You Left A Hole

The hole remained the rest of the winter, regardless of the temperature. I would pick up my late husband Greg’s vintage binoculars and say good-bye every morning as I passed the window where they patiently waited for my tears to fog their lenses.

As the local historian for the Kensington’s County Library and lifelong resident, I was asked to write whatever I knew or could find out about the most beautiful pond in the State. I was so proud of and reminded everyone that the pond was named after my Great-grandfather Theodore. So, needless- to- say, the Ponds’ name was Theodore.

Everyone in our small town assumed I would be excited and honored to have my literary project in the future tourist’s catalog. On one hand, I was, and yet on the other, I dreaded it. Most writers would be thrilled if they were commissioned to create work for a public project that will be widely distributed. But that brief glance in the morning, peering through his old binoculars, is quite enough.

If I was going to be brutally honest and write everything I knew about the beautiful pond named Theodore, I would go back ten years. It was the winter of 2001. Greg and I had been struggling as a couple for at least a few years. The kids had all flown the nest, so it was just the two of us left behind to navigate the loneliness and isolation of living on the out-skirts of a very small. The only saving grace was the shimmering, blue pond whose waves lapped at the edge of our perfectly groomed yard. Obsessing over and attending to the maintenance of our yard was Greg’s passion. The love he couldn’t or didn’t care to share with me, the yard got. Life got so small for me, that my nemeses ended up being highly cared for blades of grass. Un-like me.

Caring for a plot of land to such an extreme degree, seemed ridiculous to me, as the nearest fellow human to judge Greg’s manly endeavors, was on the other side of the pond. And having never seen him once the entire time we were there raising our family, the neighbor seemed to be a phantom.

Then, as if from thin air, I saw him. It was while I sun-bathed on the dock. At my age, to get a tan in the au-naturel is to invite side glances and audible laughter. But isolation gives you unspoken permission to be a little braver. Before I could even wrap my beach towel around my torso, I found myself waving back to the handsome and enthusiastic neighbor at the end of his dock. Even with the distance of the water between us, I could see his warm smile, and hear the echo of his deep laughter. Greg was in the house pouring us coffee, so I jumped up, enthusiastically waved good-bye, and retreated into my isolation.

As Greg was sharing with me over coffee, the virtues of one fertilizer versus another, I made note of the time. It was ten in the morning. Just maybe, just maybe, the stranger on the dock will do the same, and we can meet again.

And indeed, we did. For two years, we would stand at the end of our docks with binoculars in hand. I was able to ask Teddy, his pseudonym, via a handheld sign, if we could meet at ten at night instead. I was sure Greg would be asleep in his overstuffed, grass-stained recliner by then. Those two years were the happiest times of my life. With a flashlight and tag board, we were able to share our hopes, dreams, lives, and our loneliness. Teddy even had a way of making me laugh with his handwritten, dry marker humor. This imagined love affair was so much more fulfilling than the one I had dreamed of with Greg so holding each other was inevitable.

We had been planning our meeting for weeks. It gave me enough time to buy a new outfit, get my hair finally cut, loose a few pounds, and have something to be excited about. The anticipation was bliss.

Greg was out cold after I happily served him a few beers over his usual limit. I turned up the sound of the theatrical wrestling match on TV, to guarantee he wouldn’t be awakened to any joyful greetings and slowly closed the storm door behind me. It was freezing out, but the image of Teddy crossing the frozen pond in the moonlight had warmed me from head to toe.

I realized that as he made his way to the center of the pond, that I had forgotten the wine and wine glasses! Frantically rushing back into the house, I looked over my shoulder and waved. Teddy blew a kiss and continued to cross the snow-covered pond. Muffling the clinking sounds of the crystal glasses, was challenging as I opened drawer after drawer looking for the corkscrew. That night, it was not in its usual spot, and I abandoned my quest to have more time with Teddy.

When I returned to the dock, the ice before me was devoid of my beloved. Where had he gone, in such a short span of time? He wouldn’t have had time to make it back to his side of the pond. And there were only my footprints leading to my side of the pond. I wasn’t going to accept being stood up! No matter how he retreated! So, I wrapped my winter coat tightly around the beach towel I was wearing beneath my heavy winter coat and started to walk to his dock. About ten feet from where I had waved to the love of my life, was a gaping hole in the ice. It was only visible when the moon peeked from behind the clouds. As the moon grew brighter, the hole grew more visible. Footprints led up to the edge, and then there was nothing. Just nothing…

I stifled my screams with the beach towel, which now seems so ironic. Wiping tears, that had partially frozen on my cheeks, I retreated to our tool shed so as not to wake Greg with my laments. Because it was so clandestine, there was nothing I could tell to help find my drowned lover. I only knew him as Teddy and I did not know if he had a “Greg” also. Sliding down the rough wooden wall, I collapsed into darkness. Something cold and metallic pressed into my thigh. With the light from my flashlight, I could see the corkscrew and Greg’s ice auger clogged with weeds, sitting in a pool of pond water.