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

between our mothers—Joelle’s and ours. We understood the way it was, that Joelle would always belong to her mother, and we would always belong to our mother. The adults said things, but we were no longer listening. Instead, we let the realization that we could not have a different mother, that we belonged to this one, settle in. Joelle and her mother walked down our path, side by side, to their Ford and we watched them drive away from us.
    Eventually, of course, Joelle would visit again, awkwardly at first and then slowly with a confidence and understandingthat somehow she straddled two families, two lives. She never again seemed as mysterious as she had before that summer night. In the way that children have, we put aside that which we could not have or comprehend and let both Joelle and her mother become ordinary in our eyes. They both lost the hold on us they used to have and instead developed into two separate people, fixtures in our lives in different ways, but firmly a part of us: the big sister with a different mother, our father’s ex-wife.
    As for us that August, we went to the beach, where we brought our mother perfect shells that we collected along the shore. In the sunshine there she seemed to grow beautiful. Had her hair always had that particular wave to it? And wasn’t the way her front teeth overlapped interesting? We wore the new bikinis she had bought for us, and brightly colored rubber flip-flops, and wreaths of black-eyed Susans. Every chance we had, we hugged our mother tight. We whispered that we loved her because we did, irrevocably, unconditionally, eternally. We don’t want any mother but you , we assured her, and ourselves. It was August and hot and summer was coming to an end. Even there, at the shore, we could smell autumn approaching. We could feel its chill in the air, sending goosebumps up our arms at night. Our mother pulled us into her arms and held us, thankfully, close.

ESCAPES

    W HAT I DO with my niece Jennifer is this. I ride the cable cars again and again, paying four dollars each time. She is fourteen and gets a thrill hanging off the side of the car as it plunges down San Francisco’s steep hills. She says it is like flying, and indeed the wind does pick up her Esprit scarf, the one decorated with purple and yellow palm trees, and tosses it stiffly backward in the same way that Charles Lindbergh’s scarves appear in old flying photos of him.
    I take her to Candlestick Park for the Giants’ last game of the season and sit shivering under an old blanket I bought in Mexico long ago. Jennifer does not understand baseball, but I try to explain it to her. Three outs to an inning, nine innings to a game, the importance of a good shortstop. But she does not get it. When Chris Sabo of the Reds strikes out she says, “Caryn, why is it still their turn? You said three outs to an inning.”
    â€œBut three strikes,” I tell her, “is just one out.” Jennifer shakes her head and closes her eyes for the rest of the game. Even when I nudge her and say, “Look! A home run!” she keeps her eyes closed, does not move.
    We spend an entire day at the Esprit factory outlet. Jennifer fills a shopping cart with bargains. She is tall, like her father, my brother, was. She is fourteen and already almost six feet, and so thin that her hip bones poke out from her faded blue jeans. She does not have to wear a bra. She keeps her hair long, so that it flies around her head like a golden cloud. One of the saleswomen asks Jennifer if she is a model. “Me?” Jennifer says, confused, embarrassed. She slouches even more than usual and shakes her yellow hair. Then she walks away. But when we go into the dressing room and she sees that there is no privacy, no curtains or doors, that everyone is standing half-naked in front of mirrors, Jennifer leaves her shopping cart and walks out of the store without trying on a thing.
    What I do not do is mention