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When Terry got off the phone, she went outside to walk about, as if enacting a ritual of departure. The midday sun was warm, and the smell of newly mown grass spiced the air. She strolled across the lawn nearly giddy with delight. She could almost feel the check, like a bird-heart beating in her breast pocket. In a day or two the New Century FOR SALE sign would be slashed by a proud red SOLD stripe. And they would have over a half-million dollars cash to start life over. Amazing. |
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Still, she felt some guilt because the Mannings were going to buy a house with a sick dogwood in the middle of their lawn. Matty's tree. They had planted it when he was born. Every Christmas, Easter and Halloween he would decorate it. But something was wrong. Here it was midspringit should be fat with buds. Instead, the winter casings turned to black dust in her fingers. And strange shoots were growing out of the bark of the trunk and limbs like an infestation of parasites. |
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With cutters she snipped off a thick branch. The cross-section was a three-quarter circle of gray dry wood, one-quarter green. The branch was seventy-five percent dead. The same with others she sampled. How could that be? |
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She went around in back. Because of all the rain she hadn't been out for days. Every spring she took pleasure in exploring the area for new growth just as it happenedlike catching nature in a privy moment. Like clockwork it always began with the crocuses. Last year she had planted a strip of bulbs near the pool. There was little growth, but flowerlessjust long, slender blades, no sweet little cups of lavender and pink. The same with the tulips. She had put in 150 Holland bulbs. Again, all the energy had gone into wide, flabby leaves. Half the plants lacked buds, the other half were the size of olives. The same with the forsythia bushesundersized flowers, and only half-alive. |
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She stood in the middle of the yard turning over the possibilitiestoo much rain, too little sun, too cold a winter? No, none of that. Last week's was the first real precipitation all season. They got plenty of sun, and the winter was mild. It shouldn't bother her because in a few weeks, it wouldn't be theirs anymore. Still, she felt like a stranger in her own backyard. Nothing was growing right. Nothing was doing what it was supposed to do. The place was a |
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