Wasps and Leaves

All Quentin wants to do this morning is rake leaves.

“Will you get up really, really early in the morning with me so I can finish raking leaves in the pile and jump into it?”

He asked me this last night, his words tripping over each other. His little hand tightened on my forearm as he waited for my answer. It’s been deliciously cool lately–a presentiment of fall in the early days of July–and the mornings are especially fine.  I said yes.

So this morning we slip outside while the house still sleeps. First, I go to the backyard and kill a wasp that lies on our deck, stunned by the unseasonably cool temperature. Last night six–six!–wasps invaded our home, darting about the kitchen, ricocheting off cabinets and thumping against light fixtures. My husband and I followed their droning, armed with shoes and brooms. The younger children fled to an upstairs bedroom.

In the kitchen, my husband was relentless. He smashed two at a time above the sink. He climbed on a bar stool and crushed one on top of the cabinet. One he swatted out through through the open door. The last two died between a shoe and the wall.

My husband shook out the broom and returned it to the laundry room. Our  daughter put away the shoes. The two youngest flung open the door to their shelfter, and stuck their heads out, looking about with more caution than they use to cross the street.

Later, my  husband discovered the front door ajar. The eight year-old was careless when she went out the door to the playground earlier. That’s how the wasps got in–less than one inch of unnoticed space between the door and the doorjamb.

I was relieved. There was no nest in the house, no torn screen, no need to worry about wasps buzzing into my children’s rooms at night. Just shut the door.

My husband didn’t share my relief. An open door while we went about our business in the illusion of safety worried him. A wasp is a pest. An open door could destroy his world.

This morning, when I stand in the kitchen looking out over the deck, I see the fat wasp lying on the wood planks just on the other side of the sliding door. I know he’s just sluggish from the cold; the rising sun will revive the little menace. After a bash from the same broom that killed his brothers the night before, his crushed body slips between the slats. One less threat to my children’s tender skin.

My son is happy the wasp is destroyed. He flourishes the rake, a bacchanalian flavor to his excitement. I settle in a chair and watch.  This morning the energy seems to tangle and punch beneath his skin. He bounces around the yard, up on on his toes–I should tell him to stop, put your feet down and walk properly–but I can’t bear to interrupt. His joy delights me.

He has a vision: a pile of crisp leaves and a flying leap into a soft, crackling landing. He springs around the yard, stroking, pulling the rake across the grass over and over.

He doesn’t stop to ask why only this tree is dropping leaves in the middle of summer, or to wonder why the leaves are so riddled with tiny holes they look like rounds of delicate lace when held up to the soft morning light. He doesn’t notice the strips of bark dangling from the trunk, exposing tender tree flesh.

He just sees providence: shower of leaves; crisp pile; soft landing.