Not Marley

Fia, five months

photo by Sam

"Elle est vraiment très bien comportée," said my husband, looking down at Fia, who had come up to gaze into his face while he finished his dinner the other night, avec l'aire de concéder quelque chose. I felt a surge of pride in my training skills.

"Elle ne fait aucune bêtise. Aucune," I confirmed, avec l'aire de ne pas trop vouloir réjouir sans pouvoir m'en empêcher complètement.

I was merely stating the obvious: Fia is not Marley. On the flip side, she would make the subject of a very boring book, of which no one in his right mind would say, "Hey! That dog would make a great movie!" I am not sure I ever completely believed in Marley, though. I mean, how bad could Marley's dad be, and if not that bad, how bad, really, could his master be? And, if his master really were that bad, how come his wife didn't throw him out with the dog? I mean, what Labrador Retriever can't pass Obedience 101 if I can get mine to do it? I didn't even mess up that badly with my first one, Baccarat, and I never saw the sire go streaking by, or even know more than his name.

Baccarat, on the other hand, was no Fia, either, but I think I can take responsibility for that. Still, by comparison with Marley, it was mild. The worst, I believe, was the morning we came downstairs to find the nose of the last tread chewed to bits. It looked like the results of a beginner's level leather working class in belt making (I know, I have done one.). Teeth marks festooned the edge of the tread, from where Baccarat gazed at me, taking a break in her decorative teething work. I had hoped my husband would somehow fail to notice. He never does.

"Tu as vu ce que cette chienne a fait?" he demanded of me, once he came down a little later.

The light was at the perfect angle to show off the depth of the imprint her incisors, canines and pointy molars had achieved, chewing, chewing, chewing her way around the step. I had seen. This was the one time I wondered if Marley's master couldn't be for real the worst with me just behind him. I nodded.

"Je vais prendre de la pâte à bois. Tu verras,"I promised him, hoping I sounded convincing, "ça ne se verra plus."

What do you do? Do you acknowledge how ineffective you might be? How awful your dog might just actually be? That the future, indeed, is terribly unknowable? No, you don't. Not if you want your dog and to remain, both of you, in your home. You acknowledge the misdeed, the poor behavior, you express regret and solidarity with your spouse, you read up more on dog training, and you buy wood paste and tint and get on the repair fast. Out of sight, out of mind.

Really. It works. Not only did Baccarat never chew that tread again, my husband was actually relieved and impressed with the results. I wondered if she didn't like the smell of the wood paste and tint, or, was it more like what the librarians always told us about damage in schools: if you let it go, the students will keep at it until the destruction is total, but if you repair it -- however many times you have to do it --, the damage is never serious. Or, maintain something, and it stays nice.

But, here was Fia, five months old and perfectly house and hotel broken, delighted with her toys and to leave our belongings alone. I was prepared to acknowledge the wealth of knowledge I had accumulated asking questions from those I knew knew more than I, from the Internet and from my earlier suspected mistakes with Baccarat, but maybe, just maybe I had to give Fia and her sire a little credit where credit was due. After all, I couldn't be that wonderful, could I?

That is a rhetorical question.

Before leaving for Argentière, midway up the valley of Chamonix-Mont Blanc, I hemmed and hawed over the purchase of a portable, folding soft-shelled travel kennel for Fia. After all, she was fully two months younger than Baccarat was when I took her for the first time four years ago. I knew before I left that Baccarat could hold it, but when I got to the hotel, I discovered that she was already widdling by the time we got to the top of the staircase, and we were on the third floor (fourth for the States).

"Non, Baccarat! Non pipi ici!" I'd correct her in an hissing undertone, so as not to announce her misdeed, and start the race to the bottom of the stairs, where we had to confront the electronic sliding door at the entry of the hotel, which always took a couple of seconds to register your presence, and then a couple more to grant you access to the outdoors, where Baccarat would squat promptly, right on the granite stoop, in full view of passersby, the hotel patrons and the diners at The Office across the street. I'd already be praying that the drops of urine just inside the door would pass for snow, melting off the skis of everyone else returning from the slopes. I don't know how many were fooled.

And then, there was the incident with the low, upholstered wood armchair with the lion claw feet. She must have appreciated those feet because she lovingly nibbled them about the ankles. The chairs might have been old and well-broken in, but the hotel did not fail to notice, and I felt the guilt that comes of having made a mild misrepresentation. I had expressly said in my email to the hotel that I had two, well-behaved and calm Labrador Retrievers; I had not said one of them was still teething at seven months old. They said nothing, however, and were as nice to us as ever, commenting, in fact, on how well-behaved our dogs were, but the next year, there was a new per diem charge for doggy visitors. I paid. Baccarat behaved like a princess.

Could I take the chance of ruining our reputation and having our welcome revoked this year at the cost of 70 euros for the insurance and peace of mind a portable kennel would provide? I broke down and ordered the thing, typing the hotel's address into the shipping information, but when we arrived at the hotel, expecting to receive the package, the receptionist said, "Le colis n'est pas encore arrivé."

"Non?" She shook her head. "Alors, on n'a pas la niche pour la chienne?" I had no choice but to be honest and acknowledge my concern. It seemed the responsible thing to do. She shook her head again. "Bon. On verra bien alors. Elle est propre et très sage, mais ça m'aurait rassuré. She nodded sympathetically. We were, so to speak, on our own.

Not that I knew how she would react to spending a day in a portable, folding, soft-shelled travel kennel. It could have been worse.

The next day, we left her in the late morning after a long walk in the forest, an introduction to the housekeeping staff, cleaning rooms at the far end of the hall (I knew them from previous years, happily), and a last pipi with two Kongs stuffed with banana, apple bits and peanut butter and went to ski.

"At least the lifts close an hour earlier at this time of the season," I said to Sam, closing the door behind us and sending a prayer ceilingward. He nodded.

At 4:50 pm, we stowed our skis and boots in the ski room and headed upstairs. She had been alone, apart from housekeeping's visit, for nearly 6 hours.

"Listen," said Sam. He cocked his head toward the door to see if she ran across the room, jumped down from a bed, or was sitting right behind the door. It appeared to be the latter. I slid the card key into the slot, and pushed it open. There they were, Rapide and Fia, sitting there pressed between my bed and the wall, just short of hysterical with joy to see us back. Sam and I set off on a tour of the carpet, chair and bed legs, and trash cans.

Nothing.

Not one thing out of place. Not one spot of wet. Not one tooth mark. Rien.

"Her Kongs are under my bed," said Sam, straightening, "with her Powerade bottle."

"Here's the stone she carried up from the back of the car," I said from over by their bed. I felt a little stunned by our success. Or, my luck. "She's five months old, and she hasn't done a single bad thing, alone in a new place, all day long." We looked at each other, and then at Fia, who looked back at us, Moi? Oui?

"Bon," I said, reaching for her leash, "we'll see tomorrow, I guess." There was still the matter of getting her down the flights of stairs and past the electronic glass door before I could claim success. She sat, I attached her leash, and we struggled out the door.

Between our last visit and this, they had installed a fire door just outside the door to our room and the next room's in the little corridor off the main one, leaving us a meter square in which to maneuver between the two. Rapide did not like that. I learned I had to stand outside the door, Fia's leash in my left hand, left leg fully extended to hold the fire door open, while holding our room door open with my free hand before she would come out. It was an unpleasant gymnastic that involved the expression of impatience before Rapide would finally budge. She is fearful of Fia's chastisement, which amounts to Fia waiting for her and then grabbing a chunk of neck fur, just below her ear, to drag her where Fia knows I want Rapide to go. She received the same from her daughter Baccarat.

That says something.

It wasn't long before I let Fia go. She went nowhere; she was too interested in making sure that Rapide did what I wanted, and leash back in hand, Fia trotted to the top of the steps, down the three flights and right up to the sliding electronic door, waited, trotted out and promptly squatted next to the granite stoop, before letting go a torrent of scalding pipi that cascaded down the sidewalk, steaming. I am not sure the passersby shared my pride in her.

The next day, and each day after that, the room went unscathed, the carpet in the hallway unbaptised, and the stoop unsoiled. We paid the customary charges for our dogs, but, like I said to Sam, you pay more for two people in the room, and still more for three, so it makes sense you pay a little something for your dogs, even when they are quieter, and possibly neater, than your British neighbors.

Today, a week after our return from Argentière, the wood garden gate came down. It will be out in the garage for the next puppy, and like I did with Fia this time, I will be sure to give that puppy lots of undivided, one-on-one attention and training.

Starting again four years after Baccarat was a puppy, I suspected that having left the two dogs -- mother and daughter -- always together and always bringing them both with me made Baccarat less attentive to me as her mistress, and I believe that my hunch was correct; each dog needs to have a direct relationship with her mistress, access to her pack, lots of exercise, good food, and clear, consistent rules with all members of her family, and a structured life. I am also a firm believer in any version of crate training as a primary tool in achieving the rest to make a well-adjusted, well-behaved, trustworthy dog.

This might be the moment, however, to mention the bêtise Fia reminds me I forgot. Socks. I cannot leave a sock or a pair of socks anywhere within reach of this rapidly growing dog, which leaves fewer and fewer safe havens.

Like the ski sock she retrieved from the sofa before I had a chance to put it on. By the time I reached for it, it was in handing from her mouth, the top of the sock gnawed and damp, the elastic dangling.

....

Winter bugs and other malaises

The Seine from the living room window

Whenever people come to the house, they want to see two things and know one: the renovation and the fabled garden and where is the Seine?

It is on winter days when the sun is bright in the afternoon that one can see that we are very nearly on the Seine. It is on these days that the Seine actually catches my attention and my eye when I look up to one of the south-facing windows on the ground floor. Every other day and moment of the year, I can at best point to an object that can be distinguished moving along beyond the line of trees after the field in the foreground and at worst to the line of trees itself, in the summer when they are in full leaf, and say, "You see the line of trees past the field? Just beyond, there is a bras mort of the Seine, then a narrower band of field, and the Seine is just there."

They must take it on faith. If they arrived by car from Méricourt, they are more likely to believe me, having followed the Seine on their right up to the S-curve at the recycling bins, where the road turns away from the river -- which cannot simply disappear --, although most people who come here are inclined to, anyway. No one shows up by accident in Moosesucks.

I didn't.

But, on days when the winter sun shows through the clouds, the Seine shines silver or gold (silver on this day, as you can see beyond the lime tree and border) and I can more comfortably boast, "Yes, we live on the Seine." This afternoon, a péniche rumbled past, its huge engines turning, and I hallucinated that it was in the bottom garden. I could hand the captain a cup of coffee and the sugar bowl.

This is about as exciting as the last week as gotten. Hallucinations of coffee with river boat skippers. Every day I think, "Today, you must make something happen, at least so you have something about which to write in your journal. Come on."

Can't it wait until tomorrow, or next week? said myself.

For those who are familiar with my prodding or worrywart self, this is another self, the most present one, the companion of my days and evenings, until everyone starts to arrive home and expect a meal, my foot-dragging, deflated self. But, perhaps it is seasonal (see again the first link above). It is neither winter, the holidays, nor gardening season, and until fortune smiles, renovation feels like the stone that did Sysiphe in.

"There might not be anyone waiting around to read about it by then."

I know. How about the plumbing failure last night? You could write about that.

"If husband's sue, I'd probably get sued for defamation for that." It's true, though. It was the latest failure in a string of failures contributing to my ultimate failure to motivate.

Did you know that bathroom sink plumbing is not generally sized to cope with violent 24-hour flu? I didn't, and my husband certainly didn't, but even if he had known, I don't think it could have made a difference last night, an hour and a half after I came to bed and he grabbed his stomach, let a breathe out and grimaced.

"J'ai mal au bide." I continued reading. He lay there.

"Ah. J'ai vraiment mal au bide." I glanced over, nervous, and we turned out the light and drifted off to sleep, until he rose quickly from beside me, negotiated the unpacked bag from my ski trip, the dog bed pressed against my side of the bed since we returned with Fia accustomed to her new access to me to sleep at night and headed out the door. A moment later, I heard him retching violently into the bathroom sink.

His? my worrywart self hoped aloud.

I looked at her with disgust, "Of course," and pushed up on my elbow to look at the time on the alarm clock. 1:55 am. The retching continued, and then I heard him go downstairs shod, unbelievably, in shoes. Not recalling him go to bed that way, I wondered what on earth he was doing, getting dressed when he was obviously in the throes of a virulent stomach bug. "Qu'est-ce que tu fais?"

"Je vais chercher quelque chose au garage. Le lavabo est bouché."

"Comment?" He was going to the garage, in the middle of the night, to unstop the bathroom sink?

"Le lavabo. Il est bouché," he said, reaching the bottom of the steps. I heard the French door grind open on the terracotta tile, and a moment later his shod steps returning up the stairs. And then the swearing began, along with the sound of the snake being forced down the pipes. The swearing gathered force, and then he headed back downstairs.

"Tu ne peux pas juste mettre un peu de produit, du Destop?"

"Non. Tu devrais le voir," and he went on to tell me how the sink had been half full and he had had to put his hands in it. Clearly, Destop was sousmusclé for this job. I nearly gagged, and then I heard him let loose an oath and hurry back down the staircase, the sound of water cascading just on the other side of the wall behind my head. I looked to the darkened ceiling and closed my eyes, listening for the next explosion.

"Merde! Putain de merde! Il y en a partout, mais PARTOUT. Putain! Pu-TAIN!"

Let us say that I was not disappointed.

"Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?" I called, feeling guilty for lying there in bed, when he was trying to clean up after his violent and painful sick and evidently having big problems, and headed to the staircase outside our door.

Passing the bathroom door, I glanced in and saw the dismantled pedestal sink, the plumbing removed, the blue plastic pail in the middle of the room. It occurred to me that having just been very sick, to get the pail he had had to unearth it from under an economy pack of paper towels and empty it of the laundry detergent and an assortment of cleaning products and rags, and then unwedge it from its tight fit between the brooms on the one side and a pile of junk stuffed out of sight on the other. I hate needing to use that pail when I feel perfectly healthy in the middle of the afternoon.

At least he'll know where you keep the box of dishwasher detergent tablets, said myself, looking on the positive side.

I peered down over the banister to see the mop leaning against the table, and my husband frantically sponging a lake of water from the table, with more on the floor.

"C'est partout, mais partout. L'eau s'est coulé en bas, et il y en a PARTOUT!" he thundered, furious.

"Mais, d'où? Comment cela?" I risked.

"Le trou dans le sol. C'est passé par le trou dans le sol."

I saw. There is a hole next to the pedestal of the sink, and when he removed the elbow, the water somehow missed the bucket, or overflowed the bucket he had retrieved from the kitchen closet, and flowed down through the hole, through the ceiling and flooded the dining table. I saw the shallow blue fruit bowl sailing on a raft made of the blue handmade place mats in the lake he had made.

A lake I suspected as being polluted with the contents of his stomach become toxic. I risked another dangerous question.

"Il y a du vomis dedans?" I scanned the scene for the piles of sick I was certain had to be there.

"C'est plus de l'eau." That was somewhat reassuring, but I didn't entirely believe him. I didn't see the sick, but I was sure I'd have cleaning to do in the morning because given my husband's standards of cleanliness, there are moments when being married is like having a child: you know you are going to wind up with your hands in it.

Myself prepared to speak, Maybe you should offer to do this for him? I knew I was right. It was the right thing to do, under the circumstances.

"Tu veux que je fasse ça? Tu es malade."

"Non. J'ai presque fini." It didn't look that way, but it was not the moment to press the point. Instead, I wandered back to my bed, and a few moments later, he came to join me, something in his hands.

"J'ai pris la cuisine-tout," he said, reading my thoughts, "Dans le cas de besoin."

"Le quoi?"

"Le cuisine-tout --" A terrible understanding dawned. Did I dare push the issue? He had brought my Calphalon aluminum pot up in case he needed to throw up again?

Please tell me no, not that, the worrywart chimed in. I had to.

"Ma casserole? Dans laquelle je fais de la cuisine?" That did it. He was more disgusted with me and my lack of concern and understanding than I was by his retching and the overflow through the ceiling and onto the dining table and floor below. He was right. "Laisse tomber. Je suis désolée."

He set the pot down, slid under the covers and went back to sleep. So did I, until I woke to hear him sit up suddenly and retch into my Calphalon, brought all the way from the States. I looked at the glowing face of the alarm clock. 3:07 am. He was beginning to become a sort of Big Ben. I was disgusted. I felt sorry for him.

Maybe you should risk offending him and go sleep in the guest room, said myself. I mean, he might have germs. I waited until the retching stopped and he got up to empty his pot.

You don't think he's going to do the same thing to the sink again, do you?

"That I cannot risk asking."

He returned to bed, placing the now empty pot back in its place. I proceeded delicately.

"Tu pense que c'est un virus?"

"Je ne sais pas. C'est peut-être le poisson."

"Mais, moi, je ne suis pas malade, et j'ai mangé le poisson aussi."

Are you sure you don't feel just a little bit off? asked myself. I focused on my stomach for a moment and wondered. He groaned, and we went back to sleep until he rolled over and the sounds of retching woke me a third time. 3:55 am. He was regular, that was for certain. I lay there and listened. Revolted. I waited for it to stop.

How impolite and uncaring is it to get up and leave? asked myself. I didn't honor that question with a response. After several very long minutes, he became silent. I lay there. He lay back into his pillows.

When is he going to get up and take that horrible pot away? myself was asking. He will, won't he?

"I think so. I mean, he can't want to lie there and try to go back to sleep with that next to him." Myself nodded, hopefully. Yes, he would get up, surely he would. And a few seconds that I measured in minutes went by and he hauled himself and the pot back out of the room.

It's probably just water by now, said myself helpfully.

"Ugh. That's enough," I said, and turning to him as he crawled back under the covers and turned slightly toward me, rather wishing he wouldn't, I asked, "Tu va pouvoir prendre ta garde demain?" He was on duty at the hospital, all day, and all the next night.

"J'espère," he sighed. In any case, he didn't have much choice. That's how it is for a doctor; the rest of the night was blessedly uneventful.

The morning light, when I finally got up, showed that what he had said was mostly true: the flood had mostly been water. Mostly. His daughter's riding magazine was soaked, and I considered throwing it away and asking him to apologize to her for ruining it, before deciding to see how it would clean up, as was a stack of mail, and there was a somewhat fouled puddle on a box I had intended to put in the recycling anyway. A little later, I reached him at the hospital to see how he was.

"Ca va," he said, "Je suis un peu vaseux, mais ça va. Il y a," he continued, "une épidémie de gastro à l'hôpital. Plein de gens l'ont eu."

"Mais, je t'ai demandé. Tu m'as dit que tu pensais que c'était le saumon, et maintenant tu me dis que c'est probablement infectieux?"

Oh-oh, said myself. See? You should have gone to sleep in the guest room.

"Oui. Mais, je n'ai pas pu le savoir."

I didn't press the issue. He was making no sense; you know, or you don't know, and if you know there is a 24-hour bug ravaging the staff at the hospital by daylight, then you knew by night. For now, my stomach is still alright. I am watching.

I'll take the cuisine-tout up to bed with me. Just in case.

....

At rest

The Argentière glacier at sunrise

We went away, and now we are returning.

In a few minutes. We are not in a hurry. We are never in a hurry to leave the vallée. It has become home for at least one long week a year, but one long week, however long, is not enough. Not if you love winter, snow, mountains, long walks with your dogs in the forest below tree line and skiing the rocky slopes above.

The dogs have been a godsend. No one should travel anywhere without dogs if they wish to meet the locals and anyone staying longer than a week, usually, however long. They are conversation starters when you cross others with theirs, walking in the forest. They attach you to a place in a way just walking alone does not, and sometimes, they become part of a place, like Baccarat.

We brought her back, like we promised ourselves we would do. For months, her ashes remained in a plastic bag, sealed with a twist-tie, inside a hideous, cheap, but certainly well-intentioned Delft china style urn provided by the crematorium (a word I do not like) in a pristinely white cardboard box, a white envelope containing a certificate attesting to the ashes really being those of our dog, Baccarat, taped with equally pure white tape to it, all inside a plastic bag from our vet's office. I put it up on a storage mezzanine in the petite maison to wait until our time to leave again for Argentière, and every time I'd go in to make up a bed for a guest or iron in the Summer room, I'd look up to the bag, sitting above my head next to an over-sized and unused lampshade and say, "Hello, Bacs."

It made me very uncomfortable. She needed to get to her place. But, time eventually passed and the day came to pack the car and drive off to Chamonix. I went for the plastic bag, containing the urn, holding her ashes in the plastic bag sealed with a twist-tie, and carried it to the car to join the bags, the skis, and Rapide and Fia for the trip back to the valley. And then, the bag and its contents sat on the daybed in our hotel room on the pile of luggage, waiting.

"Where will we leave her?" I asked Sam. "In the forest, or shall we take her up to the top of the mountain, over the glacier?"

"I don't know. Maybe both," he said, "But let's take some home." I considered that for a moment.

"You mean divide her in three? You think that's alright?"

"I don't know," he said. "I guess so."

And so, a day, and then two, and finally a third went by, and the box sat still on the daybed with the bags. Then, I got up on the fourth day and heard a voice.

When are you going to finally get around to doing this? asked myself. The prodding self that makes me get things done, including the most unpleasant and difficult things.

"I'll ask Sam."

I think, said myself, that he is waiting for you to get around to it. How about now?

Now. I set the plastic bag on the table and removed the box, peeled back the white tape, removed the envelope with the certificate, removed the tape from the cheap Delft style urn and opened it. There was still the matter of removing the bag of ashes, which was larger than the mouth of the urn. I got three small Ziplock bags and prepared to pour Baccarat into them in equal parts, without spilling any of her on the floor for housekeeping to sacrilege by vacuuming her unceremoniously up. Dust puffed up. I was breathing. I was breathing in Baccarat. I tried to breathe less.

Sam opened his eyes and watched the procedure from his bed.

"We'll take one bag up with us today, and go all the way up. Don't worry. I'll double-bag it."

I was remembering the incident from the previous day when the bag containing the apricots, figs, almonds, a clementine and half a banana exploded open in his Dakine backpack. I was sure he was envisioning Baccarat clinging to every surface of the inside of his backpack in yet another scenario of sacrilege, and this was not meant to be humorous or catastrophic in any way.

We took the téléphérique up to Grands Montets, just below the Aiguille Verte, Europe's highest ski trail, and began skiing down the black along the glacier, "Point de Vue".

Where will you leave her? asked myself. The opportunities were sailing past us the farther along we skied.

"I'll ask Sam."

"Sam?" He slowed and turned to look back up at me; I am generally somewhere up behind him. I slid in next to where he waited. "Where will we put her?"

He looked around the mountainside, "Maybe where we stopped and had lunch last year."

I nodded. That would do. It was a place that looked out over the glacier, and it was a place where we had stopped to share a meal. We skied on until we arrived at the place and took off our skis, trying not to slide down the side of the mountain into a crevasse. We did not wish to spend the rest of eternity with Baccarat, up on the glacier.

"How will we do this?" I asked, looking around at the various stones poking up out of the hard scrabble dirt and sparse tufts of golden grass, snow blown up into ridges under the little overhangs they provided. He concentrated and chose a stone. We made our way down to it, sliding on our bottoms and using the heels of our ski boots to dig in.

"I can't reach," I said, watching him finish his hole with the point of my ski pole. I had inched down a little too far and inching back up seemed too much like tempting fate.

He reached down, took the bag I held out to him and poured her ashes into their hole, and then he moved his hand in an arc, brushing snow up to cover them, trying to pat down the powdery snow. I joined his effort, brushing the light coating of feather-light snow off the stubbly yellow grass and ice to cover her deeper, and I felt a tear slide down into the foam of my goggles, and then another. We stood and made our way back up to our skis. I looked back.

"Be a good dog, Baccarat," I said, and realized they were my last words to her when I left her in her cage the night before her surgery. Silly words. "Of course you will be. You were the best dog."

I felt better, but there was the place to choose in the forest.

Sam came with me for our evening walk, after it was dark and we would be alone on the trails through the giant firs. We considered a first and then a second place.

"It shouldn't be so close to the main trail," said Sam. We turned down toward the stream.

"This is where Baccarat ran into the freezing water and got all soaked that first night," I said.

We walked along, looking at trees. Sam has become fascinated with trees, taking photographs of them like I do on my morning walks. He stopped by a tall fir, growing out of the hillside on the other side of the trail from the stream bank. We stood silently, Fia and Rapide nosing around our legs. I wondered if they understood our purpose. Rapide, anyway, although it was Fia I suspected of understanding.

"Do you want to do it here?" I asked.

"This is the first place she came into the forest," he said.

The tree divided at its base, sending roots down into the soil, and where it did, it formed two small, perfect chambers. They looked like the rooms of her heart that filled with the tumor that killed her. It looked like the perfect place to nestle part of her. I climbed up the turf, covered in soft fir needles and encased in crusty snow, and Sam turned the torch on his iPhone on for me so I could see to pour her ashes into the smaller chamber, like the place where the tumor grew, and covered them with tiny fir needles and some chunks of snow and then a rock.

We walked on home, to the hotel, and a day or two later, I took the white box and the Delft china style urn to the garbage and recycling bins and tossed the urn in one and the box in the other. That was the moment I felt the freest and the lightest since the phone rang while we waited during her surgery. We had done what we had set out to do, and Baccarat's circle was complete.

The third bag is for home in Mousseaux. Perhaps I will ask the mason to build a little chamber under the stone at the top of the steps which she made her outlook, surveying the lower garden, the field and the Seine and the world beyond. In that chamber, I can put a little box containing the other third of her in her garden.

....

Fault lines

At the Odéon

Cities have it over the countryside in the part of the winter when the snow is absent to make the mud and ugly green of winter beautiful under a pile of white. It is depressing, although not the only thing that is these days.

There is the dryer, for one. It has stopped working properly, and it's not the dryer's fault. It's the garage's fault. Which is to say, our fault, but I don't like to apportion that blame evenly. I tried to clean the garage, and I got in trouble for it.

"Je ne trouve plus rien," said my husband in his whiniest, most accusatory voice.

Where, in other words, had I dared to put his mess, and from where did those new shelves and plastic storage closet come? He knew that the old broken lamps, the bits of tubing and wire, the lengths of wood and sections of metal somethings or another, saved for the day when they would find their utility at long last, were not hidden in that new plastic cupboard. They had gone to the dump by the Fiatful, and I was to feel guilty for freeing up the floorspace to sweep clean of dust, dirt and dead leaves.

Où sont passés ma poussière, ma salté et mes feuilles mortes? I expected him to challenge me. J'ai gardé tout cela soigneusement dans le cas où j'en aurais besoin.

It takes courage to clean the garage, a storage shed, old unfinished shelves -- anything -- here. Cables to the 20-year-old Mac he hasn't used in 17 might one day find their utility, and I can be sure that I will catch hell for having thrown them out when that day rolls around in his senility. For a man who cannot remember a conversation a month before, he has a gift for recalling that he had 3 lengths of red wire he found on a sidewalk in Bergerac when he went to the market with his sister's friend visiting from Sicily under the metal shelves, behind the box with the boat model he began 23 years before, and it was very, very important to him. Having mustered that courage once, I am not liable to do it again for awhile, and, meantime, I can keep turning the dryer back on for three days until his socks and long-sleeve naturally dyed cotton t-shirts, the ones he likes, are finally dry, although a little funny smelling, while the towels, sheets and jeans pile up in damp heaps, waiting their turn.

You see, the dryer sucks air in from the floor, and with it, it sucks in all the dust, dirt, dry leaf particles and stray animal hairs, clogging the ventilation system and killing all possibility of the dryer drying anything, and to clean the floor I'd have to spend a week emptying the garage, searching fruitlessly for places to put everything we never need that is in there -- including several generations of bicycles in need of repair that no one has ridden in as long as I have been here, but which make an elevated surface upon which to pile more crap, like the cheap, give-away backpack his second son left here 13 years ago and hasn't thought about since, but which surely reminds his father of some moment. Or, it will surely just be useful some day.

Not that anyone would be caught dead with it. Possibly not even my husband.

It takes all kind of courage to clean a garage. Courage I don't have. And so, I fall deeper into despair, and from there to depression, waiting for the socks and cotton naturally dyed t-shirts to dry so I can put in the jeans, and then the sheets and the duvet cover, and possibly wash and dry our ski clothes before Sam and I leave on Saturday for Argentière. I know that is not happening. We'll be packing what I removed from the bags in August to pack the summer stuff for Dordogne, which will now have to come out so I can put the ski stuff back in them, which reminds me of the next reason for being depressed: the lack of dry closet space free of all traces of humidity and mold to put all those out of season clothes away.

One hundred years ago, closet space was unheard of. In our budget, armoirs are unheard of, and so we live in a circulating system of piles of useless stuff, out of season clothing and in season clothing still wet from the washing machine.

Then, for depression making, there is raising the stepchildren. I had lofty ambitions, surefire parenting philosophy in my store of arms, love for my husband to spur me, and a seemingly endlessly good opinion of my own strength of character and abilities, all of which I was certain would see me through to success. I forgot one thing: my stepdaughter's firmness of mind to try me. Nothing like it to drain the rest of one's resources to the dregs. It took only a little less than a month before I showed signs of stress, and just hours beyond that to split my resolve right along those fault lines as we pulled up to park the car, coming home New Year's Eve. In our space in front of the neighbors" across the street was a car with out of département plates. My husband sighed.

"Ils se sont garé dans nos places," he said.

For once, he said what I do when I see a visitor's car parked in our spots. He normally responds with "Elles ne sont pas nos places. Elles sont devant chez eux, et ils ont la gentillesse de nous laisser nous garer là," but tonight, he was taking my outlook on the situation. I nodded my agreement and sympathy as he began backing up to put the wagon on the sidewalk before our house.

"Leurs invités pourraient au moins se garer ici ou devant la mairie," I concurred, opening my door to step down before he eased the car tight against the neighbor's garden wall. And then, my stepdaughter piped up.

"C'est pas nos places. C'est devant chez eux, et ils ne doivent pas nous laisser nous garer là," she told me in the most icily, pointedly deprecating of tones. She was drawing her line in the sand, and it was clearly between her father and her on one side and me on the other. I felt my pulse quicken and a murderous impulse rise.

You must, I heard my more mature and wiser self interject with lightening reflexes, remain in possession of yourself at all times. That includes now.

"Alright," I said to that self. "Fine. I can do that," and I turned to my stepdaughter, who was slinking out of the car behind me, very clearly perfectly aware that she had fired a shot into the New Year's air.

"Nous avons un accord avec les voisins," I warned her off, "et de toute manière, ceci ne te regarde en rien."

The BMW slid into place along the neighbor's garden wall and she continued her slinking along the street wall of the house.

"Tu es insolente, et je te rappelle que ton insolence ne sera pas tolérée." You are, I informed her in the clearest of terms, being insolent, and I remind you that insolence will not be tolerated.

She stared at me, and then at the ground at her feet, trailing behind me as slowly as a human being can move while the two of us waited for her father to catch up with the keys to the house. He had heard most of the most unpleasant exchange, but I assumed I could trust him to find laudable motivations for her outburst. Just days before, in the heat of an hysterical fit, she had hurled words at me, words chosen for maximum impact (Ah! the intelligence of the hysterical and angry woman-child!), Je suis venue vivre ici pour voir mon père et tu m'empêches de le faire!

I have come to live here, she shot at me, to see my father, and you get in my way.

Cheap shot, myself said to me. The one I recognize as merely myself.

"Yeah," I agreed, watching her rail against me and trying not to smile, and wondering at myself for that in the midst of my own troops lining up, my own general ready to give the cry to engage. Who has not seen this before who has herself been a woman-child against the world?

Treat it seriously, myself cautioned. Any appearance of a smile will be taken as derision and met with rage.

"I know. Don't worry, anger is winning the upper hand here, anyway."

She was not here, then, as she had told us, to escape the endless conflict at her mother's home. Not, then, as we had believed, to find a more stable and structured environment to do her work of growing up. Not, then, as I could have believed from many comments over the past years, because here we put the children first and organize our lives around insuring that their needs are met. No. She was here because she wanted to see her father, a man who returns from work hours after she returns from school, hours I have cleared my life to make sure are available to her, to her school work, to her riding, to her peace of mind, while I am in the way of what she wants. Legitimate, but sucks for me.

These are realities that sit you hard on your bottom and dim the light around you, cause a loud buzzing in your ears, leave you with your forehead pressed against the cool mullions separating the panes of glass between you and the sodden, winter-ugly garden, feeling heavier and more toxic than mercury.

On her way up to bed on New Year's Eve, having told me precisely what I was worth to her in her early adolescent life, she called out in her winningest sing-song voice, "Bonne année, Papa! Bonne nuit, Papa!"

"Bonne année, ma chérie. Bonne nuit, et dors bien," he replied.

"It's normal," I hissed to myself. "Of course he wants to meet cheer with cheer, even if I am pointedly excluded. She is his daughter."

I limited myself to muttering all the way up the stairs, repeating "Bonne année, Papa! Bonne nuit, Papa!", imitating (with but the merest touch of mockery) her sing-song under my breath.

Very mature, said my better self.

She had been spoken to by her father for her outburst. I had not spoken to her since then, preferring to retreat to the haven of my room, with the piles of books rotating at my bedside like the piles of out of season clothes and bags at the foot of the bed. She would return from school soon, and I would be taking her to her riding lesson. I would do what I always do; I would tell her exactly what I think and feel.

"Tu maches du chewing gum," I said, watching her jaws work over in her seat. I hit the button and the window slid down on her side. "Tu sais ce que j'en pense de ça. C'est vulgaire. Avec moi, tu ne macheras pas du chewing gum. Tu peux le jeter." You know what I think of that. It's vulgar. With me, you will not chew gum. You can throw it out the window. Her eyes got big.

"Mais, ça c'est de polluer," she objected.

"C'est biodégradable. Que penses-tu arrive quand tu le mets à la poubelle et la poubelle part à la déchetterie? La même chose. Jete-le."

"Je peux le mettre dans un mouchoir," she said, removing a tissue from her pocket and folding the wad of chewing gum into it.

She turned the topic to why the French do not use recycled kraft paper shopping bags like they do in the States. A brief conversation led her to the conclusion that because they do this, apparently, in the UK does not mean that all English-speaking countries do the same; we tend to use biodegradable plastic bags, which are being outlawed there like they are here, in favor of reusable shopping bags that will eventually wind up in landfills. We rode around the small traffic circle and headed for the light. I did not turn my right turn signal on.

"On va chez McDo. Je te prendrai ton déjeuner que tu peux manger au club," I explained, keeping the unfriendliness from my voice. I was determined to be firm, but neutral, and I started again, while we waited for the light to change to green to cross, "Les relations sont fragiles,"I told her, glancing her way. She was looking at a point between her lap and the passenger window. "C'est comme un compte en banque. Quand tu mets quelque chose, tu peus en tirer, mais quand tu es dans le rouge, tu dois en mettre avant d'en tirer, et tu frôles le rouge." I glanced again as I said the last words, and I saw the smile play on her lips.

She knew. She knew exactly what I meant. Relationships are fragile, I told her; they are like bank accounts. When you have out something in them, you can take out of them, but when you have taken too much and you are in the red, you have to put back something back in again. You, I said, are very close to being in the red.

"Tu peux jouer avec Maman et Papa, mais pas avec moi. C'est comme tu veux," we drove up the rutted drive and pulled into the parking area at the stables. "Bonne équitation et à tout à l'heure."

"Merci," she said, as I handed her lunch to her after she arranged her bag with her gear on her shoulder. "A tout à l'heure." I watched her walk toward the stables, spot a friend over beyond the paddock. She raised her bag of McDo, and her friend broke into a run.

I had drawn my line in the sand, You can play with your mother and your father, but you can't with me. It's up to you.

....

Bending, a Christmas tale

Winter on the fields

As far as Christmas is concerned, the snowfall came too soon. The snow that covered the trees, bushes, fields and roofs is mostly melted here, although it still lies fairly thick once you pass Poissy and head into the Forêt de Marly toward Paris, where drivers, stuck in the heavy traffic, lowered their car and truck windows, pointed their iPhones toward the snow-covered tree trunks and branches and clicked.

"Ils n'ont que ça a faire," said my husband as his window slid down and he pointed his iPhone toward the white-frosted trees.

It was true. Sitting there in stop and go traffic on our way to the shopping mall in Versailles, there was nothing else to do but appreciate the winter forest landscape and take pictures. I hit the button again, and his window slid back up. The car in front of us moved forward a meter. The driver seated high up above me smiled over our way. I nodded slightly and smiled back. 'Tis the season.

There, the snow looked as though it had just fallen, where here, we only had the tiniest of flurries, hardly more significant than a delicate dusting of frost accumulating on the leaves that have not fallen and the crusty bits of melted snow that had hung on. Those minuscule flurries made me hope this morning, when I went down to the wood pile and peeled back the tarp to fill my rubber bucket, but now, there is no reason to hope for the white Christmas that seemed almost certain. Bright sunshine is forecast for Christmas day tomorrow, although temperatures will dip further below zero.

I also noticed that the frightfully overgrown yew down in the lower garden is still bent over to make an arched tunnel over the opening in the privet hedge, however, bringing it to within reach of my long-handled pruning shears. I ought to go down and prune it while I can, but at nearly 4 pm, it will be dark soon.

(I really ought to go clean up all the mounds of decaying dog pooh left apparent by the snow's withdrawal before it is too dark to see them. Not that anyone is at risk to step in it, over by the France Telecom utility building. No one but me and my dogs goes there, except whatever other dog on the poor diet it is who contributes his poohs without a similar contribution in clean-up by his master.)

When the snow was at its thickest on the branches and the tops of the clipped shrubberies, the boughs, as well as entire shrubs, bent their heads nearly to their feet, the falling snow mixing with the weight of the snow on them to fasten them tightly to the ground. My stepdaughter was alarmed.

"Papa, ils sont cassés," she reported, leaving the panes of glass in the French window.

"Qu'est-ce qui est cassé?" he asked.

"Les plantes. Elles sont cassées sous le poids de la neige."

I had seen them already. I knew they were bent. It's another miracle of nature that she can design boughs to withstand the force of wind, snow and ice, bending but not breaking, at least not until the forces are extreme. I know this, and I felt superior in my knowledge.

You paid attention in school and in life, the voice I know as my meaner self said to me. I didn't like the sound of that. I tried not to let it out.

"Les plantes ne sont pas cassées," I said, deliberately checking the impatience in my voice, and wondering if I had hit the right measure between checking too much and not checking at all, the terrible one that would leave her wondering if I had been unkind, or not. "Les branches sont souples, capables de se plier en réponse aux forces importantes de la neige, de la glace et du vent."

You could have added that you know they are nearly to their breaking point. In some cases out there, anyway, the voice I know as my meaner self, frustrated by my having attempted to check it, said in a counter effort to let me know I hadn't done such a good job in the event that I had failed to notice the edge in my spoken words. It hadn't escaped me. Like I said, I knew what I was doing, but I hoped it wasn't too noticeable, neither to my meaner self nor to her. I grabbed my gloves, slipped my boots on and crossed the terrace to the Nandina domestica.

The "heavenly" bamboo.

The slender branches that normally reach toward the sky and bend only towards their tips under the weight of the bouquets of thin leaves and airy bunches of green fruits that turn orange in the autumn and bright red in the winter, arched to the ground, where their heads rested on the crusted snow. Two short branches already lay nearby, broken clean off. I picked them up and considered my attitude one more time; it kind of looked like some plants were "cassées".

I took a branch and gave it a shake. Hard bits of snow flew in all directions, stinging my cheeks and making slightly metallic noises as they rained to the hardening snow, like bits of plastic confetti on a glass tabletop, or frozen rain on frozen snow, actually. It nearly broke off in my hand. I took more care with the next ones, shaking as much frozen snow from them as I could so they could stand almost as straight as they usually do.

Over the course of the afternoon, I watched the snow begin to melt and fall from the bowed branches of the yews at the top of the garden stairs, my sentinel yews, making faint, dull thuds. Each thud gave me the faint, dull pleasure of vindication.

See? Nature is hardy enough to survive what she throws at herself. It was my meaner self again, but I did not give her the pleasure of a hearing.

But, are our relationships? Those most fragile of human relationships, the "steps"? Can they take what we throw at them? The jealousies and the barbs of alterity and territoriality?

"You women think you have a maternal sense," my husband once said to me, "but you are essentially animals because it is only for your own. We care for all children, yours as well ours."

"That's not true," I had charged right back, my hackles up as though he had attacked my child, not merely my sense of maternity and sorority.

Maybe it is true, said the voice of the self I recognize as my better one. It sounds like it might be, you know. Look at you and how you feel about his children.

"Not all of them," I said, my defense at the ready, arguments all lined up and ready to go. "And that's not how I felt when once before I nearly had two stepdaughters. I missed them so much later that I cried, and it wasn't just because I hadn't had my own child yet, like he likes to say it is; it was because their mother didn't hate me for her own failings and try to ruin things. She let her daughters love me."

This was true. My better self had nothing to say, and since his daughter has come to live with us, my husband's will has bent under the weight of the consciousness that I am doing at least as much for her as I did for the heavenly bamboo, or that I am trying to anyway, and that counts between us nearly as much or more (but in a different way) than my succeeding. If we fail, we will have failed together now.

Two people can stand straight-backed in their mutual opposition, each defending his own position and giving the best of arguments for refusing to bend toward the other, but the truth, the very difficult truth is that it is only in accepting that there is also truth in the other's point of view and in his needs can one's own truth have any force of effect. In the absence of that acceptance, there is only sadness and loss. Truth falls to power, and with it goes down love.

So why is it so hard, then? Why is it so hard to answer the need in the other and give up insisting on one's own, when time and time again it is shown that in doing that, so much that one says one truly wants finally becomes possible? Is it more satisfying to continue to claim one's wants than to give in order to see them satisfied an hundred times over? Is that why Men continue to wage wars?

In the car, on the way to do our Christmas shopping for the older children, grown to make couples and careers now, I turned to him and asked, "Est-ce qu'on peut se mettre d'accord qu'on ne se fait pas de cadeaux cette année?"

I asked this question even though I had reason to believe that he had already gotten me a present. I hoped to avoid spending money we need for his daughter's riding lessons and that we will need for her competitions, soon. He hesitated a second before replying, just long enough to show me that I had been right. "Tu m'as déjà fait un cadeau alors?"

"Oui, mais ça n'a pas marché."

"Alors, on peut dire qu'on ne se fait pas de cadeaux de Noël cette année?" He nodded.

"Tu veux savoir ce que ça a été?"

Did I want to know what my failed Christmas present was, he wanted to know. I saw him smile a little sadly. I nodded. He paused, and then he said, "Un D300."

A D300? My brain turned over once, twice, and I understood.

"Un appareil de photo? Tu m'as acheté un Nikon D300? Mais -- j'en ai déjà un --"

"Je sais. Sam me l'a dit."

He knew I had one already, but that knowledge came too late. Sam had told him. But, why? How could he not have known? I use it every day.

He explained that thrilled with his purchase for me, he had told Sam that now we would have three lenses for our cameras. Sam had looked at him, not understanding what he meant by three lenses for our two cameras.

"J'ai acheté un D300 pour ta maman pour Noël," he told Sam, probably beaming.

"Mais, elle en a un déjà," Sam told him, most likely as confused as I was.

"Ce n'est pas le tien alors?" he asked, disappointment certainly creeping in along with the dawning light of realization that something had gone very wrong.

"Non. J'ai un Canon."

"Mais, Maman avait ton appareil, non? Tu l'avais laissé pour elle à utiliser."

"Oui, mais elle s'en est acheté un, alors j'ai repris le mien, le Canon, pour l'avoir avec moi à Paris. Les objectifs sont les siens. Elles les a eu avant."

Somehow, my husband had entirely forgotten whole conversations, but this is not amazing nor new. It is somewhat disconcerting, but less so since he has nearly always done that. I don't think Alzheimers starts at 30, and if it does, it generally gets much worse than it is now after a quarter century more has passed. And, were that the case, he should have been lost in the winter snow naked, only several fields over, long ago. He is otherwise thriving, albeit occasionally doubtful and disappointed about the various things he has to accept that he has indeed been told, and completely forgotten.

The very day I received my camera, I was exclaiming about the fact that I could take a picture of him from across the room, in the dim of the evening without a flash, and still see the herringbone pattern on the wool sweater I shrunk shortly thereafter.

"Avec l'appareil de photo de Sam?" he had asked.

"Non, avec le mien. J'ai acheté un Nikon D300 d'occas sur eBay, et Sam est allé le chercher pour moi à Paris aujourd'hui."

Another time, he asked if the camera I was using was Sam's. No, I explained again, trying to pronounce my words with extra clarity so he would be sure to hear them; Sam had taken his camera to Paris since I had gotten one of my own. I added that I had realized using his just how big a difference there was between my previously wonderful Fuji digital SLR-type camera after the little Russian Aptek I had used for my first "Garden Updates", emailed to friends and family, and his Canon Rebel XTi, and since I couldn't keep his camera forever and wanted to be able to photograph the dogs, my garden, travels and everything and everyone I love (or for whom I at least care, for one reason or another), I had searched for an used Nikon digital SLR for myself.

Now, he will not forget again.

Later, in between the freezing cold sheets, I put my even colder hand in his still colder one and said, "Merci de mon cadeau. N'importe quel des deux que je garde, l'appareil de photo sera toujours mon cadeau de Noël."

"Merci, mais c'est bête. Je suis quand même déçu."

"Il n'y a aucune raison d'être déçu," I said to him. "C'est vraiment un cas quand c'est l'intention qui compte. Tu as voulu faire le plus beau des cadeaux pour moi et c'était très généreux. Je ne m'attendais pas à autant."

In my mind, it really was the perfect case of the intention being as important as the gift. He had wanted to offer an exceptionally generous and considerate present to me, and it hadn't failed at all. The camera, whichever I will keep, will be from him because he wanted to give me that.

"C'était parce que je t'aime, et j'ai voulu te le montrer comme je peux," he said. Very quietly.

"Je sais," I said.

I know. I do know. I also know that it is because I bent and accepted the weight of his daughter, and it is amazing how far you can bend without breaking and become stronger for it.

Our hands felt a little warmer in the dark.

Joyeux Noël to all, or the joy and the peace of the spirit of Christmas to each of you.

....

Doors

The miscanthus in morning sun

The sun has modestly left the sky, leaving place for wintry clouds. I am glad; I have a chest cold, and sun is unwelcome from here in my nest on the sofa, in front of the Super-G in Val Gardena and the wood stove. My chest cold, on the other hand, is welcome. It affords me the opportunity to nurture my psyche, preparing myself for the still unsettling fact of anticipating my stepdaughter coming through the door each evening of the week, coming home from school.

Home. Coming home.

I would rather it stayed dark with the lights on the Christmas tree and the fire in the hearth, my own little womb where I ply needle and thread, examining my conscience, looking for holes and rips, weak spots, and darning my soul.

It's private work, but I share it with you. I admire most of all those who do not need to share anything, who can sew in the privacy of their home and go on with their labors without asking anyone to notice. That is a confession. I think of the farmer in Babe. I tell myself, "That'll do, Pig. That'll do." I try to find the same quietness of principle and conviction, but I am more like his wife. I am both. Secretly, I am in love with Arthur Hoggett. James Cromwell would be fine, though.

I think my husband has something of him. Sometimes.

If the skies are really kind, they will send down more snowflakes. They did last night, but not enough, thankfully, to provide an excuse for the teachers not to show up at school, disappointing the children. I trod down the sidewalk this morning, past the dark windows of the house where one girl lives, to confirm that the other's were brightly lit, as I expected them to be. Behind them are parents who share our commitment to our children belonging in school and getting them there. Lit, it meant that if the bus did not appear, she or I would be driving at least our two children to school. The darkness of the other set of windows I took as a message. Not today. If my phone hadn't rung, it meant she had information to say the bus would come.

I walked back into the house with the dogs, Fia driving me nuts, twisting on her leash and tugging back to goad the lagging Rapide, who wanted one thing only: for Fia to leave her in peace at her own pace. My stepdaughter refused breakfast as usual and wished me a nice day, heading out for the bus.

"Ah! Il a neigé!" she exclaimed, stepping out the door into the morning darkness. Don't forget, we live very far north.

I waited for the protest. It didn't come. I did not need to say, "Oui, il a neigé, et toi, tu vas aller à l'école. Dépêche-toi," but I don't yet call that progress, as tempted as I am after our homework session of the evening before last. I don't dare yet. That would be premature. It will require several more homework sessions like that one, and the grades that confirm their significance. On the other hand, perhaps the cooperation and good humor are more important than the grades.

I rather suspect they are, at least from a parent's point of view. You see, I might be an idealist (I have been so accused), but I do not believe that conflict needs to define the teenage experience. It's more nuanced than that. They will be secretive, insolent, difficult and unpleasant, and possibly rude, and loudly so, at least once a day (so will I, I promise), but it does not have to define the entire experience of being a teenager and growing up.

I do believe that we ought to expect this from them as a sign that they are doing their job and pay the least attention necessary, choosing instead to get "caught" by the kind words, the

thoughtful gesture, the moment of enthusiasm, when they cannot prevent themselves from sharing with you and give that lavish attention. Do any of us want to be remembered for our worst moments and have them shape everyone else's expectations of us?

I didn't think so.

I find in the middle of all this, from my place in the center of my warm nest, that I might like it. Or, if "like" isn't the word, it could be that I feel attracted to the work for some reason that remains a mystery. I also believe that anything that appeals to us and is difficult to understand is worth doing. I believe that it is the next hill for us to climb (or up which to roll that stone) so that we can see from its top, a new perspective on the same landscape of our lives, or a new one altogether, or the very same one, changed by eyes that see differently for having done it again. It comes as close to a job as anything I have undertaken in my life. I wrote a contract not only to keep ma belle fille in line, but to give a form to my own responsibilities and objectives in doing it at all so that I can see not only if I am failing, but if I might possibly be succeeding in my work, and possibilities of success somehow seem to breed more.

At least I have always found it to work that way.

Maddeningly, maybe, since I pronounced the words "Let's take her", two more possibilities for which I have wished might be presenting themselves. They involve work, paid and charitable, that could lead to more doors.

It is so strange how when you walk through one door, any door, corridors of them appear, and suddenly you find yourself contemplating just how many you can possibly manage and afford to open, rather than "Where are the doors?"

The snow is falling.

....

Taking the long view from up close

Frost on the fields

I find that the views I take here tend both to the distance and to the very close-up. It's the garden and the view. If they teach things other than how to kill and maybe manage not to kill a plant (they are hard, usually, to kill, especially when you don't want them, but even when you actually do) and how to get lost in thought, they teach you to look and to notice both the large picture of the world that surrounds you and the tiny details of that world.

This is very useful in times of difficulty, when you usually hear Keep your eyes on the big picture every time something goes wrong and your stamina threatens to quit. This is when it is time to notice the very small things and forget all about the big picture for 5 minutes. It's often the smallest things that will get you through and maybe even see your way to whatever goal you are presently cursing yourself for fixing yourself.

Goals are not what they are cracked up to be. You have to be very careful with them or you can get yourself in a lot of trouble, like when someone close to you says, "You take in dogs and cats, why not a child? Don't over rationalize it."

No, do. Do over rationalize it. I implore you.

But, you think You know, you're right. How noble. It's the right thing, really. Just do it. Swelling with all the nobility your breast can contain, suddenly you hear your very own voice saying to that child's other parent, the noncustodial one, "Let's take her."

Rather like that same parent did when our first Labrador Retriever breeder asked back in 2006 if we would take Baccarat's mother, Rapide, too. That time it was he who said, "We'll take her," and he regretted it ever since he pronounced the words into the low September noon sun.

Fateful words, those. Everything changes. You say them, and there is no going back, at least not until you have gone.

I prepared a contract while she prepared her things and he went to get her after work the next day. It was a statement of our parenting intention and how our household works, and a promise to fulfill our obligations to her in return for her promise to uphold our minimum expectations of her.

Her room having been a cross between a war zone and public dump since I have known her, a period nearing one decade, I decided to begin with a spotless room, emptied of all but essentials: books, school supplies, bed, beside lamp, desk, chair, desk lamp, laundry hamper, closet and drawers prepared and waiting. Everything dusted and vacuumed. It was to stay that way. No clothes strewn all over the floor, no tiny scraps of paper adorning every dusty surface, no bowls of Nestle Quick with a spoon burrowed into the back of the desk drawer, barrettes, beads, pen caps, markers, cards, bits of games, pouches, and worn orphan socks and inside-out underpants clogging the underside of the bed, the edge of the woven straw floor covering, collecting dust bunnies larger than her dwarf hamster. In exchange, she would do no heavy cleaning, no unfair share of household chores.

That's my job. That's why I got my degree in architecture.

She would also spend time in the living room and participate in family life, read with us in the evening, do her homework with her father and myself and accept our direction and help, learning to use her brain for reflection and deduction, refrain from using such winning phrases as "Je m'en fiche" (I don't care), "J'en ai marre" (I'm sick of ________), "J'ai pas" (I don't know in slang), "Ba --" (uh or well, as in "well" at the beginning of a feeble explanation), all pronounced in a tone of voice more suited to someone raised in a crack house and not the households of a midwife and a doctor and a cleaning lady with an architect's resume.

In return, she would have more free time in her room for her Nintendo DS and text messaging all her multitude of correspondents, more time at the stables, and the possibility of inviting friends over, as long as the grades are on an upward curve, right along with the attitude.

The first evening went beautifully. We sailed over obstacles that seemed on a level with the sand. By a few days later, as we embarked on a new week, the obstacles looked more like the high jump from our seat on the wide back of a Shetland pony without stirrups. We ran into more than a few, but here's the thing: with children, you are not allowed to give up. You must go on, and they are not anywhere near as cooperative, desirous of pleasing and devoted as your dogs, nor as capable as your cats. There is nothing whatsoever in common between opening your heart to animals and to children.

Nothing.

Dogs may fart and not excuse themselves for making the air temporarily unbreathable (where does the stink go when it goes away?), but they rarely poison the environment with supreme "je m'en foutisme".

Cats may let you know that you are superfluous to them until they decide you are not, but they will rarely let you know you would be welcome to die and go to hell until they need you to prepare another meal.

And yet, their parents love them, and their responsible non-parent steps actually care about them, at least because of their great caring for their spouse, if nothing else, which is not always the case. Sometimes it is because you notice something in the child, something that once you catch a glimpse of it, no matter that it might be fleeting, you cannot forget when they deride your hopes for them, and even those they have for themselves, with their most majestic and taunting insolence.

I dare you to believe in me. I will not. I will show you that you are wrong, and nothing will give me greater pleasure or satisfaction.

Even there, when you look very closely into their eyes, you can see the fear. A question. Panic.

These they wish they could hide, and if you tell them you can see them, if you let them know that you will not give them the conflict they are demanding, that you will not permit them not to back out of the hole they are digging for themselves and correct their behavior, they will tell you Tu n'es pas dans ma tête, and perhaps laugh with deep discomfort because you have visited inside their head and seen the broken furnishings, the scribblings on the wall, the disorder. It does not comfort them to know that you can see and that you will not run. If it does, you will not know this. They will not let you.

It would be best if you simply know and act accordingly.

It takes every ounce of self-mastery to remain calm, repeating the same messages, expressing the same confidence, guiding and commanding without appearing to order, avoiding -- at all cost to oneself -- that drug of dearly beloved conflict, for if anger is but sadness and fear in its most primitive expression, conflict is sadness and fear become active, and finally habit. It's all you can offer and all you can ask.

I suspected when I said "Alright, let's take her" that the peace I had known with her would be replaced with a struggle to the death to create conflict where there had been little to recreate the relationship she had with her mother. It made me soften a bit towards her mother, but not that much. That's another story. It's a novel, or a piece for the theater, for if things had gotten to this, it was not because of a faulty wire in the daughter's head that can be fixed by a psychologist or even better parenting. It is a whole system of poor wiring, created by genes on the one hand and chemicals from responses to the stimuli of a difficult family environment on the other, and it is going to take a team to awaken the unused sensory and intellectual paths to success.

So much easier to stay the paths of non-responsibility, conflict and pain learned by the committed je m'en foutiste, with that maddening angry glare and hysterical grin. But, you have seen something. The moments when it slips because genuine excitement and pleasure have momentarily left no place for anger and self-defense.

This is what you cling to. This is how the details get you to the big picture.

"Regards," I pointed to the kitchen table. My husband's eyes followed my arm and my extended finger to where the SIM card lay on the Nintendo DS. He nodded.

"Elle tient le contrat alors," he said to me, with a slight suggestion that I had accused her of breaking the contract merely by yelling at me that none of her other friends had to have one to live with their fathers.

"Si je te la monte c'est parce que je le sais," I replied.

If I brought his attention to her SIM card lying there in that spot after she had gone up to bed, I told him, it was because I know she is honoring the contract at heart, as best as she can, while fuming about it at the same time. I knew it was a gesture of cooperation, the most important thing we had asked of her other than trust and respect.

I took a bright pink Post-it note from the drawer and a black marker, and I traced the shape of the SIM card on it, placing an arrow pointing to the image of the card below and a smiley face inside. Then, I stuck it to its place on the DS where she had left it and lay the SIM card back down in its little home.

When she came down to find it on the way to school in the morning, she would find recognition and thanks, too. I hoped I would find more strength for another day, clinging to the smallest details.

The struggle itself is enough to make a woman happy.

She hopes and prays.
....