An Ornithologist's Guide to Life by Ann Hood Page A

had enough of you. Of this. Do you hear me?”
    We stared at the two of them, silent and unsure of who to hate—Joelle for telling us to shut up, or our mother for offending Joelle. We did not know what to do or what might happen next. It seemed like right then a car screeched up to our house, but maybe that was some time later. A car did screech up that night, its door flying open and banging shut. We heard the unfamiliar sound of high heels pounding up our front walk.
    Then just one word, spoken into the hot summer air: “Joelle.”
    We looked through the screen, where moths clung, batting their gossamer wings, and saw Joelle’s mother standing on the steps that led to our house, her arms folded in such a way that she appeared to be hugging herself. In the glare of the single bulb that hung over the front stairs, we could make out every detail. She was the tallest woman we had ever seen,or so she seemed standing there like that. Her hair, no longer golden, was pulled into a tight chignon, and everything she wore matched: pale yellow pants and tunic top, large wooden earrings painted red and yellow, with matching large wooden beads around her neck. She had on nylons under the wide legs of her pants, and high heels in a color we would later call taupe, but then thought of as the color of flesh. Her lips and cheeks were pink.
    Everything about her shocked us. But mostly what we saw was that she was not, as we had thought, beautiful. At least not in the soft and exotic way we had imagined. She looked like women we saw pushing carts at the Safeway, choosing fruits and vegetables with care. She looked like anyone, different than our mother, but not the extraordinary, magical woman we had hoped. She was simply a mother—someone else’s mother at that.
    We all—the three of us, our parents, and Joelle—stayed seated on the red folding chairs at the red card table, our plates full of our mother’s famous couscous salad, the one with cucumbers and kalamata olives, and feta cheese; the one she always took to potluck suppers. Joelle’s mother spoke again. “Joelle,” she said, in a cool voice, “come on now.” We could imagine that voice at The Club, floating across the shimmering blue of the swimming pool, beckoning Joelle to her. We could imagine it whispering good night. But we could not then understand the power in that voice. With those few words it took Joelle away from us and changed our lives.
    Joelle stood, but it was our mother who stepped outside. “Please,” she said to Joelle’s mother. “Let’s not do this. Not in front of my girls. I don’t want them upset by any of this. Let’s go inside with Hal and talk like adults.”
    â€œI’ve talked all summer,” Joelle’s mother said. “She doesn’t want to come here anymore. She wants to come home.”
    This shocked us. Later, the three of us hot and sweaty in our bed, our legs tangled together, we would try to sort it out, how all of those whispered phone calls had been pleas from Joelle to leave us, to not come back. We felt betrayed by Joelle, by her mother, by the things we could not even begin to understand.
    â€œAfter all this time,” our mother said, “why can’t you let it go? It was all so long ago.”
    Joelle’s mother did not answer her. She just said in her cool voice, “Joelle, let’s go. I’ve come to take you home.”
    Joelle took the napkin from her lap and folded it into a neat square, then got to her feet. She did not look at any of us, not even our father. She just walked away, past us, past her own mother who stood in the same pose Joelle had held all day, arms folded across her chest, face turned upward so that her nose pointed toward the ceiling. Joelle opened the screen door carefully and stepped outside, into the hot August night.
    Our father was on his feet now too, but somehow we understood that this was