Outside the Ordinary World (27 page)

And what of Tai? Will I have him over on free weekends? Will this love or obsession or whatever it is weather the annihilation of my present life?

He’s sitting on the edge of the bed now, his dark head in his hands, and I am triply liable for drawing him back in after he’d set his will against me. As if I need more guilt.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and he turns and touches my arm.

“Don’t be—that’s not what I want to hear you say.”

“What do you want to hear?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” He chuckles wretchedly. “That you’ll love me forever? That you’ll run off with me?” He crawls onto the bed, threads his arm through mine.

I’m desperate to remember when I used to feel this way about Nathan, that first summer when we couldn’t get enough of each other. I’d ambush him on the stairs the moment he came home from his ten-day construction gigs in Long Island. More often than not, we never even made it to the bedroom. Sometimes, afterward, we’d sunbathe on the roof outside the landing. He’d read me Walt Whitman and Wallace Stevens, sipping Diet Coke through green plastic straws. We’d commiserate about our fathers’ deaths, the trials of being the youngest. I knew without question that I’d marry him. Knew it the first time I laid eyes on him, really—his impossibly lanky legs spread before him on the porch he’d just mended, the steady hands and handsome English features, eyes that took me in with the helpless pleasure of a captive—

“Run off with me, Sylvia,” Tai whispers. “I have a friend with land in the Santa Cruz Mountains. He has three cabins he never even uses.”

“And what, we’ll live off the land? Become ascetics?” I chuckle, but he isn’t laughing. I turn to stare at him, propped on an elbow. His eyes are the intense color of antique glass. It takes me a moment to understand that he’s serious, another to allow the fantasy—cover of coastal fog rolling through cedars, the overgrown garden engulfing our rough-hewn hippie cabin, two rickety chairs on the porch facing a vast, untenable quiet.

“I—I could never leave my daughters, Tai.”

He pauses two beats longer before saying, “Bring them, then.”

There is an ancient, familiar pressure in my chest. I close my eyes. “They love their father,” I finally blurt. “I couldn’t—wouldn’t ask them to make that choice.” Not a sliver of me doubts this, despite the mayhem in my heart.

“Well.” He sighs deeply, falls back onto the pillows. “At least tell me you’re tempted. Some little part of you?”

“Of course. But I thought you were against escapism?” I tease.

“Ah. Now you know all my secrets.”

“You know mine, too,” I say, but we both know it’s not true. There are certain things that I’ve never talked to him about, certain subjects I won’t broach.

“Tell me your
darkest
secret.” He reaches for my hair.

I laugh. “You are my darkest secret.”

“Mmm, I don’t think so—if that were true, I’d know.”

“What’s yours?” I ask. “You go first.”

“Ha—I should have known you’d try to bargain with me.”

“Why should I go first? You started it.”

“Fair enough. Okay, then.” But he’s quiet beside me, staring at the ceiling beams, black lashes unblinking as if peering into some crumbling room of his past. A shiver of pain twists his forehead; he takes my hand, rubbing it between his own like an amulet.

“You okay?” I ask.

“I watched my little brother die,” he says without looking at me. “More or less, anyway. I didn’t realize it was happening at the time—I thought he was just nodding off. We were hanging out with friends, New Year’s Eve 1981. Listening to old Dylan albums, drinking whiskey, shooting up. For me it was just a recreational thing, but for Matt—” He shudders. “I didn’t realize how serious it was, how far he’d gone.” A tear streaks past the crow’s feet, across the veined skin of his temple. I reach to whisk it away before it slips into his ear. “You know some of this already.”

My throat constricts with sorrow, his losses pulling hard at my own. “My God—it must have been terrible.”

“Well, it’s the things you don’t know at the time that kill you later, right? The things you think you
should
have known. I was his big brother. Should have realized he was in trouble—at least that’s what I told myself. I was pretty caught up in my own world.”

“You were just a kid yourself.”

“Of course. I know that, in my rational mind. But some things are beyond reason, right? Some things you just can’t talk yourself out of. Can’t rationalize away, like you.” He smiles bitterly. “You’re one of those things.”

“Did you try to talk yourself out of it? Out of this?”

“Yeah, every day. But what about you? You have to tell me yours now.”

“Hmm. I was hoping you’d forget.” I sigh and shut my eyes, probing the damp caves of memory, searching the darkest corners for those moments that squirm from awareness, huddle in clusters like bats. I don’t know how personal I want to get. I could tell him about the years in L.A., my “lost years” as Theresa refers to that desperate swath between eighteen and twenty-two—bad sex and panic attacks, dropping acid in a roach-infested duplex in Venice Beach….

“You don’t have to tell me unless you want to,” he says. “I don’t need—”

“I killed my father,” I hear myself say, and my eyes fly open.

“You
what?
”

“I killed my father,” I repeat. “Though, I didn’t really know it—until now.”

“But your dad died in a car accident.”

“Right,” I tell him. “But I caused it.” Now the trembling kicks up—a small, startling eruption near my kidneys, rippling up through muscle and tendon, ribs and throat. My fingers burning, heart suddenly hammering as if I’ve run a fifty-yard dash.

“How can that be, Sylvia?” His voice is so low, it’s nearly underground.

“I told my mother to leave him—more than once. And I provoked him, too, made him drink and lash out, made him crash—” I’m sitting hunched over, clutching the hard freckled knot of my knees, though I don’t remember how I got this way.

“You don’t really believe that?” He’s smoothing his hand up my spine, taking a soft fistful of hair, tugging the roots the way he does.

“I think,” I finally say, “that it’s what I
have
believed. I’ve just never spoken it before.”

“Tell me.” He pulls me down beside him, cinches his arms around me. “I want to hear the whole story.”

I have never told the whole story to anyone, but now I do. Wrapped in his ivory quilt while the light traverses us in panels, I start talking about Mr. Robert and the shoe-box letters, my dad’s anger and drinking, the church and its threat of damnation. As the winter sun rides to the top of the sky, I talk about Wallowa and the Corvette, how Mom sought my advice and I gave it. How I chose her lover—cherished his letters, held his secrets. How I told her to leave because it seemed like the answer we needed. I confess about the night my father left—the violence, the phone call, his sobs, how I burned the letters in a Santa Ana, then walked until dawn. How his car flipped across the highway as a man crashed through my dreams. I pause, breathing fast. Tai takes my hands, pressing the pain from my palms. “Keep going,” he says.

The words rush like water through a dam—the second marriage, my bungled baptism, how Alison found God as I was turning my back on all that, how she went after law and order while I embraced chaos, how she was born again as I sought annihilation, taking longer and longer walks, thinking if I went far enough, fast enough, deep enough into the night, I could somehow walk clean out of my guilty skin and into another life—a happier life.

“And did you?” he asks me after many breaths. “Did you find that happier life?”

“I don’t know—I might have,” I say. “If so, I’ve been doing my best to screw it up.”

I have no idea how much time we’ve spent, except that it’s past noon now—clearly time for me to go. I am strangely still, hollowed out and clear as he strokes my damp face, outlining eyebrows, lips, fingers, throat, as if inventing me from scratch. His touch is so light, I almost don’t realize we’re making love again—softly now, this last time.

DRIVING DOWN THE MOUNTAIN AT HALF PAST ONE, I’M
tending an unaccustomed quiet, seeing the old landmarks as if for the first time: a narrow white house lists between frozen swells of farmland, clapboards peel from the north side of a barn, four Holsteins hover against the leafless foothills. In an empty field, that board still sits propped in a rusted truck bed, the words
All things pass
scrawled across it in blue paint.

Finally pulling into the parking lot at my studio, I’m surprised by a sudden urge to paint. I need the rigor of canvas to ground me, the consolation of oils and dirty brushes, the familiar sting of turpentine. Still spent and sad and swollen, I need the sharp, solitary focus of creation to fill this hollow place between my breasts. There’s a load of work to do—Roz Benton was right about that—and as I bound up the stairs of my building, unlock the studio door, I’m wondering how much I can accomplish in the slim hour before school is out.

I slap my mail onto the worktable, hit the flashing play button on my answering machine. Interspersed between telemarketing calls, workshop inquiries and a brief, uninformative message from Hannah’s school are three messages from Nathan.

“Sylvie, it’s eleven-thirty Monday. We need to talk. Give a call the second you get this, okay?”

“Sylvie, Sylvie, Sylvie… Where are you, hon? I’ve tried your cell. And the line at the house.” Pause. “It’s urgent, okay? I’ve got some news, so call me.”

“Goddamn it, Sylvie. I wish you’d pick up! I’m with Hannah—she came home from school today. Nobody’s been able to reach you—can you please call or get your butt home?”

“Shit,” I say aloud, pulling in a resigned breath. I pick up the phone, square my shoulders in preparation for this call.

“Sounds like you’re in deep,” a low voice behind me drawls, making me startle and drop the phone. Eli leans against the open door frame, clad in baggy camouflage pants, a torn brown sweatshirt, a black ski hat. His arms are locked over his chest, eyes piercing. “Sounds like your husband’s having a hell of a time finding you.”

“Eli! How are you? Can I do something for you?” I force a smile and shove my hand in my pocket, fishing for Tai’s agate—a habitual nervous gesture now.

“Nah. I don’t think so.” An uncomfortable smirk inches over his face. “I’m just here to get my paintings.”

“Okay. Well, you’re welcome to them.” I’m trying to appear casual, pretending my heart isn’t thudding in alarm. “But class starts again next week, you know.”

“Yeah, only—I’m not coming back.” He moves to the corner of the studio, starts rifling through a stack of half-finished canvases. “Maybe you should just call your husband.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.” I ignore his last comment. “You’ve got tremendous—”

“Talent,”
he interjects. “I know. You told me already.” He selects two acrylics from the stack. “And I believed you, by the way.”

“Well, you
should.
I was—”

“Yeah, ’cause you know that night at my dad’s? I actually thought you’d come up to talk about my artwork, Ms. Sandon.” He chuckles. “I was so pumped, man. I guess I needed to believe it—pretty lame, huh?” He shoots these words like small, sharp darts and they find their mark; my head grows dizzy and the blood feels thick in my veins. “I didn’t get it yet that you were a damn liar, just like my dad. I mean, it’s not the first time—”

“Okay—please listen, Eli.” I’m gripping the metal edge of the table. “The things I’ve said about your work are absolutely true.” I hate how phony my voice must sound—despise how I’ve ravaged my credibility. “You must believe this, Eli. My relationship with your dad has nothing to do with—”

“Don’t talk to me!” he blurts, tossing up one arm as if to shield himself. “I’m not a
complete
idiot.”

“Then don’t act like one,” I snap. He lowers his arm, regards me. “Giving up the thing you love—just because someone else screwed up? Threatening to
enlist
—what the hell is that?” We glare at each other. I feel a sharp pain in my palm and realize I’ve sliced my hand on the table edge. Eli shakes his head, tucks the paintings under his arm. Outside, someone’s engine is revving, tires spinning on the ice. I think about the first time I saw him—how he looked as raw and vulnerable as a picked scab. We’ve made so much progress since then.

“I’m outta here.” He walks toward the door. “Have fun fucking my father.”

“Just—wait.” I reach for his arm; he yanks it away and I put my hands in the air, in surrender. “Okay, you’ve a right to be pissed.” His nostrils flare; I catch the sweet residue of marijuana and my own pulse churns in my ears. “You feel betrayed, I
know
it—probably better than you think. But it’s not a reason to toss your future away!”

“It’s my life,” he sulks.

“Right—your one and only, far as we know.”

He stares at the battered floorboards, sucking his cheeks. “Why should I listen to you?”

“Because. I’m an artist, too. And a teacher—a good one. Regardless of how I mess up my personal life.” He glances up dubiously. “Listen to me, Eli. Every few years someone comes along who’s got something special, and you
have
it.” He sighs, shoulders sagging now, defenses starting to slip. Then he snorts, turns away from me.

“See you around, Sylvia.” I watch him disappear through the door, my heart dropping like a brick. I’m wondering where he’ll go, what he’ll do, who he’ll tell. I follow into the hall.

“Eli, please wait—can you just tell me one thing?” He stares back silently. “I just— I’m wondering how you knew. Was it obvious, or did your father say something?”

He considers me for a moment, something like pity relaxing his features, then says, “Your daughter told me, Ms. Sandon.”

“My
daughter?
”

He shrugs once, arches an eyebrow, then walks off. And now the phone is ringing again.

Years later, I’ll remember every lurid moment of the next few hours and days, as if the whole thing were happening in digital freeze-frames, though at the time I feel etherized, remote. I’ll remember the dark plumage of January storm clouds as I drive home from my studio that afternoon, Nathan’s voice still rumbling in my head:
Hannah’s been suspended from school. There were drugs. I’ll tell you more when you get here.
I’ll remember the homeless woman humping her cart up to the Laundromat, the number of Iraq War casualties reported on my radio, a red sweatshirt flapping from a wire.

They’re all in the kitchen when I enter, my head spinning somewhere near the ceiling fan. The girls propped at the counter while Nathan peels apples for their afternoon snack, popcorn popping in the microwave, as if this were just a regular Monday after school. Except that when Hannah sees me, she immediately jumps from her stool, stalks toward the stairs.

“She’s pretty upset,” Nathan explains, slicing the apple into a bowl as well as he can with his bandaged wrist, squeezing in lemon the way they like it. “I’m sure she’ll talk to you about everything, in time.” He looks up, smiles despairingly. In that split second, I probe his eyes for information, but come up blank. I can’t tell what he knows, which conversation we’re having.

“Okay,” I say, making my way around the counter to hug Emmie, who clings to my neck like a baby koala.

“I got to leave before rest time, Mommy! Daddy got me early!” she says, as if this is all a big adventure—cause for celebration.

“Why is Hannah suspended?” It’s the safest thing I can think to say.

“Oh, boy.” He shakes his head, pulling the popcorn from the microwave. “Where do I start? She and Brooke Stevens were caught writing graffiti in the bathroom.”

“That’s not so horrible—”

“That’s just for starters, hon.
Then,
she told Bruce Hoffman, the vice principal, to f— off.” He steals a glance at Emmie. “Damn, I burned it again—this is the second bag.”

“She swore at Hoffman?”

“Yep.” He dumps the charred popcorn in the trash, filling the room with its acrid smell. “Which somehow prompted a locker search—don’t ask me why—where they discovered a joint and
these.
He reaches into his pocket, tosses a pack of cigarettes onto the counter. They’re unfiltered Camels—Tai’s brand, and lately, my own. I’m wondering, in fact, if she swiped these from my dresser drawer. “So Han’s out for the week,” Nathan concludes. “And I’ve told her no friends for a month, nothing after school.” I’m nodding idiotically, fingers running through Emmie’s thin curls, stroking her velvet earlobes. “She says Izzy Fletcher gave her the joint.”

“What did she write—in the bathroom?”

“It was pretty strange.” He sticks a new bag of popcorn in the microwave. “I was thinking obscenities, right? Something sexual, maybe a rant at a teacher. But that wasn’t it.” I raise my eyebrows, though half of me doesn’t want to hear.

“‘I’m gonna kill you, Hannah Jones.’ That’s what she wrote.”

“Wow.” It’s all I can manage.

“I know—the guidance counselor wanted to talk to us about therapists. Where
were
you, anyway?” Then he turns to load the dishwasher, as if he doesn’t want to hear my answer.

“I went up to the house, remember? And I was visiting with Rosalyn for a while. We had quite a conversation— remind me to tell you later.” I’m struggling to sound nonchalant, but my throat feels like I’ve gulped down pine shavings, and Eli’s accusations echo in my head. Nathan doesn’t comment, doesn’t ask how I could have possibly spent three hours chatting with Roz Benton. Still, he seems oddly reserved as he turns to me, drying his hands.

“You should go up and talk to her. You’re the one she trusts most,” he says, seemingly without a trace of irony.

But Hannah won’t talk to me, not even after I stand outside her locked door for fifteen minutes, pleading through the crack, “Please, Hannah—I just want to see you. I’m not angry with you, honey, just concerned. We need to talk!” I slump into the hallway, sitting on my hands, knocking my head against the wall.
I have failed them. I’ve failed them all.
Then, “Please, Han. You can’t just pretend nothing’s happened, sweetheart. Please open up.” At one point, I hear her stir and think she’s going to let me in; then something hard whams against the door—a shoe, most likely.

“Nothing doing, huh?” Nathan’s standing in the hallway now, our preschooler straddling his long back. He sets Emmie down in her room, then comes to where I’m sprawled, puts his face close to the door. “Mama really wants to talk to you, Han—can you open up? Just for a minute, please?” Silence. “Baby, why are you taking this out on your mom?” he tries. Nothing. He shakes his head, squeezes my shoulder, then retreats. After a few more attempts I give up and call the guidance counselor, who suspects that Hannah is “engaged in some dramatic internal struggle” (
no shit
) and gives me the names of three therapists—all highly recommended, though none are covered by our insurance. The first two can’t see us until March, but the third has a cancellation this week. I take it.

By Wednesday, Hannah still hasn’t spoken one word to me, despite all my pitiful attempts. I’ve tried cajoling and tearful pleas, sugarcoated bribery and empty threats. Now, in the car on the way to the therapist’s office, there’s nothing left but to hand over the naked truth. I veer left onto Main Street, fill my lungs to bursting, then blurt, “I know you know about Tai Rosen and me, Han. I know that’s why you’re acting this way.”

She doesn’t respond. I try again, tongue cleaving to my mouth. “Sometimes people make choices for strange reasons, honey.”

Nothing. Though as we pull into the parking lot, she stares me down, a look of supreme repugnance on her face—as if she’s gotten a whiff of rotting meat.

“You’ve read my e-mail, haven’t you?” She turns her face away. I take this as confirmation, take another painful, fortifying breath. How could I have been so obtuse, I wonder. Why didn’t I see it coming? “Look, I understand you’re upset,” I continue, chest constricting. “And I hope you’ll at least be able to talk to this therapist about it, even if you’re not ready to talk to me yet—”

“I’ll talk to the dumb-ass therapist about whatever I want,” she finally says, as I throw the car into Park. Hope swells at these words—the first I’ve heard from her since Monday morning. We sit silent as the engine sputters. Then, staring into her lap, voice barely audible, “Are you going to divorce Daddy?” I place my hand on her knee, which she moves away.

“I don’t know, Han—I hope not.” She nods, gnawing the inside of her cheek. “I just need to know,” I add, unable to stop myself, “if you’re planning to tell him.”

She snorts, opens the car door and swings her long legs onto the asphalt. “I think that’s your job, don’t you?” Then slams the door in my face.

The therapist concurs. As I sit facing her after the session, Hannah now banished momentarily to the outer room, she concludes that she can’t work with us as a family if there are secrets. It all has to come out, she says, right ankle propped against her left knee. Years later, I’ll remember that taut ankle, that sharp knee. I’ll remember the brutal haircut—black and too angled against a tanned face set off by designer glasses. I’ll remember her fashionable but androgynous clothing.

I am not just noticing these things; I’m holding them against her, tallying up my resentments one by one. She’s clearly younger than me, probably makes more money, maybe doesn’t have children of her own. She has enough leisure to paint her nails and maintain a tan. She can love whomever she chooses, without consequence. I’m tearing at my own unpolished thumbnail as she talks about social-emotional issues, attention-getting behaviors, how when children feel a fissure in the family they’re forced to take sides whether asked to or not. Hannah’s dealing with a
family issue,
she keeps saying. And she needs us to manage it responsibly as a family. I can hear my mother’s voice in my head—
we didn’t have family therapists back then. We prayed together
—I stifle a laugh.