Picket Fence

It really started with the white picket fence.

It was the first of her husband’s many “projects” after retirement. It framed the front flower garden that ran parallel the length of the sidewalk. There had been much planning and discussion. Drawings and estimates. He cut each picket himself for the exact angle. And for several days she hummed along with the saw as its echo wafted and buzzed from the garage into the kitchen where she gladly prepared lunch.

The garage was his. The kitchen hers.

This retirement was a new arrangement for them both. A kind of test. It was like being married all over again! In he strolled smelling of sweat, forearms covered with sawdust like a bee rolling in pollen. They had lunch together now. Talked of the fence’s progress that drew neighbors and onlookers. Small talk and giggles over iced tea. And then, in the evenings, Long-Island iced teas watered down with ice and even more small talk.

After its construction, several days of painting, he with his white-washed brush thrust in the air all Tom-Sawyer like. All literary and relaxed. Senatorial. But, unlike newlyweds, they had already mastered the knowledge of boundaries and fences. The interpretation of silences. And needs.

So when her son-in-law said, “Edna, the fence needs to be replaced, it’s rotting,” she felt an immediate resistance. Since her husband’s death, he had assumed financial responsibilities for her. For the most part, she welcomed the counsel. But when he said, “It should be replaced with PVC, it will last longer and needs less upkeep,” she had to bite her tongue. “It will be easier and cheaper than custom and better for re-sale,” he tried to reason.

He read her disappoint, knew it even beforehand because of her anathema to unnatural things like plastic and nylon carpeting. Tupperware wasn’t allowed in her refrigerator. Or paper plates. “Paper is for wrapping, reading, wiping, and flushing,” she lectured. “Not for eating off of.”

“You won’t even know the difference,” he tried to reassure her about the new fence.

But of course she would. The difference was that it was another thing of her dead husband gone. And then the business of “re-sell.” She wasn’t dead yet.

She went out to see for herself. Examined the rotting posts, the carpenter ants munching away as happily as she and her husband had during all the lunches of its construction and future projects. The peeling paint. But it had a charm and character all its own. A beautiful green moss stained the lower part of each picket. The gate sagged and no longer fastened securely without coaxing. “There is beauty in decay,” she surmised.

The thought stayed with her the entire day. “I’m old and decaying like the fence,” she chuckled to herself. “But I go on.”

Usually it was her husband who said simple but thoughtful things, usually under his breath. She wished now she could remember every single one. Had written them down. So, later that day before bed and just after her tea, she rummaged in the drop-front desk for an old cloth-bound journal printed with pink roses and blue forget-me-nots. She tore out the first few pages containing addresses and phone numbers of people forgotten. Either dead or just gone.

She removed the pen from its case and in her best hand wrote, “There is beauty in decay.” She examined the script and, satisfied, closed the book then the desk front. These would be her secrets. She was discovering that secrets were a part of getting old. One had to be careful. And even give in even when one didn’t want to. If one wanted to remain independent.

She drifted to sleep debating the new fence. Her son-in-law’s words still in her ears: “re-sell.” She was staying put for as long as possible. Preserved by her soon-to-be Tupperware fence. Like a leftover.

She missed the security of her husband next to her. And wondered if birds could perch on a plastic fence rail without sliding off.