“This is a place where silver meets blue,” I told her, staring out the window. She was busy carving up some celery and I knew I didn’t have her full attention. Still, I went on, frustrated. “I’m sure you can see that, hon. That color over there? It’s hovering several feet over the snow and falls all the way behind all of that dull brown—the trunks and branches of trees that, if they ain’t dead, certainly look it. I don’t know why we moved here.”
“Here” was our our town, our state of New Hampshire, and that damned region of the country always so green in maps and printed on globes—New England. It was all a big lie, quite honestly. They should print and paint each state in break-neck white, and not another shade. It’s freezing here. Snow and ice, packed into an uncomfortable and tough to swallow sandwich.
Keeping her eyes aimed down, she slid the gleaming knife through the flesh of the celery and, no doubt, imagined my tongue upon the cutting board in its place. There was no issue with her hearing, and I thought about repeating some of my groveling, had she not placed the knife down and swung her head around—hair following suit, a wave of blonde that had been done up for our cocktail party.
“We moved here because…where else were we gonna go?,” she said, clearly terse, but holding it together for the moment. “I know that you know that, so I don’t know why I’m having to tell you this again?”
“Because of the silvery blue out there—”
“I don’t care about the silver or blue, or whatever else. This morning it was orange—or vermillion, if that helps you understand it more clearly. Tonight it will be bubble-gum skies, or magenta!” Her level of sarcasm was grotesque. Whatever she was, she was good at it. “Go check the paint swatches in the cellar stairway. They’re in the bag from the hardware store. That way you can match up all the colors you like later on.”
Whatever patience she’d had during the earlier hours of the day was clearly frayed and not serving her any longer. I attempted to apologize, but she wouldn’t have it. I was given a sentence or two of shallow forgiveness before she suggested that perhaps I would be happier taking a nap, or “tinkering” in my shed where the gloominess of the outside world wouldn’t penetrate my eyes. I elected for the latter, since I’d slept so much the night previous, a nap would be a tough thing to get going. I’ve never been a good day-sleeper. Maybe my melatonin levels run on the short end.
Out at the shed positioned in the corner of our backyard, I found the familiar smell of stale gasoline from the past summer, empty beer cans, and dry leaves that hadn’t met an end beneath of the ten thousand pounds of snow covering the back lawn. On the floor beneath the small table inside, the previous owners had left me a bin of chemicals. Spray paints, deicers, rust-eaters, and weed killer. I stood wondering if I’d ever use a single one of them. It was a tiny graveyard for finished projects, those from years prior. Never very capable with household repairs or handywork, I thought about throwing the entire mess away, just so I could have told her I did something.
Throwing it away would have felt liberating. I wasn’t interested in having cans laying around decaying, never knowing when they might just decide to let go and explode. I like things that work as they should. New things. Don’t get me wrong, there’s an appreciation to be found with farm houses, old breweries tucked into brick mills, and all of those historical tours from one end of London or Greece to the other. Old is okay but, in my house, I just like to know things are going to work, that mice don’t share the same roof, and certainly not my same sense of home. I want to believe that the foundation beneath my feet has no intention of letting go simply because it’s had enough.
And, while the shed was no different than the house we’d bought, there I was—wind flapping the maroon shed doors behind me. Seemed as though it was begging to give something, anything, a shot.