Author Archives: Ginny East Shaddock

I have been busy the last few days finishing a second story for my critique group  for the upcoming residency. It is harder than one can imagine putting a story together and making all the pieces fit. Then there is the task of smoothing the writing, nailing characters, and trying to leave some kind of impression on a reader.

Anyway, I worked on this one, and last night gave it to my daughter, her boyfriend and my husband to read. I thought I’d have my own little critique group first, then rewrite it before sending it in today (due date.) My daughter liked it. Her boyfriend played it safe and nodded a lot. (Smart fellow) My husband looked like he was sucking a lemon as he read it, his face all controted and his head jerking back like my words were slapping him silly.  I chuckled, thinking, “Wouldn’t that go over well if I read manuscripts like that at my residency, acting physically sick by awkward sentences or concepts that didn’t sound perfect to me.” Ha. Wouldn’t that make me everyone’s best friend.

We had a rowsing conversation about the story and they pointed out a few things that didn’t gel for them. For all that my husband acted as if reading the thing was painful, he didn’t slaughter it. Hearing their impressions helped. I made some minor changes this morning that I think improved the story greatly. As for my husband . . . well . . . I made fun of his lack of diplomacy. I’m used to him. 

Anyway, this is my second “literary” story (for this month). I only post it on the off chance that some friend might want to read it. I will no doubt make reference to it later, especially when I write about my residency and how my peers critique the work, so in the interest of following this endless diatribe about my life, it may prove pertinent.   

I am relieved to be finished. Now, I only have to read a billion words to be ready for Boston. Sigh. But in a few days this will include everyone else’s manuscripts. Always interesting to see how the other camps are doing…

Anyway, here it is, Ginny’s story de jour . . .  Enjoy!

DERRICK’S VIEW

     Most people believed the best thing about Grandfather’s quaint cabin by the lake was the view. 

      Derrick just didn’t see it. He didn’t see fifty feet of lush grass sloped gently to a humble dock where a hand-built canoe lay wedged upside down on blocks, ready to use at whim. He didn’t see the lake beyond, a serene pool of water that reflected the afternoon sun as if it were a solar panel. In the evenings, the water supposedly captured colors. The vibrant orange and red of the sky looked almost as if someone turned the color button up high on a TV set, distorting the picture until it looked more like a page in a child’s coloring book than a realistic landscape on the nature channel. 

      He didn’t see what was beyond the lake either. Mountains. At times, a crisp, clear green reminding observers that life extends far beyond their own backyard. At other times, a misty gray, fading into the sky as if the many layers of hill and valley had been drawn with disappearing ink. In winter, they said snow made the view look as if it were drawn in charcoal, all muted shades of black, gray and white. In fall, the mountains were reminiscent of an autumn tickertape parade. Dots of amber confetti filtered from the sky from trees that were no more than wedges of color so thick it looked as if they were slapped on with a putty knife. God had used George Seurat’s technique when painting this particular landscape.

    When Grandfather passed away and left the cabin to his two grandchildren, everyone assumed he was hoping they’d carry on the family tradition of sitting on the porch to stare at the view. Beth, always the more traditional of the two, did exactly this.

     When she came home, she called her brother and said, “Derrick, since you have no place to go, I think you should live in the cabin for awhile. You could use the rest and the environment is inspiring. It’ll get you out of your slump.”

      She’d been worried about her brother’s mental state every since his wife had left him for the predictable, upstanding accountant. Beth was convinced the peace and solitude of the cabin would heal Derrick’s depression and, with hope, jump-start his flagging career.

    Derrick took her advice and moved into the cabin for a season. However, as it turns out, he didn’t sit on the porch to enjoy the view.  How could a person gaze at mountains when they couldn’t see past the tree?

     Grandfather had planted a nice, straight maple tree over fifty years prior. At one time, it provided shade and lured squirrels into the yard to entertain watchers with their antics, but now it had turned into a huge and gnarly obstruction, its branches reaching outward as if it were attempting to hug the very ambiance of the cabin. Perhaps, to swallow it.

      “You sound so agitated,” Beth said on the phone. “Relax. Pour yourself a drink and look at the view.”

     “I can’t. Grandfather’s tree is in the way,” he snapped.

     “Come on, that tree doesn’t block the view. You aren’t even trying to feel better.”

     She had a point. The tree stood far to the left of the yard, but even so, Derrick’s eyes kept wandering to it. The things he could touch always commanded his attention, while less tangible objects floating in the distance left him unmoved.

     “The tree bothers me.”

      “Like Mom’s bike bothered you, when you took it apart in high school?”

      “Yes.”

      Beth’s exasperated sigh contradicted her upbeat tone.  “Just don’t look at it,” she said. “Do you want me to visit?”

     “No. I just hate the tree.”

     “No, you love the tree.”

      “I hate everything I love,” Derrick pointed out.

      “So the tree isn’t really your problem.”

      “No, the tree isn’t my problem.”

     “So, you can leave it alone.”

     “I think so.”

     “Call me tomorrow.”

     “Don’t I always.”

      The problem was, the tree was harder to ignore than many of the things that bothered him, like his wife’s antique dining room chairs, handed down from her great aunt. She’d been furious when he sawed the legs off those chairs, as if he’d done it on purpose. Derrick felt it should have been obvious he didn’t have a choice. The chairs would’ve bothered him eternally had he not done something about the feeling they stirred within him. A wife should understand a thing like that.

      Determined not to disappoint his sister in the same way, he forced his attention elsewhere to avoid staring at the engrossing tree. This, unfortunately, wasn’t much help, because once he looked away, the tree started talking to him. The maple was a loud tree, speaking to Derrick in a demanding tone every time he went outside.

    “The tree is talking to me,” he told his sister.

     “Trees don’t talk, Derrick.”

    “This one talks to me.”

     “Don’t answer.”

     “I won’t. But this is a loud tree.”

      “Ignore it and it will go away,”

      Derrick hung up the phone thinking that was a stupid comment. Trees don’t go away on their own. They just keep getting bigger, their roots embedding deeper into the soil, their branches filling the air above.  Eventually, a tree isn’t just in front of you. It spreads everywhere, a canapé of branches hovering above, the roots becoming a part of the very ground you stand on. If trees cold only bite down, they’d swallow you. 

     “This cabin would look nicer without that old maple,” he said to his sister on the phone.

     Her silence at the other end made it perfectly clear she didn’t agree. “Should I come down there?” she asked.

     “I’d rather you wouldn’t.”

     “O.K., but only if you promise to leave the tree alone. It’s been in the family for years.”

     “I’ll try,” he said.

     Beth was quiet on the other end of the line, but he could hear the impatient tapping of her manicured nails on some surface in her home.

    “I won’t touch the tree,” he said, knowing she wouldn’t hang up until he promised.      

    “Good. Now rest. Recharge. I’ll visit in the fall.”

      Derrick hung up the phone staring at the tree through the window. The fall was a long way away.

     He decided to stay inside, thinking it was best to avoid his Grandfather’s tree altogether. But then, the incessant hum of that tree started to reach him in the kitchen. He couldn’t cook dinner without the tree luring him into another disturbing ethical argument, one that would inevitably drag him to the window to stare again at the thick, twisted trunk filled with knots and burls.

    “Shhhhh…..” he whispered.

     The tree leered.

     Derrick began thinking of removing the tree, just to gain some peace, but knowing how this would disturb the family, he put thoughts of the drastic measure aside.

     He spent more time reading in the living room. Certainly, with this much space between them, the tree would stop its incessant flirting. But Derrick couldn’t focus on his book. The words on the page were like random grunts; senseless because his mind couldn’t string them together coherently while thinking that the book was once a tree too, each page made of pulp from a thick trunk. Did that particular tree talk too, or was it a nice, normal, silent tree? Invisible. There were, after all, lots of trees in the world, and Derrick wasn’t drawn to all of them. Perhaps the book had been the kind of tree that, while standing, one could easily dismiss. The vacant place left after it was removed might have gone unnoticed too. No one misses an unloved tree.

      Derrick wondered who would notice if he were to cut down Grandfather’s tree.    

      Everyone would notice.

      Grandfather bought this land when he was only nineteen. He cut dozens of trees down to clear the lot for the cabin. On a whim, he then planted a tree of his choice. Maple. One day he fell in love and carved a heart with his girlfriend’s initials into the bark. Unfortunately, when Grandmother moved into the cabin, she made him cut away the bark to remove the heart, for they were not her initials. In time, new bark grew over the offense like a scab over a wound. But it left a distorted mark, a scar to remind everyone a tattoo had been removed from the tree’s rough epidermis. That mark was a source of family jokes and family pride. Grandmother always got her way, and grandfather loved her enough to let her. They had a damaged tree to prove it.  

     While the children were young, the tree held a tire swing. After the kids grew and left home, the tire was replaced by a wooden swing for adults to sit upon while they gazed at the view. Over the years, the maple branches had been host to bird feeders, thermometers, hanging baskets of flowers, and other yard ornaments, as if mementos of family life kept creeping beyond the confines of the cabin, only to be caught in the branches before escaping the borders of the property.

       The tree was a part of this cabin. A part of Grandfather. When he died, they scattered his ashes all over the cabin grounds and at the mouth of the lake. It was a good bet to assume some of Grandfather blew to the base of the trunk. Derrick believed some of the old man seeped into the earth only to be sucked up by roots and then carried through sap-laden veins to every appendage of the living maple monument. His grandfather’s essence was in this tree.

      “Sit with me, boy,” he remembered the old man saying one day. Grandfather was sitting on his wooden swing, whittling a chess piece while watching Derrick mold playdough into little likenesses of animals.

       Derrick had been so engrossed with his project he ignored the request. Some voices are easier to tune out than others are. But grandfather always got through. He urged Derrick to join him on the bench. Playdough gave way to a lesson in whittling.

     “Where are grandfather’s chess pieces?” he asked his sister that night.

      “Mom has them.”

      “I don’t suppose she’d give them to me.”

      “She’d tell you to make your own.”

      “That’s not the point.”

      “Well, I wouldn’t recommend you ask for them, at least not until she gets over the fact that Grandfather left the cabin to you.”

      “Us,” he corrected, winding the phone cord around his finger like a coiled bandage.

     “He left the cabin to us both, but I think he meant it to be mostly for you. He understood you in a way none of the rest of us ever have,” Beth said.

    “He’d been disappointed if he knew I stopped working.”

    “I think he’d understand that things like this happen.”

    “Would he?”

    “We all do.”

    “Not mom and dad. Not my wife.”

    “Forget them for now. Wait until you feel better. Nothing good comes of conversations held when you’re depressed.”

     “Am I depressed?”

     “Haven’t you always been?”

     Derrick shrugged. “Grandfather called me ‘different'”.

     “Well, no one will argue that.”

     He hung up, noticing that every time he talked to his sister, the rumble of the tree got louder. He tried to think back to when the tree started taking to him. He recalled hearing a subtle wooden whisper when he was in college, but it was easy to ignore a tree that spoke to him in such hushed tones. He didn’t even mention it to the family, because he knew they’d dismiss the idea of a tree calling to their offbeat son. They didn’t know what went on in his head  . . . at least, not the way grandfather did.

     “The tree is driving me mad, Beth,” he complained to his sister.

     “Don’t do anything you can’t undo. You know it would be wrong to mess with grandfather’s tree,” she warned.   

     “I guess so.”  

      Derrick started spending time in the room furthest from the tree.  The Bedroom. He lay on the big, four-poster bed trying to think of anything but the tree, but still, it called to him. He couldn’t sleep.

     One day, a wind knocked a gnarly branch halfway off the trunk. Broken from the base, it swooped over to the house and brushed against Derrick’s window. Derrick might be able to avoid the tree’s incessant call, but the idea that it was making physical contact, actually reaching out to him, was simply too much to endure. He had to cut the tree down. Beth would simply have to understand he couldn’t live this way. Grandfather would have.

     Filled with guilt and regret, he went into the yard to inspect the tree. He wrapped his arms around the trunk amazed that they didn’t meet at the backside. It was a huge tree, full of memories. Full of life. Running calloused hands along the bark, he closed his eyes, feeling every curve and distorted bump on the surface. The tree was twisted, as if time and the wind had broken the tree’s bones, leaving it stooped and slightly curved like an old woman’s body. In fact, the tree reminded him of a woman. The scar at the upper trunk looked pinched and distressed, like his wife’s face those last few years they were together.

    “You remind me of my wife,” he said to the tree.

     A wind served to help the tree answer. It shuttered as if insulted.

     “But you remind me of Grandfather too.”

      This seemed to make the tree happier. It swayed gently.

      “Forgive me. You are simply too loud.”

       He went into grandfather’s workshop to get the chainsaw. He paused half way there and turned to the tree. “Why me? Why didn’t you talk to grandfather all those years?”

     The tree stood there silently, belligerently refusing to answer what Derrick assumed was a fair question.

      “Thanks for nothing.”

      He stomped into the workshop, angry at the tree for forcing him to do something he knew would cause him grief later. But it wasn’t as if he had a choice. He emerged moments later wearing goggles and work gloves, the engine of his weapon roaring. The deafening sound drowned out any inner conversation he might have about the value of the tree in his family’s estimation. Not that it would penetrate his purpose. History proved that once in motion, inertia kept Derrick going without food or sleep until the voice was quieted.

    He stared at the bulk of the wooden monstrosity wondering just how he should go about making it fall. He’d done this kind of thing before, but it would be just his luck to go about the deed wrong, so the tree ended up killing him. But not cutting it down would kill him too, he thought, so he’d take his chances.

    For fifteen minutes, high-speed metal tore at the smoldering wood. He made a deep wedge in the side until, eventually, a loud crack filled the air. The tree swayed as if fighting gravity and circumstance. Then, in slow motion, it tumbled, leaves showering the earth and lodging in the hair of the impassionate man who brought it down.

     Derrick leaned over the freshly cut stump to count the rings. The tree was 52 years old, give or take a ring. He took off his gloves to run his hands over the freshly cut surface, studying the tree, recapping its history and character in his mind. The tree was still talking to him, but it was no longer forging an argument. Now the two of them shared something more akin to a satisfactory discussion of purpose.

     It took several hours for Derrick to cut away the branches to make firewood. He stacked them neatly by the cabin, his leather gloves handling each piece with careless disinterest. Slowly, the tree dissolved; until all that was left was the huge trunk and the scattered leaves and sawdust covering the grass. 

      He stared a long time at the trunk. Absent of its appendages it looked not unlike a burnt Venus De Milo. Exhausted, both from the effort and the emotional release, Derrick went to bed dreaming of a woman, his wife, buried under the bark of that gnarly tree.     

     The next day, Derrick rented a tractor with an ominous grapple attachment, something resembling the Jaws of Life. He picked up the remains of the tree and moved it from sight. Dragging it to Grandfather’s workshop, he rested it upon two reinforced sawhorses, an open coffin for a maple corpse.

     Satisfied now, Derrick was able to ignore the tree. For months, it dried and cracked as the wood withered and aged, lying in the workshop like an embalmed corpse awaiting its funeral.

     “How are you? You aren’t still talking to Grandfather’s tree, are you?”  Beth said, the next time she called..

     “No, the tree isn’t bugging me as much as it did before.”

     “I’m glad. I knew the peace and quiet of the cabin would do you good. Do you think you might be ready to go back to work soon?”

     “Positively.”

      “Do you want me to come up there?”

     “I’d rather you didn’t.”

     “Alright. It’s been a crazy year, and since you sound better, I’ll wait. Maybe Christmas.”

     “That’ll be nice,” Derrick said, his sister’s voice, as always, triggering strong thoughts of the tree.

     “What have you been doing lately?”

      “Looking at the view. It’s beautiful.”

       Beth’s voice was filled with a smile. “I’m glad you’re noticing it now.”

       “Me too,” he said.

*     *     *

      Years later, a couple stood, eyebrows knitted as they stared at the maple

     “This one really talks to me,” said the wife.

      “I knew you’d like it. It’s a woman,” the husband said. “See the face in that scared area. It’s like she’s tortured or something.” 

    “Or angry. Makes me sad,” said the wife.

     “I think it’s cool. But look. From over here, it’s a happy old man.”

     The wife circled the piece, marveling at the spaulted colors in the wood. The statue was streaked with black, brown and white, areas of the bark left to add detail and design to the polished surface. “It looks different from every angle. Look at the little chess pieces at the base.”

     The husband tilted his head. “I like it more than his sculptures of the bored Victorian people on chairs with the legs missing. I think that’s supposed to mean something, but I can’t tell. It’s weird.”

    The wife hummed an agreement. “This guy’s different, that’s for sure. But with this piece, the longer you stare, the more you see.” 

     They gazed at the tree some more, images taking shape before their eyes as if a litany of concepts were hidden in the textured surface, revealed only to those with the patience to trust there could be more to a tree than the obvious.

     Other people looked casually at the maple and passed by, seeing only a statue of a woman. Or an old man. Or sometimes, just a polished lump of wood.  They walked by and gathered at the window beyond the exhibit where the seeded glass highlighted the gardens below, currently aflame with the early evening sunset.

    “Isn’t that a beautiful view,” said an older woman to her companion, easing onto a bench to enjoy the pretty sight.

    The couple, however, didn’t see it. They were too engrossed with the tree.

 

 

  

    

     

   

 

 

 

 

I got my final response for this term from my current mentor today. It was a very long and detailed assessment of my novel project, a true priceless gift, since this commentary is coming from someone whom I respect and admire. I’m grateful I’ve had a chance to work with someone so devoted to literature and teaching.  As always, she made me feel as if I am a good writer with serious potential – and that I’m finally tapping into it. She say’s I’m improving and I think she’s right. Heck, no one could put this much time and concentration into something and not improve, at least a little.

 

But she had some serious things to discuss with me regarding my novel’s POV. Six months ago, I changed from the third person to the first person, trying to make a smooth transition as I worked in some academic dance essays that were important to me – an unglamorous look at dance from an “after the fact” position. I consider them interesting and revealing regarding my character’s emotional state. But I have been frustrated beyond description with this book, because the new voice just doesn’t feel natural. And it didn’t fix the problem of making the essays “belong”. The writing seems abrupt and lacks the lovely language that makes a story a pleasure to read. And my heroine is a bitch. Yikes.

 

 I also have issues with this project because the book isn’t fun. I miss the rousing historical adventures and the colorful characters I usually invent when working on my “commercial fiction”.  I miss the good sex in my books, the flirting, the humor. I miss falling in love with my hero. Literary work is admirable, but I am not convinced it is what I am cut out for – although I think studying classical fiction has been the best decision I could ever have made.

 

I think I wrote (historicals) because it was a way to escape my life and have a wild adventure that I could control. What a kick. But writing a book about dance isn’t an adventure. It is sort of like sloughing through my psyche and revisiting old wounds and disappointments. When I write about the art of dance and all its beauty, I miss dance and get sad. When I write about the shit side of dance, I get disappointed and sad. Writing this book makes me sad. Period.

 

Anyway, I have only written about 180 pages in the last year. For me that is a shock, for I am usually more prolific. Heck, I wrote more than 150 pages in my blog last month! Writing this book is like slogging through emotional cement. A chore. Perhaps it is because the work is being evaluated by esteemed professionals, or because I feel I can’t just have fun and make it a humorous story because it is supposed to be literary.

 

So – considering all this, my professor has now suggested I write it again (shoot me) in third person. I know she is right. Mark says that I should trust my first instincts (which was to write this in a combination of first and third person – seemed the thing to do naturally) because my books are always best when they first emerge, but when I start listening to other’s opinions, I mess them up. He can’t understand why I don’t have confidence enough to follow my instincts and why I listen and respond  to other’s feedback as if they know more than I do regarding what my story needs.

 

The truth is, I don’t have the confidence he expects me to have because I recognize I have so much to learn. But he is right, I should trust my instincts and allow my stories unfold as they will – naturally – and not affected by rules or standards set by what has been published before. I can barely stand the idea of re-writing my dance book yet again, but it is my thesis project, so re-write it, I will. (Gag) I will spend this month getting the manuscript ready for my next mentor. This time, I am going to get serious and write the book I want to write. Forget literary. Forget what other’s think. This is my book about dance – a subject I know better than I know my own foot. I will write my story my way and see what happens. It is, after all, only a story, one of many, many that I intend to share with others. If it is garbage, well, so be it. It is something I must “get out” more than it is something others must read.

 

I think I am in my one-year MFA slump. I have a year to go, and suddenly I am craving the time and freedom to work on something with a different tone. Well, tough for me. I think going to my residency next month will be a good thing. Inspirational.

 

I wrote a story for submission to my workshop yesterday. It will require a bit of work before I send it next week, but I will post it as is just for the heck of it. For those of you who are fans of my romance and sex stories, this will bore the crap out of ya. It is, after all, a literary endeavor and I am trying to exercise certain skills. Think of it a bit like eating your spinach. Or, since this might be a better comparison for those that know me– it is like taking ballet. You may want to be a jazz dancer, but a certain amount of technical proficiency can only be developed from classical exercises, so to be a better dancer, you get your ass in ballet and focus, like it or not. That is what I am doing in this MFA. I am developing writing muscles, finding my center, building proficiency and skill so that when I am in jazz class (historical novel world) I can kick butt, defy gravity, and be as wildly inventive as I want. Freedom rides on the wings of technique.  

 

Anyway – enough excuses. This is my story. One of two. Number two isn’t even a glimmer of an idea yet. God, I need someone to innocently say something to spark a concept. That is the beauty of a personal exchange for me.  I need my muse to step forward. It’s been sadly MIA for sometime. Miss it dreadfully.

 

HANDPRINT

By Ginny Hendry

 

     John was sleeping. Nowadays, it seemed John was always sleeping.

     Beth paused in the hallway to stare at her gently snoring husband, the flicker of the alarm clock causing a red glow to grace his forehead as if he were a marked man. It was only eight. She had hours of loneliness ahead before she too would be able to sink into the oblivion that rode on the back of sleep. The problem was, she couldn’t seem to sleep anymore, even though she was exhausted all the time. John, it seems, couldn’t wake up.

     She walked into the hall bathroom, not bothering to quiet her footsteps or dowse the light as she would have done a few months ago when John turned in early. There was no point. Her inconsideration wasn’t likely to cause him to stir. Nothing would.

    Her bare feet met the cold tile with hesitancy. The bathroom was immaculate. He’d cleaned it again. The commode gleamed and the shower door sparkled. The usual streaky soap and mildew, proof that people actually lived in the house, had been wiped away with a pungent pine scented agent that flailed her senses, annoying her more than even the rumble of his slumbering breath.

     Not that her response made sense. John’s pitching in with housework was the kind of thing that would normally delight her. It didn’t now. The family toothbrushes no longer sat on the sink in haphazard disarray as they normally did. They were tucked neatly into a plastic organizer in the drawer, along with their daughter’s hair elastics and a few Band-Aids. Beth felt the empty counter looked unnatural. The smell, the shine, the very neatness of the room, annoyed her.

   With quick, erratic movements, she rummaged through the drawer to put the toothbrushes back on the counter, poking around under the sink to find her daughter’s Strawberry Shortcake Cup. She carefully arranged the smallest toothbrush inside and tossed her Oral B on the side of the sink, thinking she should use it, but why bother?  As an afterthought, she tossed a few hair elastics into the corner by the vanity, even though she knew this would confuse John. But maybe not. He would have to wake up to notice  things like that.

     She considered taking a bath, but the polished tub just didn’t feel welcoming. Instead, she slipped on a silk nightie, thinking she’d make a cup of tea and read. Leaving the light on, she thumped down a few stairs, then turned around and went back up to the bedroom. John had rolled over, but again, he lay still as death.

     She stared at her side of the bed, an empty cradle that would sink softly if she were to ease her weight into it, but  the idea of her crawling into that bed at any hour was paramount to lying down in a coffin. She just wasn’t willing to succumb to that trapped, dark loneness when there were other alternatives.

      It was odd. So many nights they retired early to snuggle into the 300 count sheets to watch a movie in that bed; their daughter, Sara, cuddling up between them, giggling as she purposely slid her cold toes against their legs. The bed was filled with fond memories, so the deep alienation she associated with it now made little sense. Nevertheless, she abhorred the four-posted cage now. The fact that John could sleep so soundly in it made her uncomfortable too.

    She grabbed her pillow and pulled at the quilt, dragging it behind her so it slid like a serpent from a swamp of warm sheets. Cold air swept over John, causing him to stir.

    “Where’re you going?” he mumbled, his eyes remaining shut as he hugged his pillow.

     “I’m sleeping outside tonight.”

      He ran his tongue along the roof of his mouth a few times, sampling the bitter sleep secretion that settles in a person’s mouth when in a comatose state. Beth could smell him from where she stood. Apparently, he didn’t brush his teeth tonight either.

      “Please, don’t sleep with the trash again,” he said.

      “What’s it to you if I want to sleep with the trash,” Beth said, but her voice sounded more tired than challenging.

     “It’s not healthy,”

     “Tomorrow’s trash day. All the cans are down at the end of the sidewalk,” she said, bunching  a pillow up in her arms.

     “That’s not what I mean.” His voice was muffled by a pillow, making it sound as he was far away.

      “I’ll be up later,” she lied, dragging the bedding behind her. John’s snoring filtered down the hallway, proving he really wouldn’t know or care where she slept tonight. His lucidity had been a fleeting thing, as she knew it would be.

    She passed her daughter’s room noting that the door was closed. Sara hated that, so Beth quietly cracked the door open an inch, then went on down the stairs. 

    She made herself a cup of tea and sat alone in the living room to drink it, watching the moon through the window, full and bright, save one thin cloud that dared streak through the middle, as if the mist was attempting to cut the perfect, bright sphere in half.  Beth thought shadows seemed hell bent to divide everything lately.

    Outside, she could see the moon reflecting off the swing set. John had rolled up the swings once again. The silhouette of the play set showed only lumps of chain tucked up against the upper iron pole rather than rubber seats freely blowing in the wind. He said he did this because the swings hit him in the head when he mowed, but even so, it didn’t excuse the fact that he never returned the swings to right afterwards. She considered stomping through the dewy grass in her bare feet now to free the floppy seats, but decided it could wait until morning. No one would want to swing in the dark anyway.

      She sat in the living room a long time, her eyes adjusting to the dimness even though she wasn’t really seeing anything around her. Her mind was elsewhere now. She was thinking of the trash.

    When they first bought this house, they put their trashcans on the lumpy grass beside the garage, where they were forever being upended by dogs or raccoons. Beth and Sara had to walk around the yard almost everyday picking up crushed juice cartons and yogurt cups, sticky with coffee grinds and last night’s dinner scraps. Something had to be done to keep the trash intact, so John decided they should poor a concrete slab along the house and fence-in the garbage area. They called two companies to get estimates, but no one seemed interested such a small job. Finally, John decided to commit a weekend to it. He would just do the job himself, save them money and handle the trash dilemma once and for all. How hard could it be?

      The first weekend he dug up the grass and leveled the area. It took longer than he expected, but he liked how it looked. There definitely was a designated trash area now. The next, he built a two by four frame to establish the parameters of the area he would need to concrete. He then spent a third weekend mixing concrete in an old wheelbarrow, but despite bags of the stuff, it seemed as if the oblong frame would never fill. His back hurt and his hands were blistered from stirring the murky gray mortar with a rusty shovel. He complained that it felt as if he were trying to hold sand in a colander, because no matter how many bags of concrete he mixed and laid, the oblong area he thought would be a perfect, generous size, required more. He had only completed only one-half of the cement floor and still had an entire second slab to go. Meanwhile, his wife and daughter continued picking up trash, looking expectantly at the unfinished area, innocently asking when it would be complete.

     John complained. It wasn’t as if he was the one turning over the trashcans at night. He bungeed the can lids and even bought two new, snap lock cans, yet still, animals found ways to scatter the contents all over yard. The only saving grace was that John was so busy each weekend mixing concrete that he had no time to mow, so much of the remnants of last night’s dinner lay burrowed in the calf length weeds where the wayward trash was at least less obvious. 

     On the forth weekend, John announced he couldn’t mix anymore cement, so he took a break to erect a fence, satisfied that this, at least, was progress. The next weekend, he couldn’t face the project again, so he devoted that Saturday to lawn maintenance.

     “The grass does keep growing, even if there’s a trash area to build,” he snapped, when Beth asked if he planned to finish his project so his daughter could wash her hands of coffee grinds for good.   

     “Why don’t we just stick the trash cans in the fence the way it is,” she said. “Maybe all we needed was a fence all along. Really, is the concrete so very important?”

     “The concrete is what provides a clean, steady surface for the cans. Best of all, it’s permanent,” her husband insisted.

        Beth decided to let it go. John always seemed too quick to acknowledge the concept of permanence.

        The conversation forced him back to the job at hand, mixing concrete until, finally, a few more bags were all that would be needed to complete his neat, protected trash area.

     Beth and Sara made lemonade and brought a big glass out him, appointing themselves Daddy’s private cheerleaders. As John smoothed the surface of his last load of concrete to make a perfect rectangle, they “oohed” and “ahhed”, celebrating not only his well-constructed trash area, but their retirement from the daily trash pick-up chore.

    John ran a trowel over the wet concrete with a sigh of relief, growling when a leaf blew on top to mar the perfect surface.

    “Oh, no you don’t,” he said to the leaf, picking it out of the cement, crushing it between filthy palms and throwing it behind him into the grass.

    “It’s perfect, Daddy,” Sara said, clapping her hands as a four-year old is wont to do when excited.

     “Can we put our handprints in the cement?” Beth asked, thinking it would be fun to leave a lasting impression of the family here, embedded in what felt like a special communal project, considering it had consumed their weekends for almost two months.

     “The concrete’s too wet, and besides, I rather you didn’t,” John said, his brow wrinkling as if the mere idea of sinking hands into his perfect project was painful to imagine.

     “It’s just a trash area,” Beth reminded him.

     “It’s taken me forever. Is it so much to ask that we respect this work? I just want it to be perfect.”

     “Nothing’s perfect.” Beth pointed out. “Besides, a few handprints will add character.”

      “Impressions on the surface will leave dents that will do nothing but collect dirt. If it remains smooth, we can hose the area out easily and we’ll always have a perfect, clean trashcan area.” John said, wiping sweat from his forehead.

     Beth reached out to toy with his hair, something she always did when teasing him. “Now dear, get real. Is there such a thing as a perfect trash area?”

     John gestured to the streamlined cement hardening behind a secured fenced-in rectangle, then closed the gate as if baring their entrance for good. “There is now.”          

      They went inside for lunch, after which, John went upstairs to nap. Beth was surprised, because John never slept in the day, but knowing he was exhausted from his efforts, she took Sara outside to play on the swings. Her hard working husband deserved quiet and rest and swinging seemed a far more inviting pastime than picking up trash.

     Sara giggled and squealed as the motion of the swings caused her stomach to flip. Each time Beth let the momentum slow down, her daughter would whine and beg another push. After an hour, Beth couldn’t bear seeing that swing careen towards her one more time.

    “No more swinging, Honey. Mommy’s arms are tired.”             

    “Please. One more time.”

     “I can’t. Let’s find something else to do.”

     Sara’s lower lip puffed out as if she were about to wail. Beth’s eyes slid to the house wondering how long her husband was planning to rest. It was pretty unfair for him to leave her alone to entertain their demanding four year old by herself the entire Saturday.

      “I’ll tell you what,” she whispered, tickling her daughter’s tummy. “How about we put your handprint in the cement? It will be there for all time.”

    “Daddy will spank me.”

     “Daddy won’t know.”

     The child grinned devilishly, loving the idea of sharing a secret with her mother. Together, they ran to the side of the house, laughing at their mischievousness because the idea of breaking a rule was even more fun than actually doing it.

      Beth took Sara’s hand and led her to the far side of the fenced area. Kneeling to the ground, she pointed to an open space between the slats.

    “Hold your hand out like this.” She spread her fingers wide so her hand was like a flattened spider. “Put your arm through here and press it into the cement.”

     The little girl did as told. Beth guided her wrist to make sure the handprint was deep and defined. Together they giggled at the icky gray residue left on Sara’s retreating palm. They wiped her hand on the grass, and then went inside to wash her hands in the kitchen.   

      Tomorrow, before Daddy gets up, I’ll put the trash cans back and he’ll never know our secret.”  Beth said, handing her daughter a cookie from a box on the counter.

      “Will he be mad?” Sara asked, crumbs falling from the corner of her mouth.

      “Not at you,” Beth said, giving her daughter a kiss and wiping a cookie morsel away from her lip. She knew John might grumble a bit, but one look at their daughter’s tiny handprint, captured for all time, and he would understand.

       John woke a few minutes later, and no sooner did he give his daughter a hug than she blurted her guilt about wrecking Daddy’s cement. His nostrils flared and he gave Beth a perturbed glance but that was the extent of his fury. Sara described putting her handprint in the goo with such wondrous enthusiasm, it made them both laugh. It was just a trash area, after all.

      In the end, Beth never did put trashcans on the handprint. The imprint wasn’t a secret that needed hiding, besides which, she liked being able to glance down and see her daughter’s hand each time she lugged a load of kitchen scraps and old newspapers outside.

      She knew her daughter’s hands would grow. Larger. More agile. The hand that held hers would someday no longer be a toddler’s hand, but a child’s, then a young woman’s. Yet thanks to her decision to defy John’s will that one and only day, a token of their baby was forever embedded in their home, and Beth could visit it any time she wanted. Sometimes, while taking out the trash, she kneeled down to press her adult hand over Sara’s small child sized impression. If only their little girl could be preserved forever in time, small and sweet, like that handprint.  

        Beth took her teacup into the kitchen and returned to gather her quilt and pillow. She wasn’t tired but she was ready to turn in. Carrying her bedding, she padded through the garage and out the side door to the trash area where, like the night before, she would sleep. It didn’t seem odd to her. It wasn’t unsanitary or anything, because she’d hosed the concrete down just that afternoon after she discovered John had put the trash out there again. She hated when he used the area for trash, but he insisted that was what the place was for. Not to Beth. At least, not anymore.    

    She spread her quilt out onto the perfect cement, angling her pillow so she could look up at the stars.

   “Good night, Sweetie,” she whispered, her voice floating up from behind the secure fence and fading on the wind as it floated into the vast dark. A dog barked. A garage door closed in the distance. Beth stretched her hand out to cover the small impression beside her, a hand that would never get any bigger.

     Holding it, she fell asleep to dream of swinging.