Just Write: One Spring Day

Just Write.

I can hear the rhythmic cadence–the thunkthunkthunk of their bodies as they twist and flip on the trampoline, airborne. Snow now melted, it’s time to catch the wind, time to hurl into weightlessness.

Miss D.’s friend Hannah is tentative, hanging around the edges and taking shallow, cautious jumps while D. and M. pump their coltish legs, seeking higher ground.

Miss M. scampers in from the backyard, grabs her father’s giant inflatable exercise ball and hustles back outside with it. He probably wouldn’t be pleased with this development, but I allow it. If the damn thing pops, it pops. It’s that kind of day. The squeals and giggles and thunkthunkthunk are far more precious.

I outline a plan for the garden. It’s silly to do this–I should just go to the garden store and pick out what looks green and promising. And hearty. Hearty is good in Colorado springtime, when things change on a dime. I crave order, so I list: 2 tomato plants, 2 cucumber, 3 lettuce (probably a mistake this early), snap peas, carrots, radishes that only I will eat. Basil. Lots of basil, because in summer, Kitchen Counter Pasta happens.

Reminder: plant mint in a separate container. I look out the window at the garden; damned if there isn’t mint growing back–the only flash of green in an otherwise brittle landscape. Mint is not a quitter.

I ponder chiles. Do I dare grow Thai bird, or should I stick with jalapeno? Is it a sad point in your life when growing something in your backyard qualifies as daring?

The sliding door whacks open with force–has to be D. I turn around and there she stands, stricken.

“What, Bun? Hey–what is it?”

“Mom, I have blood on the back of my shirt.”

“Jesus! Are you hurt? Are you bleeding? Who is bleeding?” I’m off the chair now, motoring towards her.

She holds up a hand. (Dear God, the hand. I’m getting it with stunning regularity now.)

“No, mom.” Her eyes roll around in her head and then turn to rivers. “It’s the bunnies. The babies. I tripped catching the ball and I fell and landed on one. They’re dead. All of them. I couldn’t see them in the yard because the grass isn’t green yet. When I landed on it, it kind of…exploded.”

*******

*******

Clothes are changed. Children are ordered, “Inside. Now!”

My daughter is eerily stoic, almost calm. This is my drama child, the child who howls at the moon over a stubbed toe. I pour her a glass of ice water, deliver it, lightly run my fingers through her hair.

“Hey. You okay?”

She gives me the dead fish eye but doesn’t brush my hand away. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

I order three girls to scrub their hands and parcel out sympathy Goldfish crackers. I lurk in a corner, peering into the den, checking the emotional temperature in the room. And then I realize.

Hannah doesn’t know about the bunnies. Miss M. doesn’t know about the bunnies. Those girls are fine–aces, even. Somehow, my older daughter contained this, locked it somewhere deep and far away from little sisters and cautious friends.

I drag out the snow shovel that I vowed I was done with until next winter and haul it to the backyard. Three fluffy, softball-sized bodies plunk into a garbage bag. Spring is not kind in Colorado. Especially to baby bunnies who get served up hard frost instead of green grass.

Later, over a stiff drink and the Kentucky Derby, I tell my husband.

“Holy crap,” he says, palming his forehead. “Just………”

“I know.”

Nothing is more welcome than distraction via horses.

Derby day is big here, and I’ve researched, made my choices, placed my bets. In this area of sportsmanship, my husband defers to me. In seven years, I’ve hit two trifectas and two exactas. Still, I’m nothing like Gramma Rhetta, who could pick the winning horse just by eyeballing the contenders as they walked to the gate. Gramma was spooky good. It makes me happy though, that I inherited some of her spooky. Just a little. But I’ll take it.

The race always passes in a flash. I holler and jump up and down and forget I have a bourbon in my hand so it sloshes onto the couch.

Two of my horses win and show. But the horse that places, Golden Soul, comes from nowhere. When I placed my bets, that horse was at 50-1 odds. He wasn’t mentioned as a contender–mentioned at all, even. A ghost horse, underestimated, overlooked.

Watching the media coverage during the aftermath, I become agitated.

“Garggh!” I yell. “I get it–Orb won, but he was supposed to win, so shut up already! I want to hear about that horse. How did that horse grind it out on a track that’s running like freaking gruel and do something nobody expected? That horse wanted it. That horse has chops. That’s a tough little bastard.”

My husband gives me a lopsided grin.

“I know.”

“I know you know!” I say. “Stupid media clowns. They don’t understand anything.” I launch off the couch and stalk upstairs.

“Call me down when they decide to tell a real story.”

Tagged as: bunny assholery, cruel spring, Kentucky Derby, you are tougher than you know