Making Wakes Excerpt
Laura awoke before the first bird of the morning’s first song. This annoyed her even more than the song itself since she lay there wondering just how long it would be before he'd begin.
This had become routine, ever since she returned home from her summer vacation. In fact, it started those last few days before it was over, ruing its ending. Its reason she knew well but she shooed away those memories, rising onto one elbow reaching for a water bottle, and saying to her dog: “It’s too damned early for melancholy, right Xena?” Laura smiled at how lovely and peaceful her Golden Retriever looked, laying loyally beside her bed on the plain, claret-colored, Oriental rug. Her husband used to growl and complain that the rug was too expensive and too beautiful to be constantly sullied by the canine’s ever-shedding, long, blonde mane. But Laura always ignored him and, like always, reached her hand down and petted her soft, grateful head a long while. As if the dog sensed her master’s heavy heart, she looked up into Laura’s eyes with that breed’s always-woeful, dark brown orbs, sighed deeply, and returned to her former repose as if saying: “It’s too damned early to get up yet”
In silent tacit agreement, Laura lay back down and turned onto her right side, trying to take in as deep a breath as her dog had just done. She felt a sharp tinge of sorrow at the top, before she let her diaphragm deflate. She recalled all the voice, dance, yoga, and meditation lessons she had taken throughout her life and was grateful that they taught her how easy it is to cleanse one's lungs at will. But she wished they had taught her what to do with the sorrows that mar one’s life, pulsing, without rest, from the adjoining heart.
Instinctively, she placed her arm and leg across the covers and pillows that lay next to her. She felt only cool, flat, soft flannel sheet and pillow case against her skin, having kicked off the thin cotton blanket during the night. Closing her eyes, she tried hard to remember how warm and cozy her husband's thin, bony, yet muscular body felt in that place for so many years. She looked at the pillows and recalled how she took his head lying there each day for granted, his familiar smell so near, as if his breathing (and snoring) peacefully next to her was one of life’s unalienable rights. Tears welled up in her sleepy eyes as, like every morning for the last three years, she tried her best to ward off the horrible imaginings of how he may have felt as he was dying: did he die instantly as the doctors and police told her or did he suffer the doubled edge sword of intense physical pain and knowing he was dying? Did he cry out her name as he lay along the banks of that wet, sandy, two lane road, his motorcycle on top of him, all alone, unable to move, with only the twilight, the wind, and the night hawk's cry as his last sensations? She hoped the former; she feared the latter. Her only consolation was that, if he did live awhile after the impact, he had a bounty of beautiful, happy, vivid memories to fill his last thoughts and escort him yonder. “Oh, my darling! My darling!” she sobbed burying her face into the pillow where he would have laid.
After a few moments, her sobs subsided and she took several deep breaths giving thanks that she, at least, was alive to carry on and continue to help their children along their still young, tenuous, and uncertain paths. She turned over onto her back, the plain white ceiling helping to blank out all thoughts, and took another deep breath from her mouth, let it fill her lungs completely for a count of five, held the air there for a count of ten, and then slowly let the air escape for a count of fifteen. It felt good, cleansing, calm. Repeating this exercise awhile, Laura felt soothed but still tired, so she turned onto her left side and let the thin magic veil of sleep envelope her. Suddenly, she remembered Jacques and how she tried to teach him the same breathing technique that first night on the beach, after such a glorious day of sailing; the first time they kissed; the first time she had felt anything for uncountable years. Instinctively again, she placed her arm and leg across the covers and pillows that lay next to her, nuzzling her face deep into the pillows, trying to recall his scent, heat, and body that had grown so familiar so soon. Reaching her coral-colored fingertips to where his sun kissed, sweaty curls would have been, a river of memories with him overwhelmed her, tearing anew the fresh scar of woe which daily she tried to mend. She buried her face there, calling out his name, soaking it with hot, salty tears until she could cry no more.
The first bird of the morning's first note arrived almost on queue. Just as Laura’s weeping was waning, his throat opened in all its mezzo forte glory. His exquisite song beckoned all living things to awaken, to shake off the dark night’s hold upon them, and arise to the joy of another day. He seemed to admonish Laura’s wretchedness, self-pity, ennui, and, little by little, his musical medicine soothed her heartache like a shot of bourbon. She turned onto her back again, shading her eyes with her forearm against the growing yellow-white sunlight peeking in from sundry shedding branches, and shook her head knowing he had won once again.
Finally, a dry Saturday morning! It had rained the last 3 weekends causing everyone's lawns to go unmowed, shrubs left untrimmed, flowerbeds left neglected, and leaves of all colors littering everywhere. The golden late October sunshine would begin to dry the pavements and roads, helping the local ponds and brooks recede. Luckily, no one had to be evacuated this time but many people had to pump out their basements. “Guess they'll be lots of water-damaged furniture, rugs, and floor tiles lining the streets next trash day,” Laura chuckled to herself. She thought about her manager, whose daughter got married last weekend in Cape Cod. It rained hard the entire day and a stiff cold wind blew shoreward, so that, despite having tents all over the country club's lawn, no one ventured outdoors. The newlyweds were going to St. John for their honeymoon despite a severe storm warning issued for the entire eastern Atlantic from Venezuela to Maine. “Me thinks they won’t even notice the weather,” she resolved with a coy smile in the mirror throwing her hair up in a messy pony tail. Wearing her most comfortable, wrinkled, slightly-soiled sweat pants and a matching navy-blue cotton T-shirt (sans bra as she always did when home alone), she slipped into her cozy leather slippers, and started downstairs with Xena following a few steps behind.
After letting the dog out in the yard, Laura whisked around the kitchen, den, and solarium as if in a well rehearsed dance: putting the kettle on for her coffee, pressing two slices of wheat bread down in the toaster, filling Xena’s food and water bowls, and flinging open some windows to let in the fresh morning air. While Xena enjoyed her food, Laura prepared her own tray and, in synch, joined her dog at the solarium door and sauntered out onto the large wooden patio. After a few sips of her truly delicious coffee and a few bites of toast, she sat back in the wooden glider, propped her legs up on the facing table, and took in the beautiful day surrounding her. Warding off the memory of having done this same ritual countless times with her husband over their long marriage, she allowed herself to canvass all the natural beauty around her: the tall Sugar Maple tree dominating the modest but roomy yard and dropping its yellow-orange leaves with every breeze; the grassy lawn littered with dog dung, fallen branches, and bleached yellow spots by Xena's acrid female canine urine; the humble but well built wooden fence encasing the yard on three sides; the few tasteful statues they had found together and cherished tastefully placed along the fence among the many eclectic bushes that flowered at various times of the year now naked except for the thorny, flaming Winged Euonymus and evergreen Holly which she had trimmed in the shape of a fan years ago; the sundry plain and fancy terracotta flower pots of varying sizes crowded with colorful flowers just a few weeks ago, now shriveled from the many colder nights and sparse sunlight; the huge, formerly-fragrant, now dried Hydrangea tree flowers that drooped over one corner of the fence surrendering their tiny white/pink/purple petals to each zephyr as the sweet wind chimes they had bought in Maine's Booth Bay Harbor that impromptu weekend with the children lightly danced and sang.
Taking another sip of coffee, her eyes found the large wooden picnic table her husband had designed and built for their many happy cook outs and she saw again the myriad beaming faces of family, friends, and neighbors who had sat around it munching, laughing, and talking for hours. She recalled how she loved watching how their faces changed as the sunlight turned salmon-vermillion just before dusk and then how they glowed in the candlelight under the huge table's umbrella. Sometimes, they would hang strings of tiny white lights along the umbrella's stems or around its pole for a more festive mood or string those in elegant scallops all along the wooden fence illuminating the entire yard for Christmas or all year long just for fun. Everywhere she looked she saw her husband's special artistic touch and how he loved getting tools for presents and using them on every imaginable outdoor and indoor project. Oh, how she missed him; missed him body and soul.
Suddenly the laughter and squeals of the three young girls in the adjacent yard (and their father starting his lawn mower) shattered her reverie. "If I were Queen," she said to herself, "I would decree that no one could mow their lawns, trim their bushes, vacuum up their leaves, or blow their snow until after noon on Saturdays and Sundays!" Standing to head indoors, the three girls ran over to their shared fence and said hello to Laura and Xena showing signs of wanting to banter awhile. Laura couldn't resist despite her wanting to escape the mower noise assaulting her ears and the grass/dust irritating her eyes and nose. "We're going to zoo today!" the youngest girl announced proudly, shaking her strawberry-blonde, straight tresses from side to side, her eyes sparkling with glee. Unlike her two older sisters, she was a real Chatty Cathy: completely comfortable starting and maintaining a conversation with anyone, with perfect diction, every word punctuated with an untarnished joy. "The zoo!" Laura exclaimed, "I love the zoo!" "You want to come with us?" she asked and meaning it. "Oh, that's so nice," Laura replied, "but I have lots of gardening to do today and Xena would be lonely. Thank you for asking though." Seeing the middle child in her soccer uniform, she changed the subject with "are you going after your sister's game?" The little one answered for her sister: "Yes, we're leaving right after our lunch." Addressing the middle sister, Laura said: "I read in the paper that your team is undefeated so far. You must be very happy and proud!" Finally, the middle sister spoke in her usual soft, slightly-shy voice, twisting her fingers around one of her blonde curls: "Yeah, we've been pretty lucky, I guess." Trying not to leave the older girl out of the conversation, Laura looked at her and asked: "How do like Middle School?" The girl, more stoic than the rest, peeked at Laura from under her thick, dark-brown, Page Boy bangs and said quite perfunctorily: "It's OK. I like my teacher, but some of the older kids are mean." Laura furrowed her brows and shook her head in agreement, remembering how her children endured those difficult years: "Well, you're a smart girl; I think you'll be able to handle even the meanies." The girl finally broke into a smile and simply replied "Hope so." Their father stopped mowing and approached his children, said a brief greeting to Laura, and then asked the girls to move to the higher end of the yard so he could finish his job which they did immediately skipping off and calling good-bye to Laura and Xena. "Have fun at the zoo!" Laura called after them, "And say hi to the Elephant's for me!"
An hour later, after most of the other neighbors had finished their noisy mowing and leaf vacuuming, Laura returned to her yard with a water bottle and Xena in tow. She gathered her wheel barrow, gardening gloves and tools, and an old chaise lounge pillow doubled-over and fastened with a bungee chord for her knees from the garage and wheeled it all around to the farther side of the house where two formal flower beds lay littered with wet leaves and long dead annuals, perennials, and herbs. "Oh Boy." Laura muttered, "What a mess." She had considered hiring a lawn service to do such fall cleanup, but after the expensive vacation and getting Audrey set up at college, she couldn't really afford it. She thought about asking one of the neighbor's two sons to do it for a generous wage, but recalled how busy they'd be already with school sports, homework, and friends. Max had reluctantly helped her with raking leaves and trimming the taller yews a few weeks ago but he had no patience or skill at clearing flower beds and recognizing flowers from weeds. Taking a deep sigh and putting on her baseball-cap and gardening gloves, she looked at her dog and said: "Well Xena, guess it's just you and me!. Gotta do it before it rains again!" Xena sighed too and laid herself down under the nearby Hydrangea tree looking bored as can be.
And so, Laura went about her work, starting in the back corner of the bed and working across to the next back corner, careful where she put her feet, trying not to trample any of her cherished perennials. She could almost remember where she planted every one of them but the thick layer of wet leaves, branches, and twigs obscured their exact location. This required her to bend over from her waist which would soon become painful and tiring with repetition so she gathered up as much of the slimy, muddy, worm infested mess as her two hands could carry on each trip to the wheel barrow. She knew she was going to pay dearly tomorrow in her entire body for these and other contortions she would have to use to get this job done but that was the price of enjoying one's lovely garden.
From time to time, Laura would stop a moment to drink some water or rest her back and arms awhile. She sometimes would stand against the cement wall that bounded her side yard from her neighbors and canvass the condition of her old, grayish-blue, wood-shingled, Cape-styled house and the varied overgrown shrubs, wild rose bushes, and ornamental trees that framed it on both sides. It needed painting but she was still not ready to use her husband's various pensions and life insurance payouts just yet. She wondered about that a few moments and tried to get in touch with why she felt that way but soon shrugged off such melancholy to resume her work. She was grateful when she finally progressed to the front of the bed where she could kneel on the pillow rather than bend over. The arthritis in her left knee had finally flared up as her surgeon had predicted twenty years after the surgery caused by a terrible skiing accident but the cortisone shot he had given her two weeks ago had been giving her some relief. She hoped this toil would not aggravate it all over again. To avoid having to stand, she now kept an orange-colored, plastic gallon bucket next to her, placing the bunches of debris in it as she moved from left to right. She liked the pungent smells of the wet leaves, the sudden whiffs of rosemary, oregano, thyme, sage and mint, and the cool, moist, fertile dirt giving off its fecund scents of top soil, compost, worms, and decay. She marveled at how such putrid-smelling stuff could make so many things hatch, root, push up into the air and light, and grow such varied and beautiful forms of flowers, shrubs, trees, and crops that fed all the earth's living things. But then she thought of how this same stuff would one day cover her own body and use it as fodder for such plants just as it was doing now with her beloved husband, her middle sister, parents, in-laws, grandparents, and all the dead humans, animals, and once living things. She closed her eyes, braced herself with both hands on the dirt, and endured again the stabbing double-edged sword of sorrow and reverence pierce her heart and let the tears drop from her lids. As if she sensed her master's pain, Xena arose and slowly walked over to Laura, nudging her elbow gently, and let out a tiny whimper. Coming back from her thoughts, Laura looked at her dog's face saying: "What? What Xena?" Realizing that Xena was hoping to go for a walk now, she cooed: "I know, I know Xena. Just a little while longer. I'll take you later. Let me finish this first. Later, Ok girl?" Xena turned as if disappointed and walked over to drink from the bowl of water Laura had laid in the shade for her and then returned to her former perch letting out a miffed sigh.
Laura finished the first task and quickly cleared the litter from the thick crop of Day Lilies and Black Eye Susans that separated the two wood-outlined boxes. A neighbor called hello from across the street and Xena jumped up and ran to her without even looking to see if any cars were coming. This always pissed Laura off but, try as she had over the years, neither she nor the well-meaning neighbor could not break Xena of that dangerous habit. Laura just closed her eyes and waited for either the screeching of car brakes or the enthusiastic greeting the neighbor gave her dog. The woman loved animals and was an activist on all matters of animal preservation. After a few moments, the neighbor walked Xena back over to Laura's location and began peppering her with questions about how she was doing, how Max and Audrey were doing, how my new book was progressing, and sundry other idle topics. She was a very nice person, well educated, poised, intelligent, well read, and stayed abreast of every current event. But she sometimes did not pick up on non-verbal clues of when she should let the other person resume the task they were working on. Still, Laura liked the neighbor's good intensions and waited as long as she could before saying: "Well, nice to see you, but I'd better get back to this project before I loose the daylight."
Once liberated from conversation, Laura tore into the second garden box with purposeful vigor. She was sweating from the hot fall sun on her back and neck, her body was beginning to complain, and she looked forward to a nice hot shower and glass of wine as reward for a job completed. Finishing the back she resumed her kneeling position to finish the front row of debris. Again her mind wandered here and there: was Audrey working today, or at the library, or perhaps having some fun outdoors with some friends? She imagined Max and Natalie walking the beach near her parent's Cape Cod house or bopping around in her father's antique Jeep, beeping the horn at friends and passersby. Then she wondered if Audrey and René had kept in touch since each family had turned their cars in opposite directions heading home. She hoped so; they made a very handsome couple and seemed genuinely fond of each other. Raising another bunch of litter into the bucket, her nose was surprised by the scent of her favorite flower and she poked around in the pale until she found its origin. Raising the only-barely opened pod, she closed her eyes and inhaled its exquisite perfume: "Ah!" she sighed out loud, "Star Gazer Lilly: God's Ambrosia!" She enjoyed the aroma a long while before thoughts of Jacques enveloped her once again. That last night of love, the room filled with this same scent, the full moon, the salty sea breeze, his humor and tender ways, all of it replayed in her mind's eye like an on demand movie. Oh God! She missed him; missed everything about him, despite trying everything she could to forget him. She sat back on her haunches staring at the bud in her hand: Why had she been so adamant that they not ever communicate? Why couldn't they have at least written letters or email to each other from time to time or allowed them selves an occasional phone call like other friends in their lives? They had become friends as well as lovers hadn't they? They cared what happened to each other even if they never could see each other gain didn't they? And why couldn't they see each one or twice a year? Montreal and Boston are not all that far way. Why did she insist on severing their relationship so completely? Did she feel guilty about their affair so soon after her husband's death? Was she unfaithful in some strange way as her children thought? Was she expected to accept her fate and spend the rest of her days alone and grieving a man with whom she spent most of her adult life? Was she selfish? Suddenly promiscuous? A whore?
She shook her head to stem such thoughts, threw the pod back into the bucket, and resumed her work, eager to be finished. "Shit, he probably doesn't even think about you, Stupid!" she chided herself, "why would he give you a fat, old, far away woman a second thought when there are so many thinner, younger, more sophisticated, closer women to occupy his mind?" She accidentally ripped up a prized rare Begonia plant with the weeds and leaves and tossed it away with an angry flair. "Men are all alike!" she ranted, "They don't give a damn about love or romance! All they do is look for pussy everywhere and anywhere they can get it. Doesn't make a difference whose it is as long as they can stick their dick in it or lick it dry. Pussy is pussy and men want it all the time. Foreplay? Fuck that shit! Suck my cock? Yeah, Baby! That's what I'm talk'in 'bout! Do you swallow?" She allowed herself to imagine Jacques on the train to the hospital every morning, eyeing each decent looking woman who boarded, sizing up her breasts, and wondering whether she shaved her pussy or not. At the hospital, he surely took every opportunity to look every female doctor, nurse, and patient up and down, front and back, fantasizing about how delicious her vagina tasted or how good his cock would feel deep inside her. She hoped he did not envision himself sucking on the firm, round, budding breasts of all those scantily-clothed high school students when he dropped Sophie off in the morning but it wouldn't surprise her in the least. Then he thought of Lorraine coming over to his house all the time, wearing next to nothing, and flirting with him, being a tease, and a cold shudder pulsed up her spine. She suddenly felt base thinking such horrible, lusty, stereotypical thoughts. Wasn't she better than that? More educated and worldly? More generous and magnanimous? "Tisk! Tisk Laura!" she chuckled: "What in the world has come over you? You've been listening to that uncensored comedy channel on satellite radio way too much, girl! Better chill out!"
Just then Xena jumped up to attention, listened a second to some sound only she could hear, and darting around to the front of the house. Surprised but reluctant to get up from her knees just yet, Laura called her dog to come back: "Xena! Come!" She waited a moment fully expecting her to comply as she usually did (except when that neighbor was out but she had gone in her house long ago). "Xena! Come!" Laura repeated, getting pissed off. Still no Xena. "Shit!" she cursed, tossing the bunch of leaves and twigs in her hands into the bucket. "Xena! Xena! Come!" she shouted louder. No response. Suddenly, Laura had a vision of Xena running down the street after a blonde, curly-haired Water Dog that often escaped from his house one street over. Xena hated this young puppy for some reason and she growled at it, showed her teeth at it, and actually attached it on several occasions. Laura's mind went blank with panic and she shot up from her knees so fast, she felt a sharp pain in both knees. "Xena!" she cried, her whole body and mind on full alert, like a mother lioness terrified for her cub. Running around the huge, round, thick yew, she strained her ears for sounds of car breaks screeching and tears began to fill her eyes at the thought of her beloved pet bouncing onto the car's hood and being tossed like a rag doll onto the pavement. "Xena! Come! Damn you!" she screamed as loud as she could while running, full speed, limping.
|