All night long I kept waking up to the sound of a roaring engine and the beep beep that construction vehicles make when they are in reverse. It permeated my dreams. It echoed off the hills. It yanked me headlong out of sleep and threw me into the wilted pillows time and again. It was my husband, Randy, on some obsessed mission to rearrange the topography of our yard.
We lived in the foothills above Boulder, Colorado where the land was left to its own whims, cactus and yucca, partly submerged rocks and Ponderosa pines. It was sparsely populated but there were a handful of neighbors who lived close enough to hear the racket. The thing about living in the mountains was that the residents tended to be quirky and we collectively tolerated weird projects, loud chainsaws, disassembled cars and wayward horses. We had all chosen to reject the rules of homeowner’s associations that dictated city life in the lower elevations. It would take a lot before anyone would complain but I suspected this might cross the line.
I got out of bed and walked barefoot to the bathroom which had a small window to the front yard, normally submerged in darkness at this hour. I drew back the curtain to an otherworldly scene. A miniature bulldozer crawled along the uneven ground, one headlight bobbing like a burglar’s flashlight. Randy was at the helm working the scoop with determination, unfazed by the metallic scraping against rocks and dirt. He seemed as untouchable as if he had been driving a rover on the moon, lost in his own world, oblivious to his impact on others. I’d witnessed his hyperfocus before but this time was more extreme. It wasn’t clear to me what the goal was and I felt powerless to put on the brakes.
I tiptoed down the hall to check on the children who were six years old and could be counted on to sleep soundly. A nightlight cast a warm glow over carpet and curtains. Rowan softly snored in his twin bed, one leg poking out of a twisted blanket, a teddy bear sharing his pillow. Of course the kids were asleep. As infants in the same crib they had learned to snooze through the crescendo of one another’s cries. Chloe was tucked into the bed alcove, which Randy had built in the eaves where the slanted ceiling met the floor. It was the perfect cozy cave where I had sat crosslegged and breastfed our twins over an entire year of sleep-deprived nights. To his credit, Randy had joined me for every night feeding, changing diapers and sometimes giving one baby a bottle. During the early days of parenthood I was glad for his company. We were so tired and punchy in those wee hours, we laughed over ridiculous things. Chloe gobbled her milk so quickly, one night Randy said in a southern drawl, little lady, you better slow down or I’m going to give you a feeding ticket.
Randy had come home one Friday with the mini bulldozer in his pickup truck. It was about the size of a horse.
“Hey look what Daddy has!” Rowan rushed to the front door and down the path to the driveway. Chloe and I followed him outside into the bright summer morning. Randy was opening the tailgate, his arms flexing as he unloaded two metal ramps. He wiped his hands on his jeans.
“What is that?” I asked surprised.
“It’s a Bobcat,” he told me. “I rented it to do some landscaping.”
“What kind of landscaping?”
“Trust me, I’ve got it all worked out. I want to fix the yard and move some rocks. You’ll see,” he answered without answering.
“How about if you discuss it with me first?” I said, feeling skeptical.
He brushed past me, scooped Rowan up and set him in the truck bed. “Hey buddy, want to help me drive this thing?”
“Yeah!” Rowan replied.
My throat tightened. Randy was dismissing me and using our son’s enthusiasm as a buffer. Chloe reached for my hand. I didn’t want to make a scene in front of the kids so I talked myself out of feeling upset. He already paid to rent the Bobcat, said a voice in my head. I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.
He backed it down two ramps and onto our dirt driveway. Rowan’s eyes were wide as he leaped from one foot to the other. Before long he was on his father’s lap driving the tiny construction vehicle like an amusement park ride. Randy’s sturdy hand cupped Rowan’s smooth little hand on the gearshift. They both wore huge grins. One mouth full of baby teeth and gaps, the other forming dimples in unshaven cheeks. They had matching brown eyes like roasted almonds, like soil.
“I want a turn,” my daughter Chloe squealed, her curly pig tails sprouting asymmetrically. I squeezed her hand and let myself absorb her zeal, while relegating my doubts to a neglected corner in my mind.
For the next several days and nights Randy labored in his little green vehicle like a giant in a child’s toy. Surprisingly, it was able to topple trees and remove boulders from the embrace of the earth. In the dark of night, the beeping and grinding gears bore into my brain. Relentless, ceaseless. Night after night. Half asleep I reached to his side of the bed where the folds of the fitted sheet had torn loose from its moorings. I wondered when he had last slept.
On the third morning I woke reluctantly and stumbled into the kids’ room to prepare them for school. The machine was still stubbornly humming and screeching outside. It stopped when we came out the door, lunch boxes in hand. Randy bounded out of the driver’s seat and greeted us enthusiastically. His dark hair was at all angles like the tufts of a great horned owl. The kids went to greet him. Chloe hugged his leg while Rowan hooked his fingers into Randy’s belt loop.
“Check it out!” he said waving his arm in a proud semi-circle. The familiar terrain of our front yard was full of gaping holes where boulders had once lived. They had been extracted like the teeth of the earth and piled in an odd line bordering the edge of the road. It smelled of damp soil. I walked into the mess hoping to find something that made sense. The saplings that we had placed in the ground were lying on their sides, their roots torn and exposed. My mother’s iris bulbs were among the casualties in the churned-up dirt. The small round mosaics our children made out of plaster were flattened on the ground and cracked into several pieces. This shattered artwork felt like the biggest violation of all. I was horrified, but I was desperately trying to convince myself otherwise. Surely Randy had a plan and I was just failing to see it. Admitting that my husband had lost his mind would cast doubt on our entire foundation, our family, our home. Somehow it was easier to doubt myself.
“Can you explain the plan to me again?” I suggested hesitantly. “I’m having trouble visualizing what it’s going to be.”
“It already is!” Randy yelled. “It’s a work of art! It’s a work of art! See?”
“I don’t see it,” I replied. “I see a pile of rocks, the grass is all torn up. I don’t understand.”
“It’s a work of art!” he insisted.
I had waited all weekend for something to materialize, hoping that the destruction would add up to a beautiful finished product. Hoping that my husband would prove to be in his right mind after all and our life together wasn’t on the verge of crumbling.