Tightening the Knot Read online

  It seemed reasonable to start by identifying the type of tree he’d be working with, or rather on. He located the gardening section and pulled down a couple of tree encyclopedias and another book on bushes, just in case they actually were bushes. He took his small stack to a nearby table and opened the top book. He immediately judged it unhelpful. It had sparse, and mostly very small, pictures. The book on bushes was quickly pushed aside as well. On closer inspection, Greg discovered that it was devoted to “exotic” shrubbery. Since nearly half the yards in his neighborhood sported the same bush, or tree or whatever it was, it seemed unlikely he would find it in these pages.

  Large, full color pictures awaited him in the third book and he became more hopeful. Unfortunately, this book was a bit too accommodating. He was able to find four trees that all looked like his. Unsure how to narrow it down, he simply picked one at random and started skimming the information. There was a section on the history of the tree and a whole list of scientific words, possibly Latin, but no mention of how to prune one. He began to wonder if it might have been more useful to start with a book on general pruning rather than hunting for the specific tree. He was too restless to restart the search. He placed all three books on the little cart, making sure they felt his full level of disgust, and then went out the automated doors to his car.

  In the hardware store for a second time, he concluded that all he really needed to do was find something sharp, but not too sharp. The only limbs he wanted removed were on the trees. He settled on a basic hand saw and took it to the self checkout. Small talk with a cashier seemed a little risky. It would be seriously emasculating to find he had chosen the worst possible tool for the job.

  Greg started with the tree closest to the street to work away from any staring neighbors. He quickly hacked off the branches that were easiest to reach before he realized that he wasn’t making the tree any shorter, which was his goal. He stepped back to inspect the tree, then continued with a better plan.

  He ended up trimming all the trees in the same way, debating with himself the entire time on whether or not this was a good idea. If he had done them differently, that may have made it more likely some would survive. But he didn’t even know if a tree could die from a botched haircut so he decided to keep them looking fairly uniform. Perhaps if they all died, he could just blame it on the fact that he never watered them.

  Meredith had been peeking out the window regularly to keep tabs on Greg throughout the day. She wondered what he was going to bury when he went digging in the side yard, and later why the hole was an improvement. She had forgotten the ivy almost the day they moved in. She didn’t have to mow it, after all. She took the knife back out of the dishwasher, wrapped it in a paper towel and tossed it into the trash. It wasn’t a matching set anyway. She prayed he didn’t fall off the ladder and tried not to be too embarrassed when he used an old undershirt as a rag for the windows. Surely none of the neighbors had eyesight that good. And when he trimmed the trees, she realized how much better she had liked them as bushes, too.

  On Sunday, Greg was sore. He got dressed for church in slow motion and when they returned home, he just loosened his tie and lay back on the couch, unable to bear the thought of getting more comfortable. Meredith, however, did change her clothes. She put on her old college sweats and a slightly stretched out tank top. Greg was not the only productive member of the family. She began with some light housework, her typical weekend routine of dusting, vacuuming and a once over of both bathrooms. Then she got more serious.

  She decided that as long as Greg had washed the outsides of the windows, she ought to take a crack at getting the insides clean. She pulled a bottle of Windex out from under the sink and tucked a roll of paper towels under her arm. As she fought back the curtains on the first window, it seemed like a better idea to simply take them down. And because she couldn’t remember how long it had been since she washed them, that also seemed like a good idea. She went around her house collecting curtains for a load of laundry. All of her curtains were machine washable. They were also all varying shades of yellow so they could be washed in the same load. Jenna had chastised her friend for decorating based on care instructions. She felt that the choice of window dressings really set the personality of the entire house and that it was one choice that could absolutely be made solely on looks. She also didn’t especially care for yellow.

  With the washer humming, Meredith went back to the bare windows and began scrubbing in earnest. The new roll of paper towels was down by half by the time she had finished.

  Next she put the curtains in the dryer and stripped the bed to refill the washer. This gave her the idea to flip the mattress. She wasn’t really sure why someone would flip a mattress, but recalled her mother doing it occasionally so felt it must be important, though hopefully not so important that it mattered that she’d never done it before. The mattress was queen-sized with a pillow top. The size was what caught Meredith’s focus at the thought of moving it. This was probably going to require a plan, or perhaps a couple of burly guys. As the only available guy, who was only mildly burly anyway, was not currently in a state to lift his own arms, she was going to have to make do with a good plan. A quick survey of the room indicated nothing breakable on Greg’s side. She could probably shove the mattress that way and stand it on its side against the wall and then… figure something out.

  “Ugh,” Meredith grunted as she gave the mattress a good, hard push. Then she looked down and saw the two inches of box springs sticking out. It seemed the mattress was heavier than she realized. She bent down to put her shoulder into it and pushed with her legs. A little more progress. She heaved and shoved until the far side slipped to the floor and her side tipped upwards. Then she climbed up between the mattress and box springs and squatted with her back against the pillow bottom, slowly standing to push the mattress upright. She nearly lost her balance when it reached the tipping point. This resulted in what would have been a rather embarrassing dance if anyone had been helping. As it was, Meredith was simply grateful not to have fallen.

  She studied the mattress now propped against the wall and began to sense a miscalculation. In order to turn it over, the side against the wall would need to end up against the box springs. There was not enough room to turn it around and even if there was, she was reasonably certain the mattress would fall on her during the process. She furrowed her brow and put her hands on her hips. She was going to do something with this mattress. Eventually, she tipped it back onto the bed, but turned it so that the head became the foot. Something told her this was not what people meant by flipping a mattress. Why would it have a pillow top on the bottom if that wasn’t also a top? But the mattress was not in the same position that it started in and that satisfied her sense of accomplishment enough to seek out another chore.

  She dusted mostly invisible cobwebs from the upper corners of every room in the house and then got down on her hands and knees to clean the baseboards. The bookshelves begged her attention as well. She carefully removed and dusted each and every book and the shelves they sat upon. Greg had ordered pizza for dinner and the scent joined her in the den right about the time she began to feel she had been productive enough for one day. Unfortunately, she was surrounded by stacks and stacks of books that were not going to sprout wings and fly back onto the now very clean shelves. She grumbled to herself, only slightly more loudly than her stomach, and worked quickly to put things back in order. Then she put away more pizza than was typical for her and didn’t feel even a bit guilty about the extra calories.

  ╣ Chapter 21 ╠

  Meredith was a little sore the day after her cleaning spree. She felt it as she packed a New Year’s Eve bag for her and Greg, who was feeling only marginally better. Still, they were able to head to the hotel with the belief that they might have one of the most well-maintained houses around. The feeling gave little comfort though as there was also the sensation that the real work was about to begin.

  Meredith had successfully packed
a light suitcase for the event. Even so, Greg heaved it from the trunk as though she had packed for a week. He put the wheels on the ground and followed his wife, who was walking slower than usual, into the lobby. It had a very high, white ceiling supported with square columns over that typical hotel combination of business and living room. There was judicious use of weedy looking plants and a black lantern on the desk that seemed to add a touch of backyard as well. A red-striped couch with end tables sat near a TV on one side and a large sturdy looking desk stood ready to serve. The woman behind it, however, appeared to be suffering from an extreme case of boredom. The entrance of customers was not a diversion.

  “Can I help you?” It was not so much a question as a yawn with words.

  “Greg and Meredith Donnor. We’re here for… um, it’s a marriage thing. I don’t know if it has a name.”

  “You mean the ‘Tightening the Knot’ seminar. What was the last name again?”

  “Donnor.”

  “Donnor. I’ll look that up. I hope you haven’t eaten anyone lately.” She gave no smile or any other acknowledgment of her own joke so neither Greg nor Meredith felt the need to acknowledge it either. They simply stood patiently while she absently tapped on her keyboard and then rummaged under the counter. Without looking up she asked, “Do you want to keep this on the credit card you used for the reservation?”

  “Yes, please.”

  More tapping. Meredith picked up one leg and then the other to stretch her sore muscles. She hadn’t realized how much squatting was involved in cleaning baseboards. Eventually, a purple folder was shoved to their side of the counter.

  “This is your welcome folder for the seminar. And these are your room keys. You’re in 212. Take the elevator and make a left.”

  “Okay, thanks.” Greg took the keys and Meredith took the folder, even though it didn’t make her feel all that welcome. It had a label stuck to the front that said only “couple #14.” They made their way to the elevator and then to the second floor hallway. The sign that greeted them showed 212 to the right and there was no dilemma as to which information to trust.

  The first thing that struck Meredith about the room was the lack of flowers. It seemed to her that most hotel rooms she’d been in had some sort of flower pattern on the bedspread and/or drapes and perhaps framed pictures of flowers on the walls. This room had a plain spread on the bed and simple striped coverings on the windows. It had a fresh, clean look and she liked that illusion.

  Meredith opened the suitcase to immediately hang her dress in the closet to avoid wrinkles. She had packed an elegant blue dress she bought for a cousin’s wedding the previous year. Still mildly plagued by the feeling that she had spent too much on it, she was glad to have an occasion suitable for a second use. Greg had only one suit. It was black and he had worn it to every appropriate affair for the last eight years. She hung this next to her dress.

  Then she opened up that purple folder to investigate.

  “Don’t get too comfortable,” she warned Greg, who was checking out the flat screen TV. “This has an itinerary for couple #14 that starts at four.”

  “Do you think we need to remember our number?”

  “I just assumed we’d bring the folder with us.”

  “Okay. So what are we doing at four?”

  “It’s a session called ‘Weaving your personalities together.’ It’s supposed to give us…” she looked down and read from the paper, “a hands-on exercise in making one cloth of our separate beings.”

  “One cloth of our beings?” Greg looked skeptical, almost as though he’d rather be doing yard work again.

  “That’s what it says. We’ll be making cloth from 4 to 5 and then from 5 to 6 we’ll be ‘Molding Emotions.’ 6:30 to 8 is dinner, a ‘grand buffet,’ and then 8 to 9 is something called ‘Finding the Fun in Fundamentals.’”

  “I thought this was supposed to be a dance.”

  Meredith kept reading their prepared agenda. “We have nothing scheduled between 9 and 10, presumably to get ready for the ‘Fairy Tale Ball,’ which is from 10 to 1. Oh, I don’t believe that.”

  “What?”

  “There’s a breakfast set for 6:30 after an event that goes until 1. They forgot to schedule sleep.”

  “It might be optional.”

  “Sleep!?”

  “No, the breakfast.”

  ╣ Chapter 22 ╠

  The carpeting in the hotel hallway seemed to be on a mission to make up for the lack of flowers in the room. Greg and Meredith followed this floral path to the meeting rooms. Their first activity was in room E, which they were not at all surprised to find after room D. They entered the room and immediately felt out of place. While every other couple was also holding a purple folder, none of them appeared to occupy the same generation as Greg and Meredith. Had they missed an age requirement for this seminar?

  Meredith attempted to disappear into the wall behind her while she took in the scene. Greg, meanwhile, accepted the outstretched hand of the man nearest him and Meredith was forced to nod politely when they looked in her direction so it would not appear that Greg was introducing a wall. The two men were only able to exchange a few words before another couple entered the room carrying boxes. These appeared to be the instructors and all eyes turned in their direction.

  The female instructor was tall and thin and had likely been teased about having bug-eyes at some point in her life. She placed her box on the end of a table and began pulling out bunches of pink yarn. The tables were arranged in a large U with chairs along the outside. She put a bunch of yarn in front of every other chair. The man she was with was short and stocky and wore a suit that might have been trendy when he was a teenager forty or fifty years earlier. He first pulled a clipboard out of his box and then began adding blue yarn to the places that did not have pink. When they finished laying out the yarn, the woman invited the students to have a seat.

  “Please sit next to your spouse. All women should have pink yarn and the men should have blue.”

  Following what sounded like simple instructions quickly deteriorated into more trouble than spreading out a picnic blanket on a windy day. There were six couples ready to participate. Five couples sat down so that the remaining chairs were separated by two couples. These two couples moved over a seat to close the gap and brought their yarn with them to keep the right color. Then the standing woman claimed the extra pink yarn to take to the end with her husband at the same time the sitting couples decided it might be easier to have the men and women switch sides and pass the yarn back. This resulted in general confusion, which distressed the instructors in a way that caused them to be helpful in ways that were not helpful.

  Meredith was not involved in the chaos, but gripped her own pink yarn as though it was something quite valuable while she watched. When things settled down, the instructors took their places in front.

  “Okay, men, look at me.” The male instructor held his arms out in front of himself, bent at the elbows. He looked as though he was about to break into a robot dance and Meredith mentally dubbed him Mr. Roboto for the rest of the session. “Put your arms up like this and face your wives.”

  “Now wives,” the woman took over the directions, “you take the blue yarn from in front of your husbands…” There was an awkward pause at the end of this instruction as though she was formulating a better set up plan for her next group. “What you’ll want to do is loop the strings, one at a time, over your husbands’ arms. You’ll want to leave an inch or so between each one. Wait!” Some of the women had started already and this was apparently wrong. “We’re going to do this slowly. For each piece of yarn, I want you to tell your husband something about him that you appreciate. When you’re done, you’ll weave the pink strings in vertically and have your husband do the same for you. I mean, do the same with the appreciation. He’ll tell you one thing he appreciates about you for each pink string. Any questions? Good. Now you can start.”

  Meredith watched for a moment as the female in
structor hurried to get all of the blue loops over her husband and began working in the pink. There were no forced compliments between them. She then turned to Greg, who had pushed his sleeves up and was ready for her. The yarn was fuzzy as Meredith fiddled with a blue piece between her fingers.

  “Are you stalling because you can’t think of anything nice to say?” Greg had a mischievous grin. He clearly thought this was just as silly as she did, but was going to make her do it anyway.

  “I didn’t realize this was a race.” She answered calmly and put the first piece of string all the way down to his elbows. “I appreciate your patience.” She winked and picked up a second piece. “I also appreciate how good you are at getting your sleeves out of the way.”

  “I think that might be cheating.”

  “Cheating?”

  “That’s not a real thing.” Greg was being playful, but was also wincing slightly at having to hold his sore arms up at this angle. Meredith took pity and moved things along a bit faster. For the other eight strings she gave serious, though not too mushy, praise. She really was grateful that he regularly cooked dinners for her and that he never gave her a hard time about spending time with Jenna. She loved his sense of humor and also his sense of responsibility. When it came down to it, she ran out of yarn before she ran out of compliments. But the yarn kept slipping down his arms. She was having trouble getting it organized to weave in the pink strings. The pieces were not exactly the same length and she reordered them again and again to make them stay in position.

  “Here. Lay your arms down on the table.” She grabbed his hands to turn him slightly and placed his arms down. This kept the blue strings in place, but made adding the pink a difficult reach. Meredith stood up behind him and slid one arm under Greg’s to start the first string.