Sylvia, The Middle of the Story By Merz, mrmerz@yahoo.com Sylvia's trees have made her too strong for her husband Sylvia Ragland went to the three day class on woodlot management. She stayed only two days. She brought her 12 year old daughter, Petra, because the girl often helped manage the trees and the property. Sylvia thought the child would enjoy talking with grownups about ways to keep their trees healthy. Halfway through the second day Sylvia realized she knew as many facts about trees in general as the experts and knew things in her flesh and heart about her own trees that the experts could never guess. She and Petra checked out of their motel early for the drive home. She parked the pickup next to her husband's Volvo that shouldn't be at home for hours yet. He worked far off in the city, over an hour's drive away, selling insurance and real estate, managing an office filled with others who sold insurance and real estate in his name. Petra opened the gate in the stone fence around their back yard. It swung smoothly. Petra had done much of the work to repair and maintain the 200 year old stone fence and other stone fences on the land. Their land pushed upward to the surface an endless flow of granite stones. From her sixth year on Petra had found delight in stacking stone on stone. Recently she had studied the construction of the walls and foundations and outbuildings on the land, teaching herself to build with stone in the manner that generations of her father's family had built. When they came to the wood pile and chopping block near the back door they looked at the results of Lawrence Ragland's clumsy efforts to split kindling and stove wood. He had been born in this house, but was of the city now. An axe was awkward in his hands. When they reached the back door mother and daughter exchanged silent questioning looks. Sylvia and Petra entered the house, took off their clogs and hung their coats on hooks in the hallway. Sylvia saw no sign of her 16 year old son, Parker. They left their bags in the living room and climbed the stairs, still without speaking. At the top of the stairs Sylvia told Petra to go to her room, then walked to the end of the hallway to her own bedroom. Opening the door and stepping in, Sylvia saw, as she knew she must, Lawrence in bed with his secretary, a blonde woman not much older than Sylvia had been when Lawrence first brought her here to live. The young woman saw Sylvia and gave a startled gasp, clutching the bedclothes around her. Looking impassively from her husband to the woman, Sylvia said quietly, "Get out of my bed. Get out of my life." The young woman assumed the words were directed at her, but Sylvia spoke to them both. Lawrence recovered and clothed himself in self righteousness, the only covering available to him. "I'm sorry you had to see this, Sylvia. I didn't want to hurt you this way, but I'm a man of feeling and passion. We've grown apart. Maybe it isn't all your fault and maybe this isn't fair to you, but seeing Marjorie everyday I remembered you when we were young. You were soft and lovely like her. Now you've let yourself grow hard and distant. You just let your looks go." "Get out of my bed," Sylvia said again. Get out of my life." The young woman, Marjorie, slipped out from under the bed clothes and cringed by the chair where her clothes were neatly folded. Sylvia looked at her, at the large breasts, the creamy skin, the long curving legs. Then she began unbuttoning her own dress, let it fall to the floor and stepped out of it. Sylvia was a lean woman with no softness to her. She looked down at her body, noting the arms browned by working outdoors, the pale torso. She bent her arms and looked at the calluses on her hands, looked at the prominent veins crawling up from her hands and wrists, across her forearms and up the biceps. She clenched her fists and watched the forearms swell and bulge, more veins forcing themselves to the surface. She flexed her biceps at her sides and saw the muscles gather in abrupt round mounds jutting from her arms. She looked down at her small breasts, the nipples firm in the cool of the room, the ridges of muscles over her stomach, the luxuriant curls at her vulva, and down her legs crisscrossed with corded muscle. "My trees have made me strong, Lawrence. My body is strong and hard like my oak trees. I have more life and passion than you can imagine, but you are soft. You're weak. Get out of my bed or I will hurt you. Take your whore with you and go." Now Lawrence left the bed and crossed the room. He was a large man, once active but now a large man with a belly and thin legs. He hadn't looked closely at his wife's naked body in a long time, perhaps not since Petra was born. Now he was shocked by the strength it exuded, the power rippling in her limbs. "You can't talk to me like that," he said and swung to slap his wife. She caught his wrist in her strong left hand. She held him as he tried to jerk his hand free, then she began to squeeze. She felt the flesh in his wrist crush flat and felt the bones and tendons beneath begin to strain. She flexed her other arm as she held Lawrence and told him, "Feel it. Feel my hard arm. My trees have made me strong and too hard for you to hurt." Almost against his will Lawrence reached for the knotted arm raised before him, each muscle standing separate and distinct beneath the taut skin. He felt the biceps and the ball of the deltoid above it, and the knotted forearm below. Each group of muscle on her lean frame stood out like ripe fruit that could almost be plucked from the flesh. His hand could make no impression on her as she held him trapped by his wrist. Then she released him and wrapped her arms around him above his waist, crushing him against her hard body. He groaned as she applied pressure, and began pounding against her back and shoulders. It was as if he were beating against a statue carved from one of the tree trunks outside the window. He felt his ribs compress and he fought for air. He felt her hands where they locked behind him pressing irresistibly against his spine. He thought he would pass out when she released him to fall at her feet. He lay there rubbing the bruises forming in the marks her fingers had left on his wrist. "Get out," she said. "Get out of my life." Lawrence and Marjorie dressed quickly and left the house. Sylvia changed the bedding and took a shower. Wrapped in her robe she lay upon her bed and stared at the ceiling, her right hand massaging the hard left arm she had used to crush Lawrence. Petra knocked softly on the door and came in. She studied her mother lying alone and crossed to her. Climbing onto the bed she embraced her mother, her head on the woman's breast. "Is daddy going away now?" she asked. "Yes," replied Sylvia. "He will live in the city now." "Was he afraid of your muscles? I heard you tell him the trees had made you too strong for him." "Yes, I am too strong for him. He is soft and he is afraid because I am hard and strong." "Will I be as hard and strong as you someday?" Petra asked softly. "Yes, I think you will. You love this land as I do and it will make you strong, too," Sylvia said, stroking her daughter's dark hair. "I have muscles now. The stones have made me stronger than the boys at school." "Show me," said Sylvia. Petra sat and pushed up the sleeve on her young, slender arm. She flexed and Sylvia watched as the flesh knotted like a thick rope into a tall proud mound in her daughter's upper arm. Sylvia rubbed it, running her fingers over the biceps she had never seen on her daughter. It felt hard, harder even than her own muscles. "The stones have made you very strong," Sylvia said. "If you continue to care for the land the stones will make you stronger than me." Before dinner time Sylvia dressed in pants and a shirt. She put on the clogs she wore around the yard and walked uphill toward one of the stands of oak trees. At the base of one of the old giants she undressed and reached high up for a thick branch. She pulled herself up easily, then pushed her body smoothly above the branch and stood up. In college she had been a dancer and still moved with grace. She climbed with suppleness and strength to the upper branches where she sat hugging the tree trunk and looking at the land far below, spreading in rolling hills to the horizon. With her arms tight around the tree she looked at the little crossroads village, the farms -some neat, some squalid- surrounding it, the arms of the larger forest reaching into farms to form other woodlots or left as unkempt islands amid the fields. By the line of trees along its banks she traced the path of the river back into the forest. She sat for an hour until the sun touched the horizon, then she climbed down, dressed and returned home and made dinner for Petra and herself. The next day mother and daughter drove to the village. Sylvia informed the post office that mail addressed to her husband should be forwarded to his office in the city. The bills were all in her name and she didn't wish to see reminders of his existence arrive at her mailbox. She knew that news of Lawrence's departure would now be spread through the district by nightfall. They went to Steward's farm supply store. Sylvia talked with Charles Steward about tools for working stone. He showed her catalogs with pictures of hammers for single handed and double handed work on stones, and chisels and drills. He showed no surprise that the young daughter was as interested in the discussion as her mother, and that she asked questions showing a closer understanding of the purpose and use of the tools, and the details of the stones that specialized tools were meant for. Sylvia ordered an assortment of the smaller tools and Charles Steward knew that in time she would be back for larger sledges and chisels as the child grew. Parker came home that evening. He frequently spent a night away from home, traveling along the nearby river for miles or roaming through neighboring woods, sleeping beneath the trees or in empty barns. He would return with questions about the wildlife he had seen and tracked, or with answers to questions formed on previous trips. He wept when he heard the news his father was moving to the city. His tears brought out the first tears from his mother and sister. The next day the children returned to school, Parker to the high school in the next town and Petra to the little school in the village. Sylvia phoned a neighbor who had asked for help falling a tree killed by disease on his property. As a favor,she offered to cut it down herself, taking half the wood. She gathered her two axes and long saw and walked a half mile to the tree. The tree was a tall elm that had withstood infection for many years before succumbing. She rubbed its trunk to honor its long life, then got to work. Her axe bit deep with each swing. Chips flew as she worked her way into the trunk, then she switched to her saw. She removed her shirt and worked in an old sleeveless t-shirt, her arms moving tirelessly at their task. Before long the dead trunk crashed to earth where she had meant it to fall. She limbed and cut the trunk into lengths she could load into her pickup. When she had divided it as she wanted she walked home with her tools. It was afternoon and time to prepare for the kids coming home from school. Again she climbed one of her ancient trees before dinner and watched as the autumn sun sank to the horizon. At dinner Sylvia, Petra and Parker held hands in grace and prayed Lawrence would find happiness. Next day Sylvia drove to the fallen tree and lifted the logs into the pickup. The neighbor marveled as she unloaded the wood, seeing her muscles strain and bulge as she worked. She worked quickly, then drove home to repeat the process with her half of the wood. She had left her half cut long so she could sell it for lumber. Despite the disease most of the wood was solid and would bring a good price. Lifting her longer logs in and out of the truck was much harder than dealing with the neighbor's share had been. Before dinner, Parker massaged her muscles, weary from her work on the elm. He was accustomed to feeling his mother's strong arms and back, proud that she could be as strong as many of the men in the village. He was slender like her and accepted that he would not grow to be so hard and so strong. He knew that his sister would soon grow to be stronger than him, and that made him proud as well. He preferred to move freely across the land rather than work it and grow strong as they did. He read its lessons and was satisfied with the knowledge. In the two years before Parker left for college Sylvia settled with Lawrence. She didn't care for his money, of which he had made a good deal, beyond the needs of her children and the expenses of tending her land. Lawrence didn't care about the land. They both ended up comfortably set in their separate worlds.