A Decade and a Derecho

by Jayne Mathis
Photo by Olivia Smith

I lounge on the back porch, unaware of the rustling and chirping of birds overhead, of the tinkling of water to my right, of the crunch of plastic protecting the cover of my library book. I don’t care much for the plot or the characters that fill the space between its hard covers, but something about the steady beat of the words enthralls me. The woman whose existence is entirely owed to ink lines on creamy paper walks along the countryside, taking in with relish everything she sees. I pause as she encounters another person; I’m reluctant to jump from the vibrant scenery into action I’m not invested in. Instead, inspired by the coolness of the mud streaking the woman’s hands and the humid taste of impending rain on her tongue, I emerge from the pages and reflect on the gold and green reality of my own summer afternoon.

I, too, am alone. That was the entire point of my decision to sit outside, since I’ve been trapped inside with nobody but my family for months. The only hints that a larger society still exists are the cars and pedestrians that pass behind the gap in the trees, and the clippings lying in the expansive grass field in front of me suggest someone else’s systematic regulation.

My eyes fall to the line that demarcates my private backyard from that public. Most of the neighbors have opted for a fence; we guard our boundary with a line of alternating bushes and evergreen trees that go no higher than my waist. There was a time when both those plants and I were much smaller, and I could jump the gap between them without ever slowing. Breaking through that line today would be unnecessarily difficult; the leaves and bristles now reach out far enough to connect.

When did that change? I can’t remember. It could’ve happened a decade ago, or yesterday. Why can’t I remember?

The spry teenaged maple in the middle of the yard has matured, too. The sun used to filter through the leaves in the middle, but now it puts up a strong green wall. There used to be low-hanging branches that plagued me when I mowed the lawn, but they have long since been trimmed. We’ve always watched the fireworks celebrating the town’s summer festival from the window of my parents’ bedroom upstairs, but lately, the distant bursts of color barely clear the tree’s top branches. This growth has snuck up on me, too.

The trampoline in the back right corner is a replacement after a storm ripped up our first, in spite of my dad’s effort to anchor it to the ground. When had that happened—sixth grade, seventh, maybe? The grey, plastic-walled shed on the left is also our second. The smaller old shed left enough space for me to squeeze past it and the adjoining bush, into a secluded square that hid the humming green electrical box. And there was a corridor between the shed and the neighbor’s fence that I would chase the rabbits through. The backyard hasn’t held so much adventure since those pathways disappeared.

We have a fountain, the source of the trickle of water at my side. It’s a three-tiered concrete affair that stands slightly taller than me, and it is the most bourgeois item my family owns. I’m fond of it, though—partially for the comforting constancy of the background noise it provides, partially because of the dogwood bush it replaced. On a different summer afternoon a few years ago, while playing cornhole with my family, I shifted where I stood next to the bush and was greeted with a stabbing pain inside my ear; it had decided to poke me with a bristling twig while my attention was elsewhere. The pain subsided, but my grudge never did. When the bush was evicted to make space for the fountain—had that been two summers ago?—I watched it depart with vindictive pleasure.

A lattice structure stands above me, filtering away some of the sun’s heat; plastic boards sit beneath me, textured to evoke the slightest similarity to wood. Neither of these things existed the first time I saw this backyard, when I could answer the question of how old I was with my fingers. There was a short time period during that very beginning when there lay a smaller, uglier deck, made of real wood that had long forgotten the concept of color. It was one of the first things to go, after my parents painted the walls inside the house. The grill standing on the far end of the deck today is merely the current generation of a long line of nearly identical ancestors; the pair of Adirondack chairs on my left would be timeless, except that I vaguely remember my mom ordering them online; the very lounge chair I’m sitting in is a replacement for a table that had sat here for maybe five years, always dirty from disuse.

The girl occupying my chair, too, is not the same. I don’t like to think about it, but my surroundings only serve to remind me. We changed with you, they say, but you weren’t paying attention. Now you see us, and nothing is as it once was. Do you remember us as we used to be? Do you remember yourself as you used to be? Do you remember? Do you?

I look back to those short green pillars at the edge of this little world. I am determined to see these bushes and trees as more than a vague background, to forever remember the vibrancy of their color, how strong they stand, how wide their branches reach, at this exact moment. I know better, now, than to forget what the future will do to everything around me.

My mom pokes her head out of the sliding door that we replaced two years ago and tells me that my laundry is done. I’d forgotten about that. I mark my spot in the book—I’d forgotten, too, that I was still holding it—and head inside, still a little dazed from my own train of thought.

My feet hit the cool gray tile in the kitchen, which replaced the sticky off-white laminate of my middle school years. To the left is the living room, gutted and remade a year and a half ago at the beginning of the household purge of honey oak. I go to the right through the kitchen and into the entry hall—past the entrance to the basement, which has gone nearly untouched, except for the missing door that used to collide with the bathroom door—then up the stairs, whose carpet was worn and railing was shaky until not long after the living room got its fresh face. There’s a new light fixture in the laundry room, fluorescent, throwing the brand new paint and flooring into harsh relief. It makes my eyes water a little. I dig my clothes out of the dryer and throw them onto my bed, with its gray sheets that we’d just bought this spring.

The familiar motions of folding clothes nearly bring me back to earth, until I look out my window at the neighbor’s tree. I seem to remember it slouching over the back corner of their fence. Its branches couldn’t have become so tall and attentive in the mere months I’d been away, could they?

I return to my solitary post outside. I crack open the book again for pretense, then turn my attention to the sky. I can’t see where the sun is touching the horizon from behind the trees, but I watch as the wispy clouds are shot through with pink, finding the point where the sky’s gradient changes from blue to orange. Every day for the last month, or maybe two, I’ve sat out here and watched the day take its leave. Each time is distinct, if ever so slightly, never happening at the same time, never hitting the same clouds, never painting the same colors. Change is the sunset’s constant, and I drink that knowledge in with profound relief.

A few minutes, and the show is over. With the light departs my excuse for being outside, and the awakening mosquitoes are an excellent reason to retreat back inside. I sigh inwardly at the drone of the TV and the faces I have seen far too much of lately, and go back to actually reading the book.

Two days later, I will wake up to the sound of something solid hitting my window. At least, it’ll seem like something solid, but will really be the pouring rain subjected to gusts of wind. I’ll note with amusement how it was that, not the tornado sirens, that broke through my heavy sleep. I’ll try to go back to bed, and give up on sleep when the rain continues to beat erratically at the glass.

The wind will rip a large portion of the neighbor’s fence down, one of the Adirondack chairs will fly off the deck and be smashed to pieces, the tree in the middle of the yard will lose over half its volume when part of the trunk tears. The trampoline will narrowly avoid its predecessor’s fate; only one of its metal poles will bow to the wind’s will. The fountain, a credit to its price tag, will remain totally unfazed.

I will watch all of this with my family, our faces hovering inches from the windows despite our well-ingrained knowledge of the dangers associated with glass and strong wind. I have seen my backyard in many states, but flash-flooded will be a novelty. Our lights will flicker, but stay on—a privilege, courtesy of the neighborhood’s electrical box residing on our property, that most others will not share.

The storm will pass as quickly as it arrives, and we will spend the rest of the afternoon cleaning up in its wake. And as I haul hefty branches to the curb up front, I will notice my dad digging up one of the bushes in the line at the back of the yard. Nothing but a gaping hole will be left for two evergreens to flank.

I’ll remember that moment, such a short time before, when I clung to the image of it, so desperate for any object of defiance against the ravages of time. I’ll silently promise the bush’s corpse to remember it as it was that day. Then I will grab another broken branch, square my shoulders, and march on.