ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE YARD by Mary Jones

Early one September morning, the summer my husband and I moved from New York to Los Angeles, we saw a couple we almost knew lose their son at a park about a mile from our house. We saw him climb a high tree. We saw him fall to the ground. We saw everyone circle around.
When we got over there a woman was performing CPR. Someone else had called for an ambulance.
“Keep trying,” said the mother, whose name we remembered was Brittany. She was lying on the ground next to the boy. She was not crying. We understood this meant she was in shock.
Her husband stood back, watching. He was the one who had been standing under the tree smiling up at the boy when he fell.
My husband and I were there with our two-year-old daughter. All morning he had been annoyed with me. There was a baby squirrel running around the park making a screaming sound. It ran up one man’s leg then back down again.
“It needs help,” I said. “It’s going to hurt someone. A kid.”
The older kids were chasing it around, laughing each time it screamed.
“This is too stressful,” my husband said. “Can’t you just relax,” he said. “It’ll run away,” he said, spotting our daughter as she climbed up the slide. “It’s just a squirrel. Leave it alone.”
I tried to relax but the screaming.
“I’m going to call someone,” I said after a while. My husband rolled his eyes. It was true, I did lean a bit too heavily on the police. I called for suspicious cars parked on our street, noises in the night, neighbors having heated disputes in the middle of the afternoon.
They put me through to the Department of Animal Services who said there was nothing they could do for an uninjured wild animal.
I went back to my husband who received this news as smugly as I thought he would. He’d been pushing our daughter on the swing for thirty minutes. If you’ve ever done it, then you know: There is nothing in the world more boring than pushing a child on a swing for thirty minutes. I was thankful that it was the weekend, that it was my husband’s arms, not mine, doing the pushing.
“Don’t look now,” my husband said, prompting me to immediately turn my head and look.
He went on with a sigh. “Isn’t that the family who came to our house?” he said. “For the table?”
I looked again, this time as if to take in the park: the large weeping willow trees; a mother yelling at her kid on the play structure; a baby getting his diaper changed in the grassy area; and oh, thank God, someone else cared – a young father luring the baby squirrel out of a tree with some nuts and a bucket. Then, yes, there was the family who came to our house a month before. Their son was fast on the stairs. At the top of the slide he held the bar and swung.
We were selling an old dining room table that we’d brought with us from New York. Turned legs, pine. It had belonged to my first husband’s grandmother. After he died I held onto it out of loyalty, but now I’d read a book on letting things go. “Hold it in your hands,” the book had said of everything. “Ask yourself: Does it bring you joy?” It was an easy enough question, but a hard thing to know. What in your life really brought you joy? The woman responded to the ad we posted on Craigslist within minutes. My husband arranged a time for them to come, and on Saturday morning promptly at nine o’clock they pulled up in front of our house in an old pick‑up truck.
The woman was about twenty-five with wild hair. She got out of the truck then released a young boy, who had the same wild hair, from the back.
I was reluctant about letting people into our home. I’d read the statistics on burglaries, how most of the time it was someone you knew: a maid, a gardener, a plumber. But in the emails the woman was polite. She signed off “take good care” which felt somehow like the voice of an old friend.
Behind her, a young man dragged his feet as he walked. He wore big sneakers, baggy jeans. His dark hair was covered by a baseball cap which he had tipped sideways. The hat read – was it? Yes – What up bitches?
“Come on in,” I said, smiling. The woman looked back at the young man. Her face was pretty. Green eyes, freckles. “This is Jack,” she said, “I’m Brittany.” She scooped up her son and walked into the house.
My husband came from over on the other side of the room. “It’s just back here,” he said, “in the yard. We have it outside but it’s covered. There hasn’t been rain in a while, so.”
Brittany walked with my husband. Jack and I followed behind. Our daughter showed him her wooden puppy. When she pulled the string to walk it, its ears flapped and its tail wagged. “Puppy,” she said to Jack.
He got down to her level and smiled. “Is this your puppy?” he said. “Is this your little doggy?” He took the string and pulled the dog along. My daughter was delighted. She buried her face in my leg and laughed.
“You look familiar,” I heard Brittany say to my husband. This happened a lot since he was on Lost. Most people recognized him but no one could ever quite place him. He was always cast as the weirdo in everything he did. The mad scientist. The mental patient. Or, for an indie he was filming now, he played the teacher who was suspected of taking the kid. For this role he had to grow his hair long. On weekends he wore it in a low ponytail.
“You do too,” I heard my husband say. Then, “Here she is. A beauty,” he said. “Solid pine.” It was silent for a moment. Then, “Belonged to my grandmother,” he added.
I caught his eye, surprised to hear this false history.
The three of them walked around the table, sliding their fingers over the top.
“Look at those turned legs,” my husband said. “They don’t make them like this anymore.”
Brittany bent and looked at the underside of the table. “We’ve been looking for one like this,” she said. She examined the joinery, the screws. She gave it a shake, then ran her hand over the surface again. “A little rough,” she said.
“Rustic,” my husband said.
She looked at Jack, “What do you think, babe,” she said.
“Up to you,” Jack said, taking in the yard. He looked at my husband and said, “I don’t get involved.”
My husband smiled. “I hear you, buddy,” he said.
After a minute Brittany said to Jack, “It’ll be your table, too.” She went to him and pulled him by the arm. “Come on,” she said. “Sit down. Let’s see if it fits.”
My husband rested his hand on my back. “Let us get out of your way,” he said to Brittany. “Take as long as you want.”

       He was the only man who’d come anywhere near me after September 11th. He was not afraid of it, my pain. What I didn’t know before was that people avoid people who have been through a trauma as if it’s contagious. It was not contagious. If you talked to me, your husband was not going to be blown to pieces in a falling tower. For a while there was a certain comfort in the collective grieving of the entire world. But then the entire world moved on.

Through the window in the kitchen we could see them at the table.
Jack sat down at one end. Brittany at the other. Their son had found the trampoline and was jumping over on the other side of the yard.
We watched them. Brittany smiled at Jack, blushing. It seemed they were brand new to each other, like she was still nervous around him, still trying to win him in some essential way he’d not yet been won. She tapped her long nails on the tabletop, laughed each time he spoke. Their lips were moving. We couldn’t make out what they were saying, but anyone could see that it was flirtation.
I looked at my husband. He looked at me. We both looked away.
A few minutes later they were all inside again. “We love it,” Brittany said. “Would you take six hundred?”
I felt something inside of me shift, a coolness spill into my jaw. “Oh,” I said. “I don’t know,” I said. “We mentioned in the ad that the price was firm.”
It was quiet for a moment. No one said anything. Then I added, “A thousand dollars is fair for this table. If anything, it’s low,” I said.
“We don’t have a thousand,” Jack said. “But we have six hundred in cash right here,” he said, flashing money from his wallet. He looked at my husband and lifted his eyebrows. “If you can help me get it into my truck,” he said, “we can take it off your hands right now.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “This belonged to my husband’s grandmother,” I said.
My husband lowered his eyes. I saw a terrible sadness fall over Brittany’s face. She moved closer to Jack. “That’s ok,” she said in a soft voice. “We understand,” she said. She scooped up her son and they made their way through the house to the front door.
My husband sat on the couch and stared at the television. I sat beside him without saying anything. “You could have just given it to them,” he said finally. “It’s four hundred dollars,” he said. “Who cares.”
“People think they can take whatever they want,” I said. “You can’t just give it to them.”

       Now, a month later, we stood near the tree with everyone else watching. My husband took our daughter for a walk to get her away from what was happening. By the time the ambulance arrived, the boy’s curly hair was covered in blood. He had not moved. The EMTs tried to resuscitate him for a time, then gave up. When they stopped, Brittany’s face turned red, purple. She ran to Jack and started slapping at him. She screamed. She punched at his chest with the balls of her hands. She dug her long nails into his cheeks and scratched down. “What did you do?” she screamed. “What did you do?” Jack stood still and let her beat him. After a moment, an EMT pulled her away, covered her shoulders with a blanket, sat her down in the shade of a willow tree. As this was happening two other men moved the boy onto a stretcher.
Brittany did not move. She sat there, still. Her eyes were closed, her body rocking. I wondered if she was meditating, saying a prayer. I knew that a part of her was escaping, forever leaving this broken place.
I went to her, touched her shoulder. She looked up at me, her green eyes scanning, confused, frightened. “I know you,” I said.

---

Mary Jones’s stories and essays have appeared in EPOCH, Southwest Review, Columbia Journal, Epiphany, and The Chattahoochee Review.