Excerpt of Taking Flight by Lynne Kaufman

Departures.

Julia awoke with a start, clawing her way out of a panic dream, with broken images hanging like cobwebs on her lashes. A drowning dream, gasping for breath; in one arm she held the children, babies again, valiantly keeping their sputtering mouths above water, in the other a trailing string bag from which objects floated: her passport, 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, laced his arms around her, fitted his body spoon fashion against hers. 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 was reassurance she wanted, not lovemaking. "I had a terrible dream," she said. "I was losing everything. It must be anxiety about the trip."

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

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

That was his cue to play comforter, appeaser of doubts."Everything is organized.You know your lectures backward and forward. The travel agent will handle the logistics 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 had taken without Mark. She thought back over the travels they had been on together in their twenty years of marriage, how Mark had always chosen the site, planned their stay, never for longer than the ten days he felt it safe to leave his medical practice. He had bought the guide books, the maps, chosen the hotels, choreographed the itinerary — always a balance of indoor and outdoor, physical and aesthetic activities. He'd studied the money, the customs, the language, doctored her queasy stomach and airplane sinusitis. Traveling with Mark had been like cruising in a chauffeur-driven limo, the windows discreetly open to passing sights and sounds.

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. She had become a pedestrian.An independent traveler. Solo. Free. But free for what? The pleasures of Greece, she hoped. She had never been there, but had long studied its history, mythology and theater with great interest and enjoyment. Indeed, next year she would be teaching Greek 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, an actor and director, whom she hoped would provide good adult company. She could imagine them discussing the role 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 would have two weeks to think about it without the demands of everyday life. She would be visiting the site of the Oracle of Delphi, where the ancient Greeks had asked for guidance for their most difficult dilemmas. She would do the same and hope for an answer. Perhaps in that sacred place she could contact the source of a deeper wisdom.

Julia's reverie was interrupted by a familiar weight of sixty pounds landing on her hip. She stirred to find Wendy, her mirror image at age nine, chocolate-brown eyes riveted to hers.

"Are you leaving today?" her daughter demanded. Julia nodded. 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, you certainly can't deny that one," people would say when they saw them together. Who would want to? Not now. Once, Julia thought, once long ago, during that dark time. Now she delighted in the resemblance and spent long 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 year of sobbing into his brown Naugahyde chair, of mood elevating drugs, confessions of misdeeds, of wrong thoughts, shameful desires, and long recitals of her inadequacies...her tiny breasts, her troubled skin, her lack of courage, discipline, generosity, love. Finally, she had come through the tunnel of depression, of swirling sawtoothed thoughts, even one stagy suicide attempt with a handful of sleeping pills, to arrive at a form of equilibrium. She had begun therapy in tears of despair and ended it with an appreciative handshake. Eight years since 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 thinking about it now?

Julia threw off the covers and climbed out of bed. As she opened the curtains, the Los Angeles sunshine flooded the room. After a long, hot shower she entered the kitchen. As she cracked an egg against the rim of a bowl, she noticed her hands trembling. She made no attempt to still them; all risk, all growth came with such stirrings. She remembered a quote from the poet Roethke: "This shaking keeps me steady, I should know. I learn by going where I have to go." The advantage of a literary education, she thought wryly, an existential quote for any occasion. Even though they were usually sad.

She measured milk and oil into the pancake batter for a hot, hearty, well-balanced breakfast. She slid bacon slices 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, she reflected, sending their families out with filled bellies and 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 the dream of perfect motherhood. Over Mark's strong and repeated objections, she had gone back to school for a master's degree, obtained it, and shortly after found a teaching position at a nearby woman's college.

Now dust gathered under the beds, hair clogged the drains, clothes tangled in closets, fingerprints embroidered doors. Frozen vegetables, bottled dressings, bakery cookies were served. The children were put in charge of their own baths, homework and social schedules. She had moved from teaching two classes a week to a full-time appointment, and with teaching, student conferences, faculty committees and lecture preparation, she was gone from nine till four like a grown-up, and was paid 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, with adolescent aplomb, balanced the milk, orange juice, maple syrup and newspaper. They each sat in their accustomed seat. Mark divided the newspaper — sports and business for himself, entertainment section for Davey. Julia received the main section; Wendy still needed 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 added as he folded a bacon strip and pushed it into his already full mouth.

Julia watched his pumping jaws and felt a wave of distaste. Had he always eaten that way or had she just begun to notice? It was the same way he made love — noisy, rushed, aggressive. She tried to push the thoughts from her. She did not want to feel critical today, only kind, accepting. When had this shadow side come into prominence? Sometimes he looked good to her, craggy and virile. But at other times all she saw were his sagging jowls, uneven teeth, the dark circles beneath the pale blue eyes. Had he become plain, uncomely, or was she simply projecting the dissatisfaction she felt? Was it the unresolved conflicts, the buried resentments that scarred him for her? He had never really accepted her working, having her own life. Furthermore he had objected to her seeing women friends or pursuing hobbies in her free time, anything that took her further away from him and the family. They had reached a sort of truce about it. At least they had stopped fighting. But there was a residual chill between them. They were careful with each other. Moments of spontaneity, of intimacy, were rare.

Ironically, in stormy seas with danger or crisis throughout, she rarely questioned the ship of their marriage, just held on to its railings for survival, grateful for its shelter, its solidity. But when the angry waves subsided and the sun shone, she looked about its confines, its cracking paint, frayed ropes and mildewed cabin, and the stretch of open sea invited — cool, sparkling, bearing palm fringed islands ripe for exploring. More and more, lately, she had felt restless and unhappy.

A memory of the first time she had seen Mark came flooding back. That first imprinting. A blind date, arranged by a cousin. "He's a medical resident," she had been told, "Jewish and tall."

"But what does he look like?" she had asked.

"He's tall and he's a doctor," the girl had repeated.

"What more do you want?"

Both her mother and her best girlfriend had echoed the same sentiment."You're so lucky.What a catch!"And she had thought so, too, for a time.

Julia looked down at her breakfast plate. It was empty. Unknowingly, she had cut, chewed, swallowed. She began clearing plates, stacking them.