I want to preface this story by saying that I love my mother.
“There is a hole in the yard,” my mother says. We are unpacking the U-Haul at our new place. John’s parents and mine are spending their Sunday helping us bring in boxes and our moms take turns watching the baby.
“Watch out for that hole,” she tells us, pointing. “Be careful.”
After a quick search in the garage, she finds a knee-high recycling bucket. The bucket is bright blue and taller than the hole, so she fits it in there as a warning. She lets everyone know about the bucket marking the hole.
No one steps in the hole. Because of the bucket, we are saved. We eat dinner, and have a beer. Impaired by alcohol though we are, no one steps in the hole. No one goes near it. We know it is there.
When they leave I put the bucket back in the garage because it looks trashy out in the yard. Regardless we manage to not step in the hole.
Monday afternoon she phones to ask how things are going. She wants to know if I have filled in the hole yet. I confess: between unpacking and taking care of our infant daughter and nervous dog, I have not yet taken care of the hole.
But my mother is passionate about taking care of things. She is also recently retired and has been the designated carer for our family’s elderly members, used to managing a diverse team of auto sculptors, engineers, and my shrinking pool of grandparents.
“We forgot the shovel in Manistee,” I explain.
On Tuesday, she wants to know. She needs to know. “Have you taken care of that hole yet?”
“No.”
“Well it’s not going to be a very fun for someone who has to spend all summer in a cast.”
When she comes out Wednesday to visit and watch the baby while I run errands, she shakes her head at the hole.
“You really should take care of that.”
“I know.”
When I return from the hardware store, I wonder if the blue bucket will have found its way back to the hole, but the hole is empty. I manage to avoid it while marveling at my mother’s restraint.
The next morning she calls me to tell me that she had a nice time with the baby. She is very pleased with how easy it is to burp her now. She also mentions that she had a nightmare in which someone stepped into the hole and broke their leg. An interesting side-note is that my mother has TV dreams. In her sleep, she is cracking the case with Jethro in the NCIS offices, or hanging with the nerds on Big Bang Theory. But I do not believe her about the dream about the hole. She may have had a scary fantasy, while she was awake. But I do not believe that she fell asleep and actually dreamt of this unnamed person falling into the hole.
“Mom, no one is going to break their leg in the hole. But I will get some dirt to fill it up. Please don’t worry about the hole.”
By telling her to not worry about it, I actually mean for her to stop talking about it. Instead she challenges my methods.
“Oh, don’t buy dirt,” she says. “I wouldn’t buy dirt. Just go dig some up in the back.”
Our yard is flat. If I was to dig dirt from the back, it would just create another hole back there, one we’d be more liable to forget and actually injure ourselves.
I stay quiet, she fills the silence by reminding me of the theoretical person sweating out a miserable summer in a cast because they stepped into the hole.
When John comes home from his new job, he has lots of interesting stories. He is a courts and crimes reporter in a complex county. I’d bore even myself by detailing my day, the flattening of boxes, the diaper changes and dog treats. But I do tell him my mother’s concerns about the hole, and I succeed in making him laugh.
On Saturday, our first weekend in the new place, John is home all day so he watches the baby while I go for groceries.
“Better get a shovel to take care of that hole,” I say on my way out.
“No one wants to spend the summer in a cast,” he agrees.
Amongst seed packets and that loam-versus-plastic smell of bagged soil, I select a shovel. It is the next-to-cheapest one. It does not have a plastic handle and it is not painted red. It’s Shovel: Classic, like Bugs Bunny uses. A wooden stick with it’s big metal tooth. As I push my shopping cart through the baby section and groceries, I nearly impale myself and others on the protruding handle as I think about all the things in my life that are more important to me than filling the hole.
I actually call my mother on the drive home to tell her that I have bought a shovel to fill in the hole. She isn’t quite pleased, but this is a step in the right direction. She has been worrying about the hole. She is also worried that I paid for dirt, but I haven’t. When I get home, I put the shovel in the garage.
The hole remains.
On Sunday I stay off the phone and on Monday talk about the hole is minimal. I believe John use the shovel once, to pick up after the dog.
Tuesday, I have a full dance card. My best friend and her own baby are coming for a visit. The cable man is coming to hook up the internet. John and I have traded vehicles for the day because triple-A is sending someone to replace his windshield. Everyone is scheduled for vague times, “late morning,” “between four and six,” and, damn you, Comcast, “during the day.” Plus I am still trying to unpack and clean while keeping the baby and dog unmiserable.
That morning I manage to slurp coffee, take a shower and dress the baby. I do take a minute to plant the shovel in the hole so the handle sticks up warningly.
When Jen arrives, I come outside to hold the dog by his collar as she unhooks her babe’s car seat and I point out the hole.
“Watch out for the hole.”
The lunging hound-mix squeezed between my knees, I explain.
“My mother claims to have been having nightmares about someone falling into the hole, and it would kill me if she was right, so don’t go near it.”
I sputter about the hole, and my mother worrying about it from an hour away. I am talking about her as my phone rings. Mom’s Mobile, it says.
I pick it up: “Yes?”
She is taken aback.
“I know you’re busy…” my mom says.
“Is this about the hole?”
I am rude. Jen laughs.
“Well, yeah.”
Me: !
“Uncle Pat was over on Sunday and I told him about the hole. He’s going out that way today to mow Kathleen’s lawn while she’s in Europe. He said he’d stop by and take care of the hole.”
“You asked Uncle Pat to come here to fill in my hole.”
“No!” She sounds defensive. “I just mentioned the hole on Sunday. He called today to said he’d take care of it. You know he’s retired now, and he’s already in the area at Kathleen’s.”
Is she aware that she has gone too far?
“He’ll be stopping over with some dirt…”
I’m curt: “Okay, bye.”
To Jen and the babies, I say “she can’t stay out of my fucking hole.”
Then I apologize to the babies, neither of whom understands swears yet. Jen and I have the place and the babies and all sorts of gossip and ideas to cover, so by the time Uncle Pat shows up we are no longer talking about the hole.
Pat pulls up in a red pickup and he and another guy get out. They are scouting the yard while I restrain the dog. Jen tries to comfort my upset baby inside. They are unable to locate the treacherous canyon my mother has described.
“Is this it?” Uncle Pat asks.
“That’s it.”
They look disappointed. The truck is full of dirt, I think. The baby is screaming now, really wailing, and the dog barks almost non-stop. They make conversation nearly impossible, but the men make quick work of the hole. In a minute or two it is filled. Uncle Pat’s friend contributes by stepping on the filled hole to tamp it down, then Pat scoops another heap of dirt on and the friends stands on it again. It is only three or four, but I think I should invite them in for a beer. Uncle Pat, a petless bachelor, quickly makes an excuse about needing to get over to Kathleen’s to mow. The baby cry-dog bark combo sends them running. He yells a joke about how long it must take takes to mow the new, very long yard as they take off.
I eye the former hole as I pull the dog inside. It is flat now. I shake my head at it. In ten minutes, things quiet down. I text John: Mom sent Uncle Pat to fill in the hole. “O m g,” he texts back, long spaces between the letters. In my mind I can hear him saying it, slowly, drawing it out so much longer than it would take to actually say “oh my god.”
That night after everyone has gone home John and I stand in the yard and look at the hole. The baby is inside in her crib. The dog is out with us, likely remembering the good old pre-baby days when it was just the three of us. John and I each have a glass of wine. He’s exhausted, too.
“Thank God that hole is filled in.”
“Someone could have broken their leg.”
“Or worse.”
Then, with genius timing, the dog launches between us for the new dirt, and digs madly. He is an instant canine comedy legend. We let him go for a minute before pulling him away and kicking the dirt back in place.
It has been nearly a whole day now that the hole has been filled, and my mother and I have not talked. What would we talk about? She is probably exhausted from her efforts at willing the hole filled. I know I am exhausted. Now that I am a mother, will I become the sort of woman who believes it is her worries that hold the world together? I hope she slept soundly last night, nightmare-free, now that the treacherous, horrible hole is no more.
Meredith Grahl lives, writes, teaches and edits in Michigan with her husband, daughter and dog. She has an MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago and her essays, fiction, reviews and comics have appeared in The Journal of Need and Want, the Manistee News Advocate, Bust magazine, Hair Trigger, Punk Planet, No Touching, Laying Down with Full Stomachs, and Ante:thesis. Counts’ yard is hole-free and she is not interested in Freudian interpretations of this essay.