Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Taking Flight

MIRA

Departures.

Julia awoke with a start, clawing her way out of apanic dream, with broken images hanging like cobwebson her lashes. A drowning dream, gasping for breath; inone arm she held the children, babies again, valiantlykeeping their sputtering mouths above water, in theother a trailing string bag from which objects floated: herpassport, traveler's checks, itinerary, vouchers.

She huddled into a ball, digging deeper into the familiar comfort of her own sheets. Responding to her movement, Mark slid over to her side of the double bed, lacedhis arms around her, fitted his body spoon fashion againsthers. She sighed and let her head rest on his shoulder.Encouraged, he moved his hands to cup her breasts.Deftly, she shifted her position, evading his grasp. It wasreassurance she wanted, not lovemaking. "I had a terrible dream," she said. "I was losing everything. It must beanxiety about the trip."

He nuzzled her neck. "Then stay home. You know I'dprefer it."

"I have to go," she said."It's part of my job. It's just thatso many things can go wrong."

That was his cue to play comforter, appeaser ofdoubts."Everything is organized.You know your lecturesbackward and forward. The travel agent will handle thelogistics and you'll have two glorious weeks in the Aegean as a single lady."

"With thirty college sophomores," she amended.

"Thirty chaperones," he said.

"I'm the chaperone." This was the first trip she hadtaken without Mark. She thought back over the travelsthey had been on together in their twenty years of marriage, how Mark had always chosen the site, plannedtheir stay, never for longer than the ten days he felt itsafe to leave his medical practice. He had bought theguide books, the maps, chosen the hotels, choreographed the itinerary — always a balance of indoor andoutdoor, physical and aesthetic activities. He'd studiedthe money, the customs, the language, doctored herqueasy stomach and airplane sinusitis. Traveling withMark had been like cruising in a chauffeur-driven limo,the windows discreetly open to passing sights andsounds.

But now she had pushed wide that heavily upholstered door and stepped outside onto the steaming pavement, amid the buses and trucks and jostling crowds. Shehad become a pedestrian.An independent traveler. Solo.Free. But free for what? The pleasures of Greece, shehoped. She had never been there, but had long studiedits history, mythology and theater with great interest andenjoyment. Indeed, next year she would be teachingGreek tragedy, and the trip was a preparation for that.

She had never managed a tour group before, but Sabrina, the dean's secretary, was coming along to help.And then there would be Michael, her co-instructor, anactor and director, whom she hoped would provide goodadult company. She could imagine them discussing therole of the Greek chorus over a glass of retsina in a picturesque seaside tavern.

And there was something more.An ever growing, disturbing question about her life, her marriage. She wouldhave two weeks to think about it without the demandsof everyday life. She would be visiting the site of the Oracle of Delphi, where the ancient Greeks had asked forguidance for their most difficult dilemmas. She would dothe same and hope for an answer. Perhaps in that sacredplace she could contact the source of a deeper wisdom.

Julia's reverie was interrupted by a familiar weight ofsixty pounds landing on her hip. She stirred to findWendy, her mirror image at age nine, chocolate-browneyes riveted to hers.

"Are you leaving today?" her daughter demanded. Julianodded. Wendy flung her weight like a sinker, burrowing into her mother's belly."I don't want you to."A wiry,long-limbed, puckish child, she had amber freckled skin,a jutting aquiline nose, Indian-straight hair. "Well, youcertainly can't deny that one," people would say whenthey saw them together. Who would want to? Not now.Once, Julia thought, once long ago, during that darktime. Now she delighted in the resemblance and spentlong times of pleasure absorbed in the little girl's expressive face and movements.

It was hard won, that acceptance of self: a year of psychotherapy, of weekly meetings with Dr. Liston, a yearof sobbing into his brown Naugahyde chair, of mood elevating drugs, confessions of misdeeds, of wrongthoughts, shameful desires, and long recitals of her inadequacies...her tiny breasts, her troubled skin, her lackof courage, discipline, generosity, love. Finally, she hadcome through the tunnel of depression, of swirling sawtoothed thoughts, even one stagy suicide attempt witha handful of sleeping pills, to arrive at a form of equilibrium. She had begun therapy in tears of despair andended it with an appreciative handshake. Eight yearssince that parting, longer since the catastrophic depression, but she still wondered about its unopened message.Was that dark time simply a result of postpartum hormones or did it augur more? And why was she thinkingabout it now?

Julia threw off the covers and climbed out of bed. Asshe opened the curtains, the Los Angeles sunshineflooded the room. After a long, hot shower she enteredthe kitchen. As she cracked an egg against the rim of abowl, she noticed her hands trembling. She made no attempt to still them; all risk, all growth came with suchstirrings. She remembered a quote from the poetRoethke: "This shaking keeps me steady, I should know.I learn by going where I have to go." The advantage of aliterary education, she thought wryly, an existentialquote for any occasion. Even though they were usuallysad.

She measured milk and oil into the pancake batter fora hot, hearty, well-balanced breakfast. She slid baconslices into a frying pan, wincing as the fat splattered, leaving a garland of grease upon the stove. She cut juicy oranges into quarters. Other mothers did this daily, shereflected, sending their families out with filled belliesand home-cooked love, while she made do with packaged muffins and sugar-coated cereals. Other mothers,other wives...old rusty nails in the sepulcher of unworthiness. She thrust those thoughts from her.

As a bonus of psychotherapy, she had relinquished thedream of perfect motherhood. Over Mark's strong andrepeated objections, she had gone back to school for amaster's degree, obtained it, and shortly after found ateaching position at a nearby woman's college.

Now dust gathered under the beds, hair clogged thedrains, clothes tangled in closets, fingerprints embroidered doors. Frozen vegetables, bottled dressings, bakerycookies were served. The children were put in charge oftheir own baths, homework and social schedules. Shehad moved from teaching two classes a week to a full-time appointment, and with teaching, student conferences, faculty committees and lecture preparation, shewas gone from nine till four like a grown-up, and waspaid for it in money, status and stress.

The family set the table in a smooth and wordless ritual. Mark laid place mats and crockery;Wendy added silverware and carefully folded paper napkins. Davey, withadolescent aplomb, balanced the milk, orange juice,maple syrup and newspaper. They each sat in their accustomed seat. Mark divided the newspaper — sportsand business for himself, entertainment section forDavey. Julia received the main section; Wendy stillneeded to look at what she was eating."Quite a spread," Mark commented.

"The plane doesn't leave until eleven," she explained.

"I had time to cook."

"Well, you're off duty for two weeks now," he addedas he...