Divots

Divots

"Karen? Whatcha doin' there?" her 73-year old neighbor called out from the sidewalk.

"Repairing divots!" she said with a laugh.

He laughed, too, and said, "Okay. Yeah. After you flatten the molehill it kinda looks like a divot. When did the mole show up?"

"Yesterday, and this guy's a busy one. Look at this!"

"I am, and it doesn't look good!" the man, whose name was Fred, told her. "You gotta get that little guy or he'll tear your whole yard up."

She nodded and told him she understood.

Karen Moore had grown up in that very house and had just returned a year ago following the passing of her husband. It had been financially impossible to continue living in Wellesley, Massachusetts, on one income, and her only option had been to return and move into her childhood home with her dad. It still seemed surreal to be back in Nebraska after having lived in the greater Boston area for so many years. But here she was in the Omaha suburb of Council Bluffs, a city of some 62,000, and now living alone since her father also passed away just three months earlier.

Karen had just turned 41, the age at which her late mother had died from cervical cancer. Because of that, she was careful to have yearly checkups as well as conduct monthly self checks for breast cancer. She didn't live in fear, but if that could happen to her mom who never smoked or even drank, it could happen to anyone. After her passing, Karen began taking extremely good care of herself as another form of prevention, but cancer or even dying, wasn't her greatest fear.

The thing she wanted most was rapidly slipping away as she entered a new decade of life, and that was to have a family. She'd loved her husband who was a good, decent man. He just wasn't interested in having kids as he saw them as little leeches who sucked time, money, and the very life out of the souls of the adults who cared for them.

He was a bit on the vain side, so hitting a tanning booth was something he routinely did. She'd warned him a time or two, but he mocked her so badly for being a worry wort that she never brought it up again. Not even when he was diagnosed with malignant melanoma. Just 19 months later he was gone, and she was just shy of being 40 years old with no husband, no children, no life insurance, and no way to afford living in such a high-cost area.

Karen was doing her best to make peace with the hand life had dealt her, but with the passing of her beloved father so soon after losing her husband, it was becoming increasingly challenging to keep on keeping on. She worked full time, ate well, and kept up with the aerobics she loved, and because her father hadn't been well, caring for him made having a social life nearly impossible.

She was now ready to try dating, mostly because she'd had close to two years of watching her late husband slip away before leaving Wellesley. She'd wanted to be hopeful, but his cancer was already at Stage 4a when it was diagnosed, and she knew she had to mentally prepare herself, so when the worst-case scenario unfolded, she thought she might one day look back and realize how valuable it had been to do the mental work along the way.

She'd only ever been with one other man, and she was now in a place where she wanted to start dating and had recently signed up for an online site. So far, she'd been on three dates with three different men with a wide variety of results--all of them bad.

The first had been a disaster. He was 43, relatively good looking, but they had nothing in common. Politics, religion, children, and money. The 'big four'. Polar opposites on them all. He was night and she was day and that was that. Adding salt to the wound, they even hated what the other person ordered for dinner.

The second guy was very handsome and also quite charming. But it turned out that he was also quite married. Disgusted, Karen took a break for two weeks before agreeing to a third try hoping it would be the proverbial charm. He was 50, but that wasn't outside of her comfort range, and he looked good in his photos.

However, the photos he put up of himself on the dating site were a good ten years old, and the man who showed up looked more like her father than a potential mate. She had a cup of coffee with him then excused herself and ended up home alone in tears, feeling like the world was out to get her.

Now, although it was a very minor thing, she had three more black mounds of dirt in her front yard after having tamped down four others, a yard her father considered his pride and joy. It was by far the nicest looking yard in their neighborhood, and the flower beds in front of the house and around a beautiful tree as well as the hedgerow along the driveway were equally beautiful. She felt she owed it to her 'daddy' to at least try and care for it, so she dutifully mowed it by herself and made sure to water the flowers, pull weeds, and do what she could to keep it up.

As she looked at the molehills she asked Fred what he recommended to take care of them.

"Get a couple of traps and catch the little bastard!" he said with a loud laugh.

"You mean kill him?"

"It's a mole, Karen, not a dog. Yes, kill the little SOB. Dead!"

"Is that the only alternative?" she asked a little tentatively knowing that Fred would probably scold her for being too nice or maybe even for being 'woke', something she was not. She just didn't like killing anything that wasn't a spider, a fly, or a roach or some kind of bug inside the house. Okay, she hated snakes, too, but what woman didn't?

"You could pay someone to catch him, but a trap runs about $15 and hiring someone to catch the little critter might be as high as $500."

"Five hundred dollars?" she asked, astounded at the price.

"Maybe. Could be as little as a couple a hundred, but it ain't gonna be no fifteen bucks, that's for dead sure. And if you don't get rid of him soon, he'll tear this whole damn yard up, and your father will rollin' over in his grave!"

He looked over at her then said, "No disrespect intended, of course. Your dad was a good man. As good as God makes 'em."

"Yes, he was, and he loved this yard," she said in agreement even as she struggled to continue believing in God after all that had happened.

"Do you know anyone? To catch the mole?"

"Nope. I'd just set a trap or two and be done with it. But you can find almost anything on the internet, or so my kids tell me. Did you know they're all in their 40s now? Time sure does fly, doesn't it?"

"It really does," Karen replied, ignoring the age comment and hoping he wouldn't press the issue.

"How about you? You gotta be close to 40 yourself, right?"

She bristled a little internally then answered with one word, "Yes."

"Yeah, right. And you don't have any kids yourself, do you?"

She was getting exasperated but smiled and said, "No. Not yet."

"Well, you oughta get started on that pretty soon, 'cause time really does fly. Before you know you'll be 50. Trust me."

He chuckled as though it was funny, but Karen didn't laugh. It just reminded her that time really was flying by for her. She thought she might have another 5-7 years left, and with each passing year, a smaller chance of ever having a baby. And...she didn't even have a boyfriend let alone a husband.

"Well, I guess I'll go see if I can find someone to come over and tell me how much it'd cost to catch this mole."

"Okay. But I could set out a trap for you in less than ten minutes. Probably be dead by mornin'," Fred told her.

"Thank you, but I think I'll try to avoid killing it. For now."

"You kids these days," he replied with a guffaw and a shake of the head. "You ain't one of them vee-gins, are ya?"

"No. I...eat fish. And shrimp," she replied a little too defensively as though it was his business or would even matter to the gruff old man.

"Not even chicken?" he asked as though he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "What's wrong with chicken?"

"Nothing. I occasionally have a chicken breast. I just prefer to stick with fish."

"And shrimp. Okay. Well...it's a free country!" he said before wishing her luck and going on his morning walk.

She hated being annoyed with him, but she just wasn't in the mood. She'd lost her husband, her father, and she was getting old--er. Oh, right. As she'd just been thinking, she wasn't married, she didn't have kids, and she had a...bleeping mole in the yard that was tearing it up! All she needed was to say something nasty and have Fred tell her, "Easy there, Karen," with her name being used pejoratively as in 'she's such a Karen!' She hated the term, but it was here to stay.

Back inside she was calmer and felt terrible for feeling terrible. Life just seemed so unfair, and while she hated self pity, she felt unable to avoid wallowing in it every now and then.

She washed her hands, made a cup of coffee, then sat down at her desktop and brought up a search engine and typed in 'catch mole service near me' and hit 'Enter'.

She got four returns in the greater Omaha area and began looking through them. All of them offered the same services, so she started with the only one in Council Bluffs, a company named Gray Pest Control. It offered indoor and outdoor services, and among them was mole removal, just what she was looking for. They did a catch and release with the release being done in an area some 20 miles out of town where the little critters could dig to their hearts' content and not make any divots in a human's yard.

"Gray Pest Control," she heard a man's voice say.

"Oh, hi. I have a mole problem. HELP!!!"

The man laughed and asked her where she lived. Karen gave her the address, and she was pleasantly surprised when he told her he was enroute to a job just a couple of blocks from her.

"I can stop by on my way and do a quick assessment," he told her. "I'm pretty sure I could come by again later on after this job and set some traps if you want to hire me."

"That would be perfect! Yes!" she told him, thrilled to hear it wouldn't be 2-3 days until someone could even stop by.

"All right then. My name's Pat Gray, and I'm the owner. I should be there in less than five minutes."

"Thank you! Thank you so much! This little guy is tearing my lawn up."

He chuckled then told her not to worry.

She hung up and felt much better and resolved not to let circumstances dictate her mood.

Pat was closer than he thought and pulled into the driveway a couple of minutes later. He saw the damage as he was shutting off the company vehicle he drove as well as owned. Karen was surprised to see him and went outside just as he stepped out of the van with a "Pat Gray & Son" logo on it.

"I see you have company," Pat said with a little laugh as he nodded toward the black spots of varying size in her yard.

"Divots. I call them divots," she said with a laugh of her own. "My husband loved golf, and after I squashed the dirt down flat that's what I thought of."

"I've been this for 25 years, and that's the first time I've heard anyone say that, but you know what? That's a pretty accurate description."

He pulled a glove onto his left hand then walked over to one of the holes and stuck his index finger in it.

"You're not trying to see if the mole is there, I assume," Karen said, knowing that couldn't be what he was doing but wanting to understand.

"No. In all those years I've only ever touched one once and that was about 18 years ago. He must have been in the hole next to the one I was probing and got spooked."

He was bent over and looked up at Karen and laughed.

"Scared the hell out of me, too!"

She already liked the man whom she judged to be in his mid-to-late late 50s. He was a nice-looking man, and while she'd never thought about dating, let alone marrying, anyone that much older than her, it made her wonder if she should consider other possibilities this time around.

"Okay. This is the last hole, and he's tunneling in that direction."

Pat stood up and pointed to an adjacent hole.

"So...he would have come from...that hole...."

He pointed again then walked her around to the last 'divot and said, "He had to have originally come from your neighbor's yard unless he went all the way down the side of your house and came from the backyard. You had any other activity anywhere?"

"No. Just this. At least that I know of."

He chuckled then looked at the edge of the driveway.

"Oh, my. Look here. This little guy's moving down the edge of the whole driveway. He'll end up turning back into the yard soon. So it's a good thing you called, because you'll have another half dozen of your 'divots' in another day or two."

"Can you get rid of him?" Karen asked hopefully.

"Guaranteed!" he told her with a friendly smile. "If I had 20 minutes I'd take care of it myself, but I'm wall-to-wall blocked today. No worries, though. My boy knows everything I do, and he'll get you taken care of. I'll have him here first thing tomorrow morning."

That was Sunday, and Karen was wondering if it would cost more.

"No. Not at all. My son only works weekends, and only when he can."

She wanted to ask why, but he seemed to know what he was doing and said his son was as good as him, so she only thanked him.

"Yes, ma'am. We'll get you taken care of. Once he sets the traps out, we should have him within a few hours. Every now and then one of them surprises me, but that's pretty rare."

He made her laugh when he pointed to his head and said as though he were telling a secret, "Big brain vs little brain."

She also noticed he wasn't wearing a ring when he pointed using his left hand. She still wasn't sold on the older man thing, but she wasn't put off by it, and decided she would give it some additional thought.

"All right. I have you down for 8am tomorrow. No need to come outside unless you're up that early on a Sunday and just want to. Chris'll take care of it for you and leave an invoice on your front door handle."

"I can't thank you enough. This yard was my late father's pride and joy, and I can't stand seeing it torn up."

"I'm sorry for your loss, and yes, it is a beautiful yard. I can see why you want to get rid of this little bast...stinker."

He smiled when he caught himself almost using profanity, and Karen laughed.

"I've heard worse."

"I'm sure, but I still don't like to curse around women."

He winked then said, "Especially the pretty ones."

Karen was surprised but pleased to hear a compliment. She still occasionally received them, and when she was younger it happened quite often, and it had been a good while since the last time. Then again, she rarely got out other than work or the grocery store.

"Oh, aren't you nice!" she told him.

"My wife was a beautiful woman, too, and while I'm no spring chicken, I still appreciate feminine beauty," Pat told her in a polite way.

"Oh. I had no idea. I'm sorry for your loss, too."

There was a kind of awkward moment before he said he really had to run, and Karen told him, "Oh, by all means, and thank you again."

As he drove away she felt confused. Maybe age wasn't as big a deal as it had always seemed to her. Perhaps it really was time to reassess what was important in a relationship. If she had a lot in common with someone who was say...ten years older than her...and if she liked everything else about him, why would she rule him out for that alone? But even as she had that thought she reminded herself that she very much still wanted a child, and while someone who was 50 wasn't 'old', he would be nearly 70 when their son or daughter graduated from high school. She thought about the age she would be and shivered then decided to shelve the whole thing again for the time being.

Her thoughts returned to the same subject just before she went to bed. She spent some time looking at herself in a mirror searching for signs of gray hair among the dark brown or wrinkles around her brown eyes or anything else she could see. Finding none, she realized it was only a matter of time before those telltale signs appeared.

"Maybe an older man would be smart," she thought. "He wouldn't be looking for things like that and would scoff at me for even mentioning them."

It made so much sense to her that she began thinking about Pat. With her. Holding hands, then kissing, then shut it down before things got out of hand which meant using her hand, and she still wasn't quite ready for that let alone the real thing.

Karen was up at 7am to be ready for Pat's son, Chris, to come do his thing. She trusted him, she just wanted to see how the process worked. So when she saw a vehicle from the company pull up to the curb in front of her house she went to go outside and say hello. However, before she took her first step she went to the bathroom to recheck her hair the light foundation and mascara she'd applied. You know, just in case Pat showed up himself.

When she got to the end of the walkway from her house to the driveway she was shocked to see a man who looked to be in his mid-20s walking toward her. And while he bore a striking resemblance to Pat, this man was so attractive it completely caught her off guard.

"Good morning!" he said as he smiled and stuck out a hand.

"Hi," a very surprised, 41-year old woman said back.

"Hi. I'm Chris Gray. My dad told me you have a mole problem."

"Chris. Yes. Right. I...um...yes. I...I have...divots."

He laughed and let her know his father told her about them.

"He loved the term. We're both gonna use it from here on it. I mean, it's perfect," he said as he held his left arm out toward the black spots in her lawn to include one new hill. "And it looks like someone's been busy overnight."

Karen hadn't even noticed it as she'd been too worried about how she looked--for Pat--and then by this incredibly distracting employee/son with the short, dark hair and extremely handsome face.

"Okay. Let's see if we can find this little guy, or gal, a new home," the younger man said with a clap of his hands.

Chris showed her a couple of no-kill traps which looked like little, clear mailboxes with some kind of gizmo inside.

"Those will catch the mole, huh?" she asked, not sure if something made of plastic could possibly do that.

"Yes indeed. Probably gonna get him today, so I'll stop back by later on a time or two and see if we did."

Curious--about him--Karen thought about how to pose a question without sounding nosy and decided on a simple one.

"So your dad says you know everything he does. How long have you been doing this?"

Chris kind of chuckled as he prepared the new hole for a trap.

"Gosh. Well, I started hanging out with him was I was maybe 10. Yeah, that's right, because Mom died right after my 10th birthday, and I didn't want to be away from my dad."

"Oh, my goodness. You poor man. I'm so sorry."

"That was rough. No doubt about it. Especially for my dad. But he was there for me every single day for as long as I needed him. So now that I'm back here in the Omaha area, I help out as much as I can."

"You don't work for your father full time?" she asked before quickly adding, "or co-own the business."

"Me? No. I'm in the Air Force," he said as he looked over his shoulder at her and smiled. "I joined after college to 'see the world' then after graduating from flight school, I got sent right back to Nebraska."

"You're...at Offutt?" she asked, now confused as well as surprised.

"What a hoot, right?" he said with another laugh. "Yeah, I fly the E-4B. To quote the textbook, it's a militarized version of the Boeing 747-200; a four-engine, swept-wing, long-range high-altitude airplane capable of refueling in flight."

"And you do this part time," she said, trying to understand.

"My dad did everything for me. He sacrificed so much to help me go to college by working like a madman. Since 'seeing the world' took me to Pueblo, Colorado and Pensacola, Florida before an all-expense paid ticket back here, the least I can do is pitch in and help out when I can."