Wild Renewal

She knows I don’t want to die alone so she will come and that’s the long and short of it. Maura thinks about Jane before she's fully awake. She pulls on the baggy jeans strewn across the chair next to the bureau, laces her arms into a blue flannel shirt and heads to the kitchen to make tea. The sun’s just up. She peers out the window into the yard to see if Betta and Troop, her mama goat and kid, are stirring.

Maura doesn’t need to be thinking about dying, because she’s perfectly healthy. In her early sixties, she lives a simple outdoorsy life in the country along the shores of Lake Erie. There’s always a fence to mend around the goat yard or branches to trim after a storm. She milks Betta daily and raises Troop until he’s ready to sell. She gardens the beds around the house with wildflowers and grasses local to the region, with the exception of her favourite annual, geraniums. These splash the green landscape around her home with vivid red all summer long. And she draws. 

Other than Len’s regular visits to pick up goat milk and deliver fresh eggs and veggies, Maura keeps to herself. It's not lonely. Maura prefers the bleating of her goats and the whisper of the breeze coming off the Great Lake, to the sound of small talk.  

She spends most mornings drawing stylized portrayals of the Carolinian plant life where she lives. She uses watercolours and pencil crayons, as they are called in Canada, like ones that she and Jane had as kids growing up in this house. A couple years ago, she proffered stacks of drawing paper from the city; nothing fancy – medium grain cotton, nine by twelve pads mostly. No one has seen Maura’s drawings other than Len, who shows sincere interest in her botanical interpretations, and Jane, who calls it her hobby. Maura rarely looks at them once they’re done to her satisfaction. She detaches them from the drawing pad and piles them on a shelf in the spare bedroom closet, the room that she and Jane shared as kids, that only Jane has used since. Jane never comes anymore. Never say never, thinks Maura. Jane will come – she knows I don’t want to die alone. That thought again. She shakes her head, purses her lips and flutters her eyelids, like a bird testing its wings after a rain shower. 

Maura fantasizes about Jane finding out that Maura has died. But her daydream always ends as soon as Jane hears the news. She has no intention of dying by her own hand. Of course Jane would be saddened to hear that Maura had died – she just can’t see Jane’s face upon getting word of it. 

It wasn’t a falling out – more a slow and steady falling apart for the past thirty – or is it fifty – years, creating a distance so familiar it hardly bears questioning. But Maura constantly questions it. Together, they witnessed their parents’ spats, murmurs, and silences both comfortable and chilling, and the aftermath of their untimely death. Like tiny scars on a hand, these things have wormed their way into the fabric of Maura’s thoughts, feelings, and moods and settled into her character. While she is strong-willed, some might say stubborn, there’s a bleakness surrounding Maura, like a shield hiding an earnest heart.  

Jane, just a year older, moved to the city at nineteen, and never seems to long for Maura’s company. Maura can’t figure it. Maybe the insolvability of their loose bond is the muse for her drawing. Jane’s not mean; she’s just not. Not related. The unrelated relative, the separate sister, the foreign family. Stop trying to use similes – oops, that’s alliteration - and stick to your drawing, Maura rues.

She places a burlap satchel crosswise over her shoulder and heads out the back door, tucking a folding stool under her arm. Today she walks east toward the concession road, to draw the Lady Slippers growing in the ditch. It’s a glorious day in mid-June. The cloudless sky frames the tall grasses and oak, maple and walnut trees that sway lazily in the cool morning breeze. June is Maura’s favourite month. The foliage is filling out, still tender to the eye and touch. 

Before she sets up her stool, Maura sees a beer can in the ditch, and then another. She wades through the tall grass to pick them up and sees three more cans in shades of blue and black nearby. She stands on the sharp angle of the bank to retrieve the five cans, taking care to protect the delicate Lady Slippers towering around them. She tosses the cans over her head, one by one, to the yard above. They are all the same brand. One drinker? This is a first. Her home on this concession road is remote and leads almost nowhere. Few vehicles pass, other than farm machines and older neighbours as likely to toss beer cans out their window as she is. Maura is simultaneously curious and repulsed. 

Years ago, she remembers, someone dumped an old fridge in their ditch. Her mother was furious. Her dad had spotted the truck and knew who it was – Hank Ketter from two concessions over, living in a low-slung clap-board house, his lawn strewn with doorless cars, rusted bikes and sections of bent-up sheet piling, always a bunch of children about. The next day, Maura’s dad drove over to the Ketter’s with the fridge and dumped it right in front of the shed, just as Hank emerged from it and watched. Neither of them uttered a word that day or any day since. 

Maura climbs out of the ditch, placing the beer cans in a neat pile, and sets up her stool, her back to the sun, the Lady Slippers standing proud in the morning light. She removes her flannel shirt and rolls up the sleeves of her tee shirt. Her eyes narrow, as she decides how she will colour the reddish-pink orchids. Not a problem for Maura – she’s gifted and her illustrations are inventive. 

By mid-morning, the sun is high and Betta needs milking. Maura packs up her kit, wraps the five wet beer cans in her flannel shirt and heads to the house. She hasn’t thought of Jane for most of the morning. The beer cans are the culprit. Her lips form a thin smile as she transfers them to her metals bin. 

Typically, Maura doesn’t give her drawings another glance until the next day, but that evening, she opens her drawing pad to today’s work. My Ladies. Her work is a combination of realism and abstraction: wild orchids with a jester-like whimsy to them, neither sinister nor innocent but a bit of both, giving the Ladies a personality, some mystery. She gets a thought and bookmarks it for tomorrow. Would Jane like it? Oh stop, she dismisses the thought of Jane and turns back to the orchids, and then towards the window where the moon is rising in the night sky, shining silver on the leaves of the big old maple tree. She hears a vehicle pass on the east road.   

The next morning brings another sunny day. Maura stands tall and moves with an unusual purpose. She can barely wait to draw this morning. In a rare moment of self-awareness, she raises her eyebrows and inclines her head with a quick nod of self-approval. After her tea, she sets out to follow through on her idea from last night. She’s carrying one of the beer cans.

But she needn’t have. The sunlight has caught the bare metal through the grassy growth in the ditch. It’s the same brand of beer. Tall boys. She sees three cans strewn along the ditch bottom. Who is throwing beer trash into my ditch? Maura looks about for other signs of a presence, other litter. She remembers the vehicle she heard last night. Must have been him. Her. Them. She looks up as though she’ll find an answer in the clear blue sky. Not everything has an explanation. Look at Jane, and then catches herself before her shoulders drop and the cycle of rumination about Jane sets in. She heads down into the ditch, carefully retrieving the three beer cans. Two of them sit feather-light in the stiff grass, one is weighted down with warm flat beer, which she pours into the ditch, shaking the dregs that glisten in the morning sunlight. 

Seated on her stool, her drawing pad open to a fresh page, she focuses on the scene before her. Maura is in the zone now, carried away by her own river of imagination, rapture replacing her gloom. Hours pass until she’s satisfied. Time for Betta and Troop. 

That evening, she looks over her drawing. The Lady Slipper gapes voluptuously in sharp focus, the reddish-pink slipper delicately suspended beneath the three upper petals while a misshapen beer can appears to grow alongside the shaft below the flower, in the background. On a whim, she telephones Jane and it rings to voicemail. She wouldn’t admonish Jane for not reaching out, for not coming; she wouldn’t pressure her. She just wants to share this recent shift – finding the beer cans, the drawing idea, the sense she’s doing something bigger than herself. Jane is that person. You’re my person Jane. 

For the rest of the week, and for the following weeks, Maura continues with these themed drawings evoking feelings of loss and hope, vulnerability and sorrow. Her three best drawings lay out on the far end of the large kitchen table, but each day the trio changes, trading one for the most recent which always seems to be better. The rest sit in a growing pile in the closet. Every couple of days, she spots and retrieves beer cans from that ditch. Who is this guy? An alcoholic taking the long way home, hiding his consumption from his family. Or young lads out for summer cruises, careless and thoughtless. Backwoods. Maura lets out a loud sigh. Her metals bin is dominated by the empty tall boys and it makes her cranky. 

Len comes by with eggs one morning, and, not finding Maura, steps into the kitchen. Maura? he calls. He looks around, can tell the house is empty, and walks to the three drawings on the table. He studies them, taking in a breath between his teeth and letting it out slowly. Well now. He peers out the window, scanning the yard for Maura, just as she’s walking toward the house with her kit in hand. 

Len is just a few years younger than Maura. He came here almost ten years ago, a retired lawyer from the city, and before that, the Reserve a few miles away. Although mixed-race, his uniform is indistinguishable from that of any local white settler - worn jeans, soiled work boots with fraying laces, flannel shirts and the assorted faded hats he wears over the salt and pepper strands of hair that curl behind his ears. Len inherited the old Beemer farm from his mother’s side. He raises chickens for eggs and grows organic vegetables that he sells in town at the local market, along with Maura’s goat milk. 

What are you doing here so early? I’m just about to milk Betta. I like your drawings, Maura. Oh, those. May I take a picture of them? Suit yourself. They exchange these words, and, after Len takes pictures, head out to the goat yard. Len carries the two buckets of fresh goat milk into the kitchen where the glass bottles await filling. What’s with the beer cans Maura? You drinkin’ alone or inviting me to join ya? Len smiles and winks. Maura scrutinizes him and chooses the factual path over the innuendo. You finding beer cans in your ditch, Len? They talk about litter and drinking and who might be doing it. The Ketter boy, do you think? Len leaves with six bottles of milk and Maura adds today’s drawing to the trio on the table, removing an earlier one. Today’s was really good.  

Len comes back a couple of days later. Maura, I don’t know if you’re gonna hate me or thank me. He’s taken his hat off, holding it close to his chest, his eyes shy. Maura stares, waiting. I posted the pics of your drawings on social, said it was by a local artist - I didn’t name you. Someone called Edith Rose is interested in you. From the city. Well now. She wants to come see your work. Is that all? Any eggs? Len’s smile is broad and his laugh is loud. They head to the goat yard together.

The day that Edith Rose comes is hot. It’s late-July and stifling. Cicadas are buzzing, and an occasional breeze off the lake gathers heat on its short journey through the humid haze laying across Maura’s land. Edith drives into the laneway with Len and gets out of the car. She’s tall, wearing a long khaki-green summer dress, large round sunglasses and flat sandals, carrying a straw hand-bag over her shoulder. Maura can see her bright orange fingernails from the porch. Edith pans the landscape before her eyes land on Maura. Hi, I’m Edith, very nice to meet you. Beautiful place. 

Maura comes to understand that Edith works in the arts, and is mounting a project, called ‘Wasted Hearts’ about people and waste, featuring the usual global plastics disaster, algae blooms in our waters, and visual stories of littering, which is where Maura’s drawings figure into the conversation. Edith puts into words what Maura’s work says: discarded beer can in nature in a grotesque and beautiful depiction that catches the viewer’s imagination in a vise-grip of opposites - repulsion and attraction, shame and contentment. Edith has a team of writers and artists working on the show. Maura’s work will illustrate one writer’s words about the human emptiness that is revealed in roadside empties.

Len is beside himself, enthused about the project and Maura’s role in it. Edith leaves with thirty drawings. Len offers to drive Maura to the city. We can meet Jane at the show. What will Jane think? Each day, the longing to see Jane show up at the farm loses some of its painful strength, and the summer passes without a sign from her. The certainty of seeing her at the upcoming show in late September, of brushing shoulders with her, of exchanging a look, a smile, a hug and words, lessens. Jane’s realness wanes and the shield around Maura’s heart softens. Maura is letting Jane go. The cycle of needing to see Jane more than Jane needs to see Maura is unravelling as the season changes. 

Len and Maura set off to attend the grand opening. Len stays close to Maura throughout the event. Edith introduces shy Maura to writers and artists who address Maura with admiration. Jane doesn’t show up that day, but calls Maura ten or so days later. You’re famous. I like your pictures. We’ll get together soon. I’ll come down, sure. 

That fall, Len helps Maura get the barn set for the goats to move inside for the winter. Maura brings the withering geraniums into the house for over-wintering. Yellow, red and orange leaves blanket the yard. Maura still draws, just as beer cans occasionally still show up in her ditch. Externally, Maura’s life is not much different from a year ago. But she feels different inside. Sure, Jane’s detachment leaves an emptiness in her heart, but it’s livable and no longer makes her low with dark thoughts. Maura and Edith talk by phone twice or so a month about art - what it makes you feel and think of. These conversations give Maura a curious dual feeling of hominess and luxury, like a warm hearth and a day at the spa. Edith is inspired too. I’m thinking of a new show for the spring. Something like: Wild Renewal. Shall we do it? Len says not that I’d ever tell you what to do, Maura, and they laugh.