle in the background. “Look, Sylv, I gotta go—call me later.”

  After he’s gone, I know what I need to do. I make two more calls—one to United, to see if I can change my return flight from Tuesday to first thing tomorrow morning. Then I call Judy Fulton—the family therapist—and leave a message: “I think I want to do the work, Judy,” I rasp into her voice mail. “I want to make an appointment for Nathan and me.”

  I spend the next hour walking the property, bowing—as Tai taught me—to the orchard and kumquat tree, the bomb shelter and the oaks. I stand in the center of the lawn watching the turkey vultures circling the valley, dominated by Mount Diablo’s scarred shoulders and kingly head. I’m wishing I’d brought my acrylics, or at least a sketchbook, so I could capture the view one last time for Hannah, who’s always loved it. I imagine my brush weaving those tatters of fog through January branches, my palette knife cutting that gleaming ribbon of fire road.

  “I hear you’re deserting at the crack of dawn.” Alison has crept up beside me and looped her arm through mine. She’s clad in leggings and a Pebble Beach sweatshirt, hair disheveled, smelling like her girlhood self—soap and lilacs and morning breath.

  “The poor people who buy this place will feel us haunting it,” I say, imaging our child voices echoing beneath the covered porch, swinging from the rafters, floating down from redwoods. “Do you think people go on inhabiting the places they love?”

  “We had good times here,” she answers, holding my elbow.

  “Yeah—maybe the only good times.”

  My sister squints up at me, shading her eyes. “No, Sylvie—not the only good times,” she says. “Don’t let the bad years eclipse everything else, okay?”

  “Okay,” I concede after a pause. “I’ll try. You know, Ali—you were also right when you said I was good at running away.”

  “Sometimes I’m right,” she smirks, leading me to the white plastic glider on the edge of the porch, where we sit rocking.

  “But that’s not what I’m doing this time, okay? That’s not why I’m leaving early.” She continues to stare at me, eyes narrowed, so I try again, wishing to alleviate some measure of my guilt. “I know you and Mom need my help here, but I’ve got a situation back home—”

  “I know, Sylvie,” she interrupts. “Mom told me all about it.”

  I stop rocking, sifting through the lineup of possible responses—betrayal, outrage, shame? Then I start to laugh. “Jesus Christ. Nothing is bloody sacred in this family.”

  “Yeah, well.” She smiles. “Some things never change, weirdly.”

  Later, as Robert is cooking his infamous pancakes for brunch, I tell them I have an errand to run.

  “Where on earth could you be going on your last day here?” Mom asks, walking me to my car. “Can’t you at least wait until after brunch?”

  “There’s someone I’ve been meaning to visit.”

  “You’re very mysterious.” She grips my upper arm. “I hope you’re not getting into more trouble, Sylvia?”

  “Not today,” I assure her. I don’t want to reveal where I’m headed. I’m not sure she’d understand my need to make this visit alone.

  She stares at me dubiously. Then, as I’m getting into the car she slips an ivory envelope into my hand.

  “Don’t open it here—open it later. It’s from Gram—something she wanted you to have. To help you and Nathan finish the house.”

  “Oh—thank you,” I say, tucking it into my bag, reaching for her hand.

  “There’s still time, Sylvie.”

  It’s a shorter drive to the small cemetery in Berkeley than I remember, but it’s been at least ten years since I visited. I make my way on crooked paths through the old but well-tended grave sites, past overgrown juniper bushes and magnolias. My father’s grave lies in the shade of a middle-aged oak. I lean against its rough hide, push one of its thorny, curled leaves into my palm until it hurts. There’s his mother—Virginia Jean—still resting enigmatically beside him. I wish again that I’d known her. Wish again I had the right words for the occasion, the perfect, consummate sentence—something that could mend the silence, heal the ache.

  As always, I feel tongue-tied in my father’s presence, clogged with emotion. Even now, he bullies my thoughts—the loss of him, the rage, the guilt—all of it circling my dreams like a bad joke, keeping me from my life.

  “I’m sorry about all that, Dad.” I try over the shameless drone of lawn mowers.

  “I forgive you,” I say. What else is there? After a while I get up to go, regretting that I didn’t bring something to leave him—a bouquet, a rosebush, a shell. I rifle through my pockets, and my fingers find Tai’s agate, still warm against my thigh. I take it out, watching it glitter in the light. Pressing it to my mouth, I breathe in its sharp, earthy smell. Then I bend down, place it in a small hollow near my father’s headstone and, weeping, walk away.

  2005

  WHEN I ARRIVE HOME THAT AFTERNOON, THE HOUSE is empty and quiet. I lug my bag through the kitchen door and discover Nathan’s scrawled note on the counter: Took dinner up to the site—trying to finish the g-d floor. See you soon! But I can’t wait that long. I grab a bottle of water and climb back in my minivan to commence my journey up the mountain, rehearsing possible scripts. Judy Fulton’s words reverberate from our conversation in the airport: “You don’t have to reveal everything today if it’s too hard, Sylvia. Sometimes these things are better discussed in the safety of the therapy office. The important thing is, you’ve made the decision….”

  Still, my throat tightens painfully as I pass by the exit for Route 116, to Plainfield. Maybe it will always feel like this. Maybe I’ll learn to live with it.

  Nathan’s truck tilts in the driveway at the Ashfield house, though I don’t see the girls playing in the meadows or hear their voices coming from the newly Sheetrocked interior. As I make my way inside, I notice the freshly sanded porch railings, the clapboards on the north side of the house almost done. They’ve built a lopsided snowman next to the barn. His Tupperware hat is slipping sideways, though the charcoal eyes and banana smile are bright and welcoming. A few of Nathan’s tools are strewn about the porch floor and Emmie’s Polly Pockets clutter the entryway. I walk through the silent house, taking in changes.

  Nathan’s voice finds me a minute before I see him. “I was hoping all the signs weren’t really adding up to this, hon,” he says.

  “Nathan?” My eyes are still adjusting to the dim kitchen. He’s scrunched against the Sheetrock in the corner, gangly legs bent in his carpenter pants, forearms resting on knees. White sheets of printer paper litter the half-finished oak floor around him.

  “Where’s Hannah? Where are the girls?” I ask.

  “They’re over at the sledding hill.” His voice sounds trodden.

  “What’s all this stuff?” I ask, indicating the mess of papers.

  “This,” he notes as he nudges one of the sheets with the toe of his work boot, “is our daughter’s latest act of rebellion—a real doozy. Apparently she’s been waiting all day to deliver this.”

  “Oh, God—what’s she done now?” I pick up one of the papers near my foot, peer at it in the fading light coming through the bay window. My arms and legs grow leaden as I make out the words at the top of the sheet—I can’t deny this longing any more than I can willingly lose a fist, an eye. There is just no way to rise gracefully into the next day… Tai’s words, Tai’s messages. I bend down to gather the sheets—pages and pages of illicit e-mails sent and received over the last six months—from the look of things, my daughter hasn’t missed a single one, including one I haven’t even seen yet, dated yesterday.

  S—Been talking with Eli. Told him not even the gods expect perfection: they’re sick of our striving… Whatever you do, darling—don’
t try too hard to change who you are, what you’ve done. And don’t give up. When the crocuses break through this wretched ice, I hope you can come to see this as some sort of blessing, whatever the cost. —T

  I finish reading, tuck this sheet in with the rest. My head is shuddering at the temples and I cannot look at my husband, though I feel his eyes waiting. Instead, I continue grasping and gathering. There are enough pages here for a short novella, certainly enough to end a marriage.

  “I was sort of hoping that my suspicions were wrong,” says Nathan brokenly.

  I can’t find one single word to say, after all Judy’s coaching, all my beautiful, silent rehearsals in the car. Or maybe there’s plenty to say—oceans of things to say—only I don’t know where to begin, and my vocal cords are seared shut.

  “It’s not that I don’t understand, Sylv.” He sighs after a graceless silence. “You remember—there was that woman at the conference. It’s not like I’ve been a saint. It was touchy for a while. But, nothing like—like this.” He gestures toward the mess I’m trying to clean up—like a crazy maid whisking dog shit off the carpet—until the e-mails rest in a thick sheaf in my hand. I place them on the newly tiled peninsula, my blood scalding.

  “Can we put on a light, Nathan?” Of course I remember his lovely young architect. How could I not remember the 11:30 p.m. arguments? The nights spent twisting on the futon couch, sleeping in the girls’ rooms, pacing through the dawn? None of it matters one atom to me now. “Is there a light we can turn on?” I repeat.

  He chuckles, shaking his head. “I thought you might prefer darkness. Isn’t that your thing—all those late walks, out there smoking beneath the stars, talking on your cell? God, what an asshole I am. What a fucking stupid asshole.”

  “Does the electricity even work?” It’s all I can manage right now. My tongue, teeth, throat—everything turned to hardened clay.

  “Yes, the goddamn electricity works! It works, Sylv—isn’t that great?” He springs up, plugs in a floodlight propped against the counter. “And look—I’ve been working my ass off laying the tile, and I might as well be married to the floors!” He flips on another light clipped to a nail against the wall. And then another hanging over the new stainless sink, and another, and another, until the kitchen is absurdly, glaringly bright. His movements sharp, manic as he jolts through the house switching on lights wherever he can find them—in the great room, the entryway, the study. Then he bounds up the stairs, where fixtures have already been installed. The house is blazing like a horror movie when he comes back, breathing sharply before me in the doorway, clutching his bandaged wrist and slick with sweat.

  Strangely, I find myself wondering about the couple that once lived here, arguing in this very kitchen, their voices echoing against these walls. There surely would have been rugs and chairs, that horrible morning-glory wallpaper we spent such tedious hours peeling, the thick yellow paint we painstakingly stripped from the sills. Little Lucy plunking down the stairs at two or three or four, bringing them to their senses, calling them from their fight. Was it the same fight as ours? Did Jennie stand braced in this doorway, wearing the same ruined expression that Nathan has now?

  “Is that enough light for you, darling?” he pants. He never calls me darling—this is Tai’s name for me and now we both know it. “Maybe now we can really see each other, huh?”

  “Nathan, I—I was going to tell you.” My voice is shaking so badly, I can barely make out my own syllables. “I was on my way up here to tell you. It’s why I came back.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He’s nodding in an exaggerated, Fuck You way, chewing the inside of his cheek as if stifling a laugh.

  “Look, this is not a good way to start this conversation—”

  “Is there a good way?” He yelp-laughs like an insane person. “Is there a fucking good way?” He raises his hands in the air, looks around as if for confirmation.

  “Nathan, please. Just hear me out for a minute. It’s been such a crazy time.”

  “What I don’t get is—what the hell are you doing here? Why don’t you just go to him?”

  “I don’t want to go to him,” I say, understanding that, for the first time, it’s true.

  “I guess I should have seen it coming, right? I know it’s partly my fault, Sylv, how we were spiraling off in our separate asinine obsessions, never connecting. I knew we were in trouble. I knew I was being myopic about the house.” He’s still breathing hard, though his voice has softened a shade, hands now braced in the door frame, arms visibly shaking. “But it’s what we wanted once, right? All this—” He gestures around at the spanking new cupboards, the stainless steel range, that magnificent view through the cedars we planted almost a decade ago. With a jolt of fear, I realize he’s referring to us in the past tense—a story already spun to its conclusion. Outside, the day is slipping fast behind the mountains.

  “Which sledding hill are the girls on? Is anyone with them?”

  He sighs, pressing his hands along the side of his head as if trying to remove his face. “Hannah took them to the hill near the lake,” he says. “The Kinsey girls came up to meet them—they promised to be back before dark.”

  “It’s getting dark now.”

  “I know, I know. We should probably go find them.”

  “Were you planning to give them dinner up here?” This is where we will always wind up—our bottom line—the drop-offs and dinner prep, homework and hunger and getting them to bed by nine. It’s comforting, in a surreal sort of way.

  “I made chicken and coleslaw. There’s a cooler in the van,” he tells me in a shattered tone. “We brought sleeping bags, too; the girls were hoping we could camp out here tonight.” He shakes his head at the naïveté of such plans. Then walks to the opposite side of the peninsula, leans his bandaged forearm on the blue ceramic tiles, head drooping dangerously. “I can’t help going back over all our days, wondering which times you were—how often you—”

  “I know, Nathan. I know, sweetheart.” Despite the dread pounding through me, there is also a sudden giddy lightness, the fast sting of grief.

  “Why him? Can you just tell me that? Was he good? Teach you some new tricks or—or what?” He rubs his hand roughly over his brow. “What did he have to offer you, Sylv?”

  I shake my head, taking in the broken lines of his face. I want to give him something honest and real—one true thing that won’t further the injury. “I just— I had to find a part of myself that somehow, he had access to. He saw something that—”

  “No, don’t tell me,” he blurts. “I don’t want any more goddamn details!”

  We’re quiet for a block of ugly moments, breathing in the smell of fresh plaster and wood glue, all this beautiful, artificial light. I’m wondering how people do this. How do they travel back from this chasm—in leaps or gasps or millimeters? Where do they go for healing? How do they find grace? No one has given me a map for this moment.

  “Well, the tile looks great,” I offer, my voice a sliver. It’s a ludicrous statement, but it’s true. The last time I saw this room, the counters were still plywood and you could look into the cellar between two-inch gaps in the subflooring. I never believed we would get this far. Certainly never thought it would come to this, our marriage dusted into this plaster, splintered helter-skelter through the floorboards. “You’ve done so much,” I say.

  “Pretty, isn’t it? Did you see the mudroom?” He can’t help himself. “There’s still a shitload to do, though, and no more money.”

  I remember Gram’s check in my van, nesting in the black belly of my pocketbook. “Maybe, if we could get out from under the weight of all this—” I start.

  “At least we’ll get some of our goddamn money out of the place,” he interrupts, voice splintering like an adolescent boy’s. Suddenly, he’s jumping up, grasping for his tool box on the far end of the counter, his features distorted as he clutches a hammer, swings it up through the waiting air, then smashes it down hard onto one of the fresh tiles, which
cracks in protest—a single, deep crevice cut diagonally through the center.

  We stare at each other, wide-eyed and gasping.

  “That was really great,” he says before hoisting the hammer to demolish a second tile, and then another—crack crack, boom. His arm pummeling the new counter, jaw setting, shards of ceramic spinning into his hair. I’m worried about the skin of his face, the unprotected eyes.

  “Don’t, Nathan.” I grab on to his wrist; he wrests it away, cracks the hammer down, and again down. I’m wrapping my arms around his biceps now, using the whole force of my body in vain to contain this frenzy. “Please, Nathan, stop! I’m so sorry. Please, don’t.”

  “No—no, really,” he pants, flinging me off easily, then wiping the dust from his brow. A sliver of tile has pierced him; bright blood trickles down his right cheek, past his ear. I reach to blot it and he bats my hand away. “How do you like the tile now? Huh, Sylv? How about these asshole cabinets?” Lunging for a cabinet door below the sink, he tears it free in two determined yanks, then hurls it into fresh white plaster, where it leaves a horrible gash. “How do you like the fucking house this way, darling?” he yells, gesturing into the dust. “Or should I call you Elaine?” I’m frozen in the center of the tile-strewn room, clutching my own arms as he wrenches off a second door and flings it; the corner of this one smacks me in the ankle.

  “Stop it!” I scream, then crumple to the floorboards, crying like a child.

  A moment later, he’s touching my shoulder, swiping softly at my tears. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he says, reaching for the cut on my leg. “Jesus. Jesus Christ.” Then his arms are wrapped around my torso; my fingers grasp his hair. He’s curling around my bones now, sobbing into my open lap, coming apart in my hands in such an un-Nathan-like way. My own throat is raw with sorrow by the time he pulls away, shoves the heels of his palms into his eyes. He looks like a boy—a lovely, abandoned schoolboy, bloodied and cross-legged on the floor beside me, staring around at the devastation as if trying to work out how it came to this.