My Neighbors

Being an only child, I struggled with loneliness in my wide, rural world. I had only one friend within walking distance, but it was still quite far away, and my mother didn’t want me to walk alone because the houses in between were sparse (and living on a dirt road without speed limit signs meant people drove however they liked). While it was a good lesson to learn how to play by myself, there were many days I desperately wanted to spend time with my friends.

During the pregnancy with my twins, I had to spend six weeks in the city in order to be monitored. As I told one of the nurses about where I lived, she gasped and scoffed at the amount of time it took us to get to a grocery store. She said she could never live that way. What happened when we got bored? What happened when we wanted to visit someone? What happened if you were in the midst of cooking a meal and realized you were missing a green onion?

You make do, I told her. Yes, it’s inconvenient. It’s lonely. I don’t always want it either.

And yes, I worry about my kids sometimes too.

What will they do without a friend down the block? Who will they play with when all their friends are at least twenty minutes away, if not more? How will they learn independence when they can’t walk to school or the grocery store by themselves? Group projects in school will be a nightmare of driving and coordinating like they were for me.

But when I sit with my rural upbringing long enough, I know these hitches are only half the story.

For me, life was a lot like what Wendell Berry described in Hannah Coulter; you knew everyone within your village, and you all came together to help one another out. When the roads flooded, the family down the road with the lift kit on their truck drove all the kids to school. When forest fires raged close to our home, neighbors came with trailers to get our horses somewhere safe. People quickly knit their fingers together to carry one another.

I have fought with discontentment, longing for a big city at times and to be closer to all the conveniences. When those feelings rumble inside, I’ve learned to remember the times my tiny community has come around me and why I chose to stay here.

For the second time that day, I stood in front of the bathtub scrubbing gunk off my child. The bathroom window blew wind in my face, pushing the sickening smells from my nostrils but bringing the sounds of a lawn mower to my ears.

It must be the neighbors. The elderly couple kept their lawn trimmed like a military buzz-cut. Even when my husband still lived in our house, our lawn upkeep never matched theirs.

As I scrubbed my son, I furrowed my brows. The lawn mower never sounded this close, even beside an open window. I put the cloth down and peered through.

A red truck sat in our driveway behind the house, and as I leaned further over, I saw a trailer with a gas can propped up on it.

I quickly finished cleaning my son and dressed him. I told him to return to his room for quiet time, but when his twin brother called out, “A man mowin’ da lawn!” he immediately ran into his brother’s room to watch out the window.

I tried to smile as I donned a cardigan, but my stomach knotted as I went out the door. Since my husband left to live with his parents three weeks prior, he and his father had promised to arrange for someone to mow the lawn. The grass mocked their promise; it was halfway up my calves.

The sun beat down, but I pulled the cardigan closer. What would I say to this man? Whose side would he be on? As I walked behind the house in my holey sandals, these questions tumbled through my mind. Did he see me as an abusive mother and wife who kicked her loving husband out of his own house and withheld his children from him (as my husband liked to tell the story)? Would he scoff at me, giving me a cold shoulder? Would he expect me to pay? What little money I had in the bank account I needed for bills and groceries. My husband and father-in-law said they would pay for it—but what if they didn’t? It wouldn’t be the first bill they slipped out on.

Even worse—would I know him? Would this be yet another person I thought knew and cared about me yet had turned against me in favor of my husband’s lies? Just like his mother, father, brother, sister-in-law, aunts, and uncles? Just like the friends who claimed to be neutral but refused to take the abuse seriously?

My stomach snarled. I saw the man turn his ride-on mower in my direction. His face caught mine, and he reached down to pull the lever to stop the mower.

I eyed him, trying to see if I knew him. His head was covered with a ball cap and headphones, and his eyes with black sunglasses.

Then I saw the earrings. I stopped. I likely looked at him as if he were a ghost. “Shane?” I said.

He smiled. “I hope you don’t mind me mowing your lawn. It was getting pretty long.”

Tears brimmed. My friend’s husband—the man who had bought and changed my locks for free once he heard of the sexual assault charges against my husband and came to my house at 9:45 p.m. when my bathroom began flooding my basement. He had a full-time job, four small children, and his own home to care for, yet he came on his day off to mow my lawn.

“Thank you,” I whispered. “You have no idea what this means to me.”

“It’s not a problem at all.”

I lined all three boys up in the tub to scrub the beach and markers off them. My pants, shirt, and socks were already soaked more than the kids, but the doorbell rang and I had no time to change.

I startled at the face in the door that I couldn’t place. Could it be a social worker my ex-husband has sent after me? I took a breath, trying to still my shaking hands.

“Hey!” she said as I opened the door. “It’s Megan, from across the road. We met at the shore a few weeks ago.”

I nodded, inside slapping my stupid, paranoid self.

“I talked to our neighbor Irene to ask what groceries she bought you the other day so I wouldn’t get the same things as her. I have them in my trunk; do you mind if I bring them in?”

The anxiety melted away and left tears behind. “Yes, yes, of course. You’re so kind; thank you.” I shut the door and followed her. “Let me help you.”

I walked out to her car and she opened her back door first. “My in-laws just picked fresh strawberries.” She handed me two boxes. “I can assure you, they’re delicious.”

I held the red berries close to my chest and followed her to the trunk. She hauled out an extra-large bag filled with cereal, vegetables, and fruit. It was almost as big as her. “Do you mind if I bring this in for you?”

I shook my head, trying to fend off the tears. “Not at all! Thank you so much!”

As she hauled the bag up the steps and into the porch, she told me her own story of a relationship a lot like mine. I nodded along. “It’s hard,” I whispered.

“I can’t imagine,” she replied. She squeezed my shoulder. “Please, call or text anytime if you need anything.”

I watched her leave, and I thought I might take her up on that offer.

I hung up from the phone call with my family doctor. She gave me another prescription for my growing anxiety. It might be PTSD or it might also be my pre-existing anxiety disorder being further inflamed, but either way, I needed another medication to function and care for my three boys on my own.

It was a newer drug, so I knew it would cost more than my current one that had been on the market for a while. I sucked in a deep breath. Where would I find the money? I was still seeking remote, full-time work I could do while also caring for my kids, but so far had only collected various small freelance jobs. The Salvation Army had just bought my son’s two EpiPens, so I knew I couldn’t ask them. I fidgeted with my phone case while the twins ran around the yard. The night before, I had to bite the bullet and order shoes for all of them since their current shoes hurt their feet.

I froze as a gray truck pulled up the driveway. I didn’t recognize it, and when it got closer, I didn’t recognize the driver either—or his big golden dog sitting in the passenger seat. Unknown vehicles in my driveway were one of the sources of my increased paranoia in those days.

I slowly approached the driver’s side of the truck, noting the kids’ locations. The older man smiled and I tried to place his face.

The man rolled his window down. “Hi, I heard you’re going through a rough time,” he said. Before I could reply, he put his hand out the window and handed me $120. My mouth fell open.

“Th-thank you,” I murmured. “What’s your name?” Heat burnt my cheeks, because I should know anyone who felt compelled to give me so much money.

“John. What’s yours?”

A lump swelled in my throat. A complete stranger. He didn’t even know me.

“I live nearby. Listen,” he continued, eyeing my wood furnace. “I also have some extra wood I can give you. It’s not good for much else, but it’ll be dry by autumn and burn well.”

“Yes, thank you. I would really appreciate it.”

He smiled. “Good, I’ll bring it by. We all go through hard times, but we will get through them. All right?”

I nodded, trying not to cry. “Yes, thank you.”

He drove away, and I squeezed the bills in my hand, wondering if this was all somehow a figment of my imagination.

I sat in the backyard while my oldest played with the hose. My paranoia crept up my spine again as the day wound down and the sun slanted over the garage. Nighttime was coming, the time when shadows and bumps in the dark played tricks on me.

I was startled as a call came in on my phone. A number I didn’t recognize, but the location below it said it was from within my local community. Unknown phone calls made my hairline sweat during those days. I hit the green button.

“Hello?”

“Hi there, is this Lara?”

My heart pounded harder at the French accent. Is it one of my husband’s relatives?

“Yes, who is this?”

“This is Joanne, your neighbor down the road. I came over this afternoon but no one was home. Is it OK if I drop by?”

“Um, yes, sure.”

“OK, see you soon.”

Only a few minutes later, a silver hatchback pulled up the driveway. I tried to smile as I approached her. “Hi there!”

She beamed at me. She appeared to be middle-aged, but I couldn’t place her in my memory. “Hi, I live a few houses down. Megan gave me your number. My daughter works at the school with your son. Remember, she rode the bus with him when he was first getting used to it?”

“Yes, yes I do! That was so kind of her to do.”

“Listen, John was by today while I was in the garden. He told me he was here and that you were going through a rough time. I have nothing to do tomorrow, and I want to take you to town to buy some groceries. A few of us are putting money together, and we’ll buy them for you.”

My lips twitched, fighting to turn into a sob. I swallowed it away. “I … I … Thank you. I’m so grateful.” Together, we made plans for her to pick me up the next day and take me grocery shopping, and she told me to buy whatever I needed, not just food. She also said her daughters had friends with boys my sons’ ages, so they could give me some kids’ clothes if need be.

Before she left, she told me, “Here in the community, we help out those in need.”

To practice speech with my twin boys, we used to sit by the road-facing window and watch the cars drive by. They would exclaim, “Car!” and I would reply with the match-plus-one technique. “A red car!” “A fast car!” “A shiny car!” and so forth. Doing this every day (and sometimes multiple times a day), I began to recognize certain cars. A navy sedan that always drove up the road in the morning and returned by 3 p.m. A blue truck belonging to a retired, elderly man that chugged past several times a day.

At the time, I didn’t know much about them. People used to make a point of visiting the neighbors when they first moved into a new community; now, we just slink in with our taped boxes hoping no one notices.

Now, I know those cars. And I’m ever-thankful for them.

After reading Hannah Coulter with two other friends, one of them said she found it too idyllic; too tight-knit and supportive to be truly real. I struggled to sort out what was real and not those early days as a single mom—to hold onto truth after my brain had been manipulated for so long. But one thing I did know: Joanne was right. In this rural community, we help out those in need.

The featured image, “Hoarfrost at Rock Ledge Ranch,” is courtesy of Steve Moon and is used with his kind permission for Cultivating.

Lara d'Entremont

Lara d’Entremont is first a wife and a mom to three little wildlings in rural Nova Scotia, Canada. While the wildlings snore, she primarily writes—whether it be personal essays, creative nonfiction, or fantasy novels. She desires to weave the stories between faith and fiction, theology and praxis, for women who feel as if these pieces of them are always at odds. Her first book, A Mother Held, is a collection of essays on the early days of motherhood and anxiety. Much of her writing is inspired by the forest and ocean that surround her, and her little ones that remind her to stop and see it. 

www.laradentremont.com