Yard Work

Saturday morning dawned crisp and clear and Rachael found herself up early enough to watch the sun rise. She stood at the kitchen sink with a freshly brewed cup of coffee in her hand and gazed out the window as the new day broke, watching little birds flit from branch to branch on the big birch tree in her backyard, smiling when they paused from time to time to chirp a cheerful good-morning song.

She knew that the girls were likely to sleep late and decided that this morning was a good time to dig out her rake and shovel and get started on some of the spring yard work that she had left too long. While she had always enjoyed planting and tending flowers, it had been Marc who had done the bulk of the outside work when he still lived here, and Rachael had been avoiding those chores out of resentment and spite as much as out of any real resistance to doing them. Marc had always prided himself on having a well-tended lawn, and Rachael knew that it drove him crazy to see the front yard still covered with last fall's soggy leaves and the flowerbeds filled with early-sprouting weeds. She took a petty and perverse satisfaction in seeing the pained expression he couldn't quite hide from her whenever he picked up or dropped off the girls and got a good look at the yard.

Much as she'd enjoyed goading her ex-husband, Rachael figured it was about time to move past all that. I'll turn over a new leaf, she thought, getting more laughter out of the thought than the silly pun warranted. Still smiling, she rinsed out her coffee cup and set it to dry in the drain rack, then went to the hall closet to dig out her old tennis shoes. When she found them, she pulled them on without untying the laces, then grabbed a windbreaker from a coat hook inside the closet door. She called for Daisy and then walked back through the kitchen, opening the door there that led to the garage and flipping on the lights before stepping inside.

Not much in the garage had changed since the days before Marc moved out. It had been his territory during their marriage, and Rachael rarely set foot inside except for the couple of months out of every year when temperatures fell below freezing and she parked her car there. Even then, she walked only to and from the car, barely registering anything beyond the path from car to kitchen door. Today she stopped to look around and take stock for a few minutes before going to the far corner where the wheelbarrow leaned against the wall. She righted it then took a garden spade and leaf rake from their wall hooks and laid them across the wheelbarrow. Finally, she grabbed a pair of gloves that she spotted lying on top of the red tool cabinet and slipped them on, completing her gardener's uniform.

Outside in the front yard, she decided to begin by raking up all of the dead leaves that littered the lawn, marring the emerging green with intermittent patches of brown. She started in the corner of the yard farthest from the house, losing herself in the mindless work, softly singing the Simon and Garfunkel tune she'd heard on the radio that morning while she was drinking her coffee.

And the leaves that are green turn to brown,
And they wither with the wind,
And they crumble in your hand.

It was such a melancholy little song, she thought, not at all in keeping with the mood of this bright spring morning. It was catchy, though, and she'd never been able to resist a Paul Simon melody, so she kept singing it, changing the words when it suited her.

And the leaves that are brown are raked up,
And I put them in a big pile,
And they make a fine compost.

When she had gathered all the leaves into a half-dozen piles scattered across the lawn, Rachael took the wheelbarrow around to each one and loaded the leaves onto it, laying the rake across the top to keep the breeze from picking of the leaves and redepositing them on the grass. After picking up the last pile, she paused for a moment to survey and appreciate her hard work. Even though the morning was chilly, a light sweat had broken out on Rachael's forehead and between her shoulder blades, and she could feel an ache starting to take hold in her biceps. She had forgotten that yard work could be such good exercise.

She looked over at her dog, lying in a patch of sunshine on the porch. "I think we're just about done here," she said. "Let's go out back."

Daisy followed her as she pushed the wheelbarrow around the side of the garage and through the gate into the backyard. She continued to the back corner of the yard where Marc had built a compost pile several years before and tipped the wheelbarrow to let the leaves fall in a heap on top. She used the rake to gather up the stray leaves that hadn't made it onto the compost, then pulled off her work gloves and tossed them in the empty wheelbarrow.

"Now I'd call that plenty of leaves turned over, wouldn't you?" she asked the dog, who stood a few feet away, observing. When she got a companionable tail wag in response, Rachael took it for agreement.