The good thing about being my own boss was that I got to pick when I went on vacation. It was always when the weather was warm—a week around late April, then another one around August. That’s the way I always did it. The second week was for whatever traveling I wanted to do, whether it was all the way to the beach or just up in the mountains—sort of like my own yearly walkabout. But the first week was usually just to get the house in order, painting and mending and whatnot. I didn’t mind giving Timmy Griffith the extra customers at his Texaco on the other side of town, especially since he did the same for me whenever he got the itch to do some fishing, which was hardly ever. But that’s the way it is in Mattingly. Everybody looks out for everybody.
That’s true with neighbors, too. Especially when it comes to kids.
My plan was to spend that week repainting the garage, a task that required much in the way of patience and preparation. You don’t jump right into something like painting a garage. That’s what most folks don’t understand. You have to ease into it, study it, and try to talk yourself out of doing it. Which was why I was sitting on the porch staring at the little girl across the road rather than just getting down to the business at hand.
Mary Thompson and her parents had moved into the old Phillips place about three months prior. Nice folks, the Thompsons. Especially for city folk. Her father was Stephen—“Stephen-with-a-P-H” is what I called him. The kind of guy who cut his grass in khaki pants and sipped mint juleps in the backyard every Sunday afternoon. You don’t call men like that Steve.
Stephen-with-a-P-H did something with banking up in the city. He’d tried explaining to me exactly what that something was more than once, but he lost me in his fancy talk, and I ended up nodding like I’d heard that all before. His wife, Barbara, she…well, I didn’t know what she did. But she was nice just the same and often brought me a little supper in the evenings.
The Thompsons did their level best to fit in, but it hadn’t been easy. They were outsiders, you see. From Away. And while no one in town ever made them feel anything but welcomed, outsiders was what they would be for a good long while. The fact they had yet to visit one of the local churches, much less settled on one, didn’t make things any better. There were whispers that the Thompsons weren’t religious at all. Or even worse, that they were liberals.
I watched Mary play through the small metal diamonds of their chain-link fence. She was the quintessential preschooler in both action and reaction. I watched as she scooped sand from the sandbox into a bucket and then dumped the bucket over her head. Saw her do things on her jungle gym that would make an Olympic gymnast proud, only to then trip over nothing and run screaming to her mama. She destroyed flowers, tormented her cat, and even managed to get her daddy’s riding mower started. All in the span of fifteen minutes. I was exhausted just watching her.
I’ll tell you what, it was impressive. It was also enough to make me realize two things. One was that I was glad I wasn’t her father. The other was that the Thompsons’ fence was likely there to keep Mary from the world a whole lot more than the world from Mary.
*
Stephen knocked on the door that evening after dinner. The glass of wine in one hand and the can of Coke in the other, coupled with the fact that he couldn’t seem to look me in the eye, told me it was either a problem to share or a favor to ask. Probably both. I offered him the rocking chair on the front porch and he accepted.
“I hear you’re taking the week off,” he said.
“Gonna paint the garage and hang out a little.” I took the soda he offered and thanked him. “Might watch The Price Is Right. Always liked that show, but I’m never here to watch it.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, listening but mostly not. “So you’re planning to stick close to home?”
“That’s the plan,” I said. “Why you ask?”
Stephen sighed and sipped his wine. Christian or not, liberal or not, most men don’t take to asking for anything, especially from another man. “You know how we like to keep Mary in the backyard?”
“Because of the traffic,” I said.
“Yes, exactly. The traffic. Not that I think there’s any danger around here, mind you. But Mary’s…adventurous.”
I had to chuckle at that. Calling Mary adventurous was like calling Grace Kelly cute.
“She wants to start playing in the front yard now,” he continued. “She says backyards are for little kids.”
I took a sip of my Coke and wondered just how honest I was going to be with my neighbor from across the road. Like I said, Stephen was a good guy. But you never know how a parent will take words about his child, whether criticism or praise. I decided to play it safe and said, “Well, I’d say Mary’s a little kid.”
“She is at that, Andy. Kids are in such a hurry to grow up. But she’s adamant. She really wants to do this.”
“And what do you say?” I asked.
He took another sip of wine. “I don’t know. It’s not such a big deal, really. Right?”
“Sounds like it is to you,” I told him.
“Having kids just magnifies your fear. Everything seems scary, even the little stuff. But she has responsibilities. She has to keep her room clean and help with the dishes. Why not this? Why not something fun?”
“So when’d you give Mary the good news?” I asked.
Stephen grinned and said, “Just a little bit ago. I made her promise she wouldn’t go into the road, and she swore she wouldn’t even think about it. Four times.”
I said nothing. A man doesn’t have to be a father to know that parenting is all about trying to make sure the good things about yourself were passed on and the bad things were not.
Stephen straightened his tie. “I was wondering if you’d just keep an eye on her this week. Barbara will be around, but she has so much to do and it’s easy for her to get sidetracked. I’m not making it a priority or anything. I’m sure Mary will be fine.”
I nodded and tapped my plain Coke against his fancy wine. The sound of plastic meeting glass made a tiny whup. “I’ll be happy to, Stephen,” I said.
He finished his glass and said his good-bye, thanking me again on the way across the road. The chair beside me began to creak back and forth as I watched him go.
“Guess I’ll have to start keepin’ an eye on that youngun,” I said.
“Somebody’s gotta,” the Old Man answered.
*
Shortly after I began putting the first strokes of paint on the garage the next morning, Mary bounded out the front door across the street to usher her father off to work. Stephen opened the door of his SUV, tossed his briefcase inside, and then bent down to offer one final warning that was punctuated by a wagging finger.
Mary nodded and flung her arms around his neck, squeezing him so tight that I could hear him cough, and then made a cross-my-heart motion with a finger of her own. The two exchanged waves as Stephen pulled away. Mary watched him all the way to the corner, where he turned and disappeared into the world.
Barbara poked her head out the door and smiled at her daughter. “I’ll be right inside,” she said. She offered me a quick wave before vanishing.
Mary had reached the edge of the driveway before her mother had shut the door.
“Might as well try to tie down the wind,” I muttered to myself. Then louder, to her: “Hey there, Miss Mary.” I raised my paintbrush and waved, just to make sure she saw me seeing her.
“Hey, Mr. Andy!” she said. She offered one of those floppily spastic little-girl waves back.
“What’cha doing?”
“Nothin’,” she said. “I can play in the front now.”
“So I see. Reckon you’d better mind the road. Plenty of grass to play in. Grass is always better than pavement, sure enough.”
“Sure enough,” she agreed.
Mary eyed the pavement. Quick glances at first, as if the road was some celestial event and staring at it too long would burn her eyes. Then longer looks. She peeked back toward the living room window. All clear.
There were no cars. Mary looked down the road to the right, then to the left, then back toward the house again. Then she raised her right leg, leaned back, and gently touched the tip of her pink tennis shoe onto the dark asphalt.
It was her first taste of blatant defiance. And it looked to me like it tasted just fine.
Mary spun and raced back up the driveway to the safety of the house, where she scanned left and right again and then peeked at the front door. Nothing. I could see her quick breaths from across the road. Her smile, too.
She was safe. And more than that, she had gotten away with it.
I kept one eye on the paintbrush and the other on her for the next few hours. Both managed to stay between the lines. Mary never strayed down to the road, never even beyond the little dip in the front yard that led to it. When I took a break around lunchtime, she was playing hopscotch on the sidewalk by the door.
Twenty minutes later I had sat down to some leftover chicken from Timmy’s Texaco and watching some poor old lady doing her utmost to win a new Chevy from Bob Barker. I was doing my part by hollering out the price when the Old Man sprinted out of the kitchen.
“Come on come on come on!” he shouted, tearing past me and disappearing through the living room wall.
I lurched out of my recliner and ran for the door, but I was too late. Halfway there I heard the sound of brakes meeting rubber meeting pavement, followed by a bellowing horn.
I flung the front door open, half expecting to see a pint-sized pancake in the middle of the road. Instead, Mary was jumping up and down by the edge of the grass and waving to the back of the blue Toyota Camry that had almost hit her. The driver had her hand to her chest and her mouth wide open, no doubt pondering both the brevity of life and the ramifications of vehicular manslaughter. Barbara raced out the front door, gobbled up her little girl in her arms, and whisked her inside.
That was the end of the great front yard experiment. From then on, it was the backyard or nothing. Mary protested. And whined and begged and promised to run away. But Stephen and Barbara would not yield. Under no circumstances would Mary be allowed outside the fence. Constant monitoring was initiated and boundaries were set, along with the threat of the severest punishment possible—whatever that meant—if said rules were broken.
It was the perfect plan. Foolproof.
Not, however, childproof. Because in the end a fence is just a fence, and Mary missed the front yard.
One hour after her father left for work the next day, there came another screech, another horn, and another wave. Which was followed by another jumping little girl, another frantic mother, and another hasty trip inside.
From that point on, Mary was confined indoors. Which was kind of good for me, since I could finally get my painting done. But it was bad for Mary, I suppose. It never feels good to have your wings clipped.
* * *
Mary was paroled that Friday evening just long enough to walk across the street with her father and see how the garage had turned out. The three of us sat beneath the evergreen on the side of my house and caught up on neighborhood news. Not surprisingly, our talk eventually came around to Mary’s grand adventure. That was most all the news there had been.
“I just don’t understand it,” Stephen said. He patted his daughter on the head. “She knows better.”
Mary looked up to her father and smiled, and Stephen nearly drowned in it. It’s an amazing thing, what a child does to a parent. A beautiful thing. But as beautiful as it was, I had to look away. Children weren’t something the Good Lord chose to bless me with, mostly because having one involved having a spouse.
I excused myself to clean the brushes and found the Old Man waiting next to the garden hose. He was dressed in overalls that looked like he’d taken off a rack and rolled them in the dirt before putting them on. A painter’s cap sat cockeyed on his head. His feet were bare. The Old Man always said toes were made for feeling more than socks and shoes. That was my philosophy exactly.
“You should have some help with that,” he said. “Messy job, cleaning paintbrushes.”
“Ain’t nothing I’ve never done before,” I told him.
“Bet Mary’d pitch in.”
I looked over my shoulder at my neighbors, still beneath my evergreen. Stephen appeared to have forgotten about the trouble his daughter had caused and was holding her like the blessing she was.
“Are you serious?” I whispered. “She’s liable to start painting herself and then me. And then burn the house down and do a happy dance.”
“Still,” he said, “might not be a bad idea.”
“But I don’t want to.”
“Okay, fine,” he said, raising his hands in mock surrender. “I mean, it’s not like I know what I’m doing or anything.”
“You’re seriously trying to guilt me?” I asked.
“Is it working?”
I didn’t say anything. I did nod, though.
“Hey Mary,” I called. “Wanna help me with these brushes?”
Mary was more than willing. And despite my misgivings, she was the picture of ladylike demeanor. She was polite and talkative, discussing the garden hose at her house and how her father used it to wash their car and how their car smelled like cherries inside and she didn’t like cherries that much.
The Old Man knelt down beside us and nodded at Mary’s profundity. He turned to look at me and said, “You should ask her.”
I shook my head.
“Seriously, ask her. It’s important.”
Mary finished her soliloquy by saying that she liked cherries but only when they were in ice cream. I glanced over at Stephen to make sure we were out of earshot—in my experience, kids were honest to a fault except when a parent was around. He was still sitting in the grass, leaning back on his hands and staring across the road at his home, no doubt thinking that moving to the country was pretty much the best decision he’d ever made other than marrying Barbara.
“Mary,” I asked, “you kinda got into a little trouble for going out into the road, didn’t you?”
She shrugged. The Old Man smiled.
“Because your mom and dad were pretty scared,” I added.
Another shrug.
“You really do know better, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” she said. She handed me a brush still caked with white. I ran it under the hose and then shook it, sending a white mist into the grass.
“Then why’d you do it?” I asked her.
Mary thought. Then she let out a small giggle and leaned toward me so her father wouldn’t hear.
“I did it,” she said, “because I wasn’t supposed to.”
It wasn’t the answer I expected to hear, but it was an honest one. I looked from Mary to the Old Man.
“Profound, huh?” he said.
I nodded.
The Old Man bent lower and lifted up his cap to gaze into Mary’s eyes. “Remember this face, Andy,” he said to me. “Look at this little girl and burn her image in your mind, because she is you and you are her. Every day you both stand at the edge of should and should not, torn between what you know you’re not supposed to do and the overwhelming desire to do it anyway. That’s why the world’s in such a mess. Why people do bad things. They just can’t help it. Everyone’s fighting their own darkness and waging their own war, and sooner or later it all spills out onto someone else. That’s why you always have to forgive, Andy. Always. No matter what the harm might be. Because in the end people are born broken and spend their lives trying to put the pieces together. Your job is to help them find the pieces. You remember that, Andy. And you take that brush she just gave you and put it in your box so you will.”
I nodded again.
“I guess I should try to be better anyway,” Mary told me.
“I guess we all should,” I said.