Entering Normal

by Anne Leclaire

  The pile of boxes and bags stacked on the driveway since daybreak is nearly all loaded. Rose would have liked to help, but Opal refused. She won’t even let Rose come out to say good-bye.

  “I don’t like good-byes, Rose,” Opal said last night when they met for dinner. Zack’s choice: pizza and Coke. “Please, don’t come over tomorrow. Okay? Promise?”

  Rose turned away so Opal wouldn’t see the way her face collapsed.

  Why should she be surprised? Opal leaves things behind: Her name. Her family. The father of her son. She makes and breaks ties. It’s what she does, and Rose won’t judge her for that.

  Left to say good-bye from a distance, Rose stands at the window, wishing she could hold them here. Opal will be all right, she tells herself. She’s not totally alone. She has her Aunt May. She wishes she could believe this.

  The boy keeps looking over. When he sees her, his face splits into a grin, and he lifts a hand and waves. Rose’s throat closes up. He turns to his mother, says something, pointing over toward Rose.

  Opal nods, and the boy runs toward her.

  She meets him at the door, hugs him hard.

  “You’re squishing me,” he says.

  She instructs her arms to release him. “Here,” she says, handing him a brown bag. “These are for the trip. I made them last night.” Last night when sleep was impossible, she went to the kitchen and baked and baked and baked.

  “Thank you, RoseNelson,” he says.

  “You be good for your mama, you hear me? She’s a big lady, but she needs looking after, too. And tell her I said to drive carefully.” She’ll have to let him go. He’s not hers to keep.

  Outside she hears Opal yelling for the boy.

  “Your mama’s calling,” she says. “You better get going.”

  “Okay,” he says.

  “I love you, Zack,” she says, too softly for him to hear.

  But he has. “I love you, too, RoseNelson.”

  She can’t bear to return to the window. It will be easier after they’ve really gone. The doll Opal gave her last night—the pioneer girl—is on the counter. Even that hurts to look at. What had the girl said? It reminds me of you. Rose looks away. She pours herself coffee, picks up the newspaper, turns to the Sports section. For Ned. She’ll go on. After all, that’s what one does. Keeps going on. Regardless.

  She settles herself at the table. Have the Red Sox won again? She checks the sports and then—then she can’t believe her eyes. She reads the headline twice. A third time. What? Is Opal wearing off on her? But she laughs right out loud. Out in the drive, the Buick starts up.

  She dashes for the door, paper still in hand. “Opal!” she yells. “Opal, wait.”

  The car heads down the drive.

  “Wait, Opal.” She runs behind the car so Opal has no choice but to stop. “Wait.”

  Opal brakes, rolls down the window. “Rose,” she says. “I told you, no good-byes.” She is crying, tears just streaming down her cheeks. “I can’t. I just can’t. It’s way too hard.”

  “Well, I have something else to tell you.”

  “What else?”

  “Turn off that engine. I have to tell you something. Listen.”

  “I’m listening.” She tries to stop the tears.

  “You want company?”

  “Company? Where?”

  “In that car.” Rose stops, hit by another wonderful idea. “Or, actually, in a new car—a proper car that will make the trip.”

  “Huh?”

  “You want me to come with you?”

  “Come with me?”

  “With you. And Zack.”

  “What?”

  “To New Zion.”

  “Fuck, Rose, what are you talking about?”

  “Go with you. I’ll help out. I’ll baby-sit for Zack while you make your dolls.”

  Opal’s so surprised she stops crying.

  “I mean it,” Rose says.

  “But how? Why?”

  “I don’t know why. I just know it’s best.”

  “Best?”

  “For you. And for me.”

  “Rose, no one has ever said anything so wonderful before. It makes me feel . . . all different.”

  This girl is overdue for wonderful things.

  “Thanks, Rose. Thanks for even thinking of it. But I can’t let you. I can’t let you do that for me.”

  “It’s not for you I’m doing it. It’s for me.”

  Opal looks at her. “You’re serious,” she says.

  “That I am. I most certainly am serious.”

  “But you can’t leave here.”

  “Why not? What have I got to keep me here?”

  “What about your house? Ned’s here. And so is Todd.”

  “No. No, Opal, they’re not.” And that is God’s honest truth. “They’re not here. A house can’t hold a person, or even keep a memory alive. And the cemetery? It’s just a piece of earth. Ned and Todd aren’t really there.” Someday she’ll explain to Opal. For Ned and Todd to stay alive, she has to let them go. It isn’t memories that keep us going. Being loved and needed is what keeps us from dying inside.

  “Oh, Rose. Thanks, but I can’t let you.”

  “You have to.” Rose beams at her. “You have to, Opal, ’cause I got a sign.”

  “A sign?”

  “A sign too big to ignore.” She opens the paper and holds the headline up for Opal.

  “Read it out loud,” she says.

  “ ‘LOVE LEADS THE WAY: Davis Love III points the way home for his American teammates in the final day of the Ryder Cup play.’ ”

  “See? Love leads the way. It leads the way home, Opal. Sure as I’m standing here it’s a sign I’m supposed to go with you.”

  “A sign?” Zack pipes up from the rear seat. “That’s exactly, exactly what my mama says. She always says she sees signs.”

  “Are you sure, Rose?” Opal asks.

  “And,” Zack breaks in, “my mama’s going to help me read my letters on the road signs going home.”

  “I know,” Rose says. “We’re all going to read the signs, Zack. All the way home.”

  Entering Normal

  ANNE D. LECLAIRE

  A Reader’s Guide

  A Conversation with Anne LeClaire

  Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of A Theory of Relativity and The Deep End of the Ocean, and Anne LeClaire have been friends for many years. They sat down recently to discuss the finer points of Entering Normal, among other things.

  Jacquelyn Mitchard: Anne, you were the mistress of the sexy psychologicalthriller. I loved your last thriller, Sideshow, and Bill Clinton, a man who knows about sexy psychological thrillers (or so they say), said he couldn’t put it down. So then, after more than five years, you came back with an entirely different kind of novel, a drama that roved from the backyard fence to the courtroom rail. Why the change? Sideshow was your strongest book, so why did you choose to fix what wasn’t broken?

  Anne LeClaire: I don’t think the switch is that dramatic. At least, it doesn’t seem so for me. The themes of all my novels are related, so there was no conscious decision, no day when I sat down and said, “Okay, I’m going to take off and alter the form.” For me, the story’s form is instinctive. It grows from the characters and their situations. The idea for a novel comes to me, often in the guise of a dream or a short story. Then, I usually sit with it for a while to see if its back is strong enough to support the weight of a novel. Any book I write centers on those characters. They are my focus, first and last. I try to listen and let them tell me their stories.

  JM: Why did it take so long to “Enter Normal,” if you will? What was incubating in your transformation as a writer?

  AL: Well, mostly it was because between the publication of Sideshow and the publication of Entering Normal, I wrote another novel that never drew breath, if you will. Or, at least it hasn’t yet. It ended up on a closet shelf—and a closet shelf in a spare bedroom. Also, at the same time, I was beginning a nonfiction
project about exploring the practice of silence, and I am still working on that book, too. So, here I was, writing both these works, when I dreamed a short story that pushed them aside in my heart (at least for the time being) and insisted on becoming Entering Normal. The themes that I was exploring—grief, the power of friendship, motherhood—are present in all of my previous works. I guess you could say I went into a deeper understanding of them in Normal.

  JM: You did that in spades. I know they were much on your mind, as you came to terms with the death of your husband’s dearest friend, your sister’sdeath long ago, and your own struggles with your growing children—and come to think of it, hand-feeding me through my multiple setbacks and frustrations with my family.

  AL: All that was at the forefront—Jack, you know better than anyone that to surround yourself with living creatures is to enter the realm of risk and hurt, as well as joy and adventure. When you love, you court the possibility of loss. But otherwise, how do you live?

  JM: You’re entirely correct. But I would rather have the adventure and skip the risk.

  AL: Wouldn’t we all . . . but you learn from each loss, the depth of your core strength increases.

  JM: Speaking of shallow, both of us started as reporters. And long after we became fiction writers, we both remain reporters. Why do you do that? I think I have a fear of unemployment. What about you?

  AL: I find the roles of reporter and novelist to be complementary. You know that. Think of the research. The fear you don’t feel—as an academia-based novelist might—of making the dreaded cold call. The job of both is to uncover the story, to ask questions and seek truths. One necessitates going out into the world and the other requires bringing that back and going into the exploration of the inner world.

  JM: Let’s not give up so easily on the subject of death. Or shallowness. Or celebrity. Do you have ambivalent feelings about a movie option on any of your novels? Or are you eager for the inevitable attention to your work a film can bring?

  AL: Are you kidding? Don’t you remember the night we were at Ragdale and you’d just completed The Deep End of the Ocean and everyone was saying, “I’d never let Hollywood TOUCH my book,” and you spoke up and told about how you asked your children to pray every night, “God bless Grandpa, God bless Mommy; and please let Mommy’s book be made into a movie”? I’m right there with you, sister. I’m imploring the universe for my book to be transformed into a retelling on the big screen. And yes, I understand it won’t be “my story,” as I wrote it. But that gives me a comfortable detachment because I know it won’t be a literal translation and I’m not expecting that. And I never play that game of mentally casting actors for the various roles. The characters are already too fully formed. They’re actors themselves.

  JM: Do you read the reviews? Do you grieve the cruel reviews and celebrate the positive ones? I avoid both. One negative review sent me to bed for a whole day, only my eyes showing. You recall the phone call.

  AL: I do. I think the healthiest thing would be to adopt a Zen-like sense of calm and acceptance and avoid reading reviews entirely. However, I’m not that sane. But I do ask my agent and publicist to shield me from any negative ones.

  JM: Cheater, cheater. Don’t you learn anything from the negative reviews?

  AL: Only what kind of day the critic had! Seriously, for constructive feedback I trust my editor, my agent, and my readers.

  JM: Entering Normal is about redemption, the excruciating process of relinquishing grief, which I know—from writing about some of the same issues myself—is sometimes more harrowing than the mourning itself. Can Rose ever really recover from the grief of losing her entire family, as well as her home?

  AL: Every one of us experiences grief in our lifetime, and grief isn’t something we ever recover from. What we do is to incorporate it, and reach some kind of accommodation with it. And it has a beautiful purpose in our lives.

  JM: No, it doesn’t! Wouldn’t you rather be shallow?

  AL: Really, it does. It opens us to compassion. As Rose says, grief doesn’t break a heart in half, it cracks it wide open. One of the quotes I taped to my computer during the time I was writing Entering Normal was from Oscar Wilde: “Where there is sorrow, there is sacred ground.” His words helped me open to a wider view of the role grief can command in our lives.

  JM: You’ve been called a writer with a strong sense of magic, even New Age spiritualism. Is this the reason for Opal’s obsession with signs, charms, and crystals? And what are her dolls? Are they intended to be Opal’s children, or souls she calls forth?

  AL: Like Opal, I believe we are surrounded by mystery to which we do, or must, largely remain blind. I love your idea of Opal’s dolls as souls she calls forth. She sees in them personality as a mother would see in a child. I saw her dolls, also, as her specific mode of expression. They gave her the power of creativity, which, as we know, is transformative.

  JM: It’s transformative all right, for good or for ill. Still on the subject of the life within, let me ask you about something not very many people know. Twice a month, you keep silence. Are these your best days for creativityregeneration? Or are they a retreat from “the shop”?

  AL: I do write on Silent Days. Often those days are my most productive. Silence is restorative. It rejuvenates me and enhances my concentration and fertilizes the deep place inside that is the creative prairie. It is the spring that feeds that place. It also has taught me to listen with greater focus.

  JM: You are an active listener. In fact, you are the most patient listener I know. But I know sometimes it’s difficult not to reach out, to cry out. Writing is the loneliest craft. It doesn’t even make any noise. How do you militate against the loneliness? Can writers, who must compete in an increasingly tighter and more narrow marketplace, actually work together, offering each other support with a generous spirit? Or do you have to hold back, even with your sister writers?

  AL: Publishing is competitive and we are raised to believe that in a competitive model, only one can win. I have had to learn another model. While it might run the economic system, competition is a straitjacket for artists. I know we’ve talked a lot about this. I remember one time when we were taking about this subject with our husbands and your Chris said, borrowing from a TV character, “To compare is to despair.” I know from experience it’s true. It also robs you of the fellowship of writing, and it is my friendship with you and other writers that sustains me and alleviates the loneliness. There are a few people who are always, always, on my side.

  JM: What if Manette or I or another friend then blows you off the bookshelf? (I have this experience quite frequently with my dear friend Jane in Wisconsin.) What do you do with suffering? Or do you refuse to waste time on envy?

  AL: I think it was Cynthia Ozick who called envy “the wasting disease.” I usually feel the bite. I’m human. But only for a day, maybe two, and then I come back to something I read, written by a Buddhist monk. He wrote that when we fall deep into envy we have lost faith in our own lives. That has a profound ring of truth for me. I don’t think faith in one’s own path and envy for another’s path can exist in the same space. To remind myself of this is the best antidote to envy I’ve ever encountered. I’ve tutored myself to hold firm to my belief in my own path, which is good practice. In writing and in life.

  JM: But I want you with me. I want us both to be at the top, not practicinggetting over envy. Don’t you, secretly?

  AL: Only secretly. But truly, some of the best readings I’ve ever given were the times our publishers let us read together, even though we theoretically were competing. That was so affirming . . . of everything.

  JM: What is the process of writing about for you? Why bother with something so painful and difficult unless you’re going to learn something as well as teach? What do you learn?

  AL: The most painful parts of writing for me are the periods of self-doubt when the gremlins who live in my head whisper ugly stuff, fears that pollute my mind and silence me. But I think
in writing we are in the act of constantly facing our own demons and penetrating the deep regions. It is the great gift writing gives us, and the aspect that makes it the most difficult.

  JM: Are you at your peak as a storyteller? Or do you aspire? What do you need to learn, and are you learning it in your upcoming novel? I heard you had trouble deciding in which direction this book would go, quiet reminiscence or scintillating coming-of-age saga with mysterious twists? How did you decide?

  AL: My aspirations always exceed my grasp—or what’s a heaven for, huh? But, really, I think that’s a good thing for a writer. The best thing I can do for myself is to get out of my own way and trust the truth of the story. And then write to that truth with as much insight, honesty, and heart as I am capable of giving.

  JM: What other cul-de-sacs and mazes of human experience do you hope to explore? Who leads, you or the characters?

  AL: I’ll probably revisit familiar terrain: the ties of family, the things that bind us—one to another and to nature—the contradictions and complexities of the human heart, the pain of loss, how hate is born, the hold our dreams have on us, whether forgiveness must be earned, the redemptive power of friendship and love. Arriving at some understanding of these and conveying that to readers is the lifework of writers. And preachers, for that matter. Musicians and poets, too.

  JM: It’s a mouthful. It’s a life-ful.

  AL: No doubt. I’ll never achieve it to the degree I wish I could.

  JM: I don’t believe it when fictionalists insist that characters become “real” to them. Are yours “real” to you?

  AL: They are completely. I experience totally their sorrows and joys, their ambitions and yearnings, their disappointments and hopes, in the same way I would those of a friend. There were days when Rose’s grief for Todd weighed so heavily in my heart I actually couldn’t eat. So, in that way, the characters do live for me. Sometimes I wonder how they are getting on with their lives, in that parallel universe. However, I don’t think about getting the phone and ringing them up, if that’s what you mean.