The Woman

This was to be the day for the last snow. She could tell it was the end of the dark, long months, because the shape of the snow outside her window had changed. Now came slushy wet drops that were half rain, half snow from the sunny skies. The air smelled blue again after days of grey. The woman felt at once exhilerated and full of dread. With the great thaw came, of course, an expectation of activity she was never prepared to meet. Soon she would have to shovel herself out of her thin driveway, she would need to rake up the rest of the soft wet leaves she had left over winter. There would be a fresh crop of goings-on along her path, with people picking their way through the old snow and new mud.
She wondered, quietly to herself and out loud to her dog, how many repeat customers they would have this year. With any luck, she wouldn't see any of the neighbours' grandchildren, at least not the ones who saw this vast forest as their own playground. They were a young boy and girl, aged about 7 and 9, and they were monsters. The best clothes outfitted their backs, naturally. There was always attached to the plaquet of their brightly coloured coats an expensive looking moniker, and with it a satisfied little sneer. Her dog refused to go outside when they were hovering too closely to the yard, and the woman didn't blame her. Their little bodies always seemed tense with an unnamed anger, as though they were simply biding their time until someone came along for them to spit upon. But there was a boy, a little older than they and always by himself, who the woman found herself watching for almost daily.
She decided his name must be Sam - he seemed like a Sam. He was the first boy in shorts, worn khaki coloured shorts that had stopped fitting him last year. This little Sam was quiet, always. And careful. And happy. He wandered through the forest in his shorts and black rubber boots for hours once the thaw had given way to a blanket of warm moss and cool mud. Often he carried things for exploring, like a small inexpensive shovel, or an empty margarine container or binoculars with the strap broken. Sam always seemed to touch everything he passed. The white, peeling bark of a dying tree, the sap pooling in the armpit of a low branch, moss covered black stones imbedded in the earth. He would keep his fingertips splayed at either side of his little hips so as to experience the textures of the earth. The woman had wondered once whether or not Sam was, perhaps, blind. His tactile nature and careful steps speaking of a different sort of sight. But one rainy afternoon long past the snow, when the earth had turned hot and a little dusty, drinking in the rain with long grateful pulls, he had stopped just at the edge of her yard.
This was something new, she realized. In the long months of spring and short days of summer, when she had changed from her shawl that first day, into a light cardigan and now into an old, faded pink cotton dress, when she had gone through 2 novels and 4 journals, many bottles of wine and pitchers of minted iced tea, he had never come near the border of her yard. This day was a busy one along the path, and Sam had retreated further into the woods - looking to the woman as though he may be on an expedition to catch some grasshoppers. She supposed that he listened with a heightened sense for their gentle leaps and soft legs. He had been at it for hours in the rain - so long, in fact, that she had forgotten he was deep in the forest. Mostly that afternoon, she was writing unkind, funny little notes about the couple who had been fondling each other under the oak just outside her window.
They were astonishingly unattractive, and made more so by the wet slurping and groping in plain view. But, she supposed that it was rather lovely that they had found a mate who accepted their lack of physicality so - ardently. And desperately - she was just hoping that they stayed clothed - for the first time she wasn't even concerned if they saw her, so long as they stopped. When their strange passion finally ebbed under the tall oak, the drank from their bottles of Diet Sprite, finished the last of the Rice Krispie Squares the man had hidden in his jacket pocket, littered the garbage about them and left. The woman felt a stab of irritation, directed as much at their arrogance as their wet, dirty bottoms swinging away in perfect unison. Once the rain has stopped, she decided, I'll tidy it.
Her little Sam came back then, happily skidding down the forest wall to where the couple had been. He scooped up the trash from under the brush, tidied the twigs they had scattered about in their strange lovemaking, lifted his head to her window and waved. With a wide smile splitting his crooked mouth. He sees, she thought, tears unaccountably welling in her eyes as she watched him bound off to his unknown home. He sees me - he sees everything.
She thought alot about Sam before retiring that evening. She thought about his little shovel, and his margarine tub and his binoculars. She thought about his once white face growing steadily rosier with each sunburn, she thought about his bare head. She wondered what his small scalp would feel like if she were to pat his head. She wondered if he would like to play with her dog. Mostly, she wondered if he would return tomorrow.
And when he did, he found under the same tree, in the early morning silent sunshine, a box marked 'Sam, with thanks'. In it were brand new binoculars, a bucket hat with little pockets for his tools, some sunscreen and a heavy duty shovel.
John thought to himself; 'Whoever Sam is, he's one lucky buggar.'