A New Beginning

After sitting in there for some time, she thought she might make a little something for Stanley.

Dot smiled; she knew just the thing. Their kitchen was large and airy, stainless steel, pristine floors, lit supernal from a skylight. The noon sun in its place. Everything its place, just so. The thought came—why, this kitchen might belong to a cooking show. Upon an otherwise uncomplicated expanse of shining granite, a white cake lay beneath glass, missing a single piece. In a nook, on a small oak table, lay the missing wedge, half eaten. Somewhere nearby, a dirty fork could be discovered on the terra cotta tiles. Dot had not moved the fork yet, because for now the floor seemed the right place for the fork. Heavy glass doors covered one wall’s expanse; you could swivel them on hinges in the middle to let the air in. The windows offered a prospect onto the patio and then the back lawn and finally the place where the garden was—had been. 

 Yes. Something for Stanley.

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She stood abruptly, selected a medium-sized mixing bowl from the mixing bowl cabinet, and emptied into it three cups of water. From a steel rack, along with various other steel utensils, a wire whisk hung by its feet like a prisoner under interrogation. It had been hanging there for a long time, Dot thought, but still it hadn’t confessed—tough, like all whisks. Into the pantry for some sugar. A basting brush from the drawer. Dot eyed the range, considering a boil, but decided finally that she would serve it cold. Back to the pantry for molasses.

Dot briefly softened the molasses over low flame, added it to the bowl with the sugar and three eggs, then stirred. Her shoulders ached from the night before but she made herself stir; it was important to mix it well. As she stirred, she looked out over the green expanse to the long black scudge of turned black earth smeared up along the length of the back hedge. Yesterday there had been tulips there, and roses, and showboat mums sagging under magnificent hats, but Stanley had rented a backhoe. A new beginning, Stanley said when she had come home to find it all gone. A new start, Dotty. He was shirtless and excited; the operator had let him take a turn working the digger. Put in whatever we want, Dotty, maybe a swimming pool. The kids can swim when they visit. She’d planted the flowers after the children had gone. The children don’t ever call, and won’t say why they don’t. Stanley won't talk about it. He looks forward, not backward, Stanley.

Dot returned to the pantry and added more sugar and stirred it well, until she had a substance that was viscous and ropy and sticky. She carefully cleansed the whisk and hung it back up with its obstinate fellows, and took the basting brush and the bowl with her out into the back yard. Two acres wide, the yard, and two deep. Neighbors blocked out by tall hedges of Italian cypress, which Stanley had planted as saplings. He’d had Dot’s first flowerbed dug out to make way for them, explaining to her how important privacy was to them. Grown now to giants over twenty years. Things could grow quite tall over years, she thought. They grow slowly, but they grow up on you. The children were grown now. Moved to Fresno and Portland and Kansas City.

The large overturned plastic bucket was there in the middle of the dark field of dirt. Dot had taken it from the garage; in autumn it would hold weeds and other natural debris. “I’m here, Stanley,” she called when she was near it, and immediately the screaming began.

So he’d finally come awake. What a pleasant surprise. His voice hoarse already, but whatever cries he’d made before to make his voice so rough hadn’t carried the distance to the house. Unlikely the neighbors had heard either, else they’d have called the police already. Everyone lives so far apart these days, Dot mused. When she was a girl she'd lived in an apartment with thin walls and you could hear every noise. Stanley screamed at her to help him and she kept still until he finally understood that she wasn't there to help and then he started screaming curses.

The sun was very bright and the sky was cloudless and blue as a dream of forget-me-nots. A beautiful day but a hot one, and surely even hotter under the bucket—though on the other hand the bucket would protect his head from the sun. Dot thought it might be nice to go for a movie later. She savored the prickling feeling of sun on her skin, waited until Stanley had at last yelled himself out. When she was sure he was done she lifted the bucket. There he was, a white head poking from the dirt like a spring crocus. His scalp shone pale in the places where she had shaved him newly bald, but it would quickly go pink and red if she left the bucket off for the sun to bake it. She could see the earth disturbed around his head, imagined him pressing forehead and cheeks against the ground for leverage, struggling against the knots. Dirt caked in one ear. Dot was pleased to see that he had struggled, but more that she had dug deeply enough, and had made the knots well. It had been easier than she had expected to dig so deep, the soil loose and uncomplicated; the backhoe had stripped everything out, even the deepest roots.

For God’s sake, Dotty. Stanley said. For God’s sake.

She set the bowl down on the earth by his head and his eyes rolled toward it like those of a horse in full panic.

What is that? What is it?

She dipped the brush into the bowl. It was very sticky and when she pulled the brush out it trailed a rope. Dot began to hum and anoint his head with it. She could feel him trying to struggle under the new earth but she had tamped the dirt down well as she filled him in and her shoulders still hurt. She brushed his head as he raged at her and she looked at their privacy hedges and marveled at how things that grow slowly can grow up so tall. When he quieted once more she bent down close and whispered.

The ants don’t bite here, Stanley. They’re just garden ants. But their little feet will tickle. They’ll tickle you all day.

For God’s sake, Dorothy.

When the bowl was empty, Dot sat on the edge of the lawn and felt the sun and heard Stanley saying things and screaming things and thought about the sun and the bucket and his uncooked head. She finally decided it wouldn’t do for some chance visitor to be able to spy Stanley out in the garden. The children never visited but somebody might; you never know. Standing to retrieve the bucket, she said.

It’s a new beginning, Stanley. A new beginning. We can do anything we want. Isn’t it exciting?

Later, carefully wiping the surfaces of the kitchen, Dot found the fork on the floor and washed it, returning it dry to its drawer. From where she stood she could see the yard, and the turned earth, and the bucket. Perhaps I will put a pool back there, she thought. I don’t swim but I can learn. I’ll tell Stanley all about it tomorrow. He’ll be so pleased.

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A.R. Moxon is the author of the novel The Revisionaries, and the essay collection Very Fine People, which are available in most of the usual places, and some of the unusual places. He is also co-writer of Sugar Maple, a musical fiction podcast from Osiris Media which goes in your ears. He hates to see another tired man lay down his hand as if he's giving up the holy game of poker.