A World Away

by Nancy Grossman

  In the kitchen, I watched Rachel moving tentatively. At home, the house would be filled with the sounds and smells of meal preparation by now. “Can I help you with dinner?” I asked.

  “That would be great,” said Rachel, pointing to the refrigerator. “You can make the salad.”

  I scanned the refrigerator shelves and pulled open a drawer. I took out two tomatoes and noticed that they were hard and cold, not like the red tomatoes that my mother plucks from a vine in the yard and keeps on the windowsill. I searched for a head of lettuce, but instead I found a clear sealed bag marked with the words “Instant Salad.” Pulling open the crinkly bag, I poured its contents into the wooden salad bowl Rachel had left out for me, watching the tiny shreds of lettuce, cabbage, and carrots collide. Some of the lettuce was brown-edged, and the salad had an odd smell, like plastic.

  Later, I set the table while Rachel cooked—or, rather, a small oven called a “microwave” did most of the cooking. All through the process of meal preparation, no pots or pans ever appeared on the stove, and no cooking smells seeped through the air. Instead, Rachel kept reaching into the freezer and emptying bags into little white dishes. The contents made clinking noises when they landed in the bowls. Rachel placed the bowls, one after another, into the little oven, pressed some buttons, and waited for three loud beeps, which told her the food had been cooked.

  Seated at the table between Ben and Janie, I started to reach my hands out to my sides, as I did at the beginning of every meal. But Sam was already setting food on his plate, and Ben was asking for the corn, so I quickly dropped my hands into my lap, hoping they hadn’t noticed. I raced through the prayer in my head before accepting the bowl of corn from Ben, its kernels scraped cleanly off the cob by unseen hands.

  Picking my way through the morsels on my plate, I felt bombarded by newness. Ben and Janie were arguing over what television show they would watch after dinner. Then they argued over whose turn it was to pick the show. Sam told them that if they didn’t stop arguing, they wouldn’t be able to watch any show. The voices swirled around me as though they were coming from a faraway place.

  “Do you like the chicken?” Rachel asked. “I know I’m not much of a cook.”

  I hadn’t recognized the white ovals on my plate as chicken. There were no bones, and all the pieces looked alike. I tried not to think of what they had to do to this bird to extract the meat in this smooth, neat shape.

  “It’s fine,” I answered. “I’m just not very hungry.”

  “It’s been a long day for you, hasn’t it, Eliza?” It was Sam’s voice now, low and soothing. They were all watching me, waiting for me to say something. Ben and Janie stopped eating, and their spirited bickering quieted. Sam and Rachel exchanged glances.

  I nodded. “A good day,” I said. And Sam smiled.

  After dinner, Sam carried his plate to the sink before picking up the newspaper and heading out of the kitchen. The children disappeared into the family room. At home we’d never be able to play until everything was cleaned up. English children have a nice life, I thought.

  After the dinner dishes were stacked neatly in the dishwasher, a vibrant humming told me that a machine would now do the work that my mother and I did side by side each night, by the light of a kerosene lantern, our aprons wet with dishwater. Rachel didn’t even wear an apron. Maybe nothing messy ever happened in this kitchen.

  Rachel sighed. “We’re finally done,” she said, as though we had been working for hours. “I’m going into my office for a while. You’re free to do whatever you want.” So I drifted from the edges of one room to another, listening to the distinctive sounds that floated from each space.

  In the family room, the children were watching television. I had seen TV before, when I was younger and my mother used to take me to cleaning jobs at the homes of English families. But I could never understand where all that laughter was coming from. Sometimes there were only two people in sight, yet after someone said something unexpected, hundreds of voices chuckled loudly in response.

  Janie and Ben lay on the floor, balanced on their elbows, faces tilted up toward the screen. I sat on the couch, excited to see what the children saw in that box.

  “Who’s that man?” I asked, pointing to a clean-shaven man with a lot of dark hair.

  “That’s Uncle Jesse,” said Janie, without turning from the screen. “He’s the brother of the children’s mother. She died.”

  “What did she die of?” I tried not to sound shocked. The children on TV didn’t seem to be mourning a dead mother.

  Ben shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe a car accident. Maybe cancer.”

  “And who’s that?” I asked.

  “That’s Joey,” said Janie. “He’s the friend who lives with them.”

  “Watch this,” said Ben. “This is where Stephanie plays the guitar in a talent show, but she didn’t practice, so she’s really bad.”

  “How do you know what’s going to happen?” I asked.

  “We’ve seen this one already,” said Janie. “It’s a rerun.”

  “Well, if you’ve already seen it…” I began. But my voice dropped off. There was something riveting about what the children were watching. Everyone on the television was so clever—even the youngest girl, who wasn’t as old as Janie. I found myself laughing when Stephanie messed up her performance, and I felt a little satisfied when her father talked to her later about the importance of practicing if you want to get good at something. When the show ended, everything was orderly and settled.

  The children stayed in their positions on the floor to watch the show that was coming on next, but I wanted to see what Sam and Rachel were doing.

  Tiptoeing away from the TV, I slid along the hallway connecting the family room to the living room. Sam looked up and nodded at me before returning his gaze to the newspaper. Music was flowing into the room from an unseen place, as though it seeped in from the walls. He looked so peaceful with his reading and his music. I tried to think if I had ever seen my father without chores to do. I wanted to tell him about the contentment in this room.

  In the office, Rachel sat in front of a machine with lettered keys, a larger version of the one she had been using at the inn. “Come on in,” she said. “Have you ever seen a computer before?”

  I shook my head and stepped beside Rachel’s chair, watching as her fingers sent words marching across the screen in neat rows.

  “I’m sending an e-mail to my mother,” Rachel said. “She lives in Florida.”

  “What’s e-mail?” I asked.

  “It’s short for electronic mail.” Rachel’s right hand cupped over an oval shape resting on a square pad. “This is called the mouse.”

  She pressed the mouse and the words on the screen disappeared. “There,” she said, a note of satisfaction in her voice. “Now, the next time my mother turns on her computer, this e-mail will be waiting for her.” She turned to me. “Do you want to see some other things you can do on the computer?”

  “Yes,” I said, my voice bursting with interest.

  “Well, I can’t begin to tell you about the Internet tonight. We’ll need more time for that. But I can show you word processing so you can write letters.” Soon I was sitting in the armless chair, with Rachel behind me giving instructions. I learned how to make letters, words, and sentences appear on the screen, and I learned how to erase them with the press of a button.

  It was great fun. I loved the clicking sound of the keyboard and the sight of the words appearing on the screen. I discovered that the keys weren’t placed in alphabetical order, so I had to hunt for each word, letter by letter. After Rachel showed me how to print, I watched a white sheet of paper chug smoothly through a machine next to the computer. When it was spit out onto a tray, I picked up the paper and saw all the words that had been on the screen now printed cleanly on the page.

  “Would you like to write a letter to your parents?” Rachel asked.

  Shaking my head, I said, “No, thank you. I think I’
d rather use pencil and paper.”

  Rachel opened a drawer and pulled out a yellow pad of lined paper and a box of pencils. “Envelopes and stamps are in this drawer, too. Help yourself.”

  “Thank you,” I said, hugging the pad of paper to my chest.

  “As a matter of fact,” continued Rachel, “I won’t need any help with the children tonight. You can write your letter now.”

  I waited for Rachel to leave me alone in the office before I set the pad on the desk and prepared to write. The pencil’s smooth ridges pressed against the side of my finger in a familiar way, and I tried to decide what to tell my parents about this first day away from home. Then I laid the pencil on top of the pad of paper. I didn’t want to share this magic with anyone just yet. I was finally here, and home was far away. For now I wanted to keep it that way.

  Red glowing numbers on the small square clock told me that it was 6:30, the time I woke up every morning. At home this was a time when bare feet smacked on the wood floor and the house sang with comfortable morning noises. Now I was alone in a room that rang with silence.

  In the closet, an array of choices greeted me, and I pulled on the blue jeans and the T-shirt with blue-and-white stripes. In the bathroom, I brushed my teeth and washed my hands and face. Combing my thick tangle of hair, I searched the mirror for a change in my reflection. It was strange to see myself without the stiff white kapp, but the rest of me was pretty much the same. I had expected a fancier girl to return my stare.

  Downstairs, the rooms were dark and quiet except for the occasional humming noises that I had learned were part of electricity. Now I had a new feeling to think about. Idleness. For the first time in my life I had nothing at all to do.

  Stepping over to the refrigerator, I pulled open the door and let the cold and light flood over me. I scanned the shelves stocked with food that no one in the family had raised, grown, or prepared. I decided to make the family’s breakfast so it would be ready for them when they woke up.

  I had to hunt through refrigerator and cupboards, but I finally found the ingredients to make pancakes. While I mixed the batter and prepared the frying pan, I wondered why there were still no sounds from upstairs. I knew that Sam had to go to work and the children would be going somewhere called day camp. I poured the batter to form two circles and listened to the hiss that meant the pan was hot enough. I slid the spatula under the pancakes and flipped them.

  When the platter was piled high with steaming pancakes, and the kitchen smelled rich and sweet, there was still no sign of Sam or Rachel or the children. I fumbled with the buttons on the oven until I figured out how to turn it on and set the temperature. Then I set the plate of pancakes in the oven to keep them warm until the family came downstairs. I wanted to make coffee, but I wasn’t sure how to work the coffeepot that sat in its own stand. Instead, I emptied the dishwasher, feeling the squeak of the clean dishes as I put them away.

  Still, no one in the family was awake. I realized that I would have to learn the peculiar schedule of this place. I helped myself to two of the pancakes and, after whispering the words of the mealtime prayer, ate my breakfast. It was the first time I’d had ever had a meal alone.

  After I finished eating, and cleared my dishes, the children came downstairs with noisy thumps, Janie clutching a frayed blue blanket. Ben was dressed in shorts and a shirt bearing the same letters as one of the triangles on his bedroom wall. “What’s that smell?” he asked.

  “It’s pancakes, but I think they’re dried out now.”

  “We have cereal for breakfast,” said Ben. “I have Frosted Flakes and Janie has Cap’n Crunch.” It sounded like a command.

  I opened the pantry door, where I had seen Rachel put away boxes with those words on them. “What about your parents? What do they eat?”

  “Daddy doesn’t eat breakfast,” said Janie, settling herself at the table and spreading the blue blanket across her bare legs.

  “And your mom?” I asked, pouring cereal into bowls.

  “She stands over the kitchen sink and eats a bagel,” said Ben.

  I turned off the oven and set a bowl of cereal in front of each child. The milk I poured looked thin and bluish, not like the white, creamy stuff from the Yoder’s dairy. When I was done, Ben watched me as though waiting for something.

  “Janie needs the cereal box, and I need the sports page.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Janie likes to look at the cereal box while she eats, and I read the sports page. Missy always had them on the table for us.” Then he added, “The newspaper’s in the driveway.”

  These children know what they want, I thought, as I set the cereal box on the table for Janie and stepped out the front door to pick up the newspaper. Back in the kitchen, I rummaged through the sections until I found the sports page. Ben was eyeing me, waiting for the paper, but I held it in my hands for a moment, looking at him.

  “Is there something you’d like to say?” I asked.

  Ben paused before saying, “Can I please have the sports page?” His voice was a grunt, but it was a start. I handed it to him and stood over the table, waiting.

  “Thank you,” he said, with a gust of a sigh.

  “Oh, Eliza, what smells so good?” Rachel stood in the kitchen doorway wearing a T-shirt that hung almost to her knees. Her hair was fuzzy and uneven-looking, and there were dark smudges under her eyes. My mother always came downstairs looking crisp, wearing her dress, apron, and kapp even in the darkest morning hours.

  “Well, it was going to be a pancake breakfast. But I’m afraid I started too early, so it went to waste.”

  Rachel smiled. “I guess I should have warned you that we’re not morning people.” Now Rachel was calling to the children. “Finish your cereal. It’s almost time for the bus.” For the next few minutes the house hummed with activity. Sam came downstairs wearing a jacket and necktie and carrying what looked like a small suitcase. He swigged down a glass of orange juice and hugged each child before heading out the door.

  Following Rachel’s instructions, I took Janie upstairs to help her get dressed. Her drawers burst with clothes, and it took her a long time until she decided on a shirt with a picture of a smiling mermaid.

  In the kitchen, I helped Rachel pack the children’s backpacks, each with a bathing suit, towel, lunch box, sunscreen, and water bottle. At the sound of a horn outside, Ben shouted, “Bus!” and both children ran through the kitchen, pulling their backpacks over their shoulders. I watched as they climbed the steps and waved from the windows until the orange bus was out of sight.

  Later, I sat at the desk in my room, staring at the first page of my empty journal, wondering how I could find words to describe the magic of this place. I am a tourist, I wrote at the top of the page. I had told my mother that I’d write in the journal every day, but now that I was here I wanted to be doing things, not just writing about them. So I closed the journal and set off to begin my work for the day. Before Rachel had left for the library she’d made a list of chores to do around the house, but I knew they wouldn’t take all day to complete. I wondered what I’d do during my idle hours.

  I picked up the dusting supplies that Rachel had left for me, and headed into Sam and Rachel’s room to begin my work. Rachel’s dresser was dotted with small framed pictures. Most were of the children, looking more casual than the photographs I had seen when I first arrived: Ben holding a baseball bat, Janie standing in a little pink skirt with her arms raised in a circle over her head. One was a large picture of Rachel and Sam on what must have been their wedding day. Rachel was wearing a sparkling white gown with a flowing veil. She cradled a bunch of long-stemmed pink roses and looked adoringly at Sam, who was dressed all in black. I had read about English weddings, but this was the first picture I had ever seen of a bride and groom.

  The children were younger in the pictures than they were now, and I marveled at how a photograph freezes a person in time. I had no idea what I had looked like when I was five, or what my parents ha
d looked like when they got married. For the first time I felt a longing to see my past.

  Just then the doorbell rang, and I dropped the dust cloth and hurried downstairs, trying to remember if Rachel had told me to expect any visitors. Through the glass pane I saw what my friends would call a “Yankee boy.” I hesitated for a moment before opening the door.

  The boy’s face had a look of mild surprise when he saw me. “Hey, can you open the garage door so I can get the lawn mower out?”

  I hesitated, unsure if I was supposed to let this boy into Sam and Rachel’s garage. “It’s okay,” said the boy. “Rachel’s expecting me.” Then he added, “I’m Josh Nathan. I live down the block. Are you the babysitter?” His voice sounded like the teenage boys I knew at home, but a bit more twangy, his vowels drawn out.

  I stood in the doorway, my fingers tightening until the doorknob pressed a circle into my palm. Be careful around the English boys, my father had warned me. They’re not all proper.

  “Nobody else is home right now,” I said, and then wondered if that was something I shouldn’t have admitted. The boy stayed planted on the front stoop, his hands stuffed into the back pockets of his blue jeans. His hair was dark and spiky, as though it had been chopped with a meat cleaver. A small silver hoop glinted in his left earlobe. He wore a black T-shirt with a picture of a long-haired man in wire-rim glasses, the word “Imagine” etched in a vertical row.

  “Well, do you at least have a name?” he asked.

  I swallowed. “Eliza Miller.”

  “A nice old-fashioned name. Are you an old-fashioned girl?”

  A smile crept to the corners of my mouth. “I guess you could say that.” He seemed nice enough. My fingers relaxed their hold on the doorknob. I wondered who the bespectacled man was on the boy’s shirt and what he imagined.