Yet another Sunday of fall, with leaves turning and crispness in the air. Another day that time ran off and left her. Leah did get a walk in the woods again. She woke up first and made a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs, with plain and raisin toast. She buttered all the pieces, making more than enough. She knew that she could count on her family eating up a pound of smoked bacon and eight eggs. The coffee was brewed in the small pot and would be just enough for everyone, but not enough for a later cup. She would have to brew again or make an instant Starbucks. Sometimes that instant was just enough, with some fresh half and half, it was worth the cost of it. Today, was hectic, one child flying back to school another going back and driving the first to the airport, then he had an afternoon planned for the zoo.
“You know, would you like to get out? I want to go and pick up a de icing cable for the roof this year. I want to get it up there before the weather changes.” Her husband asked.
“Yes, that would be fine. I need to enjoy this weather; maybe we will take a walk in the woods later. The dog would love it!”
“The last time Kay took her there, she skitted and slid on her rear. She didn’t want to walk there. Unfortunately she made Kay pick her up. Good thing she isn’t a big dog. We can try and take her with, I can pick her up if I have to.”
“Well, she used to enjoy a walk with me down to the fen years ago, maybe she and I are too old. I want to walk down there. I want to see what they improved on, since they took out the sledding hill and replanted it with prairie flowers and put some dead trees in there, haha. Lets see about going when we come back.”
“Okay, it’s a plan. Let’s go to the store now, and then we will have a walk.”
They got into the suburban and drove the short miles to the store, picked up the cable, some potato chips, on impulse and had a stroll through the garden center too. They looked at patio blocks, and birdbaths that were reduced, trellises that were a bit bent, end of the season kinds of bric a brach that someone might still want to buy and save for the next year. They looked hard at two glazed ceramic birth baths and wondered if they should buy them for their yard. Not being too flush these days with money, they decided to let the bargains go. Just two weeks ago they had gone to an estate sale and bought a couple of Victorian tables. One had a cracked marbled top, and wonderful carved legs. It truly weighed a ton, at least it seemed so . The other was a beautiful oval piece with some stains on the top and tiny rolling casters on it’s feet. Each would have a special place in their home. One would hold a new printer, its cracked surface no issue for it.
The other would sit in front of the French doors in the kitchen. This was always a handy place for a table in winter, a place to catch the pans of cookies and pies at holiday time. She always liked a table in by these windows that looked out onto her private little oasis of evergreen and brick.
Crossing the street from their home to the woods was not always easy. It was called Hillside for a reason, it curved and rolled up and down like a serpent and you were right on a hill where you needed to cross. You had to look both ways, then back again, just in case a car was speeding over the hill. It was a country road pressed into service over time, made into a main kind of cut through. It still wound around, still was surrounded by woods, but more and more it was not peaceful or safe, for that matter.
Sure enough the dog, Chesnut, was not thrilled about being leashed and walked. Showing major disinterest was a good starting point. Sitting down and refusing to go further, the next option. While never succeeding, these acts were impeding the smooth gait of her master, so he scooped her up and continued to walk into the wood. Her mistress followed a few steps behind.
They were getting a bit creaky in their advancing age. Leah’s hip always spoke to her, sometimes screeching and other times merely whispering, “I am here, and I hate you for making me do this!” Right. Like a hip could talk back. Leah could assure you, it does, it really does….
Brad had his own time of it, his hands were growing arthritic and that was always a sobering thought. He made their living with his hands. So mid life was not always about crisis, sometimes it was about pain and knowing that you were on the other side of the mid point.
The walk concluded early, the dog was let down and out of pure curiosity took a few steps, but then refused to participate. Leah was winded and pained enough to admit it and said, “ I think only the short loop today Brad, I have to build up to this again.” She admired the new walking loop, the caretaker’s home demolished and a picnic shelter with out door fire place put up instead. The still stagnant green pond there, but a new rock filtered drainage system. She doubted how it worked, as there was such a crop of mosquitoes this year that they all were sure malaria was in their futures. She never tired of thinking of that scene from the movie Jumanji where the mosquitoes were as large as goats, piecing the car convertible’s roof, in an effort to reach their prey.
No more soccer in the field, no more sledding, good thing their children were grown, but sad for all those who would not experience it. All the weeds now planted, a series of trees, a bit of prairie come back. In a way it was very sad. Sadder still that some of the trees were already dead, and not removed and the dangerous, expensive electrical lighting, now shinning into motorist’s eyes as they came up and over the hills. It was all done in the name of spending and progress, and when someone dies, Brad guessed, then it might be looked into.
In the meantime, care was the order of the day, and close investigation of the light at the expensive new sign for the woods, straddled by Brad’s two strong legs, cocking it a bit back into the woods, instead of the road. No hands! One this day, perhaps the other light next week.
No amount of complaints and hollering to the part district had been enough to make the changes to the lights. All the neighbors who must turn in the lane now garishly lit were dangerously blinded and could do nothing it seemed to change it.
The neighbor drove his lawn tractor into the street to meet them. He asked if there were cameras out there. “Did you check for cameras?” he had asked. They said they did not notice any if there were, so who knows who else might try and “fix” the lights, these days? Weeks earlier, one night they had chatted with him while walking the dog, the woods were lit up like a neon convention, the stars were drowned down; from those crazy lights. They speculated on how best to solve the continued problem. “Well, I was pretty good at archery in my high school days. I bet I could shoot them out.” Leah had said. Her husband had laughed. The neighbor had expressed delight. “You might be able to do something, but the trick is who would see what?” the neighbor had shared. “I could take a hammer and hit them out, but someone would see it was me, they might have some cameras up there.” he had speculated.
Day after day, night after night the electric lights burned. Not solar lights, electric lights too bright, even for the sign. They must have spent hundreds of dollars changing the sign so that it was flush with the ground, now the light did not peek through the bottom into the eyes of the motorists. It must have been rocket science to mount the light on top of the sign shining down. It must have been not possible to use smaller lights which only covered the sign. Arguing again with the park district only yielded small adjustments, now the lights did not shine during the day. Now the lights are only when the hayrides are available, instead of all year. So, now the opportunity for an accident is limited to only a few months, instead of all year. Wonderful. The park existed for 15 years and everyone found the hayrides, without the expensive after thought, new sign and lighting. The park district had argued that this was why the bright lights were needed. Leah found herself remembering the years she planned Halloween parties for her children and the hayrides they took them all on.
Halloween one year was a séance inside in the alcove, then a parade with tiki torches around the yard, yelling Happy Halloween in a chant. It was once the 57 Lincoln, all fired up and smoking out the trunk with a fog machine, as a skeleton crept over the side, with a scream masked driver. Many children ran screaming, some in fear, others in the delight of being supremely scared.
It was the hay ride through the very dark woods across the street with the children spontaneously singing a song together that they had learned in music class, that scene had made Leah pause. It was just like in the movies; sitting with them, all 30 some, Leah had been supremely overwhelmed at the sounds of their young voices all in unison, singing harmony and on key. They had, on their own started it, laughing and giggling, managed to pull themselves together and sing. No music teacher present, but what a testament to her teaching!
There had been so much joy in their home and it continued. So many years later some children, now adults still talked about those parties. Leah might meet them in a shop in town or on the street. They remembered Leah, even if her memory of them was a little dim.
What was a little change after all? The graying of that beard he wore for years, that simple little nudge in her hip, now as annoying as the wacky sister in law, what?
It took 15 years of that dang ice damn that melted directly onto the door stoop, crusting up three inches thick to tell Brad he needed the cable for sure this year. His wife refusing to leave the house because of the ice, was probably a big part of that. He loved her and the dog and his only real purpose was being her perfect half, he did love her that much.
The next weekend they would put that other light right. It too would find itself ever so slightly cocked into the woods. Leah resolved, “If those lights end up killing me, I will haunt this place, and the park designer who did this!” Sounds like a plan.
Copyright 2010 by SheilaTGTG55
