Trompe l'Oeil by Nancy Reisman Page B

they crossed into dreamsabout Nora’s mother. It seemed that they might all occupy the same unreachable place.
    Of course in waking life, the actual Lydia could appear. One October afternoon, she arrived, her presence made palpable by the downshifting of a motor outside the house, a blue VW, quick steps up the stairs. A sunny day, Theo and Katy still at school. Through the kitchen window, Nora saw Lydia’s hair falling loose over a dark suede jacket, then a sheaf of yellow chrysanthemums. She did not want to open the door. She waited, but Lydia was knocking, Lydia had seen her.
    â€œNora.”
    It seemed the light was too bright, dizzying. She opened the door to wind and Lydia, Lydia rushing forward as Nora backed away.
    â€œNora?”
    An odd heat flooded Nora: she propped herself with the curved back of a wooden chair.
    Lydia stopped. She slid the sheaf of flowers across the table, took the chair closest to the door. “Will you talk to me?” An herbal scent, the familiar Lydia. “I’m so sorry.”
    Nora shook her head, refusing what, exactly? In May, they had talked in a familiar kitchen. Here was another familiar kitchen. Two still points, it seemed, over the chasm of months, ocean, Rome. One might gesture at the chasm; one might peer down, identify shapes.
    â€œNora. Come on.”
    Between them, the table, the chrysanthemums, the muted wind, which seemed to blow pointillist light through the windows and plain kitchen air, onto the flowers, the bowl ofapples. She wavered. Perhaps the blowing light might tip her over. Imagine an armful of grass falling onto the table. Imagine it falling to the floor. Lydia repeated her name. Nora had been looking for oranges; she had been distracted. In Rome there had been no Lydia; there, Lydia had been absent. But if oranges were elements of distraction, Lydia was a deeper element. A layer upon which the oranges might float.
    And now Lydia watched Nora from the far side of the table, the Lydia who’d found her way to Cambridge with her two girls intact. If one’s kids were intact, one might move. One might then be Lydia; one might accompany Lydia, or visit her.
    â€œTheo and Katy are in school,” Nora said. “Adjusting.”
    â€œOf course,” Lydia said.
    It was difficult to suspend certain knowledge. Lydia too, had taken care of Molly, and of Katy and Theo. Loved them. At least, in the Blue Rock kitchen Lydia did not weep or assault Nora with her own grief. Offered no false comforts: chrysanthemums were only themselves. Nora had been distracted, and was now more so. She had Theo; she had Katy. Certain desires could lead to ruin, though how to identify which ones? You could not say ruin began with oranges, only that oranges were present. What was her desire for Lydia? Let’s sit . She had said that in Rome. A flimsy command, hardly words at all. There had been hand-holding, hand-waving. Why recount any of it? You had to accept the ruin: here, this is yours. On the far side of ruin, Lydia wore a fringed jacket. She belonged there. Nora did not.
    â€œI don’t know how to do this,” Nora said. She seemed to be speaking underwater; or perhaps the light had thickened. “Talking,” she said.
    â€œDo you want tea?” Lydia said. “What do you need?”
    The kettle stood in the sink; Nora had been filling the kettle. “Oh,” Nora said. Could she drink tea? This was something she did. It seemed irrelevant.
    â€œI’ll rest,” Nora said. “Maybe I’ll just rest.” She heard herself tell Lydia, “Today’s not the best day.”

    A space Nora had once associated with Molly remained as an empty quadrant of air, or a kind of silence housing all things Molly or attached to Molly’s death, and therefore ever-deepening. Distraction, yes: regularly, the day’s anchors would slip, Nora would slip with them into that space, and then rediscover her kitchen minutes later.