Terra Nova

Yellow leaves gently scattered from the top branches of the trees, like the last dregs of confetti that drop as revelers stagger home from a grand celebration. Vera sipped her coffee and watched the late afternoon sun toss a handful of glitter across the pond. This was her favorite part of the day: with Ed napping, she savored some serenity. Since his Alzheimer’s diagnosis two years ago, Ed had been restless and combative, his behavior worsening by the month. Vera had to strictly stay by his side, making sure he didn’t fuss too much, or try to swim in the pond as he once did every morning, or go out to the work shed to tinker with well-worn tools now too dangerous for him.

She kept one ear on the open bedroom window, listening for Ed’s stirring, as the wind whistled gently through the tall grass surrounding the pond. A pair of ducks swam lazily on the glassy water, the male sporting his shiny green head a few feet in front of the female, her brown feathers dowdy but proud. The female eventually caught up to her mate, but then they parted ways, each heading towards opposite sides of the pond. Vera turned to re-enter the house, her coffee now cooling and losing its delicious warmth; it was time to start prepping supper.

Ed had been 15 years her senior when they met. Vera had been a shy 28-year-old, about to give up on marriage completely, a spinster in her family's eyes. She had felt that Ed had lived an entire lifetime before her — he had been married with 3 young kids, and managed Terra Nova, his family property, while also working full time for the city. But he found Vera, and chose Vera, and charmed her with gifts and attention and the idea of a simple, bucolic life. They married quickly and she moved into his farmhouse. She had fallen as much in love with the farm as she did with Ed. A lush forest of black walnut trees surrounded the pond, where ducks swam in packs and fished for food. As she became familiar with the land, she proposed various additions: a vegetable garden, chickens, wildflowers. But Ed had demurred each time, shooing away her ideas, making them dissolve into the ether. They otherwise worked on the property in unison, rarely arguing. She cooked his favorite meals and they spent quiet evenings together, watching the television programs he liked.

Now that Ed was afflicted by Alzheimer’s, he had become a shell, a shadow, an able body with a molten mind. He was still physically strong, the same large square hands that once gently held her now clenched into tight fists as she tried to dress him. The same body that once tended the land, she now tenderly cared for. She changed his diapers, fed him, bathed him. She bore the burden alone, knowing that Ed’s kids weren’t coming, with their own families, and jobs, and simmering resentment. And Vera was always too busy working on the property to find a group of women to befriend.

Vera now found herself in her late 50s with a dying husband and a property to care for, and not much else, aside from her own robust health: years of working the farm kept her heart and limbs strong. The church community thoughtfully sought volunteers to stay with Ed so Vera could go to the grocery store, run errands, see her doctors. She was overdue for a mammogram, yet eventually made it to an appointment. Her eyes welled up when chatting with the tech, who had asked after Ed, but had also gently inquired if Vera was taking care of herself. Vera couldn’t answer the question, her lips pursed as the machine whirred around her, taking pictures of the parts of her hidden to the human eye.

One clear Sunday morning, Ed simply kept his mouth closed as Vera tried to give him his morning cereal. She attempted to coax him to take a few bites, but his face remained stony and stoic, his lips a fine flat line. He also declined his split pea soup at lunch, not even interested in the tiny bits of ham Vera knew he liked. She made his favorite for dinner, sure he would enjoy that: roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and green beans. But he simply sat staring at her, a silent rejection. She began to worry that he was physically sick, although he wasn’t sniffling, or coughing, or otherwise looking ill. She put a call into his doctor the following morning to report the poor appetite, but she never heard back.

A few days of the food strike passed before she understood that this was it: Ed was turning the corner. She felt a potent mix of grief and relief. She wanted him to be at peace, but she knew she would miss him even more deeply once he was physically gone.

Then, in the early hours of a Tuesday morning, Ed ceased to breathe. They were lying in bed together and she opened her eyes to feel his body go cold, and still. She blinked once at the ceiling, sighed, then rolled to hold him for a final time. She gave him a soft kiss on his cheek and whispered a farewell.

Vera buried Ed in the family cemetery half a mile up the road. The funeral was sparsely attended: a few neighbors, some old work buddies. Less than a dozen of them hovered around the gravesite on a bright but chilly day, the sharpness of the sun’s rays barely keeping them warm in their fall coats. Through her tears, she glanced at the plot next to Ed’s, her eventual resting place, and noted how tightly packed the dirt appeared.

She had planned to take down the black walnut trees once Ed had passed. The trees had been planted by Ed’s great-grandfather, mostly for their wood, and stood majestically around the back perimeter of the pond. But they leached a toxin that prevented Vera from growing her vegetables or keeping her chickens. Over the last few months, as she watched Ed fade into dusk, and she mourned the death of their life together, she decided to destroy the trees, with their beautiful hand-staining fruit and potent poisons. As she watched the men saw and dig, felling and then tearing up the trees and their toxic roots, she pictured the vegetable garden she would plant and tend: towering tomato vines and globular glistening eggplants, peppers shining in the sun. She imagined her new white chicken coop, hens and roosters pecking and strutting at its base. She imagined collecting a basketful of eggs that resembled river stones, smooth and blue. Maybe she would meet new people, find some friends. There was still a lot more to do at Terra Nova, and in the dizzying, expansive world beyond.