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Monday 11 July 2011

Restoration



"I have never had so many good ideas day after day as when I worked in the garden.”
~ John Erskine.
*

Eagerly compliant instruments in the grand orchestration, the birds conducted their morning business. Darting about, twittering, chirping, courting the dawn.

He hated those birds – the most twittery and chirpy ones in particular. Their incessant chatter always roused him before he was prepared to face the day. Blithely insidious, they chipped away at the plaster cast of night and the merciful disassociation that slumber allowed.  Lately he’d been submitting to the schedule they dictated and, grudgingly, programmed his coffee accordingly.  

He emerged from his protective layers and followed the aroma to the kitchen where he absently imagined a greasy bacon omelette to be awaiting him.  It never was, of course. If there was anything about his wife he missed, it was those glorious artery-choking breakfasts she made for him on the weekends. Not the nagging, though; he didn’t miss that a damn bit. Cold cereal was a reasonable price, he figured, for getting to avoid all that nonsense.  

While filling his mug he wondered where he’d left his smokes, before remembering that he’d quit a few days prior. That panicked him, but just a little. He was finding that the fear of quitting was harder than the actual process. It was a bit tougher with the booze, he had to admit, but the same principle applied - generally. 

He pushed the urges aside as he shuffled, coffee in hand, to the bathroom. Used to be a nice surprise to find it vacant before his family left two years ago but now the open door was just a gaping reminder of their absence, of their stark and blatant lack of presence. A hole. As he attempted a sip from his cup his hand trembled and he managed only to spill it down his chest. Back then he’d often fantasized about solitude: no daughter crying at the slightest provocation or son hounding him for crap he couldn’t afford to buy and, best of all, no wife giving him “the look” every ten minutes – that unyielding silent reproach that made him feel like shit all the time. He was glad it was over.

He eventually forced himself out onto the driveway, already wondering how to put off the task at hand. Until now he’d been brilliantly successful in convincing himself why it would have to wait until another day. On this day, though, nothing was coming to mind. He shielded his eyes from the low, pervasive sun and surveyed the job site: The yard. Everything. The whole goddamned mess. 

Dead flowers and plants languished. The lawn was like a forgotten field, the porch dilapidated, and hedges bordering on the pathetic. The magnitude of the project was too daunting. Or it had been. Taming it, finally, would have to be easier, he’d decided, than enduring the embarrassment of it for another season. He wondered where he should start then immediately and arbitrarily decided on the flower beds – realizing that pondering the perfect place to begin would only be another exercise in procrastination. He was on to himself now.

Gangly, militant weeds had thoroughly infiltrated the gardens. The once vibrant floral arrangements had been crowded completely out of existence by the merciless creepers. It seemed unfair that they needed no catalyst to wreak havoc on their environment, just a lack of opposition, an absence of nurture. He found a rusty garden shovel and the first hint of resolve he’d had in years and with those delicate tools in hand, pushed up his sleeves to his elbows and, finally, he dug in. 

He felt the unkempt yard might as well have been a neon sign unambiguously announcing to all passersby that his wife had left him and his life was in disarray. That infuriated him, but even more enraging was the knowledge that if she hadn’t planted the frigging things in the first place, he wouldn’t have to be dealing with the sorry state he now had before him. That was the problem with setting precedents. Why should he bother fixing the problem she created? Gone two years and she was still a thorn in his side.

He closed his eyes and imagined the warm effect of whiskey burning beautifully down his dry throat. A drink, and a smoke, inside behind the brick walls where nobody could see him or judge him. The allure was nearly impossible to fight... But no, he was steadfast in his determination to show the neighbours that she hadn’t beaten him after all. Despite her, he would make his yard beautiful again. He remembered the day they’d first seen this place. They’d both fallen in love with the yard immediately. Even their young son professed his admiration for it and their daughter, not yet talking, seemed equally enchanted. This would be home, his wife had vowed, forever.  

He firmly grasped a thick, prickly and stubborn weed. The thistles drew a little blood from his wrist but he was able to uproot it completely, feeling a slight sense of triumph as he tossed it aside. He laboured throughout that Saturday and valiantly challenged the vernal twilight before finally relenting to the pervading fall of night. By Sunday evening he was ready to call this first phase of the project a success. New flowers and seeds were planted in fresh dirt and all the lecherous weeds had been eradicated. The soil could once again breathe.

He noticed now just how dirty he’d gotten, how ground in the soil was, and wondered if he’d ever be able to wash it away.  He recalled the image of his wife after a day in the garden. She’d really been gorgeous in her shorts and halter, soil smearing her sweaty brow. He knew he’d never bothered to tell her how beautiful he’d thought that made her look, and felt a tinge of regret but then, he reasoned, if he'd said it once she’d have expected it all the time and then felt insulted when he didn’t say it. It was wiser not to set those unhealthy precedents.

He surveyed his handiwork and began to see why she took such pride in doing this. In planting and nurturing; toiling to have efforts rewarded with something beautiful, alive and enduring. It dawned on him now, why she’d get so upset when he’d inadvertently trample her little darlings. It wasn’t even their ruination so much as what he’d done to her. He’d laughed at her once after a particularly brutal decapitation of some azaleas or something, and she’d cried outright. He’d told her not to be so daft, they were just stupid plants, no different than weeds. And she had looked at him then with a deep sadness that he knew meant something, but failed to comprehend what that might be. Now he thought he did.

The next Saturday at the first movement of the robins’ opera he was back to work. The project had become something essential, and urgent, though he couldn’t say why. Absently forgetting his coffee, he ventured out onto the neglected porch and listened to it groan under his weight. The paint was peeling off as if attempting to flee a sinking ship. Rusted nails secured, in many places, to nothing. The rail teetered precariously, perpetually on the verge of surrendering - threatening to end the whole pretence of providing support when it was obvious that the slightest pressure could send it crashing into a useless pile of kindling.

He tried not to think of the fun he had with his son building it. He tried not to think of how his son had looked up to him back then, with genuine adoration in his young eyes. It was in stark contrast to how he’d looked at him on that last day before he’d driven off with his sobbing mother beside him and despondent sister in the back seat. That day, all that had been reflected in his maturing son’s eyes was disdain, and pity. As he remembered, he wished his kids had understood it wasn’t his fault. Not all of it. Not entirely.

To help assuage his troubled mind he went to work on that porch with a vigour he thought he no longer possessed. He planed and sanded and hammered. When he thought he’d die if he didn’t get a drink, he planed faster, hammered harder. With the weekend rapidly fading, he stained and coated and stood back to admire his work. The porch looked as strong as day one. And he and the boy had done a good job originally. His wife, though, aware of his mediocre carpentry skills, had been somewhat cautious about venturing onto it. Noticing her trepidation he had grabbed her, carried her up the steps and jumped hard on the landing. All the while she’d been squealing with mock fright and laughter. The kids had roared with delight at the spectacle. As the porch had remained solid, he turned to his son and winked and the lad had beamed with pride. 

After the kids had gone to bed that evening he and his wife had relaxed on the sturdy structure, sipping white wine. They’d held hands, gazed at the stars and considered eternity. Eternity, it had meant something then. He reluctantly came back to the present, slumped heavily on the top stair and cried for the first time since his mother had died years before.

He spent a great deal of his time at work the following week distracted from his job, his mind instead focused on what he’d be able to accomplish in the yard come Saturday.  When it finally arrived he was up before the birds and was amused to think that his industrious behaviour would wake them for a change. He was feeling good and didn’t wait for the coffee to finish brewing before heading out. He pulled the crisp morning air deep into his recovering lungs, felt its presence within, and savoured it for a good long while. His hands were steady and he felt alive. 

Sitting on the porch whistling, he oiled the clippers and prepared for the final major challenge: the hedges. They had really been an integral factor in their decision to buy. The lush, stately cedars surrounded the home almost completely. He’d kept them meticulously trimmed and exactly three feet along the lengths and four at the corners. They were carefully squared, solid, promising safety and security, yet simultaneously managing to evoke warmth and soft comfort. 

He had maintained them that way religiously until about three years ago, maybe four. He tried to recall just when the deterioration had begun but the timeframe eluded him. He guessed it had been a slow process and at some indecipherable point, he’d become unable to muster the energy to care. Now the hedges had a lazy, generally rounded shape to them with errant twigs jutting out haphazardly, and an overall unevenness that divulged the obvious lack of recent care and attention.

The autumn of the year their daughter turned six they’d been in the back raking leaves. The kids had been playing around front in the heaps already gathered there. When he heard his daughter yell for him in a high-pitched, urgent squeal, he dropped his rake and took off running, with his wife close behind. They feared the worst but when they rounded the property their daughter was merely standing by the hedge. She didn’t appear hurt. In fact, she was grinning broadly but with a quizzical expression on her face. She was surprised what was so obvious to her wasn’t immediately apparent to everyone else. 

“See?” she explained, “I’m bigger than the hedge!”

“But she’s on her tippy toes!” her brother said as he popped out from atop a pile of leaves.


Their mom giggled. Putting her arm around her husband’s waist, she quietly reminded him that when their daughter was four, he had told her that one day she’d be taller than the hedges and from then on she’d be a big girl forever. He’d smiled as he vaguely recalled the incident. He knelt and opened his arms wide to congratulate his big girl with a bear hug. She’d come running to him so enthusiastically that she knocked him right over, blackening his eye with her head. It hurt like hell but he’d laughed to assure her that he was alright.

And he laughed aloud back in the present, too, though it was tinged with pain and regret. He missed them all so much. Maybe, he thought, his wife hadn’t been quite as responsible for his problems as he’d believed. Certainly some of the blame had been his own. Hell, maybe even most of it, he admitted, as he began chopping away at the unruly bushes. As he toiled he wondered why he hadn’t worked harder to show how much he truly cared for her, and wondered also, why this was the first time he’s asked himself that question.

Many of the bushes were brown and dry where they’d been robbed of nurture and oxygen these past few years and a lot of open patches were left by the time he’d cleared out all that languorous undergrowth. It pained him to leave such gaping and obvious holes in the barrier. They appeared vulnerable to him but he knew it had to be done if healthy new growth would be able to flourish. He continued snipping, patiently, tediously and with a sure hand until the hedges finally began to show a hint of their former splendour and the dead and dying had made way for the promise of the new.

He imagined the way his daughter’s eyes had sparkled on that day of her milestone, but the image quickly morphed into the face of the girl who’d later left with her mother and brother and never returned. The eyes so empty they chilled his soul even now. They were the eyes of a broken little girl completely disillusioned with her father, a girl too innocent to fathom what had become of her hero. He wondered if there was any chance his family could ever forgive him.

The hedges were finished the next day. Once again they were stately and appealing, promising safety and warmth. A week later he had the lawn and edging neatly trimmed. The porch stood proud and strong. His dedication and resolve were paying off as the yard reclaimed it’s regality. Soon after, he noticed seeds he had planted announcing themselves in the form of burgeoning new life, having somehow fought through the smothering pressure that weighed upon them and worked their way up into the welcoming open air.

As he observed, a sense of pride enveloped him and he yearned to be sharing the moment. A newlywed couple strolled by hand-in-hand and complimented his efforts. He smiled and nodded his appreciation. Somewhere nearby a robin sang as he wiped his hands clean and went in to use the phone.


© cal chayce

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