Then, forgetting her studies, her dignity, and Marta, she clomped clumsily along the edge of the woods down another slope that contoured steeply down to Sumac Street. Halfway down the slope Dr. Sproot heard a thud, then slipped and stumbled. She quickly pulled herself into a ball, which she had read somewhere was a way to avoid serious injury when you’re tumbling down a hill, and rolled all the way to the street. She picked herself up, unhurt, at the curb, and brushed off the thatch and pine needles that were clinging to her hair and clothes. Then, she looked around to see whether she was being observed. There was Marta, sitting next to the weeping willow that had abruptly arrested her departure. Her legs were splayed out in a way no one her age could consider demure. She was furiously rubbing her forehead and moaning.
Dr. Sproot could not be bothered by Marta’s juvenile antics right now because she was fretting too much about what she had just seen. After another perfunctory brushing off, she ignored Marta’s pathetic whimpering and strode off purposefully down the street toward her car.
4
The Tippler’s Guide to Gardening
The Fremonts plunked themselves down in the mesh-fabric deck chairs on their backyard patio and eagerly opened a bottle of their house wine, the excellent 2005 vintage Sagelands merlot.
There had been a little excitement while they were gone. Cullen, the younger of their two sons, told them a middle-aged woman he didn’t recognize had come to the door rubbing a bump on her head and asking for some ice and an aspirin. She told him she got lost in a daydream, strayed off her usual route, and blam-o, walked straight into the telephone pole out front. He obliged and somewhat grudgingly gave her a ride home, which ended up being in cul-de-sac land more than two miles away.
“And her name was . . . ?” Nan said.
“Mrs. Daffodil?” George and Nan snorted. “And she had to think about it for a minute when I asked her. She seemed really squirmy and nervous, too.”
“Ha!” George said. “That just might be a pseudonym. I wonder if she was on the lam. Social Security rip-off schemer? Gray Panthers dropout gone rogue? Maybe she was casing the joint for valuable, hand-woven tea cozies.”
Nan chuckled. “Knit.”
“What?”
“Knit. That would be hand-knit tea cozies, George. You don’t weave tea cozies. Hmmm. She was probably just embarrassed about walking into the telephone pole, and wanted to remain anonymous. Remember the time you did that, George?”
“As if it were yesterday, Nan-bee.”
“And you were afraid you had suffered a concussion, but didn’t want to tell anybody because of how foolish it would make you look?”
“I don’t remember that part.”
“Proves my point. Memory impairment caused by a collision between noggin and telephone pole. Maybe we should call the phone company. That telephone pole has clearly become a hazard to the neighborhood.”
It only took a half glass of Sagelands to burn off the mild vexation of the Mrs. Daffodil mystery. As the wine supplanted pure mental acuity with a much less taxing disembodied buzz, George and Nan looked out upon their backyard and reflected on what a treasure it was. What they had created was a modest chip of hypercultivated real estate, constituting two-thirds of their three-quarter-acre lot in a solid and unassuming neighborhood populated by Livia’s middle ranks. If a pale imitation of Delaware’s Winterthur, Alabama’s Bellingrath, and Pennsylvania’s Longwood, it was still a marvel of the gardener’s craft, not only to them, but to a small, enthusiastic segment of Livia’s aging population.
Neighbors in awe of the handiwork bursting everywhere through the ground approached them meekly for gardening tips and any other dribs and drabs of wisdom that might bring comfort to their otherwise distressed lives. They included such luminaries as Jeff Fitch, Livia’s plenipotentiary liaison to sister city Ogbomosho, Nigeria, and mondo bizarro hard-drinking local songstress and composer Pat Veattle, who wrote the often-misinterpreted official city song, “Livia Is for Livers.”
No one was as magically transformed in the Fremonts’ backyard as Deanne and Sievert Mikkelson. The Mikkelsons were a timid, brittle, childless couple on the cusp of middle age, but seeming much older. Their faces sagged and their bodies bowed with unspoken cares and unseen burdens that no one could identify.
It was one day in midsummer last year when they approached hesitantly from the street at the Fremonts’ beckoning. George and Nan, fortified into a heightened sociability by a tall glass of strongly mixed gin and tonic featuring the magnificent Bombay Sapphire gin, had to shout, cajole, and almost threaten the Mikkelsons to cause them to swerve from their appointed route, walk slowly up the driveway, and delicately negotiate the pea gravel steps on their approach to what they feared was sure perdition.
Lowering themselves gingerly onto the Fremonts’ deck chairs, the Mikkelsons initially waved off all offers of refreshment. They soon discovered, however, that a bombardment of bonhomie coming from the Fremonts was darned near irresistible.
“Well, I suppose just a touch wouldn’t hurt us,” Sievert said. Deanne nodded meekly. With that, George uncorked a bottle of Sagelands, which the Mikkelsons proceeded to treat like ice water served up in a sauna. They knocked down their first glasses in one big concurrent glug, both of them wiping their mouths with the back of their hands and sighing contentedly, in harmony.
“Could we be so bold as to ask for a refresher?” Sievert asked.
“Oh, yes!” Deanne said. “Oh, yes!” The second glass went down the same as the first. So did a third, which Nan tried to fill only halfway to the lip of their wineglasses.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Deanne gurgled. “I see what you’re up to. Fill mine to the brim!”
“Mine, too!” cried Sievert. “No stinting now. We’re your guests.”
Nan and George weren’t quite sure whether to be pleased and amused, or somewhat alarmed. Here, clearly, was a couple unaccustomed to the grape, but who, given the opportunity, could guzzle it down like Roman sybarites. They could well be perched on the precarious precipice of alcohol poisoning. But how did you cut off these Mikkelsons? They’d been transformed by three glasses of merlot from the shy, vulnerable mice to the bold, blustering lions of the neighborhood. They might be capable of anything!
“More wine, spody-ody!” yelled Sievert, on polishing off his third glass in two big, violent gulps. He slammed the wineglass down on the table, sending a hairline fracture threading across the base of the stem.
“Me three!” cried Deanne with a shrill cackle as she balled her left hand into a tight fist and began punching at invisible targets in the air. “Yep! Keep ’em comin’, barkeep.” Nan shot an icy, semi-panicked glance at George. That was her signal for him to figure out a solution to this unfolding drunken-Mikkelsons problem. The lightbulb that occasionally went on in George’s brain flickered for a moment, then shone forth in all its slightly dimmed luminosity.
“Here’s something that just occurred to me,” he said. “We have a special vintage we’re looking for someone to try. It’s very strong and very rare. A wine magazine has called it the finest wine from the best grapes ever grown. The grapes actually come from a very tall hill overlooking the craggy coast of Oregon. They’re called winter surf grapes. Very rare.”
Nan pursed her lips and arched her eyebrows into one of those quizzical Nan looks.
“We consider you special guests. Would you like to try it? There’s a proviso here. The alcohol content is very, very high, so high, in fact, that it’s almost impossible for the palate and brain to detect. Also, this is especially fine wine, very precious, and we can only afford to spare it on those who will properly appreciate it.”
The Mikkelsons, their heads wobbling like baseball bobble-heads, looked at each other and chortled.
“Of course, damn it!” screamed Sievert.
“Bring it on, mo-fo!” Deanne shouted. With Nan visibly confused, George gathered up the Mikkelsons’ glasses and ducked quickly through the back door. He soon emerged c
arrying the two glasses, now topped off with burgundy liquid, and perilously close to spilling over the rims.
“Al-rrrigght!” the Mikkelsons screamed in unison. They sloshed half their drinks onto themselves and the tabletop, laughed heartily, then dispensed with the remaining contents in a long, noisy gurgle.
“Ahhhh,” said Sievert. “That’s delicious!”
“Doggonit,” said Deanne. “Doggonit. Doggonit. Dog-g-g-gonit.”
Nan and George smiled politely.
“More?” asked George, winking at Nan, whose eyes had widened in alarm. After seven rounds and two trips each inside to the bathroom, the Mikkelsons had undergone their second transformation. Perky, talkative, and fidgeting to beat the band, they had nevertheless lost the monster edge that threatened to turn them into droolingly spastic boozehounds incapable of getting up from their chairs without farting or falling over. A certain shy, yet restless demeanor had been restored to them. They began blurting out long-winded and very rapid apologies for their behavior, rose abruptly, almost upsetting the table in the process, apologized some more, and shook hands three times each with Nan and George. Then, off they went, storming down the steps feeling braver and happier than they had been a half hour earlier.
“Good Lord, George, what did you do to them?”
“Nothing. I just filled their wineglasses with Cullen’s power drink, Cranberry PowerPressPlus. Twice the sugar, three times the caffeine of a regular Coke. Looks like wine, smells and tastes nothing like wine. It’s the power of suggestion that did it.”
After that, the Mikkelsons were frequent visitors. They eagerly lapped up the Fremonts’ hospitality, and even offered to pay for their prodigal appetites, with George and Nan graciously ignoring them. They had not, however, shown up at all so far this summer. Puzzled and perhaps a little hurt and concerned, the Fremonts wondered whether Sievert and Deanne had returned to their abstemious ways or, worse, discovered their own special vintage, pounding it down by the barrel all day and all night, their lives wrecked by that first sally into the epicurean sinfulness of the Fremont backyard.
It was on the previous Tuesday that the Fremonts had finally spotted the Mikkelsons. They were strolling confidently down the street, shyly waving at them, but continuing on their way, despite the Fremonts’ beckoning gestures. It was as Deanne displayed her full profile to them that the Fremonts saw why the Mikkelsons would be avoiding them for a while: she was very visibly pregnant.
The backyard that worked such delightful sorcery on its visitors didn’t feature anything particularly fancy or exotic. Nan and George had mostly planted an array of flowers, bushes, vines, and grasses that would be familiar to anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of gardening. It was all in the arrangement, the scope of the project, and the health and vigor of all that grew there.
Hostas of four different varieties filled many of the shady places. The split-rail fence that divided the backyard into two roughly even parts was almost hidden on the south side by pink hydrangeas. There were four bleeding hearts and an equal number of jack-in-the-pulpits. Next to the six-foot wood fence that separated them from the Grunions’ backyard rose variegated dogwoods, two burning bushes that exploded in scarlet in the fall, and five lilac bushes that were now eight feet high. Nan had to keep a careful eye on George, who had an itch to perform major plant surgery just to show that his circa 1920-model pruning shears could still do good service.
“No hacking away at the lilacs, you ninny, or else they won’t come back for years,” she would scold him, but every year he’d dig out those old shears. He’d scrape off the rust, sharpen the blades, and approach the lilacs, snicker-snacking away, only to be turned back by Nan, who would have to interpose herself between him and his intended victims.
A flagstone path led to the north edge of the property, divided from the Fletchers’ place by a strip of woods. It ended in an arbor where the flagstones were set in a large rectangle surrounded by paper birches, crab apples, and rabbit-nibbled and stunted alpine currants. A simple wooden bench had been set for those contemplative moments that would occasionally arise. Steps fashioned out of pressure-treated-pine railroad ties and pea gravel rose from the driveway to the tetragonal cement patio. The patio, furnished with its glass-topped table, L-shaped bench, four chairs, and outdoor grill, was the heart of the backyard.
Impatiens, alyssum, petunias, phlox, and two varieties of ornamental grasses bordered the steps. Two small arbors with big, arched trellises jutted out from the edge of the patio, where there was ample midday sunlight. As June advanced, climbing rosebushes would any day now smother them in red, yellow, and pink.
On the other side of the patio, where the light was less direct, there was another latticework trellis, also painted white, and covered in the clinging vines of violet-flowering clematis. Two bridal wreath spirea bushes flourished in another one of the spots where sunlight fell unchecked by any obstruction. Then, there were the angel’s trumpets, fragrantly seductive, yet appalling to George, who continually fretted over their reputations as deadly hallucinogens.
Other flower beds sprouted more impatiens and alyssum, as well as purple coneflowers, monarda, and assorted irises and lilies. There were additional flowers, planted in accordance with the advice of the numerous texts, magazines, flyers, and Internet postings George and Nan had consulted over the years as their backyard gardens expanded. Even now, they had trouble remembering the names of some of them.
Sprinkled throughout were late-blossoming mums and sedum to ensure the backyard’s liveliness as high summer began to drift toward autumn. The idea was that something would be flowering in the backyard at all times—May through August, and sometimes even September. As the season moved toward the middle of June, the first wave of blooms has already passed. They were in the midst of a new one, which would also have its own brief heyday before giving way to the riotous eruptions of July.
Four bird-feeding stations were situated around the backyard. The Nyger thistle feeder for the finches was suspended by wire from a little board hammered into the trunk of the young silver maple bordering the patio and adjacent to the rose trellises.
There was a large, green, house-shaped feeder filled with a variety of bird feed—black oilers, white millet, safflower seeds, and peanuts. This feeder came equipped with an adjustable counterweight so that the perch shield would snap shut over the feeding portals when anything too big—say, a squirrel—managed to climb onto it.
Adjoining the finch-feeding station was a red, bell-shaped hummingbird feeder loaded with nectar water and hanging from a curved and hooked planter pole stuck into the ground.
Farther away, at the east end of the property, was a tray of orange slices and jelly suspended from a similar pole placed next to the variegated dogwoods. This was meant to attract finicky Baltimore orioles, who always seemed to be finding tastier fare elsewhere.
The Fremonts counted thirty-two species of birds they had positively identified in their backyard and adjoining woods. Most recently, a rufous-sided towhee had made a brief inspection of the main feeder just as George was looking out at it through the kitchen window. His ejaculation of joy brought Nan to the window. Nan then plucked the Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Birds from its perch on the windowsill, made a positive identification, and duly noted it in their bird sightings log.
The Fremonts lived on the corner lot, intersection of Payne Avenue and Sumac Street, north-central one-sixth section of Livia. Livia was a large suburb of the much larger city of St. Anthony, fifteen miles to the north. It marked the northern reaches of the Big Turkey River Valley, which divided it from its more populous and affluent neighbor—Macomber—to the south.
Their lot was on a hill that sloped steeply down to Sumac, and much more gradually to Payne. Beyond Sumac, the land dropped down farther to Bluegill Pond, which was actually a lake of considerable size.
Their house had been constructed haphazardly over the decades. There was a central portion built in 1955 over the ruins of an ol
d two-story farmhouse, then two additions were thrown on in 1962 and 1974, respectively. About an eighth of the lot on its north side constituted the strip of woods. At various points along the periphery of the lot and adjacent to the house were silver maples, ashes, a spruce, two sugar maples, which were the pride of the neighborhood when they flamed orange and a rich burgundy in the autumn, and two huge locusts.
Their children were aged twenty (Ellis), eighteen (Cullen), and seventeen (Sis, or Sister, known officially and when in trouble as Mary). The Fremonts voted their conscience, paid their taxes, and rooted lustily for the major league St. Anthony Muskies. They attended the Please-Redeem-Me Lutheran Church, which represented a breakaway sect of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America that thought the Triune God should include four more parts—earth, wind, water, and agricultural commodities. They complained about the weather, just like everyone else in this part of the country.
They had thrown themselves with much enthusiasm into the college search for Ellis, who had just finished his first year at a good Lutheran school, Augustus-of-the-Prairies, in a bordering state, and Cullen, who was headed to Dartmouth, and encouraged sis’s pronounced musical proclivities (she was “allstate” trombonist two years in a row).
All of this was important. What threatened to eclipse all other things, though, was their gem, their precious possession, their fourth child, assuming a purportedly inanimate object can be thought of in such a way: their backyard. They would never have actually said such a thing. They would hardly have allowed themselves to think it, though in moments of pure self-illumination they figured it loomed so large in their lives as a way of preparing them for the coming loss of all their children to distant colleges.
“It’s going to be our legacy, really,” said George that lazy late Saturday afternoon in early June, as they relaxed in their patio chairs under a cobalt sky.
“And they’re so happy with what we’ve done,” Nan said. “Just look at their lustrous color, how they assert themselves. We’ve given them the confidence to grow. It’s a sort of self-esteem that comes through a positive vibration of how we’ve treated them. Give them the proper care and love and that gives them the inner strength to be what they were meant to be. We’ve empowered them, George!”
Backyard Page 3